Chapter 196 - Tell me (Patreon)

“I wanna knoooow!” Rave complained while John was kneeling down inside an Illusion Barrier made on the houses outback. It would have been really nice here in the summer, stone slabs covered the veranda floor, an oversized grill, a big table. All severely less attractive when made slippery by the nightly frost. It was the morning of Wednesday, around 7 AM, they had just eaten breakfast and now he wanted to summon the new elemental he had accidentally acquired, they still had a lot of time before they needed to drive of and he wanted to at least level a bit more. 

The Ritual of Shadows was different from his previous attempts in that it allowed him to summon higher tiers of elementals immediately. For the reason it was capped at Tier 3, John could easily pinpoint the fact that Sylph, the highest one of his current quartet, was at that power-level. 

Nothing of this was what Rave was complaining about though. “Tell me what that new armguard does!” she whined and pointed at his left arm, where he was hiding the piece of equipment underneath the sleeve of his suit. Speaking of the suit: He loved that piece of clothing. He looked like a freaking badass in it and it was also sturdier than everything else he had. He had dubbed it his official battle wardrobe.

“I told you what the necklace does,” John tried to dodge with a wide smirk. 

In a way it was fortunate that Nathalia had prevented him from taking Elemental Resistance 1, now that he got the third level of that attribute on his equipment. Wisdom of the Inferno cranked his sensitivity to fire up to 11, he felt when someone two houses over ignited a match, getting closer he could almost hear the fire speak to him. He would need a bit more training in this but he was pretty sure, eventually, he would be able to make himself understood as well. It was quite awesome. 

“So, leave me that one surprise, please,” John told his girlfriend, who had furrowed her eyebrows in a certain way that told him she would continue asking. The necklace had a lot of awesome passive stuff, but the glove had two attributes that he would tell nobody about, unless absolutely necessary, just because he wanted to reveal the awesomeness in a fitting way. He had tested everything out during a quick dungeon run yesterday evening. He also had spent the 4 remaining points, which he had remaining from yesterday’s encounter with his favourite force of nature, on Charisma. With all the new modifiers his stats looked quite well nowadays.

“Fine…so, a shadow elemental, right?” Rave gave in with a pouty look, that vanished soon after. “That’s what the skill says,” John hummed and added some malicious looking runes to the basic summoning circle. Lydia had said shadow magic wasn’t inherently evil, but it sure did its best to convince him otherwise by the sure amount of edge the drawing radiated once he was done with it. 

“Not sure how I fell about ya summoning a hot girl that’s my polar opposite type wise,” Rave said, “Also, that circle could only look more satanic if ya drew it in blood.” John nodded in agreement to that statement. “Well, I am only doing what the skills knowledge gave me,” he explained. “Can you hurry the fuck up doing that?” Salamander, who was busy maintaining the bubble of warm air, so that they didn’t freeze in the cold weather, cursed. “I was in the middle of a Mario Kart tournament.” “The fact that you have internet…” “elecnet!” “…elecnet access in my head is highly disturbing,” John commented. 

“Well, the connection is better when you wear that set, cause the elecnet is basically the shared consciousness of all elementals in this plain, summoned and natural, unconsciously reaching towards the elemental plane. You increase your wisdom of the elements, we get faster elecnet, as we are more tightly bound to this plane of existence. Everyone wins. Now summon that new sister of mine, I want to get back to racing!” Salamander gave him a quick tutorial.

“Yes, yes,” John agreed and put the chalk down before putting his hand on the edge of the circle. The goal was, of course, summoning a Tier 3 elemental, and the circle reacted to the intent and sapped the required life and magic from him in a heartbeat. 

“Well, look at that, now it’s actually glowing red,” Rave’s snarky remark was the last thing he heard before something alien invaded his thoughts. All light vanished and now he was in a vast space of pitch black silence. It looked similar to the nothingness he had known from the empty barriers Magoi had created for him, but where those had been truly empty until he spawned something inside him, this darkness was filled with an endless amount of raw, unfocused power. 

John couldn’t move most of his body, the thing in his thoughts blocking every signal that didn’t go to his eyes or mouth. Looking anywhere was useless, everything was the same absolute black. Speaking at least hushed away the silence.

“Hello?” he asked. This wasn’t like the other summoning’s, usually the mother of that element would speak to him and then he would be shown some vision. Even Salamander had followed that pattern, even if what she had shown him had been vastly different. Now he was just alone. That soon changed, however.

