Chapter 517 – Events to Nomination 5 – Raiding the time (Patreon)

“Mhm,” John looked at the vaguely familiar name, then up at the hill in front of him. Although itself normal looking, the Gamer couldn’t help but notice the massive, dragonskull-esque formation of stones growing out of the pile of dirt and rocks. The air was humid, and the wet feeling under John’s shoes made him pretty certain he was in a swamp.

The night had come and passed, and now the Gamer wanted to test the new mechanic he had been granted access to. When he had created the Raid, he hadn’t expected a giant World of Warcraft reference to slap him across the face, though.

“I mean, this is obviously Onyxia’s Lair,” he said and then looked over his assembled girls. “I don’t think any of you are really good at casting DoTs, are you?” he made a highly referential joke. As they were hooked up to his mind, they all got it. Reactions were pretty limited; it obviously hadn’t landed that well. “Okay, okay, let’s just get inside.”

The door was sealed by the teeth of the white-stone skull clenching together, but the moment the group approached, the thing began to open. A stream of sulphuric air permeated the surroundings with unpleasant smells and dry hotness, heavily clashing with the average humidity they had just stood in. On the plus side, they were soon walking on stone, much more pleasant than the mud.

Exactly like the original raid, the inside of the structure was a simple, broad passage, shoulder high barriers of once-molten stone separating it from the lava pools around. As someone who spent quite a lot of time around lava on his own volition, the heat didn’t bother John that much. His enchanted clothes helped with that as well.

The group stopped when they saw a flickering shadow in the light of the lava, shifting over the wall of the corner in front of them. A large beast, at least two times taller than John, came around, sniffing aggressively for the invader’s scent.

‘Okay, Gaia, what the fuck?!’ John thought and immediately treated this whole thing with way more respect. He had gone in here under the assumption that he was going to face the usual content of equal levelled monsters, buffed up to present a challenge to a group of eight. Instead they were charged by a three metre dragonkin with a glaive tall enough to split John’s entire body, as well as the guy behind him.

The monster swept that massive weapon around with no clear target, hitting Gnome first, much to the luck of Salamander and Beatrice who still would have been hit by the quick attack. Dangerously sharp, the edge of the glaive broke through the outer layer of the soil elemental’s barely raised arms and cut halfway through. Her earthen body began to glow around the weapon, as an inlaid lava enchantment became active and seared her body with immense heat.

“Q-quuuick,” Gnome stuttered and whined, not from embarrassment but from the sheer pain she sustained. Drawing a deep breath, the dragonkin roared with fierce conviction, a challenge for anyone who dared to attack it. Gnome was forced several steps back as the elite monster kept on its steady attack.

Salamander’s fire attacks did nothing to the monster, as one could have expected, so she clicked her tongue in anger and went with a simple physical route. Flying right up to it, the endflame elemental attempted to punch the dragonkin right in its face, but was met with the massive jaws of the creature snapping down in front of her.

Although this blocked her own attack, it bought some time for Aclysia to jump at the enemy with Marath in her hands. With Servant’s Strike buffing it up, the massive blade managed to cut into the thick scales on the shoulder and further down to the bone, but no deeper. The dragonkin roared in pain, suddenly whirling its entire body around.

Aclysia was thrown off, and a muscular tail hit Gnome in her widely exposed back. Both of them flew into a pool of lava, something John wasn’t too worried about. The weaponized maid was fire resistant and Gnome was a tough cookie; they would survive a short bath in molten rock. Now, he would still have paid that damage some more attention if a second shadow wasn’t making its announcement on the wall behind this first guardian.

Given the state Gnome, their second most durable member, was in after just one attack and the amount of damage Aclysia could do with one buffed up attack, John didn’t see this whole thing working out all that well. Neither did he want to put any of the elementals through the potential suffering of being killed while they retreated to safety to leave the Raid. ‘Well, what do I have this for if I never use it?’ John thought and activated Espace Rope.

The dungeon around them began to swirl and stretch like a liquified portrait that went down the drain, being sucked downwards and leaving the group standing in the darkness, to be filled with another ID.

“Undine would you…” he stopped talking as the ocean elemental was already flowing towards her sister and began mending the glass-covered gaps in her forearms. As interesting as it was to see a cauterized earth spirit, John was understandably unhappy to see her hurt to such a degree.

Level 250 was 99 above their current level, which wasn’t the worst difference he had ever fought against. The problem here wasn’t the enemy but John’s mentality towards it. Normal dungeons were designed to be beaten on the first go, so he had gotten somewhat complacent in his expectations of difficulty.

