“Finally back, fuckface?” Eliana growled at John.
The greeting was much harsher than the Gar was used to and he reacted like most n did when an angry woman greeted them at the door: he was confused. Raising his hands defensively, he weighed to respond with a joke, an assurance, or a genuine question. Luckily, he slotted into what the issue was before he could make the wrong call. “Aclysia is getting to the kitchen.”
“She better!” the pretty little psycho turned around and stomped back into the mansion. The rest of them swiftly followed. Courtesy of John wanting to clear out the first area, they had delayed the general food hour by two hours.
John gave the woman her space. He had no idea why Eliana was this cranky about the lack of food, considering the wellspring of snacks the other maids could provide her, but he did not have to understand why it was an issue to acknowledge it as one. If being hungry for the head maid’s cooking was the cause for her bad mood, then it was only wise to wait until she had gotten to stuff her face.
The party swiftly separated. “Do you have particular designs on how to spend the ti until the Raid continues?” Aclysia asked Ehtra.
“No,” the First of Hatred answered swiftly. “Am I getting drafted for food preparation?”
“This would be your duty as a maid, yes. I can always use more hands for the cutting and cleaning.”
First and new maid marched off in the general direction of the kitchen. Gno sought out the company of Momo, Nia that of Lee, Nightingale and Lydia went to get so tea together, and Undine flowed off to the baths.
That left John in the uncommon (albeit not overly so) situation where he was left alone in the entryway. He had just spent six hours with those seven won, so it was hardly surprising that they went to socialize with others. He would, and already was, follow their model. The extra bodies were busy as always.
Scanning through his ntal connections, John quickly picked a place to join with his true body. Turning around, he left the house again.
It felt nice to dispatch the clothing even in open air. There was only the harem inside this Illusion Barrier, which ant that he did not have to fear the sha of walking around and exposing himself to his future in-laws in the process. Magoi, Mabirl, and Magnus were all far away.
The harem had been busy in his absence. The landscape around the estate had been altered in various ways. Earth had been moved, gardens raised, and basins filled with hot water. From the volcanic rock that surrounded the beds of dark soil to the ashen colour of the tree bark, the entirety of the landscaping wore Nathalia’s mark. Undine and Gno had been with him, after all, so that was hardly surprising.
The goddess was trying her best to get in touch with her more benevolent side. Volcanoes were, after all, a general good for the environnt. Yes, there was the occasional, cataclysmic eruption that seriously imprinted itself on the survivors, but by and large they provided a laundry list of benefits to agriculture and warm water to the areas around.
Warm water was also his target. A pool of it sat at the centre of it all. Had it not been the height of sumr, steam would have likely risen from the surface. As it stood, John just felt the difference in humidity. He stepped into the warm water and waded in deeper. His target was a trio of gorgeous won at the opposite side of the pleasantly warm spring.
“I’d ask if I’m coming across nymphs here, but I think only one of you three might drown ,” John shouted as soon as he spotted a pause in the conversation the trio was having.
“Don’t tempt , my saviour,” Siena said, flipping a bit of water at John with the tip of her tail. The horned shadow spirit put a hand on her hips and humd. She was clearly deliberating if the joke was worth it.
“It’s not,” Salamander told her fellow elental. “As soone with experience in nearly drowning, shit sucks.”
“The struggle to breathe is lost on ,” tra gave her input. Whereas Siena stood and Salamander sat on a flat stone by the waterside, the First of Wrath was going through a slow series of motions. Each was a transition from one battle stance to the next, decelerated and made wider for ditative purposes.
“Be thankful for that, breathing is a ti waster – as is eating, sleeping and drinking,” John said, plopping down right next to Salamander. His arm found his way around her shoulder, casually giving her exposed breasts a squeeze. Siena imdiately snuggled up to his other side.
John was feeling ready for lewdness, but more than that he craved a mont of plain peace. Nothing in the Raid was worse than things he had seen in reality, not the cruelty nor the desolation held a candle to the generational torture of the Iron Domain or the primitive brutality of a blood-soaked battlefield. Nothing in the Raid was real, not the monsters nor the people. That did not an that John was left entirely untouched by it. He was human and, for all of his superhuman capabilities, subject to so of the human pitfalls.