The darkness in front of him slowly cleared to reveal the shape of a woman. Her slender arms were bound in shadowy chains above her head; her feet, the shape of ultra-high heels whose heels were sharp enough to punch a hole into a metal plate, dangling just above the ground were chained as well. Both were covered in some latex like, almost black, deep-purple layer. Towards her hands it became slightly lighter in colour, covering her hands and feet, the final segments of her fingers were long claws, sharper than glass-shard. 

Despite her obvious imprisonment, her greyish pink hair was silky and fell over full chest, softly curling towards the tips, where more of that latex like exterior hugged unto her tits and stomach in the shape of a leotard, effectively hiding nothing of her hourglass build, or even the soft rise and fall of her stomachs muscles, but shielding her light blue skin from greedy eyes. With gleaming yellow eye, the iris the shape of a snake’s, she looked at John, her deep purple lips curving into a gleeful smile.

“Another lamb for the slaughter? How nice of mother,” her voice was pure sexual tease. “Come now, little man, I am completely at your mercy. Do with me whatever – your heart – may – desire,” every stretched-out word drew out a bit more of John’s primal instincts as control of his body rushed back into his limps. He got to his feet and stumbled one step forwards. 

Her ample chest rose and fell with a steady want, accompanied by the lustful sighing of her every breath, combined it made the Gamer’s pants tight. All John would have needed to do was extend his hand and he could have dug his fingers into these huge mounds of flesh. 

“Yeah, no,” he said and crossed his arms instead, “This bait is too obvious.” The shadow elemental shifted in her chains, rubbing her legs together in a desperate gesture, “Please, oh mighty newcomer, I have been aching for somebody like you.” “Not falling for it,” John told her.

“Tsk,” the elemental averted her eyes for a moment, clicking her tongue, then looked back at him with pure innocence, “Mister, all I need is your cock.” “You are not a particularly good actress,” John commented, “pro-tip: Don’t start with ‘another lamb for the slaughter’ and don’t ‘Tsk’ in the middle of the dialogue, completely breaks the immersion. If this was a cutscene, they would fire the writer.” 

He looked at the chains, the ended seemingly nowhere, simple getting lost in the extended darkness that was all-present. “In my defence, the word stretching usually is enough to get the men worked up,” the elemental admitted and shrugged, the chains rattling in response. “Ah, being honest now?” John asked. “Mother evidently didn’t send you over as food, or you would have been dumb enough to fall for that,” the elemental looked at John, who was walking around her body. “I only had the, mhm, pleasure,” she sighed, “of easy victims recently, you may actually be worth clawing apart.”

“I have a way stronger being suggest that to me yesterday,” John said and continued his walk, “I am not exactly intimidated by you.” Turning her neck to a degree every human would have described as highly uncomfortable, but still within the realms of possibility, she asked, “What are you doing?” “Checking out your ass,” he bluntly stated, “and I have to say: Nice. Looks firm but would probably jiggle when slapped.” “Why don’t you try it out?” she asked, continuing to use that teasing tone that was her actual voice, apparently, and wiggled her butt seductively. 

“Mhm, so you get out of these chains if I lay hand on you, would be my guess,” John answered. The elemental furrowed her eyebrows, that was all John needed to know. “Bullseye, you are a really bad actress,” he walked back to her front and sat down, close enough to touch her whenever he so desired. “If you want to keep a secret you say something unrelated, you don’t imply the exact opposite,” he gave her another tip. 

“I wonder if your brain would still produce such smart words if I scattered it over the floor?” the elemental said in a completely calm tone that betrayed genuine curiosity. It wasn’t a threat, just an idea she had. John had no answer to that, he instead used Observe. Which was denied. That wasn’t to say that it didn’t work, it did, but the silent mother of shadows blocked the results from his vision, leaving him only a pitch-black rectangle in a light blue frame. Well, it would have been too easy if he learned her name, the thing he needed to make a contract, this way.

“If mother didn’t send you to entertain me, what are you here for?” the elemental wondered. “I wanted to make a contract with an elemental, your mother sent me here following the ritual, so it seems that’s what I am here for,” he explained. The elemental giggled. “Are you serious?” she asked not him but the vast darkness around them. Nothing changed for John, but the elemental’s giggling grew louder, but never into full-out laughter.

Her voice continued to drip sexual desire, but there also a hint of hope and interest. “Do you know how long I have been here, human?” “Obviously not, I just came here,” John remarked. “Neither do I,” she said, ignoring his implied question. 

“One day I possessed the dreams of some sad prostitute to make her murder their superiors, the next I get thrown in here,” she sighed, and the way she writhed in the chains, the latex like material on her skin shifting like mist, indicated genuine arousal. “You won’t believe me how much I miss the feeling of skewering those who think they have everything - just to have it taken away,” she said that last part with a blissful finality that it sent chills down John’s spine, and not the good kind.

