I awoke the next morning and felt down expecting to feel Isabella’s head in my lap, but was confused to only feel myself. Normally, she’d been waking up before me, and taking care of my morning problem -- the world’s healthiest libido -- but this morning she was nowhere to be found. Groggily, I felt to the left and right of me, and it took a few moments for my brain to awaken enough for me to realize I wasn’t sleeping in our makeshift cushion-bed in the floor, but that I was instead still in my chair from where I’d went to sleep last night.
Finally rubbing the morning matter out of my eyes, I glanced around enough to see Isabella and Brandr sitting in the floor, doing their finger talking to each other. Seeing me stretch, Isabella moved her hands and Brandr nodded and then crawled the short distance across the floor on her hands and knees. Before I could sort out what was happening, she’d nuzzled herself between my knees and started doing what I normally expected Isabella to do.
“Wuuu haa?” I tried to voice my confusion, but it didn’t seem to come out properly.
Isabella simply giggled and hopped up on the couch opposite me and assumed her normal cross-legged position. “Don’t worry,” she assured me, “Brandr is just going to get started, but when the time comes I’ll finish up.” She giggled lightly, and looked as if she was enjoying my awkward predicament.
“Wuuu haa?” I repeated.
Isabella tittered lightly and responded, “Don’t worry. We talked it over and figured this was the best way to do things.” Whu? They talked it over? What over? “I would take care of ‘morning business’ for you like usual, but Brandr can’t speak and I wanted to tell you what we’ve learned and decided.”
Ooookkaaay. Lernd annndd decccciiidedd soommeefin.
“blahbba abba aabba blah,” Isabella continued on, but my brain wasn’t fully processing what she was currently saying. “and she can’t party bebbaa snufffflll ooooogaaaa! I think it takes everneee aaahhh oooooohhhh abbbaaa blaaaaa tootoo….”
I could feel my lower half starting to twitch spastically, and Brandr tried to pull away, but I grabbed ahold of the back of her neck and held her. I half expected resistance as I pulled her head back down, but there wasn’t any. Whatever Isabella was droning on about, was lost in the whiteness of the moment as I finally erupted my relief. I didn’t release Brandr’s head until my explosive volcano had settled back down to a satisfied little mound once more.
Slowly, as my thoughts returned back to me, I patted Brandr’s hair a few times and finally released her. As I looked over, Isabella was pouting at me. “I was going to finish up,” she told me as Brandr slowed moved back and leaned herself against the couch.
“Sorry,” I said, “but my mother always taught me that we shouldn’t start a job and then expect someone else to finish it. If you’re going to start it, you see it through to the end. You had your chance this morning Iz, and you pushed your job off to someone else, so you just don’t get any extra go-juice right now.”
Isabella pooched her lower lip out in a pout, and much to my amusement, Brandr tilted her head to look up at Isabella and then stuck her tongue out at her. I had to put my hand up to my mouth and pretend to cough, just so I didn’t stir up any animosity between the two with a misplaced chuckle. Isabella snorted, pulled the cushion off the couch beside her and thwapped Brandr with it. Apparently, the two of them were starting to get along rather well with each other this morning. I was actually quite happy to see them playing around somewhat with each other.
“Party invite Zephyr Roseheart,” I said.
DING! A window popped up.
Attempting to invite Zephyr Roseheart to your party.
Waiting for other party members to approve the invitation.
“Nope. I don’t want to.” Isabella pouted. “That was my lifeseed.”
The window closed and another popped up.
Invitation for Zephyr Roseheart to your party has been canceled.
Not all party members have approved the invitation, it can not proceed.
What the heck? Isabella giggled, seeing the confused look on my face.
“That’s part of what I was trying to tell you. Apparently, it takes all the current members of a party to approve an invite, before you can invite someone to join your group. I tried to invite Brandr earlier, but the windows kept closing out after about thirty seconds or so, while you were sleeping.” Giggling lightly, Isabella told me, “Try again. Don’t worry, I’ll accept this time and then we’ll see what happens.”
Well, I have to admit, I was surprised by the party system. In most games, it seems as if you have one person as the leader of a party – the one who starts the inviting – and the others simply accept the invitation or decline. They don’t actually get a say in who else to invite, or who to reject into the group. The system here was different. Any member could offer an invitation; but it was only if every existing member accepted, that the invite could actually proceed. It wasn’t so much a dictatorship style party, but more of a democracy!
In some ways, I liked it; but in others, it scared me. All you had to do is get one asshole in your group, and they could screw you over forever. Not only were parties permanent, but they were unforgiving of member circumstance. One angry or dissatisfied member and that was the end of the line for adding someone new to the group.
“Party invite Zephyr Roseheart,” I said.
DING! A window popped up.
Attempting to invite Zephyr Roseheart to your party.
Waiting for other party members to approve the invitation.
“I accept,” Isabella said.
The window closed and another popped up.
