After a quick visit to the porcelain throne that resulted in a random incubus casualty (also known as Colitisral damage) I returned to the gates of the super to have a rendezvous with the girls and Cornelio.
“Sup, my non-sexual slaves and Mariana,” the new man who had been reborn from his own diarrheic ashes greeted the party.
“Walteryouarebackithoughtyoudeadicannotbelievveyouareherepetmefeedmepetmepetme!” Mariana communicated, throwing her tail around without a care in the world, almost knocking Florencia out with a tail-slap.
“Betelgeuse, is that you?” she said, head spindling around, her HP bar halved by the Marianism.
Sabrina went pale. “Do you think Mariana is aware of the fact she is a danger to everybody around her?” she muttered, avoiding to look at her brother and faking a smile.
“If I die, I die, but I am worried for Flor. Despite her huge HP pool, I mean,” he whispered back, his two visible eye suffering tics.
“Well, have you prepared a table in the boss room? I want to have a round of mate and talk with you all. We need to plan our next movement.”
----------------------------------------
I produced a steaming thermos out of my inventory, and placed it upon the oblong table Sabrina had assembled using sheets of metal, lead tubes, and the engineer spell assemble table. Florencia took a porongo out of her inventory. Cornelio a mate straw. Mariana contributed a pack of yerba she had dropped somewhere.
“How come a dog has a kilogram-pack of Yerba mate?” Cornelio observed.
“Inventories can fit a lot of shit,” I said, dismissively. I trusted Mariana, and more so because it wasn’t one of those herbal-mix-aberrations that sell themselves as yerba mate. Those deranged glorified teas.
“But—” Cornelio began.
“Including seventy-three dead infernal hookers. I counted them.”
Florencia hit the table with her fist, producing a metaling tang. “Walter you cannot carry dead demons around!”
“Carry live demons around, got it.”
I opened the pack of yerba, poured just the right amount in the porongo, tilted it a little. After that, I tilted it to lead the yerba to a side and poured a little bit of water on the empty side. Afterwards, I put the straw in the same place I had poured the water.
“Are you wet, bitch?” I asked the mate, and it didn’t answer, because it was an inanimate object and such. Florencia and Sabrina looked into each other’s eyes searching for answers that were nobody to be found. Mariana stared like she yearned for the sweet kiss of amphibian skin.
I finally poured the first mate and took the metal straw to my mouth. A little suction made the infusion flow from between the leaves and into my tongue. It was bitter, like a first mate should be. All the dust from the yerba entered my system and I could feel the drink being purged from most of its heartburn-causing capabilities. A mate buff appeared in my mind and began ticking down.
Gaucho, or Bowl of Grass
Your exposure to our ancient shamanistic ritual enhances your spirituality, religion, tradition, wakefulness, caffeine in blood and body heat stats by +3! Additionally, it grants you double damage against statues of cats similar to Garfield.
A useful bunch of stats, no doubt.
I kept on sipping until I exhausted the current serving of mate, when one sucks air and little fart-like sounds come from the straw.
Then, I passed the Porongo to Sabrina, that was standing to my left. I would not let Florencia get her lips on the straw before all of her siblings had done so. My steps had to be careful, my absolute disdain for her intentions made to subtly shine through the apparent hand of fate.
She took a sip and grimaced. “It has a weird taste. Maybe the water is bad.” She then offered the thing to he rbrother, that snatched the porongo out of her hands and , with analytical stare, gave a sip and moved the water about his mouth as if he was tasting wine. “It certainly tastes like fresh outta the oven ass.”
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Well, I used holy water, it was cheaper than regular water,” I admitted, trying to not look too defensive, “It tasted like normal water to me.”
Florencia carefully took the thing, signaled me to pour a bit more water, and drank. She considered it for some long seconds while she tasted the infusion. “This holy water has impurities. It is… corrupted, I’d reckon. I wouldn’t expect demons to sell pure holy water anyway. What do they use it for?”
“Sadomasochist play,” I said, matter-of-factly. Florencia’s face crumpled with disgust. “Anyway, pass me the porongo, I want to drink more.”
The thermos placed on the middle of the table began quivering. I glanced to the sides, looking for a route of escape. Funny teleport refused to work. No. It would happen, I had no way to shirk accountability from it, only pray that it didn’t happen.
And then, it did happen. From the little opening on the lid of the thermos a head full of wet brownish hair split by two little horns popped out. She took a loud breath and then spoke “¿Poronga?” she asked, with the face of a dog begging for food.
