The Gamer Chapter 1248 – Common Courtesy (Patreon)

The needle drew blood and the Sylkarion reacted. A violent burst of energy caused the mana-fuelled lamps in the windowless room to flicker and die. Prismatic light emitted from the Sylkarion. Swirls of many different colours began to move and spread out, filling the room with something akin to the polar lights.

The previously separated metals rapidly unified into the semi-translucent display of an alloy of all six elemental extreme metals. Then, the vital green of life rose from Delicia’s skin. Immediately, it was sucked towards the head of the handle. A sound like howling wind accompanied the soul getting sucked out of her body.

Maintaining that pleasing green colour, like fresh grass, a concentrated form of her soul descended on the flat part of the Sylkarion. It had a consistency of a liquid, yet moved in a straight line like some sort of laser beam. The categorization was further muddled when it swung in circles, mimicking a gently tapped pendulum. Gradually, the manifested soul assumed a shape.

Throughout the entire process, Delicia herself was tense. All of her muscles were locked up, her eyes were clenched shut, her lips drawn back in a pained grimace. Having the soul removed from one’s body could not have been a pleasant process, even with a condition that had already loosened it.

Everyone besides Claire watched with some worry, as the process continued. The light started to dim away eventually, as the stored energy diminished. A spherical core had manifested, laid upon the bottom of the Sylkarion – which suddenly changed colours again.

When a chemical procedure reached a tipping point, it could change colours within the fraction of a second. The exact same happened here, with different areas of the Sylkarion assuming the colours appropriate for the six elemental metals. Then, it violently burst apart. The bottom scattered as six cleanly fragmented segments over the table, some of them sailing over the edge. The handle, itself separated, was blown off, thrusting Delicia’s arm upwards with force.

It fell back down aimlessly. The shifted balance nearly caused her to fall over. Nightingale reacted quickly, grabbing the shortstack alchemist moments before she slumped off the couch. One last breath left the body. No new inhale was made. The animating will had left the body and it had surrendered its other purposes in consequence.

Nightingale moved the empty husk of her friend into a stable position. An understandable fear reflected in her eyes, beholding what was, for all intents and purposes, a corpse. Quickly, she moved her attention to the core, which had miraculously remained where the intact Sylkarion had been.

“You should be able to talk to her if you pick it up,” John advised the goddess of the night.

Distraught, Nightingale only nodded in response. With tender care, her left foot picked the core off the table. A moment later, she visibly relaxed. From relief, she immediately went to annoyance. John had to wonder what the bratty woman had said.

Rather than chase an answer, he took the time to help Aclysia and Claire pick up the shards of the Sylkarion. ‘I did not know it would explode like that,’ he conversed with the vampire maid. ‘A warning would have been nice.’

‘They only sometimes do. I have no idea about the conditions though,’ Claire responded.

Inspecting one of the shards, John felt a tad annoyed. Not about Claire’s failure to mention this, but because this meant that this Sylkarion could not be used as a research object. ‘Well, we still have two more,’ he thought and placed the various pieces, including the handle, in the Guild Bank. Then he walked up to Nightingale. “May I?” he asked and gestured towards the core in her clutches. She nodded, and John added his fingers onto the grip. ‘Hello?’

‘Oh, wow, just touching a woman’s soul like that, huh?’ Delicia’s teasing tone echoed in his mind.

‘It’s a very beautiful soul,’ he responded. He couldn’t see more than a quarter of it, but that was enough to make out the universal, verdant green of the no-longer-glowing sphere. At the centre of it was a prismatic dot, that was impossibly prominent no matter what angle the surface was looked at.

‘Yeah… well… thanks?’ Delicia bumbled over her response. ‘Anyway, this is kinda nice. The pain is gone already, so that’s a massive plus. No boobs for you to leer at. You’re super, duper sad about that, aren’t you?’

‘More of an ass man myself, but either is a loss for us all. Guess I’ll just have to hurry and restore you.’

“Are you conversing?” the goddess of the night asked.

“Yes,” John confirmed out loud. He felt Delicia’s consciousness disconnect from his, likely to answer the same question. It seemed that she could only ‘face’ one of them at a time. He let go. “Well, it’ll be easier if you just share what I tell you.” Nightingale nodded and John returned to the opposite couch. “Of course, as we agreed, you’re staying in my Palace for now, my precious songbird.”

“An aspect of our accord,” Nightingale confirmed, letting a smile peek over her dark feathers.

“Security in and around my Palace is of a reasonable level, albeit not as tight as other seats of powers you are perhaps used to.” Raising one hand, he made a circling gesture at the larger environment. “The Guild Hall in its entirety is guarded by various mechanics that should keep malicious elements out. Still, the question is if you want to keep the core in your personal care or if you want to entrust her with me for the time being. I’d put her in my inventory, which makes her inaccessible for anyone but me.”

