The Gamer Chapter 1391 – On the matter of Blindness and Tea (Patreon)

“Ya ready for this?” Rave rolled her head and shoulders. Clad in her skintight bodysuit, she was as attractive as she was dangerous. Spreading out the fingers of her left hand manifested the hard-light claws. They disappeared when she made a fist. Then flared up again in all their technicolour glory.

Across the courtyard, surrounded by the greyish brown pillars of the monastery-esque building, stood Moira. The Warden of the Golden Rose was weighing her shield and hammer, warming up with her gestures. Hair bound up in a ponytail, she responded only with a stoic, “Always,” before charging straight at Rave.

Shield met claws, creating a shockwave of competing magic and raw physical power. A barrier erected around the courtyard flared up, the force much exceeding what it normally had to deal with. John felt his mana drain into the generator that kept up the protective layer, as the fight began in earnest.

‘Let’s hope this doesn’t take too long,’ he thought and turned his eyes to the seer next to him.

Lorelei stood in her ashen grey, rose-decorated dress, as she usually did. Hands folded in front of her abdomen, expression plain, with a decorating ring wrapped around her head, covering eyes and much of her white-blonde hair. Any need she had, she did not show. It had been five days since the chastity belt had been placed on her. Outwardly, she was in complete control.

At this moment, John wasn’t messing with her either. This was not the place to tease her. Lorelei held her duties to the Order sacred and thus did not enjoy soiling them with acts of lust. An interesting stance, considering what Moira would have to do after the fight.

“Want to bet?” John asked the seer.

“My response will not waver,” Lorelei let him know.

“The usual then.” The Gamer chuckled and let the fight play out.

It was a steady back and forth. Strength versus speed, fortitude versus manoeuvrability, with the only limitation to the two of them that Unleash and Babel Phrases were off limits. The building would be glassed by Rave’s attack and not even John’s mana would keep the barrier up.

It came to an end when Moira landed a devastating hit on Rave’s ribcage. It knocked the air out of the feline Lightbearer, slamming her against the barrier. Before she could get up, Moira placed a boot on Rave’s chest. “That makes it 5 victories and 2 losses,” she declared.

“Ya better ride that high while you have it,” Rave croaked, while the bodysuit stitched her back together. Much to her rising Libido. A difficulty they both faced.

Moira sent a wanton gaze first John’s way, then at Rave and removed her foot. “Shall we find a retreat?”

“Uhh, yeah, about that…” Rave rose to her feet, before she continued. “We kinda decided to no longer do the whole sleeping outside the harem thing, so… no helping each other after the sparring sessions.”

The redhead opened her mouth a gap, then closed it again. Her face was flushing with lust and embarrassment – at least John reckoned that embarrassment at getting rejected was playing into that. “An unexpectedly wholesome choice,” she stated, audibly struggling with something.

Perhaps she was about to ask for an exemption. An exemption John and Rave had considered and discarded. Just like with the Mother of Wind, the rule was worthless if they broke it because there was someone especially desirable around. They needed to be thorough with this.

“Yeeeaaah…” Rave also struggled, biting her lower lip. The post-battle heat was getting to both of them. “So imma… go before ya tempt me too much, Moi-Moi.”

“That would be wise,” the redhead stated and turned away, after giving a friendly nod to Lorelei, to hastily march off to a no doubt private corner of the estate to take care of this the old-fashioned way. Rave hastened to the long distance teleporter and back home, where one of John’s doubles was waiting to take care of her.

The fantasizing part of John was sad that there would be no more lesbian engagements between those two. There was an innate hotness to two enemies turned friends being after-combat fuckbuddies. As for the rest of them, specifically those bits of him concerned with keeping the harem stable, he was relieved their ‘break-up’ had gone that smoothly. He had trusted Rave would be able to do the right thing and it was still good to have it verified.

