Collide Gamer

John kicked the front of the tribal chest of wood and stone.

“Alright,” he said, with a nod, then knelt down.

“What was that about?” Nahoa wondered.

“”Mimic check,”” several of the other maids answered in seasoned unison.

“It’s deep within the psyche of every gamer.” John grabbed the lid. With a satisfying snap, it flung open, revealing a darkness within that was just brimming with the promise of Loot. His hand disappeared inside, pulling out the items one after another.

In the Common category, he got one of each item.

The Equilibrium Stone was a magically potent piece of rock, the Discarded Mask Fragment was a magically potent piece of wood, and the Skywhale Icon was a pretty figurine of the creature. An enchantment on it made it minorly interesting, allowing one who held the item to commune with massively sized water and air-based animals.

In the Uncommon category, John was treated to 2 Astrotium Shards. He handed them off to Scarlett, just to see what she would do with them.

In the Rare category, they got two Blue Marble Icons. Whoever held them was granted 10% EXP towards their next level, up to their maximum potential, on every dawn, which was quite powerful, even if it was slow acting. John put them away to be handed out as rewards to loyalists of his, likely the Splatterknight and Hyozuma (provided he ended up liking what they had done during their first few weeks as nobles).

In the Epic category, the Luckiest Dagger dropped once. It was exactly what he would have expected: a decent weapon with several enchantments that gave it massive extra damage on critical hits, which would occur with the same frequency as Go-Hi’s crits. While that made it powerful, there was no proper dagger user in his harem. Nahoa wielded Nextloaolli and that was about it. Replacing that knife would have been idiotic.

Nothing in the Legendary category.

“Well, some crafting materials and gifts for the followers,” John summarized the experience. “Plus, a Level Up. Pretty good haul for an hour invested.”

“May I ask a question, Sir?” Fianna requested.

“You can just ask the question without permission.”

“I prefer the structure, Sir.” The tiger-eared woman saluted, her rifle resting against her shoulder. It was a pose that she used with increasing frequency. It was pretty obvious that she had worked out that this militaristic flavour of submission was an unoccupied niche. “You were concerned that we could not kill two Raid bosses in time. Why?”

“You don’t play a lot of video games, do you?” John asked.

“Affirmative.”

“I think you’d like Destiny. Anyhow, the first boss of a Raid is always the easiest and often notably easier than all the others. We refer to that as a gift boss.” John’s eyes wandered over the environment. “Usually, there are also long paths filled with lesser enemies between bosses. We’ll see if there’s something like that here in a moment.”

John focused on the Saintesses. Their mechanic, he now understood. Throughout the attempts, the five women by the throne had acted in a cycle. Elf, lamia, slime, human, kitsune, and then elf again.

The elf created an area of the map that was covered in rubies, making that bit of the arena impassable until the end of combat. The lamia created a localized sandstorm that faded after some time. The slime spread oozes all over the arena that damaged or healed whoever collected them, including the boss. The human re-arranged the positions of everyone on the battlefield, forcing split-second tactical decisions. The kitsune hovered above the battlefield, then crashed down as a deadly firestorm in a specific area.

None of the mechanics had been particularly synergistic with Go-Hi and the cycle had persisted between attempts. Everything about the way it was structured told him that they were not done with their interventions. ‘I’ll see next fight if this is an across-Raid mechanic.’

The chest, now closed, disappeared and Vokal, in his throne, rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “A combat of champions alone would hardly reflect the capabilities of this Marble. Forces of the Golemkinder, I call upon you to show to these invaders the might of my daughter-in-honour, Moo Deng, and my friend, the Golem!”

Out of the stands, five hippos leapt. They were large beasts, made to look even larger by the short people that rode them. Three female, two male gnomes, each of them covered in Egyptian-themed armour, held the reins of their chunky steeds. Four of these hippos readied themselves for an immediate charge. The fifth munched on some kind of tall grass.

