The Gamer Chapter 1375 – Turbulence 4 – Names and Refusals (Patreon)

John breathed the summerly air of the Guild Hall for the first time in almost four weeks. The smell was so different from the depths of Oklahoma. Curated by the mechanics of the place, the people that inhabited it, fairies and air elementals, the air was sweet with the fragrance of flowers and clear of the dust that wind steadily blew up in the dry heat. In every direction, there was lush green and clear blue. In the far off distance rose the skyline of the Hudson Barrier’s Manhattan.

It was gradually being replaced. The skyscrapers of concrete, steel, and glass were rebuilt in the image of the Abyss – of Fusion specifically. The Lake Alliance was the most notable influence in architecture, their heavy usage of blue, flowing shapes and artistically flowing water mixing with that neo-Roman style that John found so delightful in early USA architecture. Buildings of marble pillars and hanging gardens, as much artwork as there were places to live, that was John’s vision for his capital. A city was not only a place for humans to dwell, it was a place for humans to flourish. To do so in a concrete desert was impossible.

“Come along, Gregor,” John told the dragon. ‘Still can’t believe he went with that name.’

The dragon uncurled and crawled off the teleportation platform. To cram him into the outpost on the farm property had been difficult, but the central Building was large enough to accommodate the creature. A fortunate turn of events, that the outpost had let them teleport despite him not entirely fitting. To drive him all the way over would have been awkward.

“This is your capital?” Gregor asked and finally some proper awe sneaked into his voice.

“The seat of my political power, indeed,” the Gamer declared happily. “Arranging a place to stay for you won’t be difficult. As a matter of fact, I already have the perfect place.” He gestured around. “I hope you do not mind the river.”

The response to that was one of childish wonder, especially once they had made the trip down to the base of the fortress. For a species that was supposed to live in water, the ponds and creeks that Gregor had inhabited so far were like keeping an eel in a goldfish bowl. It worked, yes, but not for long and it would not make a happy eel.

Gregor dipped his nose in the clear water, then his entire head. Eagerly, he crawled forwards, his serpentine body dragging over the pier. Like a bird about to take its first flight, he shuffled back and forth, until he finally plunged into the water properly. The rippling surface obscured John’s vision, but not enough to lose the large dragon’s descent. The many rivers of the Guild Hall and the Hudson Barrier itself were deep. Deeper, certainly, than what he was used to.

Eventually, the large head of the dragon pushed back through the surface. “I am free to move within these waters?” he asked, with begrudging respect. That was as good as one could get from a dragon.

“Under the condition that you do not bother any of my subjects, yes,” the Gamer reminded him. “And by bother I mean anything between annoying them and eating them. I’ll assign you an instructor in due time to inform you on the Abyss and society in detail. Shouldn’t be hard to find someone willing to teach a dragon.” In any ordered society, there was always a brave and bored academic eager to broaden their horizon. “Until then, explore, stretch your body. Enjoy your space.”

“I will… John,” Gregor slowly submerged himself again.

‘Still can’t believe that he went with “Gregor”,’ John shook his head. That was such a mundane name. Everyone the dragon would run into would think they were taken for a fool. ‘Could at least add something to it. Gregoralstrasz, or something like that.’

‘Is it my turn now?’ Sylph poked his mind. ‘We done with this? We going to see Mother now? Please tell me we are doing this, the anticipation is killiiiiing meeeeeeee!’

‘Yes, we are reporting to the Mother of Wind next,’ responded John, amused. It was just him and her at the moment. Visiting Tempesta was a journey no one else could accompany them on. Therefore, they were awaited back at the farm.

Soft steps carried him back into the building. After a month, the smell inside the Palace was almost nostalgic. The corridors were marked by the soft scent of orange and cinnamon. John had never actively noticed this before. He had lived in this smell for so long, this particular effort of the cleaning maids had passed by his active mind.

‘Makes one wonder what else they’re doing for me while I’m not looking,’ the Gamer thought and ran a finger over the rim of a large pot. The touch left it dirtier than he had found it, the porcelain containing the plant had been polished to completion. ‘What would I do without them?’

