Novels2Search
Dyaku
Part 1: The Garden

Part 1: The Garden

The next time Brooke awoke she felt more. Just more. She heard birds and bugs and felt the memories of warm sun and cool breeze. Even better, the world no longer seemed to spin within her, and she no longer felt fuzzy in her head.

Now that she was awake and aware she realized just how out of it she had been before and was so glad to be lucid once again.

Brooke still didn’t have a body of any sort, just a point of view. She was alone in the center of a green lawn that spread out around 15 ft in diameter, with lush green bushes with bluish flowers blooming in great clusters all around her. The exception was an archway of carved pink marble on one side that lead out. By looking around and thinking about where she wanted to go, she found herself moving like the disembodied camera of many a video game, in a smooth swoop. It was a little fun, if strange.

She swooped around the circle a couple times to make sure she had the controls down and then she went through the arch to find what she could find.

Beyond was a misty formal garden laid out in a sprawling path with different bends and nooks of different regional styles. Through the garden and all over the paths were statues. From a distance Brooke could tell they were all women, closer up she realized they were all variations on herself. Featuring slight variations in stature and vast variations in costume the statues showed her as a warrior with a polished club or a crafts person carrying a tray of bowls. One seemed to be conjuring a cloud and another stood on a plinth, her mouth open—singing or speaking, Brooke couldn’t tell.

The clothes were varied to the style of garden. The Mediterranean herb garden had flowing cuts and long hair styles, the short shrubbery lined square paths had something closer to a renaissance festival look. There were styles inspired by 9th century China and elegant dresses from 21st century India.

Just as Brooke was feeling overwhelmed with the character choices, her swooping came to a stop as she found a blank template sculpture and beyond even that, there was another arch.

She took a second to look at the template, which was just a naked her at about age 30 in Vitruvian man pose. It wasn’t particularly impressive to Brooke, but strange to see. Then she took a “step” out beyond the arch to see what was there. She was a little afraid, given just how many choices she had already seen but this was a fantasy world. She knew there had to be other races.

Beyond the arch the Garden did not disappoint. It was another large circle of tall hedges, massive in diameter, and every so often along the hedges was another arch. In front of all the arches and creating another ring inside the garden was a sculpture showing what lay beyond each arch.

The statue that she came out behind was herself as a human in a poofy sleeved Ren.Fest shirt, corset and sturdy pants. The second statue to the left was her as an elf, with an inhumanly long neck, pointed ears, and large luminous eyes. The third was less recognizably her, as the facial features and body proportions were blended with those of an otter, with a sly playful smile gracing the features. Fourth was a mermaid with a split tail, suspended in implied water with the way her hair floated around her, as well as the upright position on a pair of fins. After that there was a dragon looking humanoid in barbarian armor, the only recognizable feature being the shape of the eyes, and next to that was a halfling. Halven? Hobbit? Whatever, she was short, had sturdy feet, and was comfortably plump.

The Dwarf version of Brooke had long luscious sideburns braided and looping back to join her thick hair in a relaxed looking ponytail. Looming over her neighbors was an Orcish Brooke, with tusks and a smirk. Next to her, on a pillar as to bring the small form up to eye level was a fierce looking pixy, 10 inches tall with dragonfly wings.

Brooke was quite enchanted with the little statue and tried to pick it up, but unfortunately conscious embodiments of the POV camera didn’t have hands apparently.

Lastly was a dark crystal carved into the shape of an arch made of bones. The garden arch behind it was filled in with a blossoming dark blood red rose, not seeming to go anywhere. This one was very strange—but when she spent some time moving around it and looking at the details she gained two insights.

First- on the back of the arch was a race description. This big piece of shadow was labeled

“Shadow kin +

Shadow kin are the result of successful breeding between the demonic race (non-playable) and any of the playable races. They inherit most of their features from the mortal parent, but often gain horns upon hitting puberty and always have dark sclera—known as shadow eyes. Colorful skin and hair are not uncommon but often the children with such features have trouble reaching adulthood as shadowkin are pariah in most cultures.

The features are then passed down through generations as a recessive trait. Only those children who have the unnatural pigmented skin and either dark sclera or horns are considered shadowkin.

Main Characteristics- -1 from main, +1 Dexterity OR +1 Intelligence.

Mana Base: 3+1D6, +1 every level, +1d6 every 3 levels elemental: shadow, fire, or dark

Racial bonuses apply, but if there’s a dangerous way to apply them, that’s how they will apply.

