A different kind of impact

For the first time in several days, Kevin woke up without a woman in his arms.

The fact that he felt disappointed caused a flash of guilt to wash over him, which only intensified when he looked up to see that the reason he was awake was that the woman who had spent the night in his bed was doing her best to slip out of the covers without his noticing.

Tess’ hair might not have been at its best first thing, but the silvery garb she wore—which had transformed itself into an opaque silky nightgown when she prepared to crawl into the far side of the bed the night before—clung to her athletic frame in a way which made it easy to appreciate her sculpted physique.

Kevin looked away. It was bad enough that Tess had been dragged here against her will, worse still that her eighteen year old sister had somehow been roped in as well. He didn’t want to make things worse by allowing himself to indulge Lily by leering at the coed when she was trying to get on with her day.

The night before had been draining. Now, though–

“Good morning.”

Tess whirled in surprise at the sound of Kevin’s voice. When she parted her own lips to speak, however, what emerged was understandable only because the cognates were close enough that he could guess at the meaning.

“Oh, right. Look, you don’t have to–” Kevin realized that his words were a waste of breath. He lifted a hand to his mouth, then waved that hand side to side in front of his face to indicate that kissing wasn’t necessary.

Tess didn’t seem to get the message, however, because a look of confusion flashed across her face. She repeated it back at him hesitantly, and Kevin sighed. “Man, it would be really helpful to have a longer lasting way to understand everyone.”

“There are several available, if you’re interested.” Lily’s voice emerged before she did. For the first time since arriving, Kevin actually got to watch as the hostess emerged from the shadows. As he slid off the edge of the bed, the succubus rose out of his own shadow, uncomfortably close. She was clad in a new dress—this one a deep red velvet that hugged her sinful curves tightly and plunged into a deep ‘v’ that dipped so low it nearly revealed her pubic grooming habits.

“You mean I didn’t have to keep kissing everyone?”

Across the room, Tess also spoke to Lily, and while Kevin wasn’t able to understand the words, the bitter anger she spat carried their meaning fairly well.

“You seem to enjoy it well enough, but no, of course not.” Lily wore an amused smile on her lips as he glanced between the dungeon master and the young woman who had slept in his bed the night before. While the two had shared a rather intimate and comforting hug, that—and the kisses they had shared to keep Tongues active—had been as far as they had gone.

“Well why didn’t you tell us that?”

“You didn’t ask. Come, Kevin, you of all people should know that it’s not the place of the host to put ideas in their players’ heads. If you want to do something, I’m happy to assist, to nudge you in the right direction, but the idea has to come from you. If you want to understand your selkie and her sister, you have several paths available. You could find a language tutor, of course, but your Useful Little Tool could craft also a device to act as a translator. There are potions and enchantments available to facilitate understanding—perhaps Hwa could tell you more about those, she’s certainly started to delve into what the city has available, after all.”

Kevin closed his eyes and reached his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. This was too much to deal with first thing in the morning. “You’re right. It’s not like you’ve given me a lot of time to think long-term strategy though, is it? I spent most of yesterday at a fair with Tess–”

“Of course, it’s the responsibility of the party leader to determine how to best allocate your resources. Tess could likely have done well enough on her own, but I’m certain she did better for having you there to cheer her on. There are other members of your party, though. Blue seems keen to get involved in things, and Elsie is downright eager to help. Do you think Stheno would hesitate for even a moment if you ordered her to seek out a means of translation?”

Kevin sighed. “No. Of course not.” He opened his eyes and lowered his hand. “Is that why you’re here? To tell me that I’m being a bad party leader?”

Lily looked briefly hurt. “Kevin—not at all. In fact, I think you’re doing a fantastic job. You’ve been thrust deep into circumstances beyond your control, and you’re doing your best to forge a group of women you’ve never met, most of whom have never experienced anything like Adventuria, into a tight-knit party. The fact that you’re choosing to focus on building up your relationship with each of them rather than trying to expand your powers and resources might well be the best strategy available.”

Tess finally appeared to have had enough of being excluded from the conversation, because the selkie began to stomp her way around the bed. She grew as she did so, each step adding another inch in height and swelling her hips and chest further until she towered over the succubus. She didn’t stop there, though, but instead stepped up to Kevin, reached down to grab his head, then pulled him into a kiss.

