“Are we actually safe in here?” I asked as the storm swelled and the wind howled.

The runes on the wall began to glow a vibrant magenta. Something crashed into the wall. The ground shook slightly from the impact.

Angelica was clearly distracted; she was staring into the middle distance reading a prompt. “From the thing outside, yeah.”

“But, are we actually safe in here?” I asked. This was obviously some sort of plan of Wilson’s.

“I’m trying to figure that out,” Angelica began pacing and muttering to herself. She only seemed to be saying every other sentence out loud. She looked very stressed, and like she wouldn’t want to be interrupted. That is why I left her to it. I looked at the gate. It was two solid doors that swung inwards. Somehow, they had closed behind us, despite the wind blowing them open. Also, a heavy wooden beam had slid into place locking them together. How convenient?

I mean I wasn’t complaining. Hearing that thing up close out in the open was nightmare-inducing. The prompt didn’t make me feel any more secure. My mind circled back to the mound of skulls. How deadly was that thing? It killed and ate about a hundred goblins. How quickly could it kill me? probably pretty fast. Angelica seemed afraid of it. Angelica could probably kill me in roughly ten or so hits. So that would be ten seconds. Unless I could out-damage her. Which I doubted I could.

That was a dark thought. No point plotting to murder each other with a monster at the gate. That said, how strong was Angelica?

“Can I ask you something? I began, only to be cut off by the screams of the Wendigo. They faded and swelled randomly but never ceased.

“What’s up?” Angelica prompted

“How many hit points do you have?”

Her expression instantly went from neutral to borderline hostile. “You don’t waste time, do you? What next you want to know my stats? Maybe my core concepts if we have time?”

“Let’s pretend I am new to this world, and do not know your social customs. Was that question rude?” I pressed.

She very clearly was not pretending, “Okay! I am going to be using scrutinize skills on you for a bit. Please answer yes and no to the following questions.” Angelica’s eyes lit up with pure white light. “Are you a demon?”

“No.”

“Are you possessed by a demon?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been possessed by a demon?”

“No.”

“Are you a demon spawn?”

“No.”

“Are you affiliated with demons in any way?”

“No.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“Seriously,” I asked. When she just glared at me. I answered “No.”

Her eyes went back to the normal dark brown, “Cool, sorry, but I had a really bad experience with that. To answer your previous question, yes, it is very rude to ask a person that is not a close personal friend about their stats or character sheet in general. There are some high-Scale skills like Analyze, but people with those skills tend to be ostracized. It is a lot like that X-Ray Specs skill. The one that lets people see through clothing. People get uncomfortable around them.”

Analyze check… Successful

Name:

Angelica De Leon

Race:

####

…Skill canceled

I shook my head. Canceling a prompt was weird. “So how does one inquire about the relative combat effectiveness of their new travel buddy, whilst trapped in a safe haven by an event boss? I’m asking for a friend.”

Angelica turned toward the barn and gestured for me to follow. “If one wanted to inquire about the relative combat effectiveness of their new travel buddy, they should ask something along the lines of ‘What’s the biggest thing you ever killed?’” She stopped at the barn door waiting for me to answer.

“I would say the Snow Lion Pack,” I admitted honestly.

She looked me up and down for a second. Taking in my height and width, and the fact that I was wearing the pelts of the lions as a cape, cloak, whatever. “that’s not bad. I mean I wouldn’t grind through this area. The fact that you survived to the point of spawning an epic boss is damn impressive. Stupid but impressive.”

“Would you have done better?” I asked.

“I would’ve done it differently, I have backing, you met them, “Angelica said, clearly trying skip overtalking directly about Wilson. “It fine tunes conflicts. You are going to need to learn to cope with that. Most fights are going to push you. No more picking on the little guys until a random shit storm spawns.”

“So… what’s the biggest thing you've ever killed?”

She shrugged. “Lord Herschel, the Two-Faced Avatar of Greed.” She said it like I would know what that means. Upon seeing my blank expression, she continued. “The heroic Scale minion of the Technacoast rulers.” Seeing that once again nothing sparked in my expression she continued. “A level 32 demon spawn. One of the top players on the east coast.”

“Oh wow, that sounds impressive,” I said.

