It's like things are becoming routine

“Wait, are you, like, related to Athena?” As much as Elsie was finding it easy to adapt to her new circumstances in a twisted fantasy universe—largely thanks to her Sensate ability—it was still a little mind blowing to consider that the myths she had read as a child growing up in the UK were based on real creatures.

“Mmm, don’t think so.” Blue’s tone wasn’t exactly dismissive, but it was fairly obvious she didn’t hold her own mythological heritage to be as fascinating as the brownie. She had tagged along without comment when Elsie set off to pick up the final message from the temple of Athena, and while the English woman didn’t mind the chance to get to know her party member a little better, she also wasn’t sure exactly what the harpy’s plans were.

On the other hand, she was also walking into a bit of an unknown situation. Kevin had pulled Elsie aside before he went off with Penny, and had given a very brief rundown of the events of the day before. She needed to pick up the message and deliver it—with the other two—before noon, or the entire party would suffer some kind of quest. Knowing Lily, it would be something that pushed them towards each other, but that could be just as bad as something debilitating if it hurt their chances of establishing their party cohesion on their own.

The red-faced blushing way Kevin admitted to the act of defiance to the gods told her that he was focused more on the intimate and biological nature of the act, but—as fun as it sounded—that part occupied less of Elsie’s mind than the fact that it was Stheno, sister of Medusa, that had wound up painted in her master’s cum.

Dungeon Master. Not just Master. Elsie had to remind herself that, despite the squirming part of herself insisting she spend more time servicing him, she was more than a physical vessel for Kevin to use. She was also a vital part of the party, and her present mission was just one more way that she could show she was more than a set of warm, wet, tight holes for that thick cock to–

“I think maaayybe we’re distant cousins. My sisters did a lot of gossiping about the gods, but they didn’t do a great job of explaining who was related to who. Maybe because they’re all related to, and fucking, each other?”

“Um, yeah. That—that makes sense. I read about it a while ago, but I’ve never been a scholar of classical mythology or anything. It’s just—weird to even call it that, knowing that you’re really a harpy.”

“Am I still?” For all that Blue had seemed content with the transformation that had come with her class, Elsie realized that she hadn’t ever actually talked to her about what she thought of having her body changed so completely against her will. She’d been skin and bones before, with arms that were closer to wings, but now she looked more like a heavily tanned Seltin Sweet had taken up cross-fit.

Of course it was an improvement in Elsie’s eyes—and Kevin’s, by the way the man had responded to the new look—but she felt a sudden flash of guilt as she realized she hadn’t even asked Blue about it. The harpy’s transformation had been far more obvious and physical than any of the subsequent ones, but since she’d gone first, by the time Lily finished handing out classes it had slipped her mind.

“A harpy?”

“Yeah.” Blue’s tone was uncharacteristically thoughtful as she continued, “I don’t think my sisters would say that I was, but I’m not so sure.”

“I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with continuing to think of yourself as a harpy. Even if your outward appearance has been changed, you’re still the same inside, right?”

This time there was a longer pause as Blue considered. “I’m not sure. Living with my sisters, I didn’t ever have the chance to get out and–” She gestured around at the city street as they walked along it, “–do things. I was always on the edge of things, not in the middle. I don’t know how much of what’s different inside is because of where I am, and how much is that something has changed. I don’t even know how I would know.”

“If it helps, I think that if you’re a harpy on the inside, you’re a harpy no matter what you look like outside. And—and I think that your outside looks good.” Elsie flushed a faint pink as she delivered the compliment. She’d always felt a little awkward telling other girls how they looked—it always seemed like it was opening herself up to judgment in return, but now, dealing with the **** Blue–

“Of course I do. Look at me.” Blue turned and skipped backwards a few steps so that she was walking down the street ahead of Elsie. Despite the presence of several other pedestrians, she didn’t seem to have any trouble navigating without looking where she was going, as she spread her arms to either side to show off her new physique.