And invitation for your slave-sworn, Zephyr Roseheart has arrived
to join into a party with Bloody Hell and Oathbound Starchild.
Do you allow her to accept it?
Oh damn! I now know who’s fault The Crackening was. It had to be Microsoft! They’re the only company in the world that makes you give permission to yourself to do something you just tried to do!
“Yes,” I said with a sigh.
Ding!
Congratulations, Zephyr Roseheart has joined your party!
Ding!
Congratulations, your slave-sworn, Zephyr Roseheart has joined into a party with Bloody Hell and Oathbound Starchild!
A notification, notifying me of what I’d just been notified of. It was certain – Bill Gates or one of his employees must be God! No wonder I couldn’t get that as a valid name!
----------------------------------------
I took a moment to check to the left of my vision, and there was a second window now directly above Isabella’s. This one had no shackles on it, like the window on my right, but now both windows were enclosed in a single rectangular box together.
“Zephyr Roseheart, can you hear me?”
Brandr nodded in my direction.
“Try talking back to me with the party chat, if you can. Just think my system name – ‘Bloody Hell’ – and yeah, I know it’s stupid, but that’s what it is. Just think of my name and then try and send me a thought of any sort.” I wonder if Isabella felt this awkward trying to explain things to me? I wasn’t cut out to be a teacher apparently.
“H.. hi.. hello?” There was a quiet, awkward voice in my head, which I’d never heard before. For some reason, it sounded weak and feminine to me, and nothing like the strong, certain image of an unstoppable warrior’s sounded in my imagination.
I gave a thumbs-up to her. “Hello back to you,” I said and she beamed a smile up towards me.
“Who hears me?” Came Isabella’s thought clearly to me.
“I hear you,” I said aloud. “Is there something wrong?”
Isabella simply giggled and shook her head from side to side. “No, silly. I was just testing out the group chat.”
“Group chat? How come nobody ever tells me about these things,” I whined. Isabella giggled while Brandr just looked puzzled, which seemed to make Isabella giggle even harder. At least I wasn’t the only person she found amusing!
“There’s a rectangle which surrounds both images now, correct?” Isabella was talking out loud again. To be honest, this talk, think, talk was a little difficult to get used to. “I’ve been playing around with it, and it seems to link the whole party together, for a group chat.”
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I’ve played many games with group chat before. It’s useful, but something you have to be careful of if there’s a large party. Too many people chattering at once can really make it difficult to follow what’s going on. “So who’s name or whatever do we use to send a thought to everyone,” I asked.
Isabella giggled. “That’s the thing! I tried everything. ‘Bloody-Zephyr’, ‘square chat’, ‘party talk’, ‘party chat’, ‘group talk’, ‘group chat’…” Isabella stopped and then just smirked at the two of us. “And it turns out I was simply over thinking things. Who do you talk to when you want to talk to everybody?”
“Damned if I know, that’s why I asked.” I told her.
“Who do you talk to when you want to talk to everybody?” Isabella asked again.
I just shrugged this time.
“everybody,” came the quiet, weak voice in my head, which I was now trying to associate to Brandr.
Isabella nodded and giggled. “That’s it. To talk to everybody, just think to: ‘everybody’.”
Well hell, that was so simple, it made sense. It must have been implemented by accident into the system. I would’ve thought it’d be something like an hour long mantra which you had to recite backwards and in Latin to get it to work, from my experience so far with the new world interface.
I sent a thought to both girls to test it out. “I like boobies.” Isabella just giggled, while Brandr looked down at her own chest.
“Oh! Talking about boobs, Brandr I’m going to fix yours, but I wanted your opinion on them. I know some girls always seemed to want a bigger rack, while others seemed to prefer a smaller set. Since yours are out of align now; and since it’s going to be the same cost no matter what to fix it; would you prefer me to make the second one larger to match the first? Or make the first one its original size again? Or split the difference?”
Brandr tilted her head down and then placed a hand under each breast and lifted them once or twice as if weighing her options. Finally, she shrugged. “I… I honestly don’t care,” came her quiet voice in my mind. “Whichever you prefer is fine with me. I don’t think a little extra fat there will really hurt or help with anything, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Fine,” I said. I reached out with my finger and tapped the slave icon that floated to the right of my vision. The windows with the same choices as last time and the floating image of Brandr beside it popped into view in front of me. I tapped the screen a few times to zoom in on her chest and then pull up the options for her breasts. I hesitated for a moment, trying to decide what I wanted to do, but in the end I do like boobs. Big, full, handful boobs. Sue me; I’m a guy.
Twice I tapped the plus button for the other breast and then I clicked the OK confirmation. As I did, this time I got to see a white glow slowly form around her chest, and when it faded her breasts were the same full and ripe size as Isabella’s. To be honest, the glow reminded me of when Isabella had read the book and it’d changed her when she’d become a Lifestealer. In suppose in many ways, what I was doing was the same process. The only difference was I was making the choices here and not some book.