“Don’t patronize me,” Angelica said, shaking her head. “It's okay, you are clearly sheltered. Let’s check the barn”

The barn was your standard barn. The ground floor was a dirt floor with a central aisle. Four pens on either side each roughly ten foot by ten foot. A ladder led to a loft with several bails of straw, and alfalfa. There were also stacks of assorted grains. The whole place seemed a little too organized, and the lack of scent made me suspect that no animal had ever been in this barn ever.

“What are we looking for,” I asked.

“Nothing really, just making sure no one else is here. If I am going to be stuck in a god’s space, I want to know who I am stuck with. Followers of gods are empowered in the domains of their gods. That can cause some serious bad times.” Angelica explained.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

We headed out to the house. The screams of the Wendigo seemed to be getting closer. The outside of the cabin looked to be a quaint old timey log cabin. The inside looked… okay let’s just start from ground up. The interior consisted of a single room. In the very center of it was a heart shaped jacuzzi tub, that bubbled happily. The floor was covered in shag carpet. A huge fireplace was burning with warm flames, and crackled invitingly. There was a small table with two romantic candles and a bottle of champagne was by a window overlooking the swirling snow. A massive heart shaped bed was in the opposite corner and was covered in red silk. The walls were covered in painting of naked people frolicking and doing… other stuff. By the door was a table laden with strawberries, almonds, pomegranates, figs, black licorice, chocolate, honey, whipped crème, and oysters. There were also bottles of red wine.

Angelica looked at that and then saw the small fridge beyond. “Maybe they have ice cream.” She opened the fridge and said, “Hey, they have salad.”

“I’m not excited over lettuce,” I said.

“It has peppers also,” she shot back. Seeing this did nothing for me, Angelica rolled her eyes, “there’s roast chicken too.”

“Chicken and salad sound good.” I admitted “Need help?”

“Can you open a bottle of wine?”

“Wait, is there any chance someone could have poisoned the food?” I asked.

“Nah,” Angelica said dismissively, “We’re in a safe haven. Poisons or anything that can cause a debuff are blocked in here.”

I shrugged and opened a randomly selected bottle. Dinner was nice. The food was good. It apparently removed the “Starving” condition. I hadn’t noticed it because I was immune to the condition. This was similar to the “Hypothermia” condition as well. That said, the “comfortable” condition was soothing. I was beginning to suspect conditions were going to be a thing. Angelica and I spent the better part of an hour eating, and discussing our mutual hatred of snow lions. We also had another laugh at the gore filled Bigfoot. I was not a wine guy before but this stuff was great. It was sweet, but had a warm glow I normally associated with whiskey.

The nanosecond I let my guard down I saw the prompt

Boon of Adora

You have the blessing of the god of love and fertility. This grants the divine virility condition

Divine Virility. All physical impediment to acts of sex have been suspended for 24 hours. Pleasure sensation at 10x multiplier for 24 hours. Enjoy 😉.

A fucking emoji. Of course.

The look of horror on Angelica’s face probably mirrored my own. Now, I am guessing some of you are not seeing the big picture here. You are probably wondering what the problem is? It sounds like you just got handed guaranteed great sex with a beautiful woman in a high-quality bang pad, what’s the downside? The rest of you are canny.

“What about no debuffs?” I demanded.

“This isn’t a debuff. I fucked up! I figured they would try for the Love-Struck condition,” Angelica said. She grabbed my hands and squeezed. Damn she was strong. Technically the pressure was causing 4 points of damage a second, but my regen canceled it out. Oddly enough the feel of her not quite smooth fingers on my skin felt pretty…

Willpower check …successful.

You avoided distraction

“Okay we need to make a pact. That is the only way we are going to get through this. Understand?” Angelica said.

“No, walk me through it,” I replied.

“First, we both agree to select no on the reproduce option should it appear. Agreed?” when I nodded, she continued, “You have to say you agree out loud.”

“Agreed,” I said.

Her eyes blazed with a pure white light. “Second, let’s agree no sex for the next twenty-four hours. The furthest we go is just hand stuff. Agreed?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t want to do anything with you,” I said. I could tell by the look on her face she was taking that the wrong way, likely due to the drugs. Rather than deal with the fall out of that, I said “Agreed.”

