Patch notes and reports

John flopped onto his bed, exhausted. He’d spent the rest of the day with Rebecca foraging for more raw materials; they’d gathered more than enough metal from the trolls before doubling back via a hardware store to the park. All the running to act as a decoy for the monsters alongside the effort of cutting lumber with his meager physical Stats had been taxing in the ****, but it’d been worth it.

They’d gathered more than he needed for all three of timber, metal and foliage, so he’d have some bits left over. Depending on what happened with his Quest reward, he was planning on giving most of the spare material to the pictsies by way of an apology for his behavior when he first met them.

Sighing, John rolled over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. Tomorrow was going to be… complicated. He and Matilda weren’t officially a couple, and yet he felt guilty about what had happened with Rebecca, especially as his blessing had caused it. On the other hand, remembering the woman’s moans and how soft she’d felt beneath his fingers had more or less the expected result in a young man. To distract himself lest he further complicate his mental turmoil by masturbating over one woman while trying to mentally prepare for a date with another, John sat up and opened his Status - and froze.

There was a notification, blinking - he’d been so busy with resource gathering that he’d not noticed an update had also occurred on his other major quest. There was also a system message - at least, he assumed that was what the little bouncing envelope with the word ‘SYSTEM’ on it in all caps meant. Tapping it hesitantly, he skimmed the pop-up that appeared.

That was a lot to take in; it seemed Gaia had been busy. While John couldn’t immediately see any differences to his System menu, a few minutes prodding revealed that, yes, there was in fact now a number of tabs - most of which were greyed out. The only one that wasn’t contained a list of names of people he’d Observed, although interestingly enough not everyone he’d Observed. His mother was there, as were Rebecca, Matilda, Wesley, Moira and Emily… John frowned as he tried to work out why others he knew he’d scanned - like Vanessa’s crony Jennifer for instance - weren’t present, but eventually gave up. Ineffable are the ways of gods, and at least he wouldn’t need to re-scan everyone he knew to get basic info on them.

Tapping on his mother’s name experimentally, his frown deepened. Her results were far more basic than his current Observe would provide, and had a date at the top that was back at the start of the week. “I guess that means it just saves the information from Observe, and doesn’t keep running live updates. That makes sense, it’d be a bit of a cheat code otherwise, or a massive mana drain,” he muttered, then finally turned his attention to the blinking display for his “Like a Little Prayer” Quest.

John wasn’t sure where to start with the rewards; the toggle was easy enough to find at least. As soon as he’d opened the Quest, a new tab had appeared labeled ‘Settings’ - with both the requisite toggle and a handful of options should he ever feel the need to change the colour scheme of his by-now familiar blue boxes. As to the reward, he found it in his inventory a moment later. Pulling it out, he was surprised to find that it was quite large, comprising a wooden pole with a flat sign on one end and a point on the other.

That… was completely worthless? John wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever need to grow crops of any sort, and the fact that [Field] and [Fallow] were specifically boxed in by brackets seemed to indicate that he wouldn’t just be able to plonk the sign down in the yard and have it boost the herb garden’s growth rate. Tossing it back into his inventory, he sighed and flicked the toggle to infertile anyway. No sense in having added risk there, even if he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be having sex at any point if he told Matilda about what had happened with Rebecca…

Across town, Moira Brighton listened patiently as Novice Rebecca completed going back over the first part of her report, the young woman’s face tinting as she reached the end of the combat encounter with the herbihog. “You say his blessing felt like the gift the Lady has bestowed on me?” the redhead mused, fingers reaching up to clasp at her necklace. “That seems improbable. Our Lady does not grant her favour to mortals regularly - aside from my fellow sisters in the Rose, I am not aware of any such blessings from my studies. Was there any other detail you have omitted to tell me about? You skipped quite rapidly to the encounters with the junk trolls the first time you provided your account of events.”

Rebecca’s blush deepened. “Umm… Yes, Lady Warden. I… Forgive me, for I brought dishonour on our order. After the fight, I don’t know if it was some curse from the hog or the adrenaline but I became overwhelmed with lust and…” She froze; Moira’s eyes had gone very wide and the Warden’s hand was raised.

“Novice… When… when did this lust start? Never mind the shame of it.” The redhead leaned forward in her seat, eyes fixated on the woman in front of her.

Thinking back desperately, Rebecca shook her head. “I… I think it might have been building from… but that’s impossible! The blessing, I started to feel warmth then, but I swear it was nothing evil. It felt so like the warmth of your gift, I’m sure that was all and I am confusing that heat with the one the combat drove me to…” Again, Moira raised her hand.

“Rebecca. Did you have sex with this… John Newman?” The Warden’s voice was oddly panicked, her shoulders slumping with relief when Rebecca shook her head. “Thank Gaia for that. I have new orders for you. First of all - you are to work with this would-be shrine architect to finish his shrine. See what he does, make sure he is honest in his faith in our Lady. I will arrange for the craftsmen to provide you with an idol and the archivists to find his phone number, as I’m sure you won’t have thought to get it despite whatever lewdity you got up to.”

Smiling at Rebecca’s embarrassed blush, Moira pulled her necklace from around her neck. Golden light filled the room and a moment later she stood in full plate, a shield in one hand and a warhammer outstretched towards the awe-struck novice in the other. “Secondly, and on pain of suffering the wrath of our Lady, you are to speak to none about this… warmth, that you claim you felt. And thirdly, once you have observed Newman in his shrine-building, you are to inform him that I wish to speak with him at the estate at his earliest convenience. By which I mean, BRING HIM HERE IMMEDIATELY.” She emphasized that last point by striking her hammer against her shield, Rebecca’s face going pale as the Gaia-blessed equipment blazed with brilliant fire.

Once the novice had left the room, Moira flicked her hammer irritably, the storage enchantment on her necklace pulling it, her armour and her shield back into the pendant before she fastened it carefully back around her neck. She shifted awkwardly as she did so, heat pooling between her thighs even after just a short usage of the Rose’s power. It’d been overkill to make her point that way, she was aware - but if the novice had been telling the truth, then Rebecca had truly been involved in an encounter with someone wielding Gaia’s power.

Moira paused, trying to find a religiously suitable term for what the Lady’s blessing did to its recipient and once again failing before settling on ‘aroused’ as the best of a bad set of options. The fact that the blessing she carried aroused its wielder was a secret known only to the highest levels of the Order, a metaphorical thorn that accompanied the blossoming power of the Rose. Within the manor, besides herself, only her father and their most dedicated seer knew. Biting her lip to center herself and in dire need of advice, she went to seek out Lorelei.