“And there is our first wave of entertainment between bosses,” John announced. “We’ll stay with this composition for now. Nahoa, since they seem to be waiting for us, I want you to set up your poison cloud. Fianna, you open the fight with a shot.”

As the fight in the arena began, another part of John’s mind was dealing with more pleasant matters.

“Ah… ha…. ha….” Nia’s tiny cries were pure music to John’s ears. The naked blonde’s pale body was pressed against his. Slender, long legs straddled his lap, arms wrapped around his chest, and her lips brushed over his neck.

The lithe pariah’s hips shifted back and forth. Graceful, smooth motions, that kept his cock shifting inside her, providing them both with that pleasurable friction. With one hand, he squeezed her smooth bottom, with the other, he held a pad.

“Alright, seems like we have the guest list finalized,” he said, upon reaching the last page of the document. “That only took us about eight hours and the design of a classification system to do.”

“Thank Gaia for the classification system,” Rave groaned.

“You – thankful for a system?” Lee asked, overplaying her flabbergasted tone. “What has the world come to?”

“It just made all of that way faster!”

The system was fundamentally simple. The initial list of potential guests, itself 2000 entries long, had been made into a questionnaire that every haremette that cared could go through. Every guest could be rated with an ‘opposed’, ‘don’t care’ and ‘approve’ for its attendance, which translated to -1, 0 and +1 points.

Based on the amount of points, a guest was then invited as a category 2, 3 or 4. Category 4, the least important, got an honorary invitation to the day of the wedding itself. They would not have access to the wider festivities, the inside of the church, nor would they be given a place to stay. Being in this category would be insulting to important people, but for many others, such as high-ranking officials, getting invited at all should be an honour.

Category 3 guests got to be present during the weekend of the one-week celebrations. They were given access to a place to stay during that time and they got to partake in the direct festivities. They were, however, also not allowed inside the church during the ceremony.

Category 2 guests were invited for the entire week, got their stay assured, had access to the festivities and would be inside the building during the ceremony. It was the whole 9-yards.

Category 1 guests were guests of honour and would be greeted with their own little ceremony whenever their procession arrived. This category was reserved for people that were picked before, who didn’t have to go on the guest list in the first place.

With all of that work done, they could now focus on the venue. Housing all of the people that they had now decided were worthy of being housed by them was not an issue, not with the Palace being what it was. Having entertainment for this many people over an entire week, that would be a problem, especially when booking with less than a month to go.

The date, they had determined with finality, would be the week from the 13th to the 19th of January, 2020, with Sunday being the day of the ceremony.

John put the pad down and leaned in to kiss Nia’s neck, like she was doing for him. One kind of mutual caress transformed into another, their lips wandering up the cheeks until they were mouth to mouth. Her tongue wrestled with his with a passion that her quietness would never suggest. Her eyelids fluttered. Instincts contorted her features as pleasure reached its zenith.

Nia rose from his hips as soon as she was done riding out the orgasm. He would have loved to continue fooling around with another woman, but he needed to focus. Aclysia all but shoved a list of suggested activities into his hand. Get full chapters from 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝✦𝘧𝙞𝙧𝙚✦𝕟𝕖𝕥

“Urgent work, Master,” she said.

He gave it a serious nod and began the review.

The third body of his, meanwhile, was exploring the ranks of the factions present. It was difficult to say how many exactly there were. In some cases, the relations between them were so close that they had chosen to share their viewing areas with others. Few were mono-racial, making that harder as well.

“OUTSIDER!”

John had just stepped into the area of the viking-esque people and immediately triggered a cutscene. The gold-winged, six-armed hulk of a madman was stomping towards him. Even knowing that this was a Raid, John felt a surge of concern. Had he encountered that man over in realspace, he would have immediately considered him a Romulus-level threat just by the aura he gave off. Perhaps this entity wasn’t as strong as Romulus, but he oozed that kind of aggression that made him way more dangerous.