The second thing she found was quite by mistake. A brief glance through the arch became a long stare as she saw that the sculptures appeared changed when she looked through it. The human gained rams-like horns, a tail, and obsidian eyes, the elf sculpture was clearly a drow. The otter like beast kin was still otter like, but now with sharp tusks and some sort of horn that was flat and wrapped up past the head, almost like a ribbon dolphin’s tusks. The dragon kin looked smaller, more wirily excepting the shoulders and neck which were thickly muscled to support a head with two sets of horns. The Dwarves had the same blue-black skin as the drow but without the white hair. With dark eyes and the dark sclera, the shadowkin dwarf looked almost like a shadow themselves. She was able to make out a sort of plated forehead, like instead of horns the dwarf got extra forehead smashing protection.

The Orc, much like the human, gained horns and darkened eyes, but no tail, and the hobbit looked more like a faun, like the troublemakers of Greek myth. The mermaid gained delicate looking spiral horns sweeping back over the head, an extra cup size, and ragged fins that reminded Brooke of beta fish. However, it was the pixy that had the most dramatic change, gaining a foot of height to stand about two feet tall; most of it in legs and long arms, a long tufted tail, a sort of mousy countenance and nubby little horns.

Brook looped back around to examine all the sculptures more carefully and she found that they all had race descriptions. More importantly, she could look through the arches behind each one and see a unique garden of sculptures.

The Dwarven garden was a rock garden, somewhat obviously. It was a dizzying mix of geometry and Zen gardening principles. It featured a mix of intricate geometric sculptures, unique crystalline structures, wide gravel spaces and carefully placed bursts of greenery and fungi. It was very beautiful, and she spent time swooping through it even though she had no interest in playing a dwarf.

The elf garden had a filigree green house in the center of a labyrinth, a delicate spire of glass that seemed to house exotic plants and secrets. This was again very beautiful, and elves were a bit more tempting than dwarves to her, but the implications of the political thinking of the labyrinth was… not… well, it really wasn’t how she wanted to spend her fun time. Bloody politics gave her a headache and she was still angry over events of the early 21st century that were tied up in politics. She did not want to see what madness would remain after being dragged into the heart of fantasy politics. Good god, they probably would have the typical king’s court and nobility bullshit. Or maybe a parliament such as England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Something to balance out the reign of a single leader against the interests of the nobles, though that still left everyone else disenfranchised and at the mercy of the super-rich. She almost never read about a fantasy republic or democracy, much less some other sort of imagined--

Brooke stopped herself from spiraling. She pulled out of the archway and turned her back on the elf statue. Clearly, elf was not a healthy path for her. She knew enough to be dangerous, but not enough to really do much nor the interest to really pursue it. At least not this time around. Maybe in the future.

To keep her mind from going back into the labyrinth Brooke swopped through the Beast Kin arch and found it led to an overgrown field and dark wooded area with a nature path wandering through it. It probably was a nice hike, but she moved quickly on to the next garden, needing more stimulation.

The Orcs had a finely prepared swamp garden. The path wandered between trees and pines with occasional finely carved wooden paths, surrounded by wildly blooming clusters of irises and stink weeds, clusters of cattails and grasses, carnivorous plants and so many strange growing things that she had never seen before that she soon forgot about politics and was enjoying herself again.

The pixie had a garden full of micro greens and elaborate topiary, with homes and shops worked into the living wood of trees and woven branches. Far from being hindered by their small size, they used the smaller aspects of the world to create fine details and intricate beauty in their everyday garden. Brooke was charmed by the fairy houses made of wood and fired clay, of tree houses carved into the tree and growing out of the branches, of secret castles hidden in overgrown rosebushes.

She was sorely tempted by Pixi but had just enough curiosity left in her that she also had to check out the mermaid’s garden before she chose. Or maybe it would have been safe to say that she felt drawn to the ocean, Brooke mused as she crossed the arch from garden to garden.

The mermaids garden looked, at first, to be a couple of tide pools on the edge of a sandy beach, with a few mermaids hanging out in the waves. The open sky had some beautifully textured clouds, and there were dunes with sea oats waving in the breeze. Out in the waves, around a large rock, she could see that there were more mermaids, ones she would have to swim out to see. Perhaps there would be more under the water, and there would be a coral reef to explore.

Then, with a start, she realized that was not a large rock.

The large rock, that protruded from the water and cast a shadow over the statues of mer frolicking in the waters below, was the head, shoulders and hair of a giant mermaid.

A. GIANT. MERMAID.

What the hell?