‘That girl is cray-cray,’ he decided to look for another elemental that was less homicidal. He was a pervert, yes, and she was hot as fuck, yes, but without assurance he wouldn’t stick his dick into that, or allow her to pull some other stunts like that when he would have to take the responsibility in front of Gaia. 

‘I can give you assurance,’ a toneless voice said in his head. It was like somebody was scratching words into the inside of his forehead. ‘If you take her with you, she will have to obey five rules you can set-up however you want and you can change them however you want.’ ‘Seriously?’ John thought, ‘What If I make one of the rules: Kill yourself on 11 PM.’ ‘She will have to obey whatever rule you set-up,’ The scratching repeated. ‘If you do something as foolish as that, know that you will find any shadow elemental that is not your enemy, however. Just let my daughter see the world again, I only want to protect this foolish girl from Gaia’s wrath. Teach her some humility if you need to, but killing her will have consequences.’

John rubbed his forehead with both hands to get that disgusting feeling away. “Mother’s voice isn’t as soft as mine, is it not?” the elemental’s voice was vibrating with amusement. Raising an eyebrow, he said, “You are a shit actress, but pretty good at picking up at small things.” With a shrug, the elemental took both the insult and the compliment. 

“And, what did mother tell you? That I will be a handful of work?” the elemental licked her lips in a gesture that was meant to be seducing, yet John saw the bloodlust behind it. It was more akin to a lioness cleaning the remainders of blood of her lips than anything. 

She pulled on her chains, “Because I can imagine very few things more fulfilling than seeing you bleed out. I want to see people like you die, nothing will bring me greater pleasure.” “People like me?” John asked, out of sheer curiosity. “People that have everything they wish and get everything they want, people whose life just seems to reward them for existing,” her wide grin showed rows of sharp teeth, her yellow eyes gleamed brighter and her hair rose until it stood upwards, swaying like the flame of a candle. “The happiest people, the ones who are shattered completely when their boundless success suddenly ENDS.” 

“I am pretty blessed,” John admitted, “the ability I have is supremely strong, I have the best girlfriend in the world, a harem and enough money to buy just about anything I could ever want.” He looked into her eyes, “But to say I get everything for free is a bit unfair.” The desire to gouge out his throat and do thing to his corpse that even a butcher wouldn’t be able to keep his stomach in check was spelled out so clearly in there that John had to smirk. 

“Well, even if I tell you my life isn’t without hardship you are going to stay convinced to kill me, aren’t you?” “Whatever hardships you face are probably laughable,” the elemental said and struggled against her chains even harder. Tentacles of darkness, ending in long blades, of varying sizes grew from her back and the dark, latex-like layer on her appendages grew spiky extensions on her joints. The tentacles rushed forwards but they couldn’t quite reach John, the same magic that kept the elemental chained also kept her from attacking him.

“You know, just yesterday, I showed another woman who the world thought to be nothing but a monster that she was beautiful. Maybe, given time, I can do the same for you,” John offered, jumping on his feet and taking half a step back to bring some distance between himself and the blades. He wasn’t a coward, but he was of the ‘better safe than sorry’ attitude.

“My desire is to ruin you,” the elemental didn’t raise her voice, not even now, it was the same purely sexual tone. “Why would I agree to a contract with you?” the question was bait, she wanted to get out of here and they both knew it. But John took that bite with confidence. “How about a bet?” John said and carefully stepped closer again. The bladed tentacles were forced away, unable to overcame an invisible barrier around John. His hand hovered up from her legs to her chest and finally her face. 

Careful to never touch her he said. “I unshackle you and you get one shot at killing me. If you win, congratulations, you got what you wanted. If you fail, you tell me your name and we make a contract. I should add that your mother told me she will give me the power to enforce 5 rules you will have to obey once we are outside though.” 

Her eyes became darker, quite literally, where normal eyes were white hers were grey and now they became pitch black, only intensifying the yellow or her iris by contrast, “Why would you tell me that?” “Because I don’t want to base our relationship on lies and your disappointment that you cannot try to kill me outside of here,” John smirked, “I may not always act like it, but at my heart I am a good guy, just selfish.” 

The tentacles increasing in number until he saw dozens of them to each of his side, like the needles of an iron-maiden about to close, told John what her answer was going to be. “I accept your wager,” the elemental moaned, her spirit heated by the quick and easy kill she was about to perform. With a smile, John stayed his left hand above her chest.

John kissed her on the lips. Triumphantly her eyes widened, the pupil little more than a thin stroke.

The tentacles rushed towards him.