Advancing towards the lived areas caused the fragrances of his many girls to gradually mingle into that delightful, sweet mixture that he dwelled in every night. The individual smells were distant notes in the unified, pheromone laden musk. It smelled ‘female’, that was the best way John’s brain could decode that particular sweetness.

‘Wonder how much that smell is contributing to everyone getting the baby rabies… Humans are still hormone guided animals, after all,’ the Gamer thought as he passed by his apartment. A few minutes later, he had made it to the summoning room.

A Cleaning Slime was currently making its round around the room, gobbling up what little bits of dust had gathered since last a maid had come through here. John could discern no difference between where it was going and where it had been. As long as the daily cleanings kept coming, he never would.

The summoning circles were entirely untouched by all of them. Each of them were a specially crafted slab of glass, the circles formed by wire of the respective elemental metals within. It had no effect on the efficiency, chalk on concrete or ink on paper would have worked just as well. To the magic, only the symbols mattered. To John, beauty remained a factor.

Sylph manifested in front of him and landed in the middle of one of the circles. “Alright, hit me, Johnny! It is time to-“

“Wrong circle, Sylph.”

“Oooopsie, doopsie, dooo,” the air spirit chirped and bounced over to the summoning circle with the proper green colour. “Alright, hit me, Johnny! It is time to see what gorgeous little thing I turn into!”

“I doubt there’ll be a great transformation, but we will see,” the Gamer said and knelt down in front of the circle. His magic flowed into the sigils, activating a connection between this realm and the Kingdom of Air. The hand that touched the circle was taken by his arcvolt elemental, as the essence that animated her element in reality dropped through. His soul was pulled along and he let go, leaving his mortal shell kneeling beside the circle.

Always, he was connected to himself. The soul may have been outside, but it did not exist independent of the flesh. To make that cut, John would have needed to go an entirely different route in life. Liches typically did not have a lot of fun with their lower halves.

The mental projection of himself took shape, copying his suited-up self perfectly. Eyes open, he found himself sitting on a cloud. Two steps away, Sylph was bouncing up and down, using the fluffy white as her launching pad. “Ahahahahaha, there’s always so much fun here!” she exclaimed, carefree as ever.

John only realised he was smiling when his lips spread a little further. Sylph always had that effect on him, with her boundless cheer and energy. So, what if she was an airhead? Such infectious joy was worth the sacrifices of being a ditz. “Will she pull us over to her court?” John wondered.

“We’re already there!” Sylph declared and jumped into his lap. Even here, she was weightless, and he caught her effortlessly, like a princess that had leapt out of the window of her tyrannical uncle. Laying in his arms, she giggled, and winked coquettishly up at him. “My dearest dear hero, always a pair of strong arms when this tiny bundle of love needs it.”

“Tiny you may be, but you’d do just fine without me,” John told her.

“No, no, I don’t think I would, because you wouldn’t do fine without me, right, my love?” One arm, then the other, tenderly slung around his neck. “I totally could survive without you, but why not depend on you when you are so wonderfully dependable, hm? Makes totally the most sense to absolutely, totally, whole-beingly give my all to this relationship, yup, yup.”

“Couldn’t have put that any better myself.” John marched in the direction her naked foot pointed towards. Only the cloth and metal ornaments around her ankles provided any kind of decoration, green attached to gold, evoking the feeling of wind and stylized lightning.

Firmly, he followed her instruction, even when that instruction sent him stepping into a cloud pillar. It parted around them, turned into a fog that enveloped them, until the Gamer’s foot landed on stone. Swiftly, the mist dispersed and he ascended up the flower decorated stairs of Tempesta’s court.

Around him were jungle plants and crystals, interweaving with clouds, all serving as rest or as obstacles for the many races going on around them. Various sizes of humanoids, birds, insects, and all manner of other creatures were fluttering about, hovering or dashing, sitting and drinking wine. All around him was chatter, weaving together into a symphony of incredible scale. The buzz of a large city, following an underlying melody, steps and words and fluttering wings all occurring in accordance to a greater whole.