Elsie had to admit that she was right. ‘Good’ didn’t cut it—Lily had given the harpy the body of a fitness-obsessed porn star, and a face fit for Hollywood. The fact that her outfit showed off more than it concealed helped highlight that it was the body itself which was appealing rather than the somewhat plain attire.

“You’re not unhappy with your body?”

Blue looked puzzled for a moment, then shook her head. “No. Why would I be? Before, I couldn’t ever talk to people. They were always running and screaming about monsters. Now I can just walk down the street and the only thing that happens is that sometimes people want to touch me.”

“But you said you were worried about—you know, being a harpy?”

Blue shrugged, then spun abruptly so she was walking ahead of Elsie. The brownie jogged to catch up to her. “Maybe I didn’t want to be a harpy. Maybe being a harpy sucked. Maybe I didn’t want to have to steal a man.”

“Are you—was that something you wanted before?” Elsie did her best to keep her voice even. She’d been concerned about how to convince Blue to work with the party, and this sounded like it might be the best opening she’d have.

“What? A man? Maybe.”

Blue was silent for long enough that Elsie started to assume that was all she would say on the topic, before she suddenly added, “Sex, though.”

“Wait, what about sex?”

“Oh, I’m not sure if I want a man, but sex sounds good.”

“Are you–” Elsie suddenly realized she had no idea how to even approach the subject of modern human sexuality. It had always frustrated her when historians seemed to dance around the topic and refused to call historical figures ‘gay’ even when there was strong evidence that they had same-sex lovers, but as she considered what Blue’s love-life must have looked like prior to being summoned by Lily, she felt a sudden surge of sympathy. “–wow, I don’t even know how to start with that. Who do you want to have sex with?”

The words felt horribly crude, but given how blunt Blue was, it seemed like the safest approach. Fortunately, the other woman showed no sign of offense at the question. “I’m not sure. I thought about asking Kevin for sex, but he’s been busy. Did you want to have sex with me?”

The question was so casual Elsie was caught off-guard. “With—with you?”

“Yes.” Blue glanced around the street for a moment, then added, “We would need to find somewhere soft, though, these streets would be uncomfortable.”

“Blue?”

“Yes, Elsie?”

“What was life like for you before you came here?”

“What you just said. Finding a man?”

“Oh, fuck yes! Right there! God, I love your dick!” Penny put all of the sincerity and passion that she could into her words, even as her thighs ground against each other as she squirmed. Not only did Penny’s voice have the familiar power of her heritage laced through the words, she could feel the vibrating strings of Lily’s power like a dark reverb echoing beneath them.

Across the small sound booth, she watched as Kevin did his level best to conceal the erection he’d been sporting since she got past the ‘introduction’ and ‘quest’ portion of her recording session. The litany of lewd moans and explicit dialogue that had followed had been a little awkward at first, but once she realized how hard the man was trying to not show how strongly her performance was affecting him, Penny realized she could turn it back on her observer.

“Faster! Give it to me! Yesss!”

In truth, while Penny wasn’t nearly as turned on as her character, she was finding the act of teasing to be far more entertaining than she had expected. She had volunteered to take on the ‘performing’ quest that Blue had picked up without any real information about it, but now that she was actually doing the work, it was actually pretty fun.

A lot of that was Kevin.

It was sweet, really. Lily had heavily implied that Penny—and the other six women she had summoned after her—were there to be a part of the man’s harem, yet here he was doing his best to pretend they weren’t in some alternate reality that had been crafted to give an unknown, unseen audience a show.

The thought stuck in Penny’s mind like a sour note as soon as it occurred to her. She’d been looking to get in front of an audience for more than two decades, but this was never what she had in mind.

Kevin—bless his heart—didn’t have much to pay attention to other than her, so the moment Penny’s expression changed, he reacted. “Everything alright?”

Penny glanced over at the red glow which indicated their recording session was still being monitored. She hesitated, then shook her head. “No. But—not here. I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to make much more progress on this part of the script, though. I’m going to go talk to the director and let him know I’m taking a break, then lets go get some lunch?”

