The Gamer Chapter 1579 – Birthday John 3 – Group 2 (Patreon)

“Well, that is a mixture of usual and unusual.” John’s eyes drifted over the group that greeted him, Momo and Hailey on their return. Undine and Salamander stood next to each other, one elemental making bad jokes and the over nodding solemnly. Next to them, deliberately staying in the shadow of the Palace, were Claire and Nightingale. Lastly, Metra stood a little bit off to the side, smiling to herself.

John stopped a few metres away, to let the girls tag each other out. Momo quickly told them what they had done (which really came down to taking a long walk and chatting all the while), then headed inside to join everyone else. Then, the Gamer crossed the rest of the distance.

“How about we take this inside?” he offered, for the benefit of the vampire first and foremost.

“Yesssss,” Claire hissed and glared up at the sky. “Suck it, daystar!”

“A rather obnoxious entity,” Nightingale agreed, while they went back into the Palace.

The rather immense entrance hall greeted them in all of its splendour. Two of Nathalia’s golems flanked the spot where the throne had been. John tried not to pay attention to that. It was the strategically sound spot for the mixture of warden and servant those golems presented to stand. Rather than the multi-layered alcoves in the back, leading into the individual segments of the Palace, they headed for one of the side corridors. Under their feet, warm water flowed through glass veins through the marble ground. Up above, banners of woven midnight and decorations of glowing rock underlined the massive dome that depicted Fusion’s symbol.

The adjacent corridor was much less imperial in its decorations. Dark wooden walls and a deep red carpet, leading to one of the many, many rooms that had previously made up the majority of the lower floor. Now they just swam somewhere in the dimensional aether, confined by the Palace walls.

The corridors were borderline labyrinthian. This was an old feature of the area. By design, the rooms were difficult to find and distinguish. After all, this was where the backroom deals were supposed to be made – or where one could have a nice whiskey in peace, away from current ongoings.

They entered a chamber that was large enough for their current group. “Not exactly what I thought about for a date, but this works,” Salamander stated as she plopped down on the ebony furniture.

John went for one of the many cabinets. “Almost a shame to even touch these glasses,” he lamented, pulling the perfectly polished crystal out of the shelves and moving them to the table.

“We polish them to sparkling perfection for your glory, my Master,” Claire stated.

Salamander cackled. “Miss Sycophant over here, thinking she’s hot shit.”

“Your judgement pearls off me like moonlight reflects off my pale skin, Sally, for I have already found all I care about,” Claire answered with a carefree smile. “Imagine, if you will, that doing things for John is for me like putting things on fire is for you.”

“Man, if burning things was a person, I’d be all over that,” Salamander pondered loudly. “No ice for me,” she told John, when he offered to drop a cube in her glass.

“Remember when you couldn’t even be in water?” Undine asked.

“Remember when Sylph used to divebomb into you with fizzy tablets?” Salamander returned.

Metra giggled, letting John pour her a double serving of whiskey. “That was literally yesterday,” she stated, swirling the golden liquid in her glass, then took a scent test. “Sylph barely ever changes, does she?”

“For the – and don’t ever let her know I said that – better.” Salamander tapped the side of her glass, igniting and then swiftly extinguishing the alcohol fumes repeatedly. “It’s good to have that bedrock of happiness around.”

“Cheers to that,” John said.

“And cheers to you,” Nightingale added. Everyone but her raised their glasses. The harpy sucked on her straw to partake in the wine. Whiskey was a bit strong for this method of drinking.

They put their drinks back down and John investigated whether one of the cabinets had any kind of snacks. They did and he brought back wholegrain tortilla chips. Not the traditional kind of crisp to partake in, but Aclysia insisted they were far better for his health and whether it was corn, grain, or wholegrain hardly mattered to the taste. That was all the sour cream dusting doing the work.

“Anything non-John you want to talk about, Claire?” Salamander kept teasing the vampire maid.

“Want to talk about? Not really,” she answered, then leaned back in her chair. “Although I suppose I can oblige you and talk about less interesting stuff. What’s your favourite class in Pathfinder?”

Salamander was so taken aback by the sudden question that Nightingale was the first one to speak up, “Where does this question stem from?”

“I was considering setting up a campaign,” Claire answered. “Your regular video games are entertaining, but I find the practice of imagining worlds for the purpose of posing to yourself moral questions that little bit more intriguing.” She paused for a moment, then grinned. “Or you can be a murder-hobo.”

“Always murder-hobo!” Salamander declared. “I’d be a warrior or something like that and just rob people fucking blind!”