‘Less Diablo mindset, more Dark Souls,’ John thought. If the normal enemy was as hard or even harder than the average boss he fought, then he had to adapt his mindset to compensate. He would also have to experiment on what stuck when he left a Raid. Maybe there was a way to widdle the enemies down. ‘Things I am not willing to test right now,’ he thought and prepared to open an Assault instead.

This was supposed to be training for a war scenario in the near feature. He didn’t have the hours to waste on entering and exiting a Raid repeatedly, kiting and testing different strategies, for some acclaimed immense reward at the end that could be whatever. In times of preparation for conflict, it was best to stick to what one knew. Only desperate times called for experiments.

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Time passed by without a hitch afterwards. The remaining nine days within the barrier gave John a total of seven more levels. Even with Assaults, he couldn’t reliably grind out a level a day anymore. Magoi took his leave rather quickly, ecstatic about his vacation. With the High Fateweaver on his way to do the diplomacy John needed him to, the Gamer was left with less time to grind.

Once his return was made public, John was swamped with work. His work days went to 10 hours baseline, often extending that by several more hours. Of course, he still managed to sneak in at least three instances of fucking a day, but he often had to do so in unorthodox circumstances. This only underlined his reputation as a pervert.

A particularly clear example was when John was caught with his dick inside Aclysia between two meetings. It was part of a day of over a dozen discussions and he simply had not had the patience to go somewhere more private. Unlucky for him that a few of the people he was to talk with had decided to arrive ten minutes early. What was normally applaudable behaviour turned into a bit of an inconvenience for John as he had to ask them to wait outside. He still finished, but everyone knew that the smell of cinnamon Aclysia exuded afterwards was there to drown out more sexual smells.

Incidents like that piled up and soon John had a reputation. It wasn’t surprising, one could even say it was inevitable, but he definitely preferred it when there was a smaller amount of people that had seen him naked from the waist down. The alternative, however, was to only have sex in less risqué settings.

Which in turn meant that he would have to go whole work days without sex. Given his Libido, that was barely an option. Although he preferred to not get caught, John also didn’t mind being seen all that much, so he just accepted that the history books would have him marked down as someone who often had sex in public offices.

Escapades like that aside, John was working ceaselessly on internal and external things that he simply couldn’t delegate elsewhere. Either because of a lack of qualified people or because somebody insisted they wouldn’t accept anything not confirmed by John. Something the Gamer kind of asked for, as he realized, when he had put Seth on the post of temporary mayor. It had been meant to be a reward, he was the leader of the Enclave after all and as such one of the people that had been with John from the beginning.

When John told him he wasn’t suited for the job and was therefore dismissed, the guy looked so infinitely relieved that the Gamer genuinely felt bad about placing him there in the first place. ‘So much for my idea that he would grow into it,’ he thought, having hoped that a guy like this, with a large amount of conscience, would be able to lead a large amount of people like he had done with the small Enclave. A naïve position, John had to admit.

Weak of power and character, very few had taken Seth seriously as the extension of John’s will as much of the anarchy mindset still lingered. It would probably take years if not an entire generation before people appointed in John’s system were just assumed to be backed up by his power. For the moment, he solved this problem by having the new mayor, now properly elected, guarded by Beatrice at all times. That was effective symbolism.

Still didn’t take care of all of the problems.

The most pressing issue was that of borders. When starting this whole thing, John had simply taken a map, put pins in for any somewhat important guild or other group in an area, and then drew a bunch of squares for what districts they had governance over. Many of them had been pretty happy with that solution, and the fractured nature of New York before John had slapped a giant barrier on top of it had meant that there was a bunch of new space they laid claim to anyway.

Unless there was actually a bulk of several groups in an area, then things got very hairy very quickly. People didn’t want to be governed by a group only marginally stronger than themselves or that they simply hated the guts of for past transgressions. Sometimes there was a profitable shop right on the border and both parties wrestled for control over it. Same for interesting landmarks. There was a bunch of other reasons for border disputes.

At least, nobody was actually dumb enough to fight over them. No matter the (truthful) rumours about John’s sexual deviancy, they still respected his authority due to his raw power. It still needed to be addressed, however, and as no two problems were the same, no two solutions were either. Through a combination of resettlement, redrawing, monetary compensations, tax breaks and resource transfers, John managed to solve them one by one in long-winded discussions that made him very happy to have raised his Charisma.

Only a few times, John had to act minorly tyrannical and force a solution on people that just couldn’t be pleased. When alone for a moment, John scribbled down their names and districts. Not to have them removed, but simply to keep an eye on them and any opportunities to get into good graces again.