A wall of fluffy white separated John from the true court. Confidently, he strutted through, and found himself beholding a great dance. Little air elementals, formed like musical notes, were flying above an orchestra, forming the sheet of the participant’s work as they continued with it. The dancers were many and many among them did not appear to be air elementals. John spotted fae and elementals of all other kinds.

Tempesta herself was twirling, hand in hand with a dark-haired, brown-skinned man. Everything about him made John think of dark pine, although he could not quite say why the butler’s outfit made him consider that. The long, green hair of Sylph’s elemental mother spiralled around the two of them, until her eyes spotted John.

With one more turn, she separated from her dancing partner and clapped her hands. That was all that the elemental mother needed to do. The dancers vanished one by one, whisked away by either her power over the domain or their own might. In the span of five seconds, the entire ball was dissolved, only the musicians remained.

In a dress of bright green, Tempesta hovered backwards, to the gargantuan flower that served as her bed, her podium and her throne. The amber eyes of the woman that looked like Sylph’s time-travelled identical twin stayed on her newly arrived guests. “Oxygorn?”

A deep sigh reverberated from the animated, red armour. “My lady, we have introduced you to them previously.”

“You read the first page and only the first page! That was the compromise at the time, now read the second page, you can stay with the second page. Come on, we don’t have all day, don’t make the entire realm wait for you!”

The tormented assistant of the Mother of Air sighed again. He could have sighed for three eternities and still not have exercised half the frustrations he felt, John reckoned.

“You stand before Lady Tempesta, Mother of the Wind. First of Sylphs, The Banner of the Fae Knights, Plunderer of the First Bakery, Sister-Sister of Titania, Queen of the Rolling Thunder, Servant of the Temporary Order, Negotiator of Realms, Executioner of the First Foe, Laughing Scythe, The Pollinator, Carrier of Life, The Unburdened, Weightless Perfection, The Cookie Jar, The Inventor of Discordwine, Winner of the 2018 Mario Party Tournament, Bane of Electrical Grids, Edison’s Smile, Voltage, The Heiress of Three Realms, The Knife that Parts Fate, The Forbidder of Prophecy, The Lustful Laughter, The Hare that Maddened the Moon, Endless Delight, The Good, The Gooder, The Beautiful, The Manic Butcher, The Thunder of the Borders, The Discordant, The First Mother of Wind of Air and of Tempest, The Tempest, The Sixth of Six Weapons of the Supreme Deity, Friend to the Grummels, Kneader of the Largest Breasts, The Uncatchable, She who is as Free as Thought, The Middle of Balance, The Fuel of Wrath, The First Warning, The Last Delivery, Awaiter of a Package from the 14th of September 1999, Significance Intangible, The Hearthstone of this Realm, Forger of Open Bracket Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker Close Bracket, Vortex of Breath, Cyclone of Assurance, Vacuum Mouth, and the First Seat of the Conclave of the First Winds.”

“…Was the second page always that short?” Tempesta asked.

“We are in the process of rearranging your titles,” Oxygorn responded. Whether that was the truth or a cheap excuse, John could only guess.

“Hmm, fine, whatever, good enough, I guess. Alright, John! My dear Sylph!” The Mother of Air beckoned them closer. “Come to me. Gaia has told me you have done as I asked. The hurricane dragon is safe?”

“Swimming in the waters of my Guild Hall – Perhaps some of your children will see him soon.”

“Eeeh?” Tempesta leaned her head to the side and let out a disappointed sound. “Another boy? I really wanted a girl dragon this time around… Urgh, fine. Oxygorn send… hmm… who to send…?”

“Sullyvan would be available.”

“Sullyvan is banned from my domain,” John reminded them immediately. The elemental had molested his Sylph months ago and he would never forgive that transgression.

“Yeah, Oxygorn, silly Soxygorn,” Tempesta babbled. “Send… I dunno… send Velemeras. Right now.”

