Dark elves hate humans, dishonor, and cuddles.

SANCTUARY unlocked!

He watched his XP bar shrink, terrifying as that concept was, and oddly felt nothing as a result. Did this mean he was forgetting something? He dismissed the worry, halfway out of fear of what it meant to sacrifice experience for a mattress. His money ticked down as well, and such was the price to pay to watch the bricks behind the sanctuary message glow blue, then white, and then fade from existence, showing exactly what was promised: in the far-right corner, a magnificent king-sized poster bed carved from some kind of black stone for every part of it, save the fat mattress that sat on top and the goose-feathered pillows. In the far-left, a small table hosting a marble pot presently preserving a gnarled, 12-inch branch with naught but a single, blood-red peach growing from its highest point. As John walked in (tailed by the curious elf and fairy), he spotted the fountain, a silver reflecting pool with a laughing gargoyle at its edge, puking crystal-clear water into it at all times with barely the gentlest splash to be heard. The rest of the room was mostly bare, but beautiful: a tall, chestnut bookcase with hard geometric shapes in its design, polished black tile floors, gray reliefs carved into the walls of demons and angels battling on some unknown wasteland, and a ceiling depicting the Yggdrasil and the worlds it cradles in white on black. The room was well-lit, but like the temple, John realized, with no evident source except some unknowable, ambient light. Floating lazily around the tiny tree was a small orb of pale blue radiance, at the core of which was a diminutive male silhouette, not unlike Fairy in scale.

Cleric spirit
Level 0
<The Gamer's Temple>
HP: 1/1
Status Effects: Immaterial, Immortal

As described, it was barely an entity... but already it floated down to the single wrinkle in the sheets of the bed and, just by hovering near it, flattened it to perfection. The sight was distracting enough that he almost missed the achievement:

Achievement unlocked! "We built this city"!
Construct your first room in your Summoner's temple!
+2 INT
+2 CHA

While reading, two wooden doors, surely not there a moment ago, had popped into existence, hinging on either side of the archway John had just opened. They laid open for now, the sole entrance in or out of this place, and John found the idea of wanting privacy in his own head, amid his enslaved monsters, an odd one. "John Newman... why this room, above the others?"

"I can think of a few reasons," Fairy noted bitterly, "not least of all being he's a mama's boy **** for a bed that ain't soiled with-"

"That's more than enough, Fairy." She nearly bit her tongue shutting up, and her obedience seemed to surprise even her. With a sigh, John prepared the hearth spell. "I'll be back shortly." The temple shrunk away-

John toppled onto his bed with a surprised cry, falling upon it from precisely where he had originally cast summoner's hearth. That's going to take some getting used to... Laying down to recover from the brief dizzy spell, he didn't dare to go downstairs until he knew he had his wits about him. Fully braced for whatever was going to happen when he did so, he slowly worked his way downstairs and back to the basement door. There was no moaning emanating from it now... but still he rapped hard on it before daring to open it just wide enough to yell down the stairs. "Mom? You down there?"

"Wuh.. What- oh God- don't come down here!" her heavy voice yelled.

John cringed, realizing by her ragged words that she must have still been in the middle of it. "I'm going to bed early, good night!"

"Good night, sweetie," she yelled back, never daring to come up. He nodded and closed the door, never daring to come down. I can't take the flask back while she's there... later, then, when she does finally sleep.

After returning to his bedroom, he hearthed once more, now confident that his absence wouldn't be noticed. "Done," he muttered. He was on the platform once again, despite leaving the temple from the sanctuary; another thing to note as he walked back into it, finding Fairy bouncing childishly on the pillow while Alysha watched.

The latter turned to him, and already he could sense the impatience she struggled to hide. "May I have my armaments now?" Her braid swayed behind her as she shifted her lithe weight. It was difficult for her to command authority with her hands on her hips and breasts bared, nevermind her tiny height or hairless twat, all made visible, all reminding him of that mad afternoon in the faux chemistry room.

"Alysha... how old are you?" Please be old, please be old-

"I am told that, in your flawed system of time, I am sixty-seven of your years in age." Her bland statement was mismatched with her narrowed eyes. John checked her stat sheet one more time and confirmed the terrible despair she felt earlier was gone... but after Vanessa's behavior, he didn't know what to think of the Game's interpretation of emotions, human or otherwise.

"Right, and I got that from your character sheet, but uh... I guess I'm asking if you're... legally an adult, among your people?"

"What does... that mean?"

"Ehm... well, is it legal for you to have sex or bear children?"

She crossed her arms, and contemplated his questions carefully. "... Yes."

"That... that took kind of a long time to say-"

"Ask her why she's so short," Fairy declared at the height of one of her bounces.