“So now we just have to figure out what to do with the remaining points,” I said while admiring my handiwork.
“And how many is left,” Isabella asked.
I reached up to tap the stats button and a *donka donka* sounded and a window popped up.
Sorry, that option is currently disabled for an update.
Please try again shortly.
“What the fuck?!” I couldn’t help but let my shock out loud.
“What?” Isabella leaned forward and sounded worried.
“Stats!” I tried to pull up my own, but that same *donka donka* was my response and the same window appeared before me.
Sorry, that option is currently disabled for an update.
Please try again shortly.
“I’ll be damned.” I had no idea that anything would be getting updates. Where the hell was the instruction manual for this world?!
“Stats,” Isabella said and then I could see where was briefly reading something in front of her. “Oh!” Her eyes opened wide.
The gentle voice of Brandr’s came in my head, “What is it?”
“Apparently,” I told her, “the world’s getting an update and not everything is currently available.” I have to admit, she’d make a hell of a poker player because if she was surprised in the least, she didn’t show it.
Slowly I shrugged my shoulders. “No need to worry about it for now, I don’t guess. Nothing we can do about it anyway. I can still access the image interface, and change most things from it. From what I can remember, she had 280 points or so left to spend. Do you guys have any idea of anything you might want me to go ahead and spend some of them on?”
Isabella glanced over at Brandr and then went over and picked up a piece of paper and did some scribbling on it. “I’d explained all I could to Brandr about the cheat points and all this morning, and I let her know everything we know about what the stats represent and all. We discussed the problem a bit already, and I think we’ve got the basic way we think should probably work best.
“We decided that boys will be boys, and that Brandr is going to be yours. Last night we were just going to let you spent the points all however you want, but after talking it over we think 10% of them is enough for you to customize your blade. So that’s 28 points you can spend however you want, no questions asked.
“And we thought it might be a good idea to save 10% just for some sort of emergency, since we’re still learning more about the points and what they can do all the time, so that’s 28 more off the table.”
“Some of the advantages seem like they could be really useful, so we thought 25% of what was left could do into them, so that’d be 56 points more. Being able to go without food or water so someone won’t starve, that eliminates one of our biggest hurdles in this new world already! I’d buy it, if I had the option,” Isabella admitted.
“And Brandr thinks, and I agree, that skills and spells can be trained on up just by repeatedly practicing them. We don’t think any points need to go there. The remainder, which should be 168 if I calculated properly, should go into stats.”
Slowly, I nodded to show that I understood their intentions. 28 for me, 56 for advantages, 168 for stats. Breaking the numbers down limited the options and made things easier to deal with.
“So let’s look at the advantages first then, “ I told them as I started poking at the image floating in front of me.
“For eating adjustments, we have a couple of different options. Some are bad like ‘heavy eater’, so I won’t even bother telling you about them. There’s three here that seem like they might be really useful. ‘Iron Stomach’ for 10 points reduces heartburn and allows a person to eat a wider range of food without issue. ‘Light Eater’ lets you reduce your normal food consumption to half for 10 points. And ‘No Hunger’ would let you completely do without eating for 25 points.”
“I’d either go with the ‘Less food, stronger stomach’ combo for 20, or the ‘no hunger’ for 25. What do you girls think? I was thinking the ‘stronger stomach’ might even help protect against something like poisonous mushrooms or tainted meat or something, if you were exposed to it.”
The two stared at each other for a few moments as thoughts passed between their party connection, and then Brandr’s gentle voice told me, “No hunger. You’re right, a strong stomach might have extra benefits, but we’re already running out of food. One less mouth to feed stretches what remains that much further.”
I frowned slightly to myself knowing that she’d made her choice for our sakes, but I dutifully pressed the proper buttons and confirmed it. That same white glow pulsed a few times around her stomach and then faded out. 31 points remained for advantages.
Talking over the long list of other available options, everyone finally decided to buy ‘Less Sleep’ and ‘Light Sleep’ for a total of 20 points. Those let Brandr get by with only half the normal sleep as a regular person, and awake at the slightest disturbance. For 10 more points, we decided upon an Enhanced Senses advantage which increased her sight, smell, taste, and touch. Supposedly her voice as well, but she didn’t have one of those to start with, so it was a moot bonus.
And for the last point that remained, she purchased a “Clean Skin” advantage. Apparently, for all her warrior ways, Brandr was still a woman at heart and the idea of having an advantage that kept dirt, grime, and blood off her was just too tempting to pass up.
In the end, we fixed her breasts (They got bigger!), she acquired “No Hunger”, “Less Sleep”, “Light Sleep”, “Enhanced Senses”, and “Clean Skin”. 168 points remained for stats, but I couldn’t access that system right now. 28 points remained for my personal use, and the rest were just being saved for ‘just in case’.
Since stats weren’t currently available, what should I do with my points? I couldn’t believe the girls were giving me 10% to spend, with no questions asked, but I certainly was going to enjoy spending those!