Lily made no move to stop the two, and Kevin found his mouth being invaded by the selkie’s tongue as it sought out his. Rather than resist, he allowed the Amazonian athlete to take the lead while he did his best to go along for the ride. The fact that Tess’ outfit had shifted in size but not in composition meant that he could feel the full swell of her massive tits against his chest, and he did his best to ignore the fact that her nipples had hardened to stiff nubs that were impossible to ignore as they rubbed against his own chest.

He couldn’t help the fact that by the time she released him, his pants felt uncomfortably tight. Neither Tess nor Lily mentioned anything, but by the way both women glanced down at his crotch, his efforts to surreptitiously adjust himself had not slipped by their attentions.

Now able to be understood by Kevin as well as Lily, Tess spun on the succubus and demanded, “Why did you do it? Me, I’m—bringing me into your sick show is one thing, but my sister? You did that. You can’t even hide behind the audience. You did this!”

The selkie began to advance on Lily, who arched an eyebrow. With the Flexible Form transformation active, Tess had several inches of height and probably fifty pounds of muscle on the hostess, but she showed no sign of fear at the woman’s sudden approach.

“I did. I thought that it would make things more interesting. The–” For the first time since she had summoned him, Kevin caught a glimpse of something that might have been distaste on Lily’s face. It was gone in an instant, though, and left him wondering if he’d imagined it in the first place, “–producer of the season has some specific ideas about how this should go, but he’s left it to me to see that things stay entertaining.”

Lily glanced up at the looming face of the woman now standing over her. “In this case, I suspect the audience is going to enjoy seeing what you do. Keep in mind you don’t ever have to summon Abby if you don’t want to. Certainly there will be times when it’s advantageous to do so, and if you’re going to call her up out of nowhere, it might behoove you to take the time to make sure she’s ready to get involved.”

Tess began to step into Lily’s personal space, only to find her wrist caught in Kevin’s grasp. She spun her head to face him, only to find a concerned expression on his face. “Tess, don’t. Attacking the host of a season of Harem Hotel never ends well. You saw what she did to Hwa—I’m pretty sure that was Lily holding back.”

The selkie pulled her hand free, but stopped her advance. In her transformed state, standing in Lily’s personal space the two womens’ chests nearly bumped against one another, but Tess stopped just short of contact. She glared at the hostess in silence for several moments, then abruptly whirled and stormed towards the portal that would take her out of the room. “I’m going to go on a run.”

Kevin and Lily watched the young woman as she vanished through the portal, her outfit shifting to a silvery tracksuit as she did.

“Thank you for interceding on my behalf, Kevin.”

“That wasn’t for you. That was for Tess.” Kevin’s tone was harsh and flat, and he turned to look back at Lily as he delivered the words.

“Oh, I’m well aware, but thank you just the same. I know it might be difficult for you to believe, but my goal here really is to make you happy. I believe that the best way to ensure that this season of Harem Hotel is a success is to keep things light and fun, so that you can all have a good time.”

Something in Lily’s eyes changed, and Kevin took an involuntary half-step back as she added, “But I will ensure that this season succeeds, one way or another. So, please–” The hostess was abruptly all smiles once more as she finally turned away from the door to look at the dungeon master. “–keep doing your best.”

And then, as suddenly as she had arrived, she was gone.

Blue glanced between the five women seated cross-legged in the middle of the clearing and Stheno. The gorgon was back in her monstrous form, but had lowered herself until her head was at a normal human height by curling her serpentine body in a tight coil beneath her.

The concession was the one reason Blue felt comfortable talking to her. The other was that there wasn’t anyone else around who wasn’t involved in whatever form of meditation and communion with nature Hazel was leading her disciples through. That would have been enough on its own, but it was nice to know that Stheno was open to conversation.

“Hey, um, Stheno?”

“Yes, daughter of Elektra?”

“Do you think this whole thing is kinda weird?”

The question had been nagging at Blue. It wasn’t that she objected to having been brought to this strange land by Lily. In fact, she’d had more fun since arriving than she had since she was a chick.

That didn’t mean that the whole situation felt normal, though. Thus far, Blue had been treating her time in Adventuria as a game. As she watched Hazel do her best to impart the four women in front of her with some of the nymph’s own unshakable connection to nature, though, the harpy had started to wonder if there wasn’t some greater goal she should be pursuing.

“I find this land to be a blessing, child of the winds. Do you not see it the same? Your sisters cower in their hidden nests far from the lands of men, yet you now walk among the people. Your nestmates must steal a man if they are to lay a clutch, yet I am certain our nascent godling master would bed you if you were to but ask.”

