Sam woke up with a jolt, his head was thundering with a severe headache as he looked around himself with confused eyes. The room he was in was nicely decorated with roses and hearts, he was not alone in a bed that looked like a large heart with large curtains draped around it. He quickly found out that he was naked, placing his hands for better support as he turned to take in the rest of the room there was a moan as he had placed his hand on one of the people in bed with him. There were two human women of different skin colours, a female kobold and a female harpy. His mind raced, how the hell did this happen, what went on? What’s going on?

Like starting a video on fast forwards what felt like three days rushed through his mind, he caught glimpses but all the glimpses had him remember everything as vividly as when he was there. The Entity that used his body... used it for some strange freedom. He went drinking, which would explain the headache, lighter drugs were consumed and in the end, he went to the brothel where he still was.

“Oh, you’re awake?” The dark-skinned woman smiled at him as she properly turned around, stretching and bending more erotically than needed, pressing her bare skin against his. “You paid for another round, and it seems you’re ready to go~” Her tone was playful and smiling, everything Sam expected escorts to be from what he had read and guessed.

His train of thought was derailed with the subtlety of a sledgehammer as a hand grasped his awake member, the kobold woman had taken hold of it and started round two without him getting time to process.

Exiting the heart room he had been in for a while, he felt strangely fine. The headache was still lingering but he couldn’t say he had disliked the time since he woke up. He was also surprisingly glad that the only thing the entity did with his body was partying. Not being able to remember anyone getting hurt... save his liver to a normal amount, and the two rounds he experienced with the escorts, one passive in remembrance. Still, the latter was much more active, he was... oddly fine with all of this.

Sam was currently in his early 20’s, this wasn’t his first time but it was his first time with non-humans. He had seen images and videos with non-humans on the internet before the event that ended with him on the streets, he was a normal teen with access to the internet, so the concept was nothing new. However, experiencing it was.

He followed the hallways and found himself entering into a large room. The room had several doors and hallways exiting, it was nicely furnished much like a nightclub, restaurant and bar mixed. There were scantly clothed women of all races and species walking around, some served drinks, and some were slightly too intimate in the open for his taste, but the strange embarrassment wanted to just have him leave. There was, however, the problem that he was currently wearing just normal clothing. All his gear and items were locked away, remembering back to yesterday, in a drunken haze he had stumbled in here and the protection working in the establishment had forced him to lock all weapons and gear in a security checkpoint of sorts. He vaguely remembers that all he needed to do was to return and they would return all his shit as he leaves.

“There he is!” A familiar voice called, even though Janik’s voice was shouting it was barely enough to hear it from the ambient volume of the room. Turning towards him, his only friend came walking with a surprisingly wide grin but his expression had him looking destroyed, Elara was draped across his shoulders. “I was surprised but glad it went this way.” He smiled as he came over to where Sam was, letting Elara slither over to her master’s shoulder again.

Her tongue flicked against his skin as she climbed back and pressed the top of her head against his neck after she had coiled herself loosely around his neck and shoulders.

“Ah... err...” Feeling surprisingly embarrassed, his only friend caught him exiting a brothel. Sam was not uncomfortable around intimacy or nudity, a surprisingly normal thing in the modern world with the internet, after all. But it was different as it happened to him.

“Oh, don’t worry, I come here often, so don’t fear.” Janik smiled as he put a hand on his shoulder, almost to break the ice or lower his embarrassment. “Come, let’s eat something and talk.”

Not letting Sam respond, he pushed him over to a booth for the two of them to sit. There was a small plaque listing that you could use to order online and pre-pay, you just scanned a code and used their online menu, listing the table number as you did so. Janik ordered something and asked Sam what he wanted.

Sam couldn’t say no to that, he had used a substantial amount of energy lately and was indeed quite hungry.

“So-” Janik started once the orders were in. “-How much do you remember?”

“Surprisingly much, but surprisingly little... I remember the alcohol, women, and some flashes in between... But that’s about it. I don’t remember how we left Aetheria, where I went or... the important details...” Sam was hesitant to respond as he played through things in his mind. He realised that though he remembered a lot of details, there was even more missing.

Janik explained things from his angle, he hated the need for him to agree to stop him if the need came to it. He wouldn’t have it any other way if the roles were reversed, but he still felt the need to mention it. Once the Entity took over, Sam’s eyes changed. They became almost galactic, his pupil, iris and eye-white all disappeared to look almost like a nebula lava lamp or something. His whole aura changed and the first thing he asked was where the women were at.

Sam was... confused, but let Janik continue to explain that the Entity, named something sounding painful to even consider using human vocal cords to say, had obtained this body through rental. He refused to elaborate. But he wanted it for pleasure, so he only wanted to experience things a human body could experience. Specifically having pre-decided that he wanted to try alcohol, drugs and sex.

