Everyone got busy over the next few weeks, in more ways than one.

After one last hurrah at the Party's Rest, they moved into a largish farmhouse that Shiroe purchased a mile or so outside of town. It offered lots of space, plenty of privacy, solid stone walls that they could upgrade in due time, and a gorgeous view of the sunsets. Shiroe assured them that this was actually much cheaper than operating out of an inn, especially since he planned to stay in town at least long enough to establish a core group and start out-leveling the Quest system.

"I thought we were your core group."

"Yeah! And the more people you have, the smaller a share of the rewards we each get!"

"While I am always happy to meet new people, Shiroe, I am afraid that there is a limit to how many people I can heal at one time."

"Please don't worry too much about the Quest rewards. We'll run multiple Quests three to five people at a time, but you should mostly think of them as a teamwork-building tool, rather than as a source of income. The real money and XP will come later."

They still looked uncertain, so Shiroe decided it was time to let them know what he really thought of them.

"You've all more than proven yourselves, but longer-term, I'm going to need more people for what I have in mind. Specialists. Enchanters. Logistics people. And while I'm sure each of you could probably cover for one of those roles if you sunk enough levels into it, I'd much rather design roles just for you that fit your strengths."

They looked at each other dubiously, so he went into detail.

"Niki, you're a formidable warrior. You're good at following orders, and you're not afraid to ask for guidance when you need it. You've also got a powerful voice, and you never back down. With training, practice, and more experience working as a unit with different classes, I could see you one day leading a combined-arms strike ****."

"Eva, you like attention, you're good at attracting it, and you know what to do with it. As you are, you'd be fantastic for drawing a crowd at recruitment efforts and fund-raisers. But if you build out your spellbook with a combination of offensive, illusion, and movement manipulation spells? I think you could be devastating as a battlefield control mage."

"And as for you, Amara... hmmm... how can I put this?" He smiled a coy little smile that only she was standing in a position to see. *"Let me say that your tireless work with the church speaks volumes as to the depths of love in your heart." Niki and Eva just exchanged quizzical glances, but Amara seemed to blush deeply at the seemingly innocent compliment. "It's clear to me that you can pull your own weight in the field. But stationed in a front-line infirmary? None of your weaknesses would matter anymore. And you could use your strengths to help as many people as possible get back in the fight."

"All three of you need discipline. But not the kind of discipline that comes from punishment, or even hard work. You need practice resisting your worst instincts. You need to be trained to stare down your deepest temptations. You need to learn how to hold each other accountable, so that when I'm not around, you can lean on each other for the strength that you would normally normally draw from me."

Niki frowned. Eva pouted impetuously. Amara tilted her head in quiet contemplation.

"How in the world do you expect us to do all that," Niki asked finally.

"It's quite simple," Shiroe said. "We make a game out of it. If you're a good girl for two days in a row? On day three, you get to be a bad girl. And when it's your turn to be the bad girl? All the good girls have to help you wallow in what makes you weak. That's your reward for being strong the other two days."

He almost didn't even need to ask the next question. The looks on their faces said it all. But he asked it anyway, both as a matter of principle, and because he suspected their reaction would be amusing.

"Who wants to go first?"

They didn't disappoint. After much pleading and cajoling, Shiroe decided to make it a competition.

He sat on the bed. "All three of you are going to get what you want tonight," he promised. "All you have to do is come over here and ask for it. But whichever one of you resists the longest, will get to be the bad girl first."

Then he opened up a book and began to read it silently.

Time passed. They were cute as they squirmed. He made a point of not looking, but out of the corner of his eye, he could tell. They were squirming. They both loved and hated the anticipation.

But after only ten minutes, Niki glanced over and saw the look on Eva's face.

"Whatever," Niki said with a sigh, "I guess I'm just no good at these mind games." She stepped forward. "I'll go last. Tickle me."

Shiroe was surprised. He'd been sure that Niki would have given the other two a run for their money. "Are you sure?" he asked. But the muscular warrior climbed on top of him and pinned him to the bed.

"I said, tickle me."

Shiroe slowly raised his arm, and snapped his fingers.

Minutes later, Niki was beat red and naked, squirming helplessly on the floor as six hands mercilessly tickled every weak point on her body. Shiroe circled these weak spots with a charcoal pencil every time they discovered a new one. Niki and Amara eagerly committed each one to memory, which was good, because most of them were quickly reduced to sweaty black smears by Niki's struggling.