Of course there was a way here he could have the best of both worlds. Making Moira a haremette came with difficulties he was not sure were surmountable, however. Between the enigmatic workings of her Blessing and her ornery character, it was far from guaranteed she could even be seduced into his lifestyle. To do it just so Rave could continue to have her lesbian sessions was also an insufficient motivation.

All in all, the attempt to add Moira to the harem was doomed from the start, from both sides.

“You contemplate heretical thoughts,” Lorelei let him know.

“And I decided not to sin,” John responded in his defence. “Would it be truly so terrible if I went through with it?” He kept deliberately vague, as they walked deeper into the expansive complex that was the Order’s new base of operations. “You can’t tell me there isn’t at least an element to it that excites you.”

“I wish this to be done for the right reasons. Lust may be a powerful motivator, but it is a bad advisor for long term success,” Lorelei half-dodged the question. “Please do not pursue this line of thought.”

“I genuinely do not plan to,” John assured her.

They continued in silence. The walls echoed with their steps. Sounds bounced off the arches and the stained glass windows. As the months ticked by, the new headquarters of the Order grew further and further in its scope. One could expect that, with the vast majority of their land removed, the Order of the Golden Rose to be drained of their funding. Conversely, the opposite was the case.

The Order was financed from two sources. Secondarily was Fusion’s direct funding, paid out monthly as a part of the federal tax revenue. The exact amount increased and decreased depending on the spending plan parliament put together, but there was a floor that would suffice to finance the Order at the scope that John had found it. Primarily, the Order benefitted from donations.

The religious organization still held great cultural sway in their former territory and had a growing amount of adherents in other parts of the Federation. Both publicly and privately, donations came the way of the Order. Said donations were cash injections they enjoyed that were free from the burdens of administrating said territories. As a military order, they had all the benefits of gathering taxes, without any of the drawbacks of holding land. It was exactly what the Order had wanted.

It also created an entity inside his borders that could become a thorn in his side down the line. Alas, that was the sacrifice of spreading out power. He was at least hopeful that, if he could deal with William, he could deal with whatever future leader there was.

To see the leader of the Order, John was not there today. He and Lorelei instead were going to brood over the records of the Varnik family and do some more research on a cure to her impending blindness. A futile measure, in all due likelihood. There was no reason to believe Scarlett had missed anything. Still, they had no other leads.

All John managed to confirm over the couple of hours he spent there was what they knew already. Inconsistencies between the age at which the second sight of the seers faded were difficult to attribute to anything specific. The records did not have a convenient ledger of levels, frequency and intensity of usage of the ability, and age of fading. Typically, it was a paragraph like this:

‘Maria Varnik, third daughter of Helena Varnik, served the Order of the Golden Rose from her eighteenth birthday onwards. She received the Vision of London’s Filth, leading to the Third Purge of the Thames. She was dubbed honorary head of the family, until her gift faded, following the birth of her third son.’

There was specific intel to be gleaned from this, but it was patchy and different. Taking what John could, he did reconstruct Scarlett’s conclusion that there was, indeed, a connection between raw power and the duration the seers had access to their second sight. There was no entry on any of them keeping them until the end of their life, though. The longest a Varnik had kept the second sight was the specified age of 53. The Varnik in question had lived until the age of 120. In John’s experience, that pointed to a level of about 40.

Lorelei, at this moment, was level 61. She had been level 51 when their relationship began and had slowly grown since. As she was another part of the generation of monsters, her outperforming her ancestors was not surprising. It also meant they had about 30 years to solve this issue. A generous timeframe, certainly, but not one that put him at ease.

Worrying was that, despite that seer living over 60 years past the loss of her second sight, there was no mention of her accomplishing anything else. Did all the seers just surrender to the loss of their sight or did losing it rob them of something fundamental that could be neither restored or replaced? Was there nothing for Lorelei, even in immortality, past her second sight? Would she be a level 1000 person without any notable magic?

John would love her all the same. Even blind and ‘merely’ superhuman, there was plenty she could do. At that age, she would make for a fantastic teacher. Varniks evidently turned into mentors for the next generation when their prophetic powers faded away. Lorelei herself had already stated she was fine with that fate. Whether John failed or succeeded in the endeavour, she would be cared for. He would make certain of that much.