Doing his best he successfully steered the entity away from hard narcotics that would fuck Sam’s system up, it ended up as the light stuff and alcohol. The sex part was not an issue as the Brothel was not only legal, it was well known in New York for having legal and controlled non-humans. The trip back from Aetheria was simple, ‘Sam’ hired a taxi of sorts that took them back to the transport area taking them to Earth. From there they went straight to a bar where the Entity used Sam’s body to experience things. He only had a few days which is why he woke up like he did, but he had discussed this with Janik before and wanted to reward Sam a little for the rental, which is why the second round was paid for... Though all payment was done with Sam’s own money.

This prompted him to check his account, a few filtrations in the app later he found out that the Entity had blown around $4000 in two days. Most of it was at bars or restaurants, but also at the Brothel, transport and certain unmarked transactions.

“Oh... is that all...” Sam commented. He was still glad that things were mainly pleasure and experiences of that sort, the worst he currently had was a headache, and it all ended up with the four girls... So if nothing else it ended well.

“Is that all.” Janik laughed as he quoted Sam with a mocking tone. “I’d say that you were insanely lucky. Sure you blew some money on it but you could have been on a murder spree, get hurt or killed, but instead you spent two days partying.”

“Yeah... I suppose you have a point there...” Sam didn’t have anything to retort with. He was 100% correct. Though this had hit his bank relatively hard, about $4000, at least he was alive and didn’t wake up covered in blood after a massacre or something.

Janik leant forward with the seriousness of a heart attack as he looked Sam straight in the eyes, frankly, it was a bit intimidating and caught Sam off guard.

“I haven’t been with a harpy yet, how was it?”

The pressure lifted immediately, having Sam let out a relieved and nervous chuckle and before he could answer, Janik continued. “They’re a bit pricier so I never got around to trying it. Their lithe bodies, wings, feet and... other.. differences.” He used his hands to almost mimic holding one in the air like a doll. Though that said, he wasn’t obscene about it, more like it was a way for him to emphasise his points.

This kind of openness about sex and escorts was strange to Sam. His friends might have bragged earlier about things, but at that point, they were teens, not having wide experience nor knowing how to really talk about things.

Sam took this as a sign of their friendship, when young he always wanted a close and good friend with whom he could talk about everything. Having just known Janik for a few days, he was still new in a sense, but his openness, his supportive nature and friendly personality almost felt like he had known him for years.

“Well, it was different, I’ll tell you that.” Sam indulged his friend and went into detail about his time with the harpy escort, touching on the time with the Kobold as well, but though that was also interesting he could see in Janik’s eyes that it wasn’t his first time learning about those, and was still more interested about the Harpy.

Their food came out eventually, and it was eaten at great speed, the Entity hadn’t eaten that much the last few days as it wasn’t what he wanted to experience. Janik had managed to force it to take some vitamin shots and inhale some fast food to at least keep some energy in the body, but no real and proper meals. So though the food here was surprisingly decent, for someone not knowing what to expect in a high-class brothel, it was consumed faster than someone taking time to enjoy it.

“Well-” Janik was done eating a bit after Sam, but he still started the conversation before his plate was empty. “-I assume you’re tired or at least want to rest. I’ve been following you for a few days now and... energy drinks, coffee and raw will can only push me so far. I gotta check up on a few people and... I want to sleep.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Sam had nothing, Janik had followed the request to keep an eye on him, luckily that was an easier task than feared, and he deserved the day.

“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll take a calm day, perhaps have some fun with Elara.” Mentioning her name he gave her a scritch perched on his shoulder.

Janik sounded almost relieved like he didn’t expect Sam to take a calm day. But suddenly his relieved expression changed to curiosity.

“On that topic, what did you get for the quest thing? Last time you got something really good for you.”

Considering this made Sam realise that the quest window wasn’t there anymore, active quests tended to remain at the corner of his view, but now it was just gone. Thinking about it opened up an empty quest window, but as his confusion about the empty window took over, another window opened. This one was a list of completed things, the several Dungeon Clear runs were listed in there with confirmations and rewards. At the very top was the Rental quest listed as completed.

“...it seems the fucker completed the quest for me...” Sam commented.

Looking into the list of his abilities he instantly found the new addition.

[ Silent Killer

The first attack against an unaware target does 50% more damage. ]

“Oh.” Sam reacted to finding it. He was surprisingly satisfied with it. The Ascendant quest mentioned that it would be tailored to his playstyle and it was! Given that he was sneaking around and attacking from stealth, this would aid him with damage a bit. “I got an ability that lets me do 50% more damage on the first attack against unaware targets.” Sam smiled at Janik.

“That’s great for you!” Janik replied to his surprise, seemed like he exclaimed that a bit louder than intended. He recomposed himself to going back to speaking in his slightly lower-than-normal conversation volume. “We need to find the limits of that later.” Like always, he looked honestly happy for Sam.