Undine shook her head. “So unsophisticated.”

“What would you be, slime queen?” Salamander asked challengingly.

“A noble barbarian.”

“Fuck off, really?”

Undine tilted her head one way, then another. “Perhaps more of a paladin?” she wondered. Her golden eyes locked on Salamander’s. “It is no secret that I am not entirely happy with my lot as a healer. I’d like to live out some alternative fantasies. Is that not what that is for?”

“…Is it going to sound super asshole-y if I say that sounds like I just want to live more of my best life and you want to live something you think is it?” Salamander asked.

“Yes,” Undine answered. “Although I understand your best intentions.”

“Thank fuck you’re the patient one.”

“Still not happy with your role in combat?” John asked, a little concerned. Undine becoming a pure healer had been the reason why she had forced her own evolution and gotten herself corrupted during the tournament of German succession. Back then that could have been solved with communication, something Undine used to be borderline allergic to and still struggled with at times. Today… well, maybe the Advanced Class for Elementalist would hold a reset, but otherwise Undine was stuck as she was now.

“I am content,” Undine answered and tried the swift route of impressing her emotions on him via the mental route. He pushed those efforts back. Letting her get away with just projecting her current thoughts as feelings and images was what had led to their communication issues in the first place. “I am fine with… where I am,” Undine answered reluctantly, actively putting her thoughts into words. “I just wonder often where I could be. I think being introspective and doubtful is just part of who I am.”

“You do look the part,” Metra joked.

“Hey,” Nightingale let out a displeased sound on behalf of her fellow goth. “Your correctness is no excuse for such directness.”

“Are you just as bad when it comes to doubting yourself?” John wondered. Admittedly he hadn’t known Nightingale for that long a time, but they had been together for over two months now, excluding the time dilation, and he thought he had as good a read on her as he should have. If he still did not have her major traits on lockdown, at least, that would have been a serious sign that the bloat was more than a little real.

Nightingale exchanged a contemplative glance with Undine. “I don’t think so… Such concepts are difficult to measure.” She turned back to the Gamer. “A woman of my stature and looks does not turn 31 and a virgin without self-doubt involved.”

“You seemed quite certain when it came to me,” the Gamer said with a smile.

“There is a point when even the most demanding of goddesses accepts she cannot do better,” Nightingale answered plainly, then raised a wing to elegantly hide her dark-lipped smile. “Flatter yourself, my patriarch, you do know how to coax along the indecisive.”

John hummed, pleased, and sipped on his drink. Nightingale’s indirect confession that she went with him in part because of his status and power was neither new nor surprising. Why wouldn’t those things play into being attractive? He had earned them, after all.

‘Granted, I earned something other people can’t even take a shot at,’ he reined in his ego a little bit. “Interesting that some stereotypes have a foundation.”

“I believe stereotypes regarding assumed roles are fair,” Nightingale stated. “Be it goth, maid, punk or religious fundamentalist, you have decided to wear a uniform that attracts a set of character traits. Stereotypes will be more reasonable in that situation.”

“As compared to stereotypes based on innate characteristics such as left-handedness, skin tone, eye colour, and so forth,” John nodded, “I do agree with that.” He noticed Metra humming. “You don’t?”

“Eh, I don’t disagree fundamentally,” Metra answered. “When you’re as old as me and see so many different people, you start to wonder how much is culture and how much runs deeper within a people. You have this modern science thing – genetics, right?”

“Right?” John asked.

“I’ve just noticed that some tribes were notably faster and others more aggressive. Again, no fucking idea how much of that is influenced by that.”

“I’d say more than 0, less than 50 percent,” John answered with a shrug. “I’m happy to believe that certain pockets of humanity are more prone to certain traits than others, especially if they were isolated for a long time. I personally believe culture has a bigger impact, but it doesn’t really matter either way. Except things get a lot more complicated when we step out of the mundane…”

“Humanity, for all their different permutations, is still generally similar,” Claire said with a nod. “Then, however, you have the Lorylim….”

“Which, so far, have not shown to have a single redeemable individual among them,” John finished the thought. “Putting even that extreme case aside, we can look at harpies.” Nightingale tilted her head. “You’re way hornier than average women.”

“Are we?” Nightingale raised one of her finely swung eyebrows.

“Didn’t you say all of you at your school had at least one dildo lying around that you would practice on?” John waited for a moment, then scratched the back of his head. “Maybe I don’t know enough about how horny the average woman is, but that feels like a bit more than average for high schoolers.”

“I suggest we are more honest about our desires.”