"I shall flay you, you wretched little-!" Alysha, on the verge of a violent lunge towards John's brand new bed, suddenly remembered herself and snuffed out the fury that was so briefly warping her face.

Alarmed, but undeterred, John continued. "You're alot shorter than the other dark elf we saw... are you short for your people? If so, do you... have a particular reason why?"

"Yes, and yes." Silence. Five beats.

"... Are you going to tell me-"

"Command her already, you simple cunt nugget." A pause as John shot her a look. "... I love calling my Master cute little pet names like that," Fairy sweetly added.

"Alysha, I... command you to tell me why you are short."

"I... should have been blooded decades ago. As I grew in skill, so too did the minimal power of the prey that would have been accepted. I fell, like a fool, into the vivo'raaku: the Hunter's Lament. The foes I could face were **** sentences for an unblooded keel-vorsh'ek, and the rest were unworthy of my blades. Were it not forbidden by law, I would've the former proudly."

Another pause. "So what does that have to do-"

"Please, John Newman. This is... incredibly private, even among my people. To acknowledge my disgrace would be a challenge to a blood duel, so grievious is the misstep in our society. You are a human; I am not surprised you are so uncouth as to not realize this-" John thinned his lips at the familiar tone. "- but it is difficult for me. Simply put, the unblooded cannot be married, and the unblooded do not... develop... correctly. If I am unblooded, my womb shall carry no child; if I am blooded but unmarried, I shall seed no batch of young to be fertilized. With neither of these duties possible, our bodies cease growth in certain aspects, making us smaller, more compact..." Alysha's voice trembled. "... more ready to serve as slaves than as masters."

John's eyebrows perked up at that. "Wait..." Alysha looked at the floor, unable to face the question of how close she was to slavery among her own people, or how even her aborted marriage would've been little more than indenturement. How this human could be so cruel was beyond- "... so how many babies do elves have?"

Alysha looked back at him, stunned. "W-What?"

"You said a batch, as if it were normal to have more than one. Does your kind regularly have twins or triplets?"

"Dozens, John." Fairy flew over Alysha's head to land on his right shoulder, and whispered seductively into his ear, "You see, they're descended from big, nasty spiders that crawl in the dirt and feed on filth. Those monsters spawn hundreds of young... but the keel-vorsh'ek are only half-spider. The other half was... embarrassing as it is... humans."

It was more than the elf's composure could take. "That is a lie!" Alysha spat. "We've nothing of the humans in our noble blood! They are putrid filth, sickening degenerates who exist outside of the Abyss but mother and nurture it like whores with their ways! They are no good, barely even worthy of being slaves to be worked to ****; we would sooner allow you to claim the feces of devils as our patrons before we would tolerate such insult."

John's eyes lit up- "So they are like Drow!" The two women stared blankly, and John cleared his throat. "I mean, the spiders and... uhm, I mean... yes... please continue. So how does killing affect... well, puberty?"

Fairy planted a kiss on John's ear and shot Alysha a bold middle finger, though the latter couldn't have known its significance. "Well... being blooded is important. We are self-conscious beings, and unlike the wretched humans who change as a course of time - or as other fae, who only change when others change them - we develop based on the acknowledgement of who or what we are... and among my people, only the apex predator deserves the apex life. Without this, I will... I would have... perished in mere decades, for my life would be worth nothing. My body changed because I wished to be acknowledged as a proper keel-vorsh'ek, but it was also incomplete because I am... was... untested." She continued to glare at her master, showing no emotion save contempt. "That fool I brought promised me blooding and a marriage in exchange for his help. It would be a loveless union, but I could survive, live a full life, eventually grow to my full potential physically as well as a hunter... until you ruined everything."

John winced at that, but he had too many questions to worry about tiptoeing around what he did or didn't do. "What the Hell is blooding, anyways?"

Alysha sighed with irritation at being used like an encyclopedia for her people. "The first kill of an unblooded must be witnessed by one who knows the face of a worthy kill, and will recognize it. If it is safe, as much blood as can be extracted from the kill is used to bathe the unblooded, thereby blooding them. The blooded senior performs this rite, and through this confirms the legitimacy of the blood's source."

"Jesus."

"You better get used to this, kid," Fairy yawned, "this is more civil than anything in the Abyss has any right to be."

"But now I am no longer a hunter, for I've been robbed of my virginity, and so my first blooding was with my own... and so I am prey. Prey has no place among the keel-vorsh'ek, save as slaves... but even slavery to a true hunter, or a thousand painful deaths, would be mercy before the fate of being bound to a human."

John walked over to the elf, and she closed her eyes to brace for a disciplinary smack... only to feel him tug on her braid, snaking it over her shoulder and walking backwards until he held its tip, nearly four feet away from her. "Man, this is really your hair, huh?"

