The Gamer Chapter 1270 – Gala Date 1 – Gathering the Ladies (Patreon)

“This is going to screw considerably with my sleep schedule,” John asserted.

“When you lie in bed, you rarely get to sleep anyway,” Siena whispered back to him. She, Claire, Undine and Eliana were currently in the living room with him. Aclysia was in the kitchen, cleaning the plates from the quick lunch he had eaten. Given the hour, it was more of a second breakfast. “Your turn, Claire.”

“Sure, just say that after putting a ‘Draw 2’ down,” Claire grumbled, checking her hand. The four of them were playing UNO. A goddess of genocide, a water spirit, a midnight elemental, and a vampire maid were playing UNO. That sounded like the set-up for a very unorthodox joke, but it was just a regular Monday morning in the Newman household.

Even superhuman haremettes had to indulge in simple games. That they did it nakedly changed nothing about the casual atmosphere. Sure, there was more intimate touching than between normal friends, but otherwise it was just UNO, with all its trials and tribulations.

“I know it’s stupid to ask, but I can’t put a ‘Draw 4’ on a ‘Draw 2’, right?” Claire wanted to know.

“Yes, you fucking can.” “No.” Eliana and Undine answered simultaneously. The two exchanged a glare.

“We have been over this,” the abysstide elemental asserted.

“We’ve been over fucking everything and I’m telling you that the official shitting rules are dumber than the idea of building robot beavers to regulate the mood flows of your liquid ass.”

Siena snickered. “That you would ever tease someone about their mood swings.”

“Fuck you and fuck your discrimination of my damaged ass, you succubus looking fat ass slut.”

“Thank you for the compliments. I do so adore your thighs,” Siena returned, unperturbed.

“Cunt waffle.”

Claire hummed, sorting her hand by something, probably colour. “What would a cunt waffle taste like? I hear that’s not as delicious a flavour outside these walls.”

“Fuck if I know, only pussies I ever ate were in this harem and everyone around is some kind of magical supermodel that’s three times sexier than me.”

“Hey,” John interrupted their banter. “Don’t make me come over there and cuddle you into self-appreciation, you adorable thing you. I don’t have the time right now.”

“I mean, I can do it for you, Master,” Claire offered and put her folded stack of cards upside-down on the table. “Come here, breeding sow one.”

The part of the Couch Eliana sat on elongated backwards, as she crawled away. “Get the fuck away from me, you actual vampire bitch!” she shouted. “Even if you use appropriate titles for me, I don’t want to cuddle your ass.”

“Do you really not?” Claire asked, smiling charismatically. “Come on, be honest.”

John noticed a tiny flash in the vampire’s red eyes. A spark of magic visible thanks to his keen senses and the enchantments of his contact lenses. It should have been beyond simple for Eliana to resist the mesmerizing effect of the vampire’s gaze. Claire had grown immensely more powerful without the help of John – or Eliana was just letting it happen.

“I want to cuddle,” the blood mage responded in the tranquil tone of the hypnotized.

“That’s a fellow good girl,” Claire hummed and put her arms around Eliana. They were in the middle of snuggling, when the vampire maid turned her head and found a second body of Undine staring directly at her. When Claire tilted slightly to the side, so did the second Undine. “What might the matter be? What may be the reason you block my view? What are you doing watching but not cuddling?”

“I’m not letting you spy on my cards.”

“Whaaaaaat, nooooooo!” Claire let go of Eliana to raise her hands like a criminal surrendering to the police. “I would never do such a dishonourable thing, I totally wouldn’t.”

“You have a taste for victory,” Undine commented.

“She has a taste for a great many things.” Siena snickered. “Body fluids, mostly.”

“Which brings us back to the cunt waffle question,” Claire tried to divert.

“Go back to your seat,” Undine demanded.

Sighing, Claire obliged and backed off Eliana, who snapped out of her trance as easily as she had entered it. “Did you look at my fucking cards, you deceiving bitch?”

“And what if I did?” Claire asked with a wink over her shoulder.

“I’d be fucking proud of you.”

“Thank you, breeding sow one.”

“Hear that?” Eliana turned to John. “That’s how you talk to me, you limp-dicked, unmarried, childless asshole!”

“Huh, three insults that are actually true, two of which kind of hurt.” John checked on the contents of his pants. He was, indeed, limp-dicked at the moment, but that could have changed if he looked at any of the four, or all of them together, for more than three second in certain ways. Just considering doing that made his underpants a little tighter. Considering he had somewhere to be, he chased the thoughts away. “Well, I can fix all three whenever I want.”