Nightingale raised her wing fully in front of her lips again. With a neutral expression on her face, she shared this information with Delicia. The two of them likely discussed these options for a little bit. “Delicia wishes to be kept in your inventory. To leave if she pleases has to be a path out.”

“I planned to talk to her once a day anyway,” John assured. “I wouldn’t want her to become too bored.” Approvingly, Nightingale bobbed her head. After a few more seconds, she extended the foot holding Delicia across the table. “You sure you don’t want to keep talking to her?”

“Not now,” the goddess assured and glanced to the side. The husk of Delicia sat there, lifeless and still bearing the marks of her illness. “Not here.”

“Understandable,” John said and took the core. ‘Alright, you should just fall asleep once I put you away,’ he told her. ‘I’ll check with you in an hour to make sure.’

‘It’ll be nice to have a proper rest,’ Delicia responded and let out a yawn. ‘Been a while. Decaying alive is pretty bad for work and sleep rhythm.’

‘You looked pretty fantastic for someone who hasn’t slept well in years.’

‘Daily healing magic treatments and alchemy do wonders for a girl’s skin.’

‘I can believe that.’ John chuckled. ‘Well… until later.’

‘Later,’ she responded whimsically. Their connection broke as soon as he placed her in his inventory.

“Alright then,” John clapped his hands and stood up, “as per Delicia’s request, I’ll move her body to the Apothecaries.”

Nightingale took a long inhale, then an equally long sigh. “As per her request,” she agreed reluctantly. The silent question of who would carry her surfaced in the room. Before John could make any suggestion, the goddess’ feathers dispersed into dark fibres that melded with the shadows in the room. In their place appeared a pair of regular arms, white as the rest of her skin, with purplish black nails.

A bit awkwardly, she loaded the small body of the alchemist onto her back. “Follow me,” John said, wanting to keep this as brief as possible. Neither of them enjoyed carrying a shell around.

Through one teleport, then the other, they made it to the base of the Apothecaries in the Hudson Barrier. Nightingale was outwardly disgusted when she met Medelnick and his overly inquisitive attitude towards the body once he heard what exactly they had brought him. Learning that he was a eunuch made things a little better, but her general reservations remained.

“A creepy organization, through and through,” Nightingale complained, after they had left.

“I always find it interesting that so many Apothecaries seem to be so morally… questionable,” John responded carefully. “Personally, I think it might be because the people that just want to help learn healing magic and then join specific guilds. The Apothecaries seem more interested in gathering knowledge about how healing magic works. Helping is more of a business they engage with to get money and be tolerated.”

“If that is the correct characterization, their organization could manifest malevolence at any time.”

“I’ve got eyes on it,” John assured, while they teleported back to the hub room in the Palace. “You two should get back to your work,” he told the maids.

“As you wish, Master,” Aclysia said and bowed her head.

“I’d rather stay… but your wish is my desire,” Claire followed suit. The two of them stepped onto a different platform and were gone moments later. John did not know what Aclysia wanted to do or show next. He didn’t investigate either. It was pleasant to have some things outside his immediate reach. Particularly, it was pleasant when he could trust whoever knew things he didn’t.

With them gone, he was alone with Nightingale. A fluttering sound accompanied the return of her feathers. Elegantly, she folded her wings. The tips of her outermost feathers crossed behind her head. “Will you show me to my quarters, my suitor?”

“It would be my honour.” John dared to put an arm around her waist. The reception was not outwardly enthusiastic; notable was that Nightingale did not step away or even commented on it. She simply let him lead the way. “I can offer you yet another choice.”

“A gentleman should give a lady choice,” Nightingale commented. The pleased tone of her songstress voice caressed his ears. She sounded even sweeter than usual.

“You can have your quarters here in the Palace or anywhere in the Hudson Barrier,” he explained to her.

“Here.”

“And would you prefer one of the quarters downstairs or do you wish to have your own up here?” he asked. “There is plenty of unused space.”

One floor could make plenty of difference, especially symbolically. “I choose this floor,” Nightingale answered after a short deliberation. “It entertains me to imagine what room you design for me, my suitor.”

“Let’s manifest that entertainment then.” Together, they made their way out of the teleport hub. While keeping his right hand in decent places, caressing the conjured, soft cloth of her leotard, he opened the editor for the Building with his left.

Looking at the barely filled out floorplan made clear just how much space John truly had available. The question was less where he could place Nightingale’s apartment and more how close he wanted to have her. Obviously, the answer was: as close as possible. There were, however, a few things to consider besides proximity to the harem’s quarters.