One of which was the subconscious response to patterns. Being surrounded by misery did have a depressing effect on his mind. Being surrounded by two of his loves had an elevating effect on his mind. So things were that simple.
“…I can’t move,” John pointed out.
The three of them were situated on that flat stone, feet in the warm water, and now all kinds of tangled up. The tails of Salamander and Siena had ford a double helix around his legs. Their arms kept holding him tightly in so sort of competition of who could cuddle him more intensely. Siena won initially, putting her smooth leg across John’s leg in a possessive gesture. Salamander then caught up and tripled down by growing two additional pairs of arms.
While John still was unconvinced on the erotic aspect of additional hands, he had to fully admit that being embraced thrice over was quite nice. Not as nice as the marshmallow soft breasts that squished against him on both sides, but quite nice regardless.
“That’s the idea,” Siena humd, scratching the back of his head.
“We’re not going to drown you, stud, but you’re not getting away from these nymphs.” Salamander cackled, giving his cheek an aggressive smooch.
“A little help here?” John asked in the tone of the man that least needed saving.
tra just turned her head slightly and amusedly pushed air out of her nose. Tail softly wagging, she continued her stretches in the shallow water. John could practically see the variety of weapons she was ritualistically swinging. Spears and halberds were the most common, but so poses were more appropriate for the arc of a swinging blade or the culling strike of an axe.
“How did my sister fare?” she asked.
“Well enough to impress, not well enough to be taken along for the boss,” John answered honestly. “I’ll have to do so scouting, but just by the nature of the fight, it’s likely that you’re going to co along.”
“Central boss with adds?” tra asked.
John just nodded. Much of his harem was steadily adopting gaming lingo, especially for the Raids. It was a bit odd to hear several thousand year old entities use terms like ‘dot’, ‘aoe’, ‘adds’ and ‘clear comms’, but the fact was that much of gaming was the filed down remains of the English language honed to a specific purpose. Gaming terms were nerdy because of what they were used in, but they weren’t actually that different from military or sports language.
‘Possibly one of the reasons why the most popular ga genres are shooters and sports gas,’ John considered. He moved his hands to squeeze the side boobs of Siena and Salamander. The forr giggled, the latter let out a little gasp. Ample and overabundant, pliable flesh pushed back against his fingers. The cuddle beca that little bit tighter.
For a mont, it looked like tra had changed her mind on helping him, then she straddled his tail-bound legs. “Oy!” Salamander complained. “Shift a bit to the right, you’re pinching in.”
“Since when are you so soft?” tra asked, but wiggled until neither of the elentals complained about the way she sat on their tails.
“Have you seen ?” The red-skinned fire spirit took one of her six hands off John and gave her own butt a squeeze. In raw size, it was the largest of all the girls in John’s harem. God really had favourites when it ca to endowing so won.
“That’s not the kind of soft I ant and you know it,” tra pointed out. “Since when are you as thick as Beatrice?”
“Fuck you, take that back.”
“I’ll take it the sa place the Mother of Fire took your hair.”
“Fuck you, I like my buzz cut!”
“Ladies,” John croaked. “Much as I like listening to you banter, please don’t shift around this much?” His tone was implication enough to let the two of them know the issue at hand. tra backed off a little, Salamander relaxed the coiling of her tail, and John no longer felt like he was about to crush his chance at children between his own thighs. “Thank you.”
To make up for the pain they’d caused, tra and Salamander showed their softer side and just caressed him for a wonderful stretch of ti. John felt a bit like a popular dog, getting headpats and kisses from all directions. Not a feeling he wanted to bask in regularly, but certainly nice for isolated stretches like this.
It ended with him pulling his head back, pecking them each on the lips once on his own terms, and then pushing against the universal hug. Tails fully uncoiled, tra stood up, and the four of them slipped down into the warm water below.