“When?” Eliana asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay, that’s respectable… but when though?” Eliana insisted to know.

“I don’t know, I just said.”

“Yeah, I fucking heard you, but when though?”

John just closed his mouth. ‘I wonder if she and Jane closed some kind of pestering deal,’ he thought. “Anyway, I’ll leave you with these three for the day. Just hang out, maybe watch Siena do her ‘work’.”

“There are so many better uses for your fingers than to put that in air quotes,” Siena chimed in. “Besides, since you haven’t brought back Gnome or Stirwin yet, I have to actually do some organizing of my kind.” She winked towards Undine. “Not that I think there’ll be a lot for me left to do after our zealous slime had her shift.”

Claire plopped back down next to Siena. Openly, she tried to catch a glimpse of the shadow spirit’s cards. Prepared, the midnight elemental held them close to her chest. “Are you always that lazy?” the vampire maid asked.

“I’ve known you for a day, and you already insult me deeply.”

“I know, I know, I have no idea about social cues, it’s terrible,” Claire gave a playful apology. “I’ll try, and fail, to do better, because that’s just what I do.”

“Fuck off,” Eliana growled.

Siena giggled. “Translated that means that she is jealous of how charismatic you are.”

“I’m about as charismatic as a Craggler.”

“…You will have to tell me what that is.”

“Oh, you don’t have those here? It’s a three-metre-long worm that eats people and has acidic blood.” Claire’s expression shifted into a dark grin. “One of the few larger animals Arkeidos let run around, may his soul burn forever, if it can.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” John announced. He had been staying way longer than he wanted anyway, just because the banter was that entertaining. “I would say to not be too mean to the newcomer, but it seems she has learned well to gang-up on Eliana. Siena, come on.”

“Why am I the one people gang-up anyway, huh?!” The blood mage kicked the table in her impotent rage. “You all do remember I could fucking tear you limb from limb, yeah?”

“You’re just so bulliable,” Siena confessed and sighed. She put her cards back into the deck. “I would prefer it if Gnome were around, but you did nicely.”

“Can’t we fucking haze Claire?” Eliana asked, while Siena disappeared in John’s shadow.

“I don’t think I make for good bullying.” Claire tapped her chin, as she thought. “I don’t have all of those delicious reactions you do. It’s like you’re asking to be teased with how much you scream about hating it.”

Undine nodded.

“Oh, just fuck all of you! And draw your 2 already!”

“Hm? Sorry, I had a ‘Draw 2’ myself the entire time, silly me.”

Eliana shouted, “I HATE HOW PROUD I AM OF YOU, YOU TOTAL BI-“

The door closed behind John, reducing the shouting, laughing and talking to a general blend of muffled noise. They quickly lost themselves in the sound-proofing of the Palace, while John walked away. ‘Guess the chaos club has a new member,’ he thought, humming a little tune to himself.

Nightingale’s door was ajar, like usual. An open invitation both for the Cleaning Slimes and John. Soon, he gave a warning knock on her living room door, before pushing it inside.

The night goddess awaited him in a stunning white dress. Black rims prevented the fabric from melding too much with the pale colour of her skin. Deep purple sigils of the moon in various phases of waxing and waning decorated the space between her under bust and groin. The skirt was three-layers of white, cut in a waving chiffon style. It continued all the way to her ankles, but was translucent enough that one could see the black of her bird legs through them. Her thighs were completely hidden, as was her back. Of her bust, a hint of the sides was visible. The cut-out around the shoulders was larger than on most dresses, in part to accommodate her wings.

“Do I meet the required elegance?” Nightingale asked, rustling with her plumage to accentuate herself.

“You far exceed it,” John responded. “Next to you, I probably look like a walking barrel.”

“Perhaps. You meet my standards, however.” Nightingale took measured steps towards him, stopping in arm’s reach. “Shall we, my suitor?” she asked.

“Gladly,” John said and gestured for her to take the lead. He left the doors ajar, as he had found them, and put his arm around her waist the moment they were in the corridor. As a gentleman, he had to hold his lady and a harpy had no way to hook into his arm. It was, therefore, the only decent way to walk, no matter what anyone said.

Swiftly, they made their way to the outside, where the proper Transport Station was waiting for them. A flash of light teleported them from the near-noon Guild Hall to the evening of Berlin.