The internal borders were one thing, external borders a whole other. Neighbouring guilds were, with news of Fusion’s and the Little Maryland’s friendly talks, cautiously approaching John with diplomacy of their own. Interest to establish an embassy was voiced by some party and things of that nature were trotting along slowly.

One ocean across, John was finally getting an agreement with Amalia and the NTC about getting some naval engineers. The female guild leader let him dangle in uncomfortable positions for more than a few days, doubtlessly a punishment for his undermining of her authority during the whole yacht incident. Pretty sure that she would let him stew for a whole while, John eventually lost patience and sought help from Lydia on the matter.

After giving him some other numbers for the leaders of the Hanseatic Trading Company and a smaller, still relevant competitor in Portugal, the queen removed herself from the discussion again. It was all she needed to do anyway, since John now was able to put pressure on Amalia, who had lost her monopoly negotiating position. Particularly the Portuguese were pretty stoked about the prospect of gaining some favours with a rising power able to ship wares from and to the new world.

In the end, the main envoy was still sent by the NTC, but the other two sent at least some people in advisory roles. Getting that whole thing through took him ten days though. Ten days during which the border redrawing was still going on, in addition to other small things, such as a minor reorganization of the police force, the smoking out of one of the last slave trading rings and problems in the numerous Fusion-founded building projects, to only name a few.

The obvious thing at the side was also the whole project of nomination. That was its own set of, sometimes hour long, phone calls and promises, how he could keep these promises, why he would keep these promises, guarantees and compliments going around. All while also playing the two-faced game of calling up Abraham once or twice for a friendly chat.

The thing about those friendly chats was that they were genuinely friendly chats. Both of them were laughing and having a good time. It was a nice change of pace only trumped by sex or general hangouts with his girls. Nevertheless, John stayed course. His scheme was close to fruition and he could apologize all he wanted once the nomination was in place.

At the end of a particularly rough, 18 hour day (Well 15 hours, really, but he refused to let a day pass without at least some grinding), John fell forwards into his bed, his head landing right between Siena’s thighs. “Thick is justice,” he said and put his hands on them.

“Mhm, my kind of thick is indeed,” the nightmare elemental agreed. “What about the thickness of that woman’s head?” She was referring to their last case of the day, a talk with a small time guild leader that insisted on running her district like a socialist commune. John couldn’t agree to that, not only because socialism was an obviously dysfunctional way of government but also on the principle that parts of his democratic union had to be democratic themselves. If he allowed one district to go about it differently, then he would soon be swamped with requests for exceptions that would ruin the whole union thing from the outset.

“No, thigh thickness only,” John stated and used the menu to get out his clothes. He just lay there for a couple of minute, when his girlfriend decided to also fall face first into the bed right beside him. “Hard day?” he asked. Although less intense than her boyfriend’s schedule, Rave had made good on her goal to do work herself.

“People are stupid when I can’t punch them,” her muffled voice reverberated from the mattress, then she turned her neck to look at John. Instead, she only saw thighs. “Nice thick thighs,” she muttered, also beginning to touch them with the remaining energy of a pervert. “Somebody pamper me!” she demanded. “Treat me like a princess!”

“This can be arranged,” Aclysia promised, presenting the two of them with the large oilcloth she always carried with her. The moment Beatrice saw it, she went to the bathroom and fetched some bottles of oil. John and Rave were soon treated to a massage by the household’s two maids, so it wasn’t all bad. As a matter of fact, pretty much all was good, just exhausting with the current workloads.

“Soooooo,” the pink-haired hottie exhaled slowly in a deeply relaxed tone as oiled up hands glided over her back. “How much longer until the nomination again?”

John’s answer had to wait until Aclysia was done with his lower back and a particularly strained spot down there. There was a moment of unpleasantness, then the proverbial knot in his muscles loosened. “Two weeks,” he then groaned in satisfaction. “Things are going well…” he had to readjust his lying position as his growing erection was rubbing rather awkwardly against the oilcloth, “…so far. Chemilia is coming with three of the five generals for a visit, this Friday.”

“That’s one more than we need, right?” Rave asked.

“Yeah… pretty sure Abraham will catch onto things now,” John answered. “You don’t miss four out of five of your army leaders leaving the country. He will get that something is up.”

Siena giggled, “Well, let the fly know the spider is already putting a net around it, why not?”

“I don’t like thinking of myself as a spider,” John grumbled, “but making large schemes like this isn’t exactly a bald-eagle thing.”

And the Gamer also was anything but convinced Abraham was a fly.