Siena laid her head on John’s shoulder, while Salamander and tra engaged in a bout of playful wrestling. Water rippled around them. Drops were sent flying by the motions of their tails. The shadow spirit’s eye twitched. “Could you two possibly be any less romantic?” she asked.
“Hah, listen to Stabby McStabfingers talk about romance!” Salamander shouted.
Hissing, Siena revealed her sharp fangs. Salamander returned an equally sharp-toothed grin. “It really occurs to that I love dangerous won,” the Gar thought out loud.
“And dangerous won love you,” tra pointed out.
“For better and for worse,” Siena added. “Although you have a remarkable track record at fixing them, my saviour.”
John preened at the complint. “I do, don’t I?” he humd. “I could probably fix the most broken, desperate stalker out there, if I wanted to.”
‘Grrrrrrhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrr.’ The low, rumbling growl of Stirwin in his thoughts competed with Siena’s words.
“You certainly could,” Siena whispered.
“To agree with the Celestial Devourer hissing at you,” tra chid in, “you should be really careful that you don’t bite off more than you can chew.”
“I’m thankfully quite resilient when it cos to being stabbed,” John reminded her, trying to hold on to that mighty feeling of validation. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have survived rehabilitating Eliana.”
It wasn’t a joke. In the early days of her rebirth, Eliana had had incredibly poor control over her physical strength and had suffered twice as bad mood swings while being half as attached to them. The result was worrisoly frequent physical injuries. Similar had happened with Nathalia, although for other reasons.
John could afford ‘taming’ the various flavours of crazy, from Nathalia to Claire, because he had various advantages that other n lacked. He was impervious to most forms of physical harm, had the Charisma to keep the unhealthy jealousy that typically ca with obsession at bay, and was possibly the greatest single provider of sexual pleasure in human history. The combination ant that he kept the crazy mind low on stress, high in trust, and even if they did have an explosion, he could deal with it relatively fear free.
Had none of this been the case, a relationship with about a third of his harem may have been various levels of inadvisable. The average man could not handle a woman like Aclysia. Luckily, he was not an average man. He was, in fact, a very much above average man. A far superior man, even.
It was at that thought that Stirwin’s growl grew louder and John let it win out, killing that line of thought where it stood. Even if it was true that he was superior, thinking of himself that way would not get him anywhere good in the long term.
“I do think my true gift is identifying the kind of crazy that is fixable,” John gave a more reasoned take on the conversation. “Siena here was without a doubt the worst out of all the ones around , from a pure malevolence perspective, and she just needed a set of different experiences.”
“I had beco quite cynical of human nature,” Siena freely admitted.
“The crazies I am dealing with are generally not missing anything except for a healthy environnt,” the Gar continued. “It’s less that I am fixing them, it’s more that I provide the breathing room for them to sort out their issues… I guess I’m so kind of lovable therapy?”
“You’re certainly sturdy,” tra told him that much. “Especially ntally. I’ve seen my fair share of n with harems and they typically minimize contact with most of the won therein. The few favourites were those that knew not to be dramatic.”
“You’re fucking lucky we’re all reasonable and get along,” Salamander pointed out.
“That’s definitely a general factor, but I was talking about the crazies specifically.” John rolled his shoulder – the one that Siena wasn’t lying on – and sighed. “I know how to avoid genuine sociopaths and the like, because of Observe and intuition. For those that have a reasonable core behind their… let’s call it divergent behaviour, I can be a solid stone to hold onto. I provide so guidance, but only by virtue of leading a generally wholeso life.”
That found agreent amongst the three around them. “How do you explain Aclysia then?” tra asked, jokingly.
“I honestly have no idea what made her obsessive,” John confessed. “You’ll have to work that out with her. She’s also been working on not letting that define her too much, successfully, so there’s that… huh…” He had an epiphany at that mont. “Might have been that I let Rave show her so much ani in her formative weeks… Sowhat distorted social expectations… Anyway, speaking of Aclysia, should we go eat?”
That was t with all around agreent.
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