“Youuu… you killed the halfling! It was hilarious!” the Bloodletter laughed for just a few seconds, before bending down to John’s level. Low and rumbling, he continued, “Spilled his ichor all over the sands. Truly funny. The Bloodshot approves.” The creature gripped the stone of the archway John had stepped through. “Humiliate my daughter and you will end just like that.” The stone cracked under the palm of the manic hulk.

John was afforded a moment to think after those words. The Bloodletter’s red eyes drilled into him. Regularly, the Gamer doubted an entity like that would have the patience to wait for his response. The game-mechanics were affording a pause to him – not that he really needed it, quick of thought as he was.

Gaia had put a lot of work into this setting, enough so that several of the other NPCs also had detailed backstories in their Information boxes – but the Bloodletter was the first one John had come across that had a Loottable. Either he was a future or, more likely, an optional boss. When there were out of combat events, they typically served to clue him in on what the way to get that extra boss was.

The Observe mentioned two names. One was Visceria, who stood just a few metres behind her father, the other was Tarshan, who John had not encountered at all yet.

‘By Raid logic, I have to annoy this guy into attacking me,’ John thought. His response was appropriately mean-spirited. “If she’s too weak, I will do whatever I want with her.”

The smirk of the Bloodletter turned into a teeth-baring scowl. John could feel those sharp teeth dig into his throat already, when a voice echoed behind the man, “Bloodletter! You will not break my beloved’s peace!”

“Father, please listen to her,” Visceria echoed the sentiment. “By the ways of the ichor of body and earth, we are sworn to keep the peace. You are not allowed to partake in this tournament, not with your overbearing might.”

The words of his daughter did more to dissuade the humanoid beast than those of his sovereign. A shadow of affection managed to overpower the craziness. For a brief moment, while he looked back at Visceria, his ugliness was tamed by a peace that could not last. “Fine!” he declared and turned away. John had to dodge the rapidly swinging wings of the man.

‘Let’s see if I can find this Tarshan,’ he thought.

Finding the Hoof and Wing faction was pretty easy. Of the present races, only one had this combination of traits and it was also the one with a sizable contingent of its present people wearing masks. They were the chimeric humanoids that John had seen initially.

John looked around for the one called Tarshan, just spamming Observe as he went. The scripted event, however, declared that it was the Gamer who would be found.

“Oh wow, a guest of honour!” A pair of hands grabbed John’s shoulders from behind and gave him a mirthful shake. John immediately shook him off and turned around. He faced a man in a white robe, his head seemingly entirely enveloped by a wooden mask. Strange carvings on the surface laid out patterns that were equally artistic and unnerving, a factor made more outstanding by the complete blackness of the eye holes. They were the only openings in the mask and shifted, mimicking exaggerated expressions.

The man jumped from one foot to the other, then suddenly he was behind John again. Somehow, he evaded Observe as he did so.

“For you to be down there and up here, that’s a trick you have to teach me! When I conspire to prank people, I always have to leave my house.” John tried to get an Observe on the man again, but he dodged for a second time.

“Tarshan, I assume?” John chose the verbal route.

“The one and only! Sadly. The amount of pies I could throw at people if I had two or three bodies…” He giggled. “Oh, the mirth, the confusion, how delectable.”

“I hear you have a rivalry with the Bloodletter?”

“Oh, an old tale of a very, very, very, very angry man with lame feet and a handsome mask that almost got caved in by that angry man inside a pocket dimension. Almost.” Tarshan made a sweeping gesture and dodged Observe for a third time.

‘I’ll just stop trying now,’ John resolved.

“Thenngria has had it out for me since, so rude, totally unprovoked.”

“I see.” John hummed. He was getting an idea of how to trigger the Bloodletter into attacking, but it was only a very broad one. ‘I guess I am just waiting for the Raid to throw the appropriate opportunity at me.’

He continued to scout for additional interesting talk events, but found none.