Blue was silent for a long moment. What Stheno said was true, but it was hard to just accept a change of fate as big as the one she’d been given.

It didn’t feel real, somehow.

A rustling sound caught her attention, and Blue turned to watch as Autumn was once more pulled onto her back by the vines wrapped around her. While Winter seemed to commune with her own vines with ease, and both Summer and Jennifer were relatively at ease with the animate plants wrapped around their otherwise bare forms, the redheaded elf was yet again being stretched into an arched back position that thrust her modest breasts out into the air even as Thistle pulled her thighs apart.

Hazel waited until Autumn gasped out a plea for help, then raised a hand and exerted some of her own power to quell the vine. It subsided, slowly, and the shibari-tied elf was lowered to the soft grass beneath her to begin again.

“No, I think it’s weird. But weird doesn’t mean bad. You have fun playing with Hazel.”

Before she could take off, Stheno turned and asked, “What will you do now?”

Blue shrugged. “Look for something fun to do.”

Stheno laughed. “Perhaps you should seek to limit yourself to a single activity, this time? While your last ventures were met by the combined efforts of our lord’s followers, it would be best to not tax him overmuch. He is young, yet, and still growing into himself.”

A few moments passed as Blue considered Stheno’s words, before she shrugged. “We’ll see. Bye!”

Hwa hissed between clenched teeth, and the blue-skinned horned woman lowered her skirts and stepped back.

“Alright, alright, I was just offering. You’re gonna be in there a while if you don’t get started, but I won’t push.”

When Hwa spit, it did not hiss as it had when Stheno had expressed her distaste for the gods, and she briefly considered that she needed to spend more time with the gorgon—if only to attempt to tap into the curse which had turned the woman’s saliva to acid. “I would stay here a hundred years before I serviced you. Be gone!”

The day was not going well.

It had started simply enough—Hwa had once more awoken early and made her way to the poorer end of the city. Before she could reach the first brothel which had agreed to pay for her protection over that of the thuggish lizardman who had previously acted as their pimp, she had paused for a quick repast.

At home that would have meant a bowl of meat and rice. Here, now that she had begun to learn to siphon power from the transformed men and women of the city, it meant that Hwa had skulked her way through some of the back alleys in search of the individuals who called them their home.

The first three had been no challenge—getting an early start meant that several of the beggars and addicts there were still asleep. Hwa had gotten better about her harvesting—by keeping her touch lighter, she could siphon about half of the power within each without so much as waking them. It was a simple matter then to channel the dark energy into her limbs, making her faster and stronger and allowing her to easily take to the rooftops as the sun rose and the city began to come to life.

It was then that things had gone wrong. She had caught a glimpse of an individual in one of the town squares captured in an elaborate metal pillory. The victim—like so many of the inhabitants of this ridiculous land—had been an attractive woman. In this case it was a tall rabbit-eared humanoid with curves in excess of what her otherwise slender frame should have supported whose head and arms stuck through the metal restraints.

The pillory had been unobserved, which made it a simple matter to drop down from the roof behind the bunny girl, lay a single hand upon her flanks, and drain out the magic from within.

Except—when the draining had finished, the sound of the rabbit-like woman’s footsteps as she fled the square was already a distant echo in Hwa’s ears, while the kumiho had somehow become the one in the pillory, her wrists and neck captured by the accursed device.

Above her, just visible if she craned her head to the side, was a sign with faintly glowing letters.

Public Service Punishment.

Time remaining: 16 hours.

Optional Reductions:

Oral Service: 30 minutes

Vaginal Service: 60 minutes

Anal Service: 120 Minutes

“Shit. That’s after the curfew.” Kevin’s head swam as he returned to his own perspective in front of the crystal ball in his chambers.

After Tess and Lily departed, he had found himself alone in his rooms for the first time in what felt like days. Checking the schedule on his character sheet had informed him that the day’s quest would be Hwa’s—and also that the kumiho would be expected to spend the evening in his chambers.

Of all the women Lily had summoned to act as his party, Hwa was the one he least expected to reach out to him for help. Even if the Korean woman’s quest for the day was one which explicitly called for her to work with him, he doubted she’d be willing to play along with the hostess.

He had scried on her with the intent of helping with her quest, but this—this was going to be tricky to deal with.

“Well, let’s go see if I can avoid fucking this up entirely.”