Alysha was stunned at his sudden disinterest in her insult, but replied truthfully. "Only the blooded may cut their hair, human, but you've violated my people's every tradition thus far, so I suppose I shall walk these halls bald for your pleasure."

I'm getting pretty tired of arrogant women... It was a sadistic thought, and he was too tired to fight them anymore. "Do you have to be married anywhere in particular?"

"A marriage involves no one but the two parties: two hunters, slayers of foes, who recognize the prowess of one another."

He nodded as he began to undress for bed. "I've killed a few worthy prey, including your would-be husband. Does that make you hate me?"

"He was weak and a coward. He is not the reason I hate you."

John nodded, and tossed his clothes to the foot of the bed. As if on cue, the spirit floated by and scooped the clothes up, spinning them in the air as dust particles and dirt began to spin out of it and into the spirit, vanishing to some other place. The clothes then landed on the bookshelf, folded exactly as his mother might've, and hung the shirt from some unseen hook by the wall, leaving it smoothed as if ironed. Nifty. "I'm more than blooded, so I'll guide you to your first kill... and with that, you'll be blooded too." He undid the binding at the end of her braid, and ran his fingers through it, ruining its style and letting the fat locks of hair split and fall, undoing it until the absurd head of hair washed over her back like a cloak. He grabbed her chin roughly between thumb and forefinger, hoisting her face up to his as he bent down to look her in her black eyes. "Then I'm going to marry you... and somehow, some way, I'm going to finish this quest of mine."

"You are not of my people, you know nothing of our ways; it would be sacrilegious nonsense for you to try and be either. What quest of yours could possibly demand this?"

"I need to impregnate a monster." Her eyes widened. "My achievements told me you're part-monster, part-human... so maybe I have a chance of knocking up that human part?"

"You... you mustn't. Please."

"He... well, I'd say he can't," Fairy scoffed, "but you do have human filth in your blood."

"I told you-!"

"She's right y'know," John whispered. Black eyes looked into his, horrified. Perhaps it was her age, but she seemed adept at reading his truth or lies... and maybe that worried her. "I got an achievement for dumping my load in a human when I did it inside of you... so maybe a few more of those after this blooding and a wedding, and you'll help me."

Alysha had no reason to trust either... and that was the only grip she had on the bottomless horror that awaited either of them being right. "You're... You're wrong, John Newman. You believe the lies of the demon and whatever nonsense these 'achievements' preach. We are the keel-vorsh'ek, and we would sooner carry the children of krell-spiders than of a human. It... it is impossible!"

John nodded with a smile. "If you say so... for now, I want to sleep." John stretched, yawned, and took off his magical equipment save for his ring, stashing those valuable pieces in his inventory while letting the mundane clothes go through the cleric spirit's unique wash-and-dry. When his underwear was at last off, he was surprised to discover his cock still twitched with the effort to get hard, despite the day he just had.

"I will guard the hall, then, while you sleep."

"Fairy will do that. You're going to keep me company while I sleep."

"I... am to stand watch here, then?"

Fairy cackled as she floated away, and the doors slammed closed once she was out, causing Alysha to jump in her stunned state. John smiled as he sat on the bed. Oh man, it's just firm enough... but also soft, and... almost worth the $1,000, John bitterly reminded himself. "We're going to be married soon... so you should get used to sleeping by my side."

"I... my kind does not sleep, John Newman, and as I've said we do not marry ourselves to lowly humans."

"Then you'll lay there and let me..." John grinned, suddenly embarrassed that he got to say this for the first time in his life. "... spoon you."

"Spoon...? I am partially aware of your people's ways," she muttered. John nodded, as he started to slide under the covers. "Do you intend to eviscerate me with dinnerware, for your sadistic pleasure?"

"W-What?"

"Humans derive incredible pleasure from their **** devices. Such a dire method of punishment seems fitting-"

"N-No! God no, I mean... look, forget spooning. Cuddling? Is that a word that translates well, here?"

"... You wish for me to not only be in this room, but to lay down with you, and lay in your embrace..." Her body twitched, and John could tell a bottomless rage simmered just beneath the surface she struggled to maintain. "You. The **** who ruined my entire life. You, who speak lies of doing so much worse in the coming nights, who would see me become anathema to my people, my ways, my own very life."

John flexed and stretched under the sheets, suppressing a yawn as he spoke. "Yeah, well, you tried to kill me with swords, so you're no princess either. Still, I've never cuddled with a girl before... so this'll be good practice." Alysha simply stared at him, incapable of accepting this in her heart.

An hour later, she laid awake and tense while an exhausted John snored into her upper-back, his hands firmly holding her tits. A steady twitch developed in her left eye.