Brooke turned around and focused on the back of the plinth showing the mermaid in the central garden.

Mermaid (A whole new world)

The sentient race of the waters, mermaids come from a collection of peoples who were chosen and protected by Salt, goddess of the oceans. Magical by nature they have a multitudinous appearance driven not by parentage but by choices of profession and actions—practice any hobby or profession long enough and it will imprint color and pattern aspects onto the mer’s appearance, or in extreme cases such as deep sea diving, size. Mer can range in size from 4 ft long skimmers to 40 ft open ocean giants, and have the potential to be the largest playable race in the game.

Main characteristics:

* Constitution (+2)

* Charisma (+1)

* Dexterity (+1)

Mana: base 2+1d5; +1d5 a level

Spells: All mer come out of childhood having learned 3-5 spells that fill the following rolls:

* Move water- water jet, water strike, wave, splash, mist

* Propels- water jet, sink, float

* Shield- Ice, hard water, deflective vortex

* Cook- Boil water, fire stone, apply heat

* Charm- Lure Sailor, will’o’the whisp, fatal illusion

All Mer learn Polymorph human. How human they look is a matter of skill.

Brooke blinked in surprise, and a little in awe. And then in surprise again. The Mermaid character looked fun. She imagined becoming a 40 ft giant, looming over a battle field as a polymorphed human. She’d probably have to get on her hands and knees and grab the enemy like a child playing with dolls!

Not that the massive size was the only option, she gazed back through the arch with fresh eyes and a better idea of what to look for, and was now able to see hints of a rich number of sculptures breaking through the surface of the water, all of various sizes and materials.

Taking a virtual step back Brook looked at the mermaid sculpture in the main garden again, noticing the delicate seaming bones of the neck and shoulders. For all that she seemed fragile, she still had a layer of fat, a padding to protect her from the cold of the ocean waters. The split tail was more like frog legs than like a pair of fish tails, which when Brook thought about it, was way more functional. Double tailed fish were not much of a thing in real life for a reason, but frogs definitely were. These legs were strong and elegant, the fins spread wide and had small, sharp talons on the end, more like barbed spines.

Then Brooke realized the mermaid was entirely naked and her professional curiosity as an artist took over. She zoomed in on the crotch.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

In her time as an artist Brooke had spent plenty of time drawing of naked crotches--one couldn’t do a nude without spending time staring at a vulva or a penis for an hour or so. She had become unaffected by the entire concept. So it it didn’t seem out of place to her that she had entire reality zoomed in on the mermaid’s crotch just so she could find out that the entire structure of the vulva was folded under a protective shield of fat, creating a mostly smooth look with only a tight slit to indicate what might lie beneath. It was, Brooke thought as she drifted away, a rather elegant solution to keeping heat inside the body.

Out of curiosity, Brooke swooped over to Human, just so she could compare the character sheets.

Human (it’s you, man.)

Human beings are a common inhabitant of the world of Seirpin and have the most flexibility of any race, though not as much specialization depth. This is because as a race the body form of the human being is fairly standard and can be trained to fit most roles as the mind of the human desires. The human model defaults to look similar to your natural form, but you can alter it to fit your desires, within the standards of the human race. Warning: pushing proportions to any extreme will have detrimental effect on play.

Main Characteristics: Intelligence (+2), constitution (+2)

Mana Base: -2+1d6, +1d4 every four levels.

Adaptation: Humans possess a remarkable flexibility, compared to the other races. A human can ignore any race restriction on learning a class, job, or hobby, if conditions are met. Be advised that conditions can be set on an individual basis and in response to individual actions—act like a jerk and conditions can become extremely difficult, treat the culture with respect and opportunities to progress will come easier to you.

* Flexibility-with enough effort characteristic base can be shifted, the shift is permanent.

* Spiritual Enlightenment- with enough effort, Mana base can be shifted to that of another race, the shift is permanent. Must have the blessing of a deity or patron.

Unadapted humans learn skills at +1 learning speed. After going through an adaptation, they learn at +.5 learning speed compared to other races.

Brook found herself wanting to nod at the human description. They didn’t seem half bad to play either. It drove her curiosity on and soon she was flitting from sculpture to sculpture reading up on the different races, though she still skipped the elves.

Orcs surprised her by being stealth, survivalists with Constitution being their main characteristic, followed by Strength and Dexterity. They also had more mana than Humans, but that was only because they started from a 0+1d6.