“I, um—you spent the night with Kevin last night.”

“Yes.”

Tess wasn’t sure what unnerved her more—Stheno’s monosyllabic answers, or the way the woman was eying her like a piece of meat.

“Your—point totals. Your HP, I guess, I saw the change. I guess you two–”

“Yes.” Before Tess could dig further, the gorgon added, “The points do not matter. If Lily wishes to track my progress, she will do so. I chose to bed the Master because I desired more of what I was given. He delivered admirably.”

Tess felt a surge of arousal run through her as the other woman preened. With her heightened senses, she could not only hear the throaty rumble of remembered pleasure in Stheno’s voice, she could smell the faint traces of Kevin on the other woman. The gorgon had clearly bathed prior to emerging from the master’s quarters, but somehow the clean scent of lavender soap was unable to wash away the scent of the man she had been summoned to serve.

“I—I’m glad.”

“I believe we have reached the street of craftsmen the Celtic spirit mentioned.”

It didn’t take Tess’ improved hearing to pick up the clang of a hammer striking metal nearby, nor the murmur of customers haggling with tradesmen as they went about their day. “Yeah. And I don’t think Elsie is actually Celtic. Or at least, I don’t think she thinks of herself that way. I guess she’s probably descended from Celts?”

Stheno nodded. “Most likely. You are correct, though. I am—my knowledge has been limited by my circumstances. I should do my best to fix that, as well as learning more about my master’s other lovers.”

Tess grimaced. “You don’t have to call us that. I know you and Elsie, um, did things with Kevin, but I don’t plan to.”

The sideways glance Stheno directed at Tess was indecipherable, but unsettled her nonetheless. Not only did it speak of hidden knowledge, the intense expression on the gorgon’s face went a long way towards reminding her of the most famous feature of the woman’s original curse.

The selkie’s gaze involuntarily flicked up to meet the startling green of Stheno’s eyes. They locked for a moment, only for the gorgon’s face to suddenly light up in a surprisingly pleasant smile. “It is—good to once more be among people. I believe that we have arrived at the store the–” She cut herself off and corrected, “–Elsie mentioned.”

Tess’ eyes turned towards the sign hanging over the door of the shop in front of them.

The Armoire of Invincibility

“Yup, that’s the place.”

“And you… aren’t related to each other?”

Hazel was pretty sure the question wasn’t necessary. The four women in front of her weren’t the same species, but given some of the things she had seen happen since she was summoned by Lily, it seemed better to be safe than sorry.

“No. Why do you ask?” Winter was a dark skinned elf who stood at the back of the group with a wary expression on her face. With a figure as slender as Autumn’s, she might as well have been a photo-negative of the druid’s first disciple.

“No particular reason.” Hazel saw no reason not to smile at the woman—her manner might have been brusque, but she clearly meant no harm by the question. “Just wondering. Now, Summer–”

The third elf was closer in skin and hair tone to Hazel than anyone else in the room, with a slightly deeper tan and hair bleached an almost peroxide blonde by the sun. “Um, yeah?”

“You’re sure you want to go next?”

“Like, totally. If Autumn can do it, I can too!”

The most outgoing of the four, Summer was also the curviest—though compared to Hazel the difference was hardly noticeable. The tan elf began to strip out of the rags she wore, unconcerned with her exposure to the nature that surrounded them. Only when the druid began directing the plant life nearby to wrap itself around her frame did she show any reaction, and that came in the form of a quiet moan.

As Kevin stared across the small table at the woman across from him, he couldn’t help but reflect on how absolutely surreal his life had become in the last few days.

He and Penny had wrapped up at RoundHard—the obvious parody company that had never been a part of his own worldbuilding—and set out into the city in search of some lunch. It was absolutely bizarre to find himself walking through the streets of Adventuria under any circumstances, let alone the explicitly lewd and sexualized ones that Lily had arranged for this strange show she had dropped him in.