Again, Angelica’s eyes lit up. “Finally, we swear to not talk about this night without the permission of the others present. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

Angelica blazed with a white light that was nearly blinding. When she spoke, her voice rang with something beyond mortal reckoning, “Then the pact is sealed!”

The silence that followed was deafening.

After a moment, I realized I was rubbing my thumb along Angelica’s hand. I let go of her. “What was that?”

Angelica sighed. “I’m sorry about the hand stuff thing. I misread you and figured I would need to offer a distraction to get you to agree to a no sex pact. Having you turn me down point-blank hurt my pride. It’s childish, but here we are.”

“I meant the glowing eyes, and voice beyond eternity thing?” I clarified.

“I am not going to get you to fixate on the hand job, am I?” she asked, shaking her head ruefully. “You wanna tell him?”

“Certainly,” Angelica’s blazed with the pure white light again. While it was her voice saying the words the way she continued speaking left little doubt that someone else was talking. “My name is Celeste. I am an angel of the divine host. It is very nice to meet you face to face as it were. Please don’t be intimidated by me. For a manifestation of divine wrath, I am actually quite chill.”

“Was that a joke?” I asked.

“The platypus and pangolin are jokes,” Celeste explained. “I was being glib.”

I laughed, “Goddammit. Oops is it all right to cuss in front of an angel?”

“Fuck no it isn’t,” Celeste said. She was able to keep her face serious for about two seconds before cracking up with a luminous grin.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. She was so beautiful with her glowing white eyes, and playful smile. Seeing her in the flickering candlelight made my heart skip a beat. Wait. Did she take my hand again, or did I take hers? Did it matter?

Willpower check… successful!

You prevent distraction

Celeste frowned when she saw the look on my face go from a warm glow to troubled concern. I shook my head trying to clear it.

“What’s wrong?” Celeste asked.

I let go of her hand, “That boon. This is going to be a long night.”

Celeste looked taken aback. She seemed to read something and scowled. “I am not immune to its effect either. Also, I do not have infinite time in this safe haven. Sorry, Doug, while I have enjoyed this talk and would love to speak with you more, I am going to have to budget my time should Angelica need any extra support.” With that, her eyes darkened back to Angelica’s deep dark brown.

Angelica shrugged. Before clenching her fist. Her knuckles popped audibly. She took a deep breath, “That was a bit weird. Celeste liked you immediately. Normally she is a bit distant to everyone.”

“You heard that whole conversation?” I asked.

“Yep, basically Celeste and I can change who is in the driver’s seat, but we are both along for the ride.” She tapped her hands on the table, “So, I am going to take a bath. That means I am going to need you to avert your eyes and keep them averted.”

I swallowed with an audible gulp. This was going to be a long night.

That is how I ended up staring out the window watching the snow swirl around in the darkness of the night. I sat in a loveseat in the corner opposite the bed, and looked out a massive picture window. I sat using all of my mental focus to gaze out the window and only the window. The white flakes danced along the wind into the light from the window before rushing out into the darkness of the night. On the one hand, it was quite pleasing to watch. On the other hand, it was not a beautiful woman, naked, in a tub. Presumably, she was washing herself by rubbing her hands up and down her…

Willpower check… successful.

Emotional state brought back to controlled levels

Willpower is now at Trained level.

So that thing levels up every time I suppress an emotion. Yeah, that was going to get maxed out quick.

“Doug?” Angelica asked.

A second willpower role was required to not immediately turn to look at her. “Yeah?”

“In order to get the fresh clean condition from this tub we need to have two people in it together.” The tone of dread in her voice was upsetting.

“What does fresh clean do, is it really that important?” I asked.

“It removes negative scent conditions, and reduces monster encounter rates,” She answered.

The feeling of the snow lion’s fangs pressing down on my neck and blood flooding my lung shot through me. That was followed by the exhausted terror of fighting the pack.

“Doug, you have the Gore caked condition. That vastly increases monster spawn rates,” Angelica said.

That settled it. Channeling all my frustration into hatred for Wilson I clenched my fists. “Angelica, I am going to get into the tub.