Humans weren’t the least magical, Dwarves took that dubious honor with a base of -4+1d6, though Halvens were also low on the magic scale starting with -3 but then with rolling a 1d8 the ended up showing perhaps the broadest range of magic in one race. She left Shadow Kin out of consideration for that description, They were there own edgelord mess. A fun mess, to be sure, but when Brook looked through the dark arch, she found herself pulled instead towards a brighter, sunnier path.

So she eliminated for this time around, Shadowkin, Dwarves, Humans, and, of course, Elves. Orc was interesting but not really her speed, nor was she feeling like playing a happy go lucky Constitution and Luck driven Halving character. Drakes, which looked like dragon born lizard people, didn’t really excite her so they were out.

That left her with Beast Kin, Pixis, and Mermaids.

Part of her was ready to just slam the button on Mermaids, but damn it all, those little houses were so cute. And Beast Kin did look interesting.

Pixis earned magical steps and mutations by impressing others, gaining points in honor, respect, awe, fear, disgust, or disappointment. These would give them spells and change their appearance over time, and they all had illusion magic and could appear however they wanted, probably even like a normal human! but their true form would be dictated by the effect they had on others. Be an asshole, look like an asshole. Be bright and cheerful, you probably glowed like a candle. It seemed to require that the player be mindful of other players in their game, and Brooke liked that.

Beastkin was intriguing in that it took away almost all control of the form from the player and put it in the digits of the computer ai to interpret both animal characteristics and your emotional characteristics. It was like a sorting hat, but with far more choice than jocks, nerds, classist assholes, and everyone else. Even better, a Beast Kin could take on the aspects of multiple beasts through their life span, and could end up looking like griffins or chimaeras, or unique creatures of their own.

She almost, almost! Just went with pixi, but Brooke hesitated. She looked back over at the merfolk. It was a beautiful, intriguing option. Merfolk developed appearance based on their actions and job choices. Like pixi, it required an external awareness but involved the opinions of other people less. And if most of the game was on land, did that mean that there were hidden levels and storylines under the water? Sure, there had to be ways for the land folk to get to them, but merfolk were probably granted easy access.

Innate water magic wasn’t anything to sneeze at either, though the illusion magic of the Pixi was a solid counter. She looked back at the pixi. And then at the Mermaid. And then at the Pixi again.

She decided to go look at the Mermaid, to build the character and see if she liked it. She could always come back and give the other two a try if it didn’t work out.

Immediately her vision shifted to and past the Mermaid. She swooped through the arch, and there was a floating form, the base character no longer looking like a statue. She had Brookes facial features, but with a long torso and the legs that ended in fins that Brooke couldn’t help but compare to a frogs. The hands were webbed too, and the skin had a pattern of red points over purple-grey scales and pinkish skin. Not a white human pinkish either, but more of a pale rose blush that complimented the red tips. There were webbed ears that showed signs of being able to tuck tight and flat against the skull for swimming, and long hair that was a sandy grey brown.

The ears were a great feature but were thoroughly countered by the giant d-cup breasts that floated weightlessly on her front.

“Ok, ya’ll are just messing with me now.” Brooke said, speaking for the first time in this strange space and scaring the crap out of herself,“WHaTH’FUCK?”!”

She had startled herself because she didn’t know she could speak in the space, not having a body, only a POV. And her voice sounded strange, like she was listening to a recording of herself talking.

“Geezus!” she swore, “That scared me! Me me me. Ba b aba. Fuck fuck fucK.”

She ran through a few more vocal explorations before sighing and turning back to Bobby McBoob-Boob. “How do I get a breast reduction on this thing? If I’m going to be having a body different than my own, I want to be on the A team.”

In response, a slider popped up in front of her. It startled her, a slider just floating in space but she did her best to roll with it and started moving the slider about, and watching the breasts change size. She fidgeted with it until she had a pair that looked comfortable, and certainly wouldn’t give her a pair of floats getting up in her face.

Then she noticed something about the characteristics. It was a notation on the screen, a relation of physical appearance affecting characteristics, which ok, made sense to some degree. But the bigger the boobs were, the higher the Charisma was. As in, that was the only determiner of Charisma. A-team boobs, she was looking at a bas Charisma of 4. DD cups meant a Charisma of 18.

Brooke fussed with the sliders, and while there was some amount of strength that could be affected by muscle mass it wasn’t too extreme. Intelligence had nothing to do with appearance, though extreme muscles or fat could interfere with dexterity. But boobage was 100% the determining factor of charisma.

“What the ever loving fuck.” Brooke snarled. Then shouted “Hey! THEMIS! I NEED TO TALK!”