The weather was intensely different. Where the Guild Hall was in the eternal, artificial state of mid-summer (and a hot one at that), Berlin and the majority of the Abyssal world were tied to mundane weather. It was early April, so spring was on its way in. Still, it was, at best, 10 degrees Celsius. The sky was mildly cloudy and darker. The sun would set here in less than two hours, where New York got another ten.

‘Really puts the distance travelled into perspective when the sun is in an entirely different position,’ John thought and looked around. They were by a small house. Small, in comparison to the Berlin Palace and the nearby mansions of the Abyssal aristocracy, that was. It was of azure blue colour, could easily fit a family of six and a press staff, and even had its own garden. This had once been used by Lydia’s grandfather to ‘banish’ foreign diplomats he didn’t like from his estate without causing uproar. Now it was an official exclave of Fusion, a necessarily owned piece of property on which he had placed the long-range teleporter. “Yo, Metra!”

The shout was answered by some movement inside the house. Flying open, the entrance gave way for the First of Wrath. Rather than her usual, exceedingly skimpy outfit, Metra wore a suit of the stereotypical security staff design. She even rocked the black sunglasses. “Everything’s clear around here,” she reported, making an OK sign with her right hand.

The date was between John, Lydia and Nightingale and they planned to keep it that way. Courtesy of his low mana regeneration, the Gamer had insisted on some additional safety measures though. They came in the form of Metra as a physical and Siena as a covert bodyguard. Beyond that, there were all of the teleport cooldowns that could be used in an emergency.

“Fantastic,” the Gamer answered and continued on. Professionally, Metra kept her distance. She really did love this line of work, although John could sense she would be happiest with it if someone actually tried to assassinate him. That, or any other excuse to have a brawl.

The trio crossed the lawn and made their way to the Berlin Palace.

In terms of a seat of old European royalty, it was an atypical design. Fundamentally, it was a lying rectangle, with barely anything in terms of towers, large gates, or whatever else was commonly associated with palaces. It more closely resembled a supremely decorated apartment building, occupying an entire block. The equally spaced-out windows were of moderate size, the roof flat, and the stone of a simple light beige colour.

What marked it as a house of wealth was the single dome tower that extended above the main entrance. The gate was supported by four Roman columns, and statues of metal and stone were embedded in and stood atop the walls.

The Berlin Palace looked humble for a palace – but it most certainly was still a palace. What it did not project on its own, the magnitude of the green space around it and the buildings created in its territory imposed.

John only knew how the front entrance looked from memory and saw the dome loom over the rim of the back of the building. There were more roman columns at this side, but the gate was simple wrought iron. As a regular visitor, the Gamer was waved through without issue. Here and there, he caught flickers in the air. The Knights of Teuton, Lydia’s inherited bodyguards, in their camouflaging armour.

Focusing, John easily pierced the illusion of their invisibility with the passive aspect of Observe. He waved, covertly, at the fully plated man. He spelled the words ‘Deus Vult’ in the air with illusionary light magic in return. John chuckled; this was far from unusual. He had out scaled their camouflage a while ago and greeting each other this or similar ways had essentially become tradition.

About two minutes later, John was led into Lydia’s quarters by one of the many servants of the estate. Soft, steady music echoed from the neighbouring room.

Lydia sat at her piano, for once playing it with her hands. Eyes closed, the stern woman concentrated on the music, swayed wherever the notes took her. Her copper braid was rolled up into a high bun, secured with a golden needle. She wore a dress of white and black. Unlike Nightingale’s, Lydia’s dress had a balance of both colours, and had been chosen not for an aesthetic overlap with her features, but because they were the colours of her house.

The dress itself was more daring. The back was uncovered, the chest a piece that stretched from her waist to her neck, where it was secured as a collar. There was both side-boob and cleavage to see. Her skirt was long and flowing, the feathers of eagles decorating the lower rim. John did not need to look underneath it to know that she was wearing the whole set of garter belt and stockings. It would not have fit her to skip them, especially when she was wearing white gloves that went all the way to her shoulders.

“You arrive, my love,” Lydia noted, still playing her piano. She opened one eye to briefly look at the clock. “Ten minutes early, remarkable.”

“I didn’t want to put pressure on you.”

“I do wish you would be considerate like that at all times,” she responded, a slight smile playing around her lips. “I will conclude this piece then.”

“I would be honoured to hear,” Nightingale said.