“…Maybe…” John relented. “…Easier example then, you’re infinitely more prone to supporting polygyny.”

“This is established fact,” Nightingale agreed readily.

“Why is that?” Claire wondered. She must have been one of the few harem members who hadn’t asked that before.

“I will regale you with the extended tale another time. The summary is that the ancestors of the civilized harpies used to be plain to ugly. We endeared ourselves as additional wives through song and oral favours.”

“Okay… I don’t quite understand why not only wives though? Certainly some harpies have to get a man first and then love would do the rest, right?” Claire continued to ask.

“Such attempts would lead to issues within a few generations. Harpies only birth other harpies.”

“Ah, so, if you were taking the men for yourselves, within a few generations, there’d be way too many harpies flying about, with way too few men from the ever-fewer ‘normal’ pairings to match.”

Nightingale nodded. “Thus leading to the harpies either becoming parts of those normal relations, assuring their patriarch also had male offspring for harpies of other families to pair with down the generations or…” she made a sour face, “…humans historically did not have this issue, but your women are perfectly capable of exterminating a threat to their limited supply of viable partners.”

“Heavy to think about,” John thought. “Couldn’t have happened that frequently, right?”

“No, it did not,” Nightingale agreed with a relieved sigh. “Us civilized harpies majorly fell into the position as additional lovers naturally. Thus, the issue arising is rare and it turning violent even rarer.”

“Its way easier to apply stereotypes to us Abyssal creatures because we’re fleshmade fucking thoughts, or something like that.” Salamander pulled the talk back a bit.

“Even then one should consider though,” John stated. “I mean, air elementals have a really justified reputation…” everyone around the table nodded, “…and yet such beings like Oxygorn also are air elementals.”

“…Yeah, that’s fair,” Salamander stated.

“Regardless of nature, you can read much more of a person from the way they choose to display themselves than what they are,” Undine summarized their talk. That found universal agreement. The slime lady then turned her attention to something else. “Does that even do anything for you?” A strand of her hair pointed at Claire’s whiskey glass.

“Fascinatingly, yes,” the vampire answered. “Although it could just be a placebo in my case. I was human, after all.”

“Did you get to drink alcohol when you were still human?” John wondered. “I thought it was all… Mettle.” He still hated to call the nourishing gas by that name, considering it doubled as addictive poison.

“Yes, it was all Mettle, why?” Claire asked.

“Ah… what do you think placebo means?”

“An emotional or physical state induced by the belief that an ingested substance or act causes that emotional or physical reaction in one’s body,” Claire rattled down a fairly accurate definition. “I believe I am getting drunk, therefore I am.”

“Right, I get that part… Why did you mention that you were human at some point though?”

“Yeah,” Metra weighed in, “you never once got drunk in your life, how the fuck would you have anything to compare your placebo to?”

Claire tapped her chin, then shrugged. “Yeah, I dunno, I suppose I slipped up there in my expectations.”

“Dork,” Metra giggled and finished her drink. She had been the one with the most in her glass and was still the one that poured her second drink the earliest. “From my experience with alcoholised metals, I can definitely say that this works.”

“That presents an interesting question,” Undine thought out loud. “Are you now capable of being poisoned?”

“I think alcohol works because alcohol is the most common drug ingested all around the Earth. In other words, there’s a bit of Faith in this spirit. You might even call it a holy spirit.” He raised his glass. Only Salamander honoured the bad pun with a toast. Both of them downed the rest of their whiskey.

John shuddered as the warmth of the high-quality liquor ran down his limbs. If alcohol had just been a standard poison, then it should have affected him barely or not at all. “That shifts the question to whether you can poison people with alcohol, no matter their level,” Undine contemplated.

“This is a date!” Salamander suddenly stated, while pouring herself a second glass. “Why are we talking about all of this dark shit?”

“The big-tiddy punk said, with a giant grin on her face,” Metra mocked.

Salamander shrugged, making her prominent chesticles bounce. “I don’t know, I like dark shit.”

“I think you’re in good company in that regard,” John noted. His eyes drifted over the broody slime, the ancient weapon, the vampire from a lich-led tyranny, and the goddess of the night, only to jump back to the apocalypse elemental. “Do you want to turn this into a cuddle pile or do you want to talk about the funniest videos about people beating each other in the street you found last week?”

“Stop looking at my browser history!” Salamander demanded.

“I don’t need to, I just know you, you big-tiddy punk.” John chuckled and poured himself a glass of water. All of them would have several hours to sober up after this date, but he would have to go on several more before he got his one hour break before the promised orgy. “If you don’t want to talk about that, how about you tell me what you think of Ehtra?”