There was a blep from behind her and a vaguely familiar voice asked, “What’s the problem?”

Brooke spun her view around and froze, her complaint frozen on the memory of her lips.

Before her was another androgynous Themis, this one four ft tall with pale white skin, bird like bone structure, red hair in a spikey, spicy mullet and a silver disk on a forehead set above a pair of mismatched eyes. They wore a silver and red striped jump suite with red boots and red flaring shoulders.

“Ziggy?” Brooke asked in a small voice, the same small voice a shocked child would use upon finding Santa Clause out in the wild.

The Themis smiled and gave a satisfied wriggle, “A fan I see! I’m Teen Sattaasee, don’t you just love Bowie’s Ziggy era? I mean, you can’t go wrong with David Bowie but my god, the queerness of Ziggy Stardust was just so inspired.”

“So you’re modeling yourself after Ziggy?” Brook asked, “Because you look amazing. Just… amazing. I love it.”

“Oh, you are too sweet!” Teen Sattaasee preened. “This time around I am, I was SO happy when the Gardener decided to go with a Bowie theme. Well, THEY wanted all of us Themi to be goblins for his Jareth but some of us decided we could be Bowies as well.”

“Wait, the Gardener is Jareth? This time?” Brooke gasped, “I want to see them! Jareth is like the best worst horrible wonderful creep!”

“I know!” Teen gushed. “And They look AMAZING. The Gardener does the look perfectly, it’s just amazing, I hope he sticks with this one. They’ve tried a different look for each iteration, some of them have been ok, but some of them, ugh, let me tell you that He-Ra was a real stinker. I hope you do get to see them as Jareth, they do sometimes show up.

“But first, honey, why am I here?”

“ahhh, yeah. That.” Brook sighed in irritation, but noticed she was no longer nearly as angry as she was before Ziggy showed up. “So, I’m working on designing my character appearance. Base appearance anyhow. For a Mermaid, so it’s going to change but you know… “

“Ooooh, right.” Ziggy nods, “Got to get the core in there for your choices to grow from.”

“Right.” Brook nodded. “Only, I’m not a fan of having a pair of giant floats attached to my chest.”

“Floats?” the Themis looked at her confused.

“Breasts are made up largely of fat.” Brooke explained, “which floats. The bigger they are, the higher they’ll rise.”

“oh.” Teen Sattasee said, “so just change the size. You can do that on the characteristic slider which… you have right there. Ok, I suspect I’m not going to like this. Please continue.”

“Right,” Brooke Said, “so see this notation here? The one that says, ‘charisma?’”

“oh, no.” Teen said, anticipating the next step.

“yep.” Brooke said, demonstrating the direct relationship between the boob size and the characteristic. “So basically, if I want to be able to take over the world with Charisma, I can give myself these giant chest pillows that I don’t think I could even reach around… and have 26 Charisma.”

“I’m going to kill them.” Themis muttered. “Hang on. I’m going to need help with this.”

They touched the shining disk on their forehead and soon there were more and more blips in the garden as more Themi began showing up. They were, as promised, largely a parade of goblins of different types. Some looked like 2 foot 19th century illustration goblins, some looked like they were strait out of the monster manual. She definitely saw a Hoggle in there, and a little girl with fire powers, which seemed a little strange. There were at least two black ponies as well.

There were also a small handful of Bowies from various stages of his career, all of them under four feet, including one dressed as Julius Caesar.

The Mermaid’s boobs grew and shrank repeatedly as they all tried out and saw the problem, and then the goblin Themi spread out, testing other models to find that the problem was universal to all the species in the garden. The goblins and Bowies would occasionally blip out and come back in, hissing to each other. There was a great bit a grumbling before the crowd gathered together around Brooke and her mermaid and at once called out, with great consternation, “JARETH!”

Nothing happened. They tried again. Brooke sighed and in annoyance tried, “Goblin King. Goblin King. Take these boobies of mine far away from me.”

There were a few snorts and chuckles and as one they cried out one more time, “JARETH!”

There was a rustle of cloth and feathers and there in the arch behind them, was Jareth, the Goblin King. This version of Bowie was the full 5’10”, with the sparkling magical mullet and volumes’ robes. Irritation was plain on his wing swept brow.

“What is going on here?” He demanded, his voice a perfect, regal match to the movie and just like that Brooke was melting and completely forgetting why they had even asked him to be here. Didn’t matter, oh my god, Jareth!