With no new information to show for, John and Lorelei returned to the Hudson Barrier. He and Lorelei separated at that point. He would see her later that day, until then he had some political manoeuvring to do.

The vote for the admission to the Divided Gates had come and passed. With the path of Fusion on the rails he had prepared for it, there were those naysayers that had to be appeased to keep it that way. To take his victory on its face was to let the unmet interests consolidate into a block that would eventually grow powerful enough to push back.

Best to not let that happen.

It was a terribly dull affair of phone calls and being driven around by Claire. The vampire maid had gotten her driver’s license sorted out, which made things easier on that front. “How many more cards do we have?” John asked, while they were in transit between two estates.

“Three, exactly as many as destinations,” Claire responded, humming. “Don’t worry, I got this. I haven’t got much, but I got this.”

“Good,” John responded, too socially exhausted to give her the usual criticism regarding self-degradation. ‘I wonder how many will attend,’ he thought. ‘Brazen of Nightingale to make the first tea party one focused around our opposition. Then again, keeping the opposition from splitting too far from the core is her goal.’

John was looking at an interesting schedule the next few days. There was the tea party tomorrow, then Monday and Tuesday he wanted to spend checking on all of his girls during their daily activities. He did that every now and again. Usually not as concentrated a timeframe, that was the only real difference to the norm. It was proper for him to take a close interest in what his women were doing.

Wednesday was a nice and free day, filled with paperwork and the usual.

Thursday was Nia’s birthday. The pariah had not asked for a celebration and even threatened, in her emotionless way, to just not be around if they made a giant deal out of it.

Friday was when he and Undine would finally go and contact her Mother. It would be a potentially turbulent affair, so John had wanted to make sure things were fine at home first. He neither had an idea what the Mother of Water would want to talk about nor what the consequences could be if she did not like what she heard.

At some point in the near future, he also expected to hear from Romulus regarding the meeting of the Divided Gates and from Maximillian regarding the wedding. He hoped neither was next month, because he wanted to celebrate his own birthday in relative peace. Whether he would make a festival out of it again was up in the air. It stroked his own ego immensely, but it also invited critics to describe him as an egomaniac.

Which was still based in some reality, but he really did not need the bad press. How was he going to keep his absurd approval levels otherwise?

“What’s next on your bucket list?” John asked.

Claire hummed thoughtfully as she turned the corner. “I guess I’ll start decorating that farmstead,” she responded. Responsibility for the Oklahoma property had been transferred to her, as had been talked about previously. It would give Claire all the space she needed to start raising her own crops and animals. “Although I do feel bad I won’t have as much time helping Aclysia…”

“Aclysia finds her primary joy in chores. You have an entire life worth of experiences to catch up on,” the Gamer told her. “Raise a few barn cats, grow a couple of crops, eat your own food – you’ve earned it.” After a short pause, he added, “Besides, someone needs to check on Hailey’s parents every now and again.”

“Siena,” Claire stated. “Siena has to check on Hailey’s parents.”

John scratched the back of his head. “Got me there,” he admitted. It wasn’t like his regular haremettes could just appear at Cid’s place every other day. It would create questions. Due to the location ‘we took our private jet’ would not suffice as the answer. Hailey would have to catch her parents via phone call and Siena would have to invisibly stalk over sometimes to make sure Cid was doing fine. Only on suspicion that his old, stubborn mind made him lie though.

If their health took a turn for the worse, they’d have to deal with that. Otherwise, John was happy to treat them like his other in-laws: He saw them maybe four times a year and otherwise they each lived their lives. If John did more for all of his attached family, he’d be inconvenienced to a bothersome degree. That was even taking into account that most of his harem did not have a direct family.

“We’ve arrived,” Claire told him. “Want me to accompany you?”

“No, this should be over quick,” the Gamer assured and got out of the car.

It took him thirty minutes to deliver the envelope.