Once he had chosen a place, guiding her to it was a swift affair. A freshly placed oak door revealed a small, featureless room. The walls were barren, grey stone, the floor wooden boards. The only condition when it came to editing things in the Guild Hall was that nothing outside the system could be in the way. That was why the floor was the only thing John had set in advance.

What a harpy preferred to walk on, the Gamer wasn’t exactly sure about. From what he had seen, Nightingale did not mind anything between stone and carpet. He had chosen wood for no other reason than it being the same as they had in his apartment.

“Let’s start with the layout.” John ran a couple of potential plans through his head, weighing between ambition, necessity, and what he could actually get done in a couple of hours. Considering it was a one person household, he decided not to go overboard. The walls hummed, as the editing tool turned the funds in the Guild Bank into the magic required to enact the changes he made.

“Interesting,” Nightingale commented, gently moving out of his arm and exploring the room as it changed. Doors appeared, one leading to a larger living room, the other to a corridor which opened up into a large balcony.

It wasn’t the first balcony in the entirety of the Palace. Sylph’s and Salamander’s private segments also had access directly to the air. Generally, everyone who could fly, John wanted to have a route that prevented the awkwardness of first landing on the roof or at the base of the Palace. “Fair warning,” John told Nightingale and gestured towards the open wall. “If you don’t close it up, Velka will come visit.”

“How would I close this balcony?” The answer manifested after a few more button presses. A massive panorama window covered the entirety of the wall. With it came a control panel, set into the wall.

“You could do it directly if you were part of Collide, but this will do…” John let his voice trail off, implying a ‘for now’. With a few button presses, he demonstrated how the window could be set to opaque, completely black, or to slide up into the wall above. The resulting three-metre gap was enough for her to perch or sail right in. “I’ll put a sensor on the outside and give you a key for it later.”

They moved to the living room afterwards. An open kitchen was quickly lined out, a neighbouring bathroom established. Last to be added was a bedroom, which was certainly larger than even a goddess could have asked for. The bed John placed in there filled the walls well.

With the general area outlined, the decoration began. Nightingale had definitely liked what he had put together for her in the Sex Dungeon a week prior, so he mixed those elements with what he knew of her home. The sumptuous furniture was fit for the crystal halls of the nobility Nightingale had sung for all her life. While the overabundance of gold and silver fit with European splendour, the line patterns he used in support were more typically associated with Arab fabrics. Red and deep brown dominated the colour selection, with dull yellow and beige working to keep the polished metals around in an almost humble setting.

The final result was a spacious living room that looked best in twilight. Couches dominated much of it, with fern plants located throughout, transforming the room into a jungle of cushions, green, and coffee tables. The kitchen had countertops made from dark stone, marked with light dots that vaguely mimicked the look of the night sky. Everything else about it had a copper colour. Ivy covered the walls, kept in check via the same magic that spawned it. It left patches of the walls completely visible where the patterns were the most expressive.

The neighbouring bathroom was similarly luxurious. Sandstone made up the floor, laid out in unequally sized shards, with grey plaster between them. As was typical, Nightingale was treated to everything a bathroom could need and more. A large shower, two bathtubs (one for solo and one for group usage), a sink with plenty of space, a lounger for massages, a wall-integrated flatscreen, and a toilet in a separate chamber.

Nightingale had everything a bachelorette could have asked for and more. “When your trash cans get about halfway full, a slime will come here automatically. They can’t knock or anything, so I recommend you just leave the doors ajar when you leave for a bit. Typically, they eat all the trash on the floor too… I would recommend you keep cheap keepsakes off the floor, but I think all your stuff is still in Scandinavia?”

“Where it will remain,” the harpy responded in a tranquil tone. Cold as her rage may have been regarding what the Nordic gods had hidden from her, she seemed too happy with her new environment to truly care. With the grace of a lady, she inspected her living room one more time. “A new roost, a new start, material was never my priority.”

John found that remarkable in a way. Personally, he was a very physical person. Not necessarily overly materialistic, but definitely attached enough to many a thing to not leave them behind so easily. He looked at the harpy for a long time, just beholding the fine features of her face. In the twilight, the purple note of her hair was completely swallowed by the darkness, framing her moon-white skin beautifully.

The silence remained for a little while. Her lavender eyes looked curiously at him. They had built her a home, checked on Delicia once in the process (she was fine), and now there was basically nothing to do. “Well,” John spoke up, “you probably want some time to yourself after all that happened.”

He halfway turned around when he felt a tug on his pants. “I do not wish to be alone tonight, my suitor,” she said quietly. Her foot still held onto the lower edge of his pants, her shoulders and head were lowered, her eyes looked up at him. There was a variance of emotions she displayed. John was happy she was comfortable enough around him to show all of them.

To stay after hearing something like that was only common courtesy.