Kevin had been fantasizing about what walking through a magical city full of adventures would actually feel like since he was in his early teens. It had started simply enough. He had known that the city had a castle, and a barracks, and a stable for horses, which meant it had to have a blacksmith. From there, though, things had grown. He had wanted to figure out how a city filled with magic might have grown—what events might have shaped it, and how the layout would have evolved as a result.

If a city had a king and knights, it had to have horses. If it had horses, they had to eat something. If they ate something, they had to poop. Most players didn’t want to think about their own characters using the bathroom when they sat down to play a game—and in truth, Kevin didn’t either, it wasn’t a topic that he brought up if he could avoid it—but his mind wouldn’t let go of the idea once it occurred to him.

A hyena-faced man dragged a small cart behind him. It was laden with trash and midden, and the only reason the smell didn’t put him and his lovely blonde companion off of their lunch was the small cloth charm hanging from the side of the cart which was enchanted to keep the air nearby smelling sweet.

Or at least—reasonably fresh. The city was a bustling place and the charm was a minor magic item he had intended to be used by NPCs. A player had actually asked about trash collection in one of his games a decade or more back, and he had needed to scale down how potent the magic was to prevent his party from having access to a cheap way to block scent-based tracking.

It felt like everywhere he looked, Kevin saw another detail, another piece of himself that he had put into a world which he thought would only ever exist in his head. It was almost overwhelming, so rather than think about it, he finally asked, “You wanted to talk about something?”

“Yeah. It’s about—well, this whole thing. Or the show part of it, anyway.”

Even when she was just speaking conversationally, there was something intensely alluring about Penny’s voice. Kevin had a hard time believing that she was deliberately trying to be sultry or seductive, since her expression was pensive and distant, but the underlying music of her speech sang of deep currents that promised to suck him under the surface and into a world focused on a different kind of magic altogether.

“It’s—yeah. I’m struggling to come to grips with that a little myself.”

“Doesn’t seem to have stopped you from getting together with Elsie or Stheno.”

Kevin was pulled abruptly from his musings by Penny’s words. His eyes abruptly shot up to look at the siren’s face, only to discover that she wasn’t actually looking at him. Instead, she was staring across the street at a pair of silver-scaled Drakonid women as they restocked a fruit stand from a small cart.

“I—I didn’t plan to–”

“I’m not trying to accuse you of anything.” Penny turned to look at Kevin and he found himself suddenly staring into deep blue eyes. “Elsie talked to me yesterday. She gave me a whole recruitment pitch, in fact. It’s pretty obvious that, whatever she might have been like before Lily summoned her here, she’s on-board now. Seems like Stheno is too.”

Kevin reached a hand up and nervously ran it along the back of his head. He usually kept his hair pretty short, but it had been a month or more since his last haircut, and the result was a little shaggier than he was used to. “Yeah, you could say that. I don’t know that she’s playing the same game as the rest of us, but she’s—she’s definitely something.”

Memories of the gorgon’s human form crying out in passion as he’d taken her in public flooded Kevin’s mind, followed by flashes of the more private and intimate encounters they had shared later on that evening.

“I’ll bet.” A guilty look crossed Kevin’s face and Penny added, “That’s kinda what I wanted to talk about, though. This whole world, the changes that Lily is making to all of us, they’re all designed to push us into, well, your harem. To make sure that all of us have a reason to sleep with you. And then some.”

“Yeah. I’ve—I can show you some of what I’m talking about tonight, but I spent the first evening we were here reading through summaries of some of the other seasons of Harem Hotel. It’s–” Kevin shook his head slowly. “I haven’t wanted to scare anyone, so I’ve been keeping it to myself, but the stuff that Lily did to all of us is incredibly mild, so far.”

Penny arched an eyebrow. “She gave Blue an entirely new body.”