They talked for a short while before they left the establishment. Stopping at the security checkpoint, giving their name the guards found their ID in a stack on their side. Confirming that this was indeed them, they left into a back room and came back with all their stuff. Using a few minutes to put things back on, Sam getting a few looks as he was placing his collection of weapons back on his body, they left for outside.

It was still morning, but based on Janik’s explanation and checking the date and time, about two days had passed since they intended to go to bed at the cottage. Janik had commented that the money they paid there was lost, there were no refunds, after all. As they split up for the day, Janik going for whatever he was going for, Sam decided to spend some time with Elara, she had been strongly neglected since she hatched. He didn’t feel entirely good about that.

“So, what do you want to do?” He asked his serpentine companion, not knowing how to spend time with a snake, less so with a sapient one.

“I am fine just being with you, Master.” She smiled back, which was still a surprisingly strange thing to see; a snake smiling. She had enough humanity in her face for it to work but it was still special.

“That sounds boring, is there anything you’d like to do for fun? Make the day special or something?” Sam wanted her to have some fun, not just being around him and doing as he said all the time. Though she was a snake her human intellect must have some need for stimuli, right?

“I enjoy hunting and exploring.” She smiled. “Like I think most like, new experiences, finding new places or just learning interesting things.” She added, stating surprisingly vague things mixed into her list.

Sam considered this for a moment, taking a look at her Statistics window,

[ STR 0

DEX 3

VIT 12

SPT 0.

HP: 40 / 40

[ Venom 1 ] ]

“Oh, I have an idea.” Sam smiled as he held his hand towards her to slither over to. She did so but left most of her body on his shoulder, just having enough of a supporting position in his hand to face him properly as they spoke. “What if we go into the starter Dungeon? They do very little damage, and I doubt they can resist your Venom. Should you take some hits I’ll just help you out, and if you manage to bite them and hide I think it’s all fine.”

He smiled at his idea, he remembered that they only did... less than 5 damage, he didn’t remember exactly but she had more health than he did, so even without armour she should be able to take some hits.

Elara’s expression grew, she became incredibly happy and seemed to love that idea. The tip of her tail started flailing back and forth almost like a wagging puppy as her smile widened to the point of closing her eyes a little.

“I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.” Her voice only supported her expression.

Sam felt good about this choice, she could get hurt, yes, but nothing major. With 40 HP, and if he remembered correctly that they did less than 5 damage, assuming 5 damage she could take 7 hits before he started panicking. He didn’t intend for it to go that far anyway, and given that she was a snake she’d be naturally skilled at hiding and sneaking. It was going to be interesting seeing her hunt and stalk as well. Based on the math for her Venom, if their Vitality was too low they would struggle to pass the check if they got one at all.

Letting her go back to her perch on his shoulder she seemed happy the whole walk to the queue of entering the starting dungeon. Being back now with much more experience he could tell that most in there were newbies, much like he was only a few days ago. But he could also see some that looked better geared than he was, probably others who were going to test something, it was the best live-testing place, after all. Having gotten used to having a companion he started seeing them elsewhere. One man had a cat, a woman had a bird perched on her shoulder, and one young man even had a kobold with a spear following him around. Sam got the feeling that this was something that his father once said; once you get a new car you start seeing that car everywhere. He didn’t properly understand it when he was younger but... it made a lot of sense, it wasn’t that there were more of it, you just recognized it more.

Though companions were rare, not to mention that he didn’t know if all of these creatures were companions, he had heard of Beastmaster classes where your skills were not focused on personal power, but on getting and training monsters to fight for you, so some of these might be something like that.

It was his turn all of a sudden, he was too busy looking around at the others to properly pay attention, though once he snapped back to reality he did as he had done many times before. Stepping in and entering the portal felt second nature by now.

They found themselves in a familiar location, an almost manufactured dungeon with torches lighting up the place. It wasn’t that long since he was in here, farming the place again and again to get enough mana potions to hatch Elara, but now he was here again.

Stepping in the familiar window popped up.

[ Dungeon clear conditions:

Kill the Goblin chief. 0/1

Optional: Kill all monsters

Goblins: 0/10

Kobolds: 0/5

Rewards:

10 xp

1x Random low-level crafting material

Chance (50%): E-tier weapon or armour.

Bonus rewards for optional step:

5 xp

Random Box - X. ]

He couldn’t stop himself from letting out a single chuckle. The 55xp from clearing the dungeon completely was so amazing back then. Now, with his current XP, he would need to run this dungeon over 300 times to gain a level, progress was positive but put things in perspective.

“Well, I suppose it’s up to you, then.” Sam smiled as he crouched, letting Elara slither down his arm onto the stone floor. “I’ll be just around the corner, hiding, you just do your thing.”

“Thank you, Master.” She smiled as she slithered down on the floor.

They spent a moment talking tactics, or rather when he would break in, since he could see her HP that wasn’t a problem. And once they, or rather once he felt satisfied, she slithered ahead as he started sneaking behind her.