The sudden question caused thoughtful noises around the table. “I’m afraid of her,” Undine answered.

“How come?” Metra asked before John could.

“She’s… too much like me and yet so different,” Undine answered slowly. “It feels like I am looking at a version of me that’s too genuine.”

“I don’t think she’s genuine at all,” Claire pushed back. “I think she’s hiding all the juicy wishes to be made to kneel by Master behind an exterior of dedication to a single purpose that’s not him!”

“And there’s the sycophant brain again,” Salamander joked. “I get both of you though. Not that I’m afraid of her but she’s… intense. Metal as fuck, but intense. Like, if you sent her to buy bread, she’d raze every supermarket that doesn’t have it.”

“There was that one incident with the standard of the king we served at the time and the seven enemy warlords that declared they had captured it,” Metra threw into the talk. “No survivors on that one. Still seems a bit much to be afraid of her.”

“I don’t like considering what she might do without a target to pursue,” Undine stated.

“Do you like considering what I might do without a king to follow?” Metra asked, her tone clearly defensive.

“I don’t like remembering what you did when you had the wrong contractor.”

Tock. Tock. Tock.

John audibly beat the bottom of his glass on the table three times, before Metra could throw back a response. The gesture and the accompanying glare had the wished-for effect. Both of them took a deep breath. “We’re weapons,” Metra answered in a plain tone. “We are dangerous. It’s what we do.”

“Then it shouldn’t surprise you that I’m afraid of what you could be pointed at.”

“I support Undine in this thought,” Nightingale spoke up.

“I’m not surprised anyone is afraid, I’m surprised you’re afraid,” Metra stated. “She is my sister.”

“So is Seminaris.”

TOCK! TOCK! TOCK! John slammed the glass on the table, to overcome the growl the First of Wrath let out in response. “Calm,” he told them. When the talk didn’t continue after that, he let out a long sigh. “I get you both,” he assured them. “Ehtra reminds me, in some ways, of Siena before she changed, with the difference that I have less control over her if she does anything wrong. No five rules for her.” He raised his hand before Metra could speak up. “At the same time, she’s certainly more functional as a person. She’s abrasive, but she knows when to rein herself in. I don’t think she is evil.”

“I will need to verify,” Undine stated. “It has been a short time.”

“The conversation I had with her when she visited Nightfall was fruitful, albeit I have my doubts about her sincerity,” Nightingale spoke. “No, she is genuine…” she corrected herself quickly, “…it feels like… she is missing something.”

“She is missing Mother Chaos,” Metra answered. “Ehtra was the most devout out of all of us. Seminaris had her beat in her closeness to Tiamat, but Ehtra was a woman of the faith.” The blonde berserker scratched the back of her head. “Maybe you’re noticing a hole that I can’t quite get.”

“You saying she needs to strive for something higher?” Salamander asked.

Metra let out a frustrated sigh, then shrugged.

“For what that is fucking worth, I do like her,” Salamander stated and grinned. “I like the intense and metal types, even if I know that’s not the healthiest way to be a person. I’m not the wise elemental here though.” She gently punched Undine’s shoulder.

The goth slime blushed and tugged at the bangs that covered her right eye. “You believe too much in me,” she muttered.

“No, I do not,” Salamander decided. “You’re awesome, flawed as you are. If we didn’t have Miss ‘shy yet balanced’, you’d be the leader for sure.”

Undine turned away from Salamander, doing her best not to let the red-skinned elemental see the smile that put on her face. “God, you’re adorable!” John could no longer just watch the situation. He moved his chair between the two, so he could hug and kiss them both on the cheek. Undine turned her smile to Salamander, who returned it twice as wide. Cheerfully, the two elementals kissed each other.

“Do you have anything to add, regarding Ehtra?” John asked Nightingale, who shook her head. It seemed Undine had said all she wanted to say. “What about you?” he turned to the oldest Metracana.

Who thoughtfully turned the glass in her hands. “I think you’re onto something,” she admitted. “What I’ve done in the past… what I’ve done to Eliana…” She stopped there, the less said about that part of her history, the better. “Us Metracanas live by contracts. Maybe I’ll show her that it’s better to live by our own values.” She downed her second drink and immediately poured her third. “Maybe I’ll start fully believing it myself while I’m at it… Sure as fuck surprised me she has a sex drive, though! I thought that bitch was always dry as a well!”

“Sometimes numbers reveal a bit much.” The Gamer chuckled.