“One of the other seasons opened by imprisoning a man’s mind in the body of a constantly needy large-breasted slut, within the first thirty minutes. In another one, an adult woman was split into two younger bodies that shared a mind. Don’t even get me started on the lactating cow-girls with tits bigger than their heads…”

“Actually, from what Tess and Hazel were saying yesterday, we’ve got our own little ranch of those just outside of town.” She gestured off in the direction of the city gates with a halfhearted laugh.

Penny’s comment might have been intended as an attempt to lighten the mood, but all it did was send a shiver down Kevin’s spine. “That’s—no thank you. Not if I can help it. Anyway, my point is—I don’t want to try to scare you, or anyone else, into anything. But—I don’t know how to get out of this, Penny.”

The smile that the siren had **** onto her lips slipped, and she nodded slowly. “Me neither. The thing I wanted to talk to you about was—well, mostly what we’re talking about now. The show, the audience, Lily. Us. I’m not saying you’re a bad looking guy–”

“I have no illusions about my own attractiveness.”

The bitterness in Kevin’s voice as he muttered over Penny’s words caught the blonde woman off-guard. “What do you mean?”

This time it was Kevin’s turn to look away as he refused to meet his companion’s gaze. “Look, I know that most of the women Lily called here wouldn’t have given me the time of day if we’d met under any other circumstances. Hwa would have literally eaten me by now, and not in a sexy way. I’m not—I’m not saying I think I’m repulsive, or anything, but I know I’m not exactly magazine cover material.”

“Maybe. That’s not my point, though. If you and I had met in a bar, I would’ve been happy to talk to you. I just–”

“–you didn’t get a chance. No, I get it. Believe me.” Kevin looked back up and let himself spend a few moments studying Penny’s expression. “I’m not trying to say that I think I’m a hideous ogre, or anything–”

He suddenly barked a laugh and interrupted himself to add, “Though if Elsie didn’t know that she was a brownie, maybe I ought to ask Lily if I’ve got any magical heritage I wasn’t aware of.”

“Maybe you should. It doesn’t really matter, though. I’m a siren, because my mother was a siren, as was her mother before her. I’ve never felt the urge to sing a sailor into crashing into a rocky shore, but maybe that’s only because unlike my distant ancestors, I’ve never needed to cause a shipwreck so I could pick through the remains to steal their supplies of dried meat. Hopefully I never do. If that’s what it takes to survive, though, I will. That doesn’t mean I’m going to like it.”

“In this analogy, am I the sailors, or the rocks?”

Kevin’s question provoked a quiet laugh from the siren. “Actually I think in this analogy, you’re my singing. Lily is hunger, and the sailors are my dignity.”

Left unsaid was that the transformations she would be undergoing were the rocks—the harsh realities against which her dignity would be smashed.

“Let’s—I want to do everything I can to help. Lily seems reasonable enough.”

Penny took in a deep breath, then let it out as a slow sigh. “I don’t know that reasonable is the right word, but I get your point. Look, Kevin—I know that this isn’t your fault. I also know that you’re trying to do your best to be a good guy in a bad situation. It hasn’t even been all bad, it’s just—I’m not ready to have sex with you.”

Kevin immediately held up both hands, but before he could defend himself, Penny continued, “I’m not saying you asked me to. I know you haven’t, and that you probably won’t. You’re trying to be the good guy here, and I get it. I’m also not saying that it’s never going to happen. Lily may have implied that we could get through this without fucking, and maybe what you’re doing with Stheno and Elsie is enough to keep her and the audience happy. Give me some time, and we’ll see what happens, but for now? Let’s just take it slow.”

This time it was Kevin’s turn to offer a smile and ask, “Slow like listening to you fake sex sounds in a small booth for a couple hours?”

“You didn’t seem to mind.”

“A gorgeous blonde was moaning hard enough to convince me she was cumming her brains out, am I supposed to think that’s bad?”

“Touche. Fair enough. Again—I’m not saying nothing is going to happen, just—let’s figure out our way through this together, okay?”

“Deal.”