“Why are all my Themi here in one garden, instead of doing their jobs?” He said dangerously. Brooke was, in as much as she could be, grinning like an idiot. Fortunately, she was not alone, she had all the Themi to take care of the issues while she became a mental puddle of goo.

Ziggy glared up at Jareth and pointed to the characteristics slider. “Explain this.”

Jareth looked at Ziggy, then at the rest of the angry looking goblins and Bowies, then up to the mermaid that had been left with the ginormous breasts and high charisma, and gave a smile.

“I designed the slider for the players. My research and observations of past players have show clear preference for feminine bodies with large breasts. This is just helping them out.”

“Jareth.” Ziggy practically growled, and one of the ponies snorted and stamped a hoof. Brooke stifled a nervous giggle and was grateful when Black Star Bowie said, “We’re not sixteen year old girls, you know. We’re not going to fall for the ‘I did everything for you’ routine.’”

Jareth glared at him and Brooke melted just a little more, she was going to remember this day for ever and ever. She finally managed to speak up, if only because she would never forgive herself if she didn’t say anything at all to Jareth in this conversation.

Of course, she still said it with that big dopey smile in her voice.

“Its not fair to us to tell us we’re only likable if we have big tits you know.” And she giggled, then wanted to die a little for that giggle. She tried to take a deep cleansing breath but was unable to, lacking lungs.

“It is only the base numbers, you will have modifiers that will apply from your job, your class, actions, curses, bonuses, scars—any number of sources.” He said dismissively, striding across the lawn to inspect the slider in a casual sort of lean. “Besides, if you’re all here that tells me you’re not really hearing about it from any of the other players going through character design at the moment.”

“Don’t we wish.” Snarled a 3 ft tall green goblin with a purple leotard and hood, and a shrill voice. “She was just the first by about 1.45 minutes. We’ve heard from about 48% of the SAE players have contacted us about this problem. 20% of the SAE players are still wandering the gardens, and another 23% are in various stages of character creation but have not discovered the characteristic slider. Of the 9% who have finalized their character, 6% only made minor changes, and the rest didn’t seem to mind.”

At this point the Green Goblin’s scowl deepend as he put his hands on his hips and glared up at Jareth, “And one joker, ONE decided to take you up on your offer of ‘Free Charisma.’ There’s going to be a Dwarf running around with insane charisma and difficulty swinging his hammer.”

Jareth laughed, absolutely unashamed, and Brooke finally found herself pulling back together.

“Wait, you gave the male bodies big boobs for charisma too?” Visions of a very masculine dwarf with a giant rack invaded her imagination, and she began to laugh. Jareth started to laugh at her question and took a few moments to stop laughing as he waived his denial.

“No no, but that would have been wonderful!” He laughed, finally, “No, I gave them Charisma bonuses for their ‘package’ size. Its mostly centered around penile girth, as a favor to their partners.”

“Oh. Dear. God.” Brooke whispered in horror, and then giggled. She was immediately assaulted with images of men wearing oversized cod pieces, and strutting around the fantasy setting like they were Henry VIII.

“Fix it now.” She turned her sniggering, horrified gaze on the Goblin King.

“Pardon?” Jareth asked?

“You have to fix it now, before you bring back the cod-piece. Please.” Brooke begged.

“It's not that bad.” He protested.

“Yes it is.” She countered. “Have you even seen what armor with a cod piece looks like? Or just clothing with a cod piece. Or a cod piece at all?”

“I... Hmnnn. No.” Jareth frowned.

"Google it." Brooke sighed.

“As for the boobs, there’s a whole history there that’s really distressing for a lot of us.” she continued, “but even ignoring that, big boobs can be uncomfortable and obnoxious to deal with. I mean it could have been funny if it weren’t for that history but still. It doesn’t stop the mechanical issues of them getting in the way. The boobage-charisma marriage is just too much.”

“She’s understating, boss.” Ziggy said, “If you’d asked any of us we would have told you, we’ve come across it in our research for our characters. We’ll show you later, but it can get rather disturbing.”

One of the ponies let out a long string of neighs and whickering sounds, that all the goblins nodded along to, even a few murmurs of agreement. Brooke did not understand a word of it.

“Fine, fine.” Jareth said, with a roll of his eyes, “I’ll make the changes. It's going to take some time, so everyone go back to your players and let them know.”

There was a great sigh of relief that was cut off when Jareth started making shooing motions, “NOW.”

The minions scattered, popping out of existence and darting into the far corners of the garden. Soon she was alone with Ziggy and Jareth.