“As you wish, my lady,” the red armour bowed and marched off. John watched him disappear in the wall of clouds around the heart of the court. Suddenly, everything was silent. When he turned his head back, the orchestra was gone.

“Bring her here,” Tempesta purred, sitting on the yellow cushion of plant matter at the heart of her red flower. It was just them now. Once John and Sylph were before the elemental mother, she gestured for Sylph to be placed down before her. “You have fulfilled my task. A favour has been fulfilled and thus a recompense is given. I weave into you, daughter of the wind, the strength of this realm. Let it be all that you can be.”

John took a step backwards, when strings of green suddenly swirled around his air spirit. They melded directly with her skin, pierced it and joined the rest of her being. Unlike previous tier increases, John neither had a choice nor did Sylph dissolve into her components. It was a strengthening of what she was, not a reassembly of her entire essence.

“POOF!” The sound directed John’s eyes down to Sylph’s hips. Above her cute, compact and round butt was a cute, compact and round tail. A little puffy thing, only more than a fluffy decoration thanks to the lively little vibrations that went through it. Bright green, it matched Sylph’s hair and leotard.

Catching something else forming in the corner of his eye, John raised his eyes. Rapidly a pair of long, upright ears was woven from the flowing strings of green energy. They connected above her temples to her head, were extensions of her hair as much as her cuteness: big bunny ears, like elongated spoons, with pale pink insides. They turned, they twitched, they relaxed into two floppy, dangling bits and then shot right back upright.

“Oh, these are funny!” Sylph declared, still experimenting what she could do with her newly acquired bunny features. “How do I look, how do I look?” she asked, turning to John.

Aside from the additions, she was unchanged, so there was only one answer, “Like the bestest concubine.”

“Hehehe,” Sylph giggled, her ears flopping left to right as she waved side to side in a happy little dance.

John, as a connoisseur of ‘monster girls’, was immediately smitten with these new ears. Much like Rave’s cat ears, the big spoons were not in the way of anything and just added a flavour of adorable to an already deadly cute creature. A bunny also just fit Sylph, little speedster that she was.


‘Hmm, no apparent Stat bonus,’ John thought. The scaling was unchanged, so whatever the benefit of this was must have been related to things that could not be proclaimed with raw power.

“Hmm, can I…?” she thought out loud and the ears and tail suddenly disappeared. “Gotta surprise everyone with them!”

“You make a most adorable volt bunny,” Tempesta purred. “Now, for the second part of your reward… something the matter?”

John cleared his throat, trying to be as diplomatic in his body language as possible. “I… and my harem… recently decided we will stop sleeping outside our group,” he stated. “Flattered as I am that you, Mother of Wind, would offer it, I must therefore decline.”

“Hmmm, hmmmm, hmmmmmm?” Tempesta hummed an enigmatic smile on her lips. “Is that so, you do not wish to devour me, Gaia’s executioner, one of the most powerful beings of all in existence? One of the most… delicious treats any man could have?” She seductively crossed her legs. “You wish to deny yourself this?”

“No.” John gulped. “But I will do it anyway.”

“Oxygorn!” the Mother of Air shouted.

“Yes, my lady?” the red armour suddenly stepped out of the surrounding clouds again.

“Add ‘Rejected by the Newman’ to my titles.”

“At once, my lady.”

“Is that appropriate?” Sylph asked and John was thankful that she was as confused as he was.

Resting her chin on her palm, Tempesta smiled at the two of them. “I decide what is appropriate in my realm and I just so decided I’ll add this to my titles. It is not everyday that I get refused and am content with it.” She hummed a little song. “I do not lack for partners to be had and neither do I lack for happily contracted daughters. Either getting bolstered in number is a boon to this mother.” She clapped her hands and suddenly the music creeped back into place. “With this, then, your affair here is concluded and I have a dance to host. You should seek out the Mother of Shadow next.”

“Thanks for being the best!” Sylph hugged her elemental mother deeply and received a maternal head pat in response. “Really, the bestest of the bestest moms.”

“Of course,” Tempesta giggled. “That’s me.”