Using my index finger to put pressure on Vera’s head, squeezing her back inside the thermos. The faces of my party members—sans Mariana, who considered this normal, I guess— were a pleasure to behold.
Cornelio was the first to speak. “You stashed a succubus inside the thermos. We have been drinking infernal girl bathwater…” he then snatched the porongo from my hands and gave it a long, desperate sip.
Sabrina went on her knees and began retching. Florencia scratched her temple with a single finger.
“Walter, why is there a demon inside the thermos?” Flor asked in an almost motherly way.
“I needed a way to rise the temperature of the water and succubae release heat when touched by holy water. It was only logical to use carefully diluted holy water and a succubus to achieve the perfect temperature for a perfect mate,” I explained with an academic tone. What was done was done, but I had my reasons, and they were pretty good.
“Sounds reasonable to me,” said Mariana, licking her nose.
“Walter, I don’t…” Flor raised a gesture so I would wait a second for her to gather her thoughts. “… I don’t approve of you using demons as tools. In the end, they are women too and need to be treated with the same respect as the rest of us.”
Cornelio was maniacally pouring more mates and drinking them at a record speed. “Sweet fucking nectar of life!”
I shrugged. “I do treat her with the same respect as the rest of you. Except Mariana.”
“He respects me as a bench and pet,” she added proudly.
“Well, you do treat us with no regard for our wellbeing, be it physical or mental,” Sabrina conceded, slowly raising from her kneeling position.
“I like my women like I like my amputee porn.”
A beat passed and Florencia, looking at the table instead of me, made me a gesture spinning her hand in the air, as if she were allowing me to carry on with the joke.
“Without rights.”
Florencia Sighed and shook her head in defeat. So did Sabrina. The metallic table gained sentience, sighed and lost sentience again. Vera probably sighed inside the thermos. Cornelio didn’t, because he was too busy consuming succubroth.
“If you finished your inner monologues of martyrdom for having to stand me, except for Mariana, that has no inner monologue—”
“I have outer monologues sometimes!”
“Yes you do. Anyway, where I was I? Ah, yes, if you finished with the commiseration, I am sure more than one of you is wondering why we made a dungeon our new dwelling.”
“Because it’s instanced and only we know the instance, meaning Phaela would need to peek into infinite ones to find us, and she lacks the ability to process enough images in her psyche to do this. In other words, an instanced dungeon is the functionally blind spot of the omniscient that lack an omnipotent brain,” Sabrina exposited like the nerd she was.
I raised my finger to call her a moron, and then realized she had, indeed, perfectly explained my reasoning. “Yes, but you are not allowed to be this right when I try to appear intelligent in front of the thermos. If we are right in this, we can scheme all we want and they cannot ever find us.”
“What if they send a Retriever with the bloodline to find us? I can retrieve people,” Mariana said, and all stares, even Cornelio’s, turned to her. “I may have turned the stupidity off for a while.”
“I often forget Mariana is technically the most intelligent member of our team,” said Cornelio.
“And the fastest,” continued Florencia.
“And the strongest,” added Sabrina.
“And the most resistant,” the word returned to Cornelio.
“And the one with the biggest mana pool,” Sabrina again.
“And the most unreliable, because she uses her brain to mine gold,” I decided to put an end to the chain of praise. “She is not trans nor you strictly white girls so stop sucking my bitch’s dick.”
“This alien praise hurts slightly less than sentience,” Mariana telepathed. “Anyhowl, we have my telepathy to use as a middleman for communication if we were to need an extra layer of security. I propose testing how much she can glean. I have a plan for that. This said, Walter, don’t react naturally to what I am going to explain, I need you acting like you always do.”
“Mariana, you need a new brain.”
Mariana nodded. “That’s perfect.” Mariana stupided around a little as naturally as she breathed. She even bit her tail seemingly in accident. “That should make me seem as stupid as usual. Anybay, the plan is as follows: Walter, tell the girls I have an idea to find the Retriever God shrine.”
“Mariana has an idea to find the statue of her god so we can finally kill the moon. Let’s hear what moronic plan she proposes,” I announced with an annoyed tone.
“Yes, yes, perfect. Now tell them that it will involve destroying the city of Carpincho Cagado.”
“The city of Carpincho Cagado?” I asked, genuinely confused.
“Argentinians naming things, Walter. Your people,” Mariana sassed, rolling her eyes.
“Well, we have Negra Muerta in Santiago del Estero,” I granted, I, latest victim of reality.
And so I obeyed Mariana’s orders, and afterwards we all prepared to depart for Carpincho Cagado.