"I hate you all," Niki wheezed when she couldn't laugh anymore.

"Do you want me to finish you?"

Niki bit her lip. "I want all of you fuckers to finish me," she grumbled.

"Can I cast Instant Bath on you first?" She nodded, and he cast the spell, clearing away the charcoal markings. "Anyone who wants to show Niki a nice time, please step forward. This won't affect your standing in the competition." Amara stepped forward, but Eva only stood back and watched curiously as Amara knelt, smiled sweetly, and lowered her face into the warrior's engorged crotch.

Eva watched as she slowly nuzzled Niki's thighs and mound with her nose. They both panted, but Niki's panting came at a much faster rate. She smacked the floor twice with her hand. But Amara only kept teasing her with her nose and her breath, so Niki smacked the floor harder.

"Why are you doing that thing with your hand," Eva asked.

"This means I surrender! Don't you people grapple? Put it in alread-- AAAH!" Amara plunged her tongue into the musclebound warrior's body. She knew how to tease, and she knew when to back off. Most of all, she knew how to make her tongue flutter like a butterfly. Around and across her sensitive clit, the butterfly flew, coaxing Niki deeper and deeper into the rough waters, until she was finally pulled under and began thrashing like a drowning woman.

"That was beautiful," Niki gasped when she could finally breathe again. She gave a thumbs-up from the floor. Eva started to open her mouth to ask another question, so Niki added "thumbs-up means it was a good match. Fair fight. Good game."

Shiroe helped Niki sit up, and handed her a waterskin. "Very nicely done, Amara. You're a credit to your faith." Amara blushed, but said nothing.

"All right. Back to your positions. The waiting game resumes. Niki's going to have to be a good girl for the first two days."

Only a couple of minutes later, Eva was an uncomfortable mess. What Amara had done had looked so perverse. The scent of her arousal had reached her nostrils, and once she'd noticed it, it had been impossible to ignore. And the only other thing to look at besides Niki's face as Amara's head bobbed up and down had been Amara's ass waving around in her face while her panties slowly moistened. Eva's legs rubbed together as she replayed the display in her head.

It was one of the most disgusting things she'd ever seen, and part of her really wanted to try it.

"I give up," Eva said, stepping forward. "I need this."

Shiroe marked his place and closed his book. "Undress. Take as long as you like. Be creative. Then we'll stare at you until you can't take it anymore."

But Eva shook her head. "I already can't take it anymore." She simply peeled off her expensive fluttery dress. "I want to do what Amara did. I want to see what it's like with a woman."

Niki looked up from where she was slumped on the bed. She had already taken a couple of bites out of her muffin. "Not it. You had your chance."

"Will I suffice?" Amara asked, stepping around her and sitting down on the bed in front of her.

"Gods yes," Eva breathed. Amara took her hands and placed them on her body.

"You may touch me," she said. "You may kiss me. You may smell me. You may hold me." As she spoke, Eva all but buried herself in the voluptuous Cleric's embrace. "May I touch you?" Amara asked. The head nuzzling her nipple through her silky tunic nodded, so Amara's hands caressed the petite mage. It was neither a teasing, nor a needy caress, but rather soft and gentle. A humble invitation, which Eva enthusiastically accepted.

"May I touch your thighs?" the Cleric asked knowingly.

"Gods yes." That took things in a dangerous new direction, causing the mage to squirm and buck as her hands drew closer to where the heat and wetness were spreading throughout her body, only to back off again.

"May I touch your bottom?" Amara asked. Eva panted, so she patiently asked again, and again, until the panting turned into a whisper, and the whisper turned into an emphatic cry of "YES!"

Amara cupped Eva's ass assertively, pulling her close. Eva panted desperately as her moistening crotch ground against her clothed thigh. Amara looked straight into her eyes as she whimpered and squirmed. But despite the aggressive motions of her hands, there was nothing predatory about the look in Amara's eyes. Instead, they were deep, and warm and rich, full of kindness and mercy.

"May I undress for you?"

"Please..."

Amara smiled sweetly. "I am afraid that you will need to let go of me, for just a moment..."

Eva felt lost in Amara's eyes and her body, but eventually she was able to **** herself to move. She stood up, and scampered back a step, the slickening folds of her labia sending sensations all through her body as they shifted around.

Amara gingerly stood up and slowly removed her clothes. It was a humble, methodical process, but somehow the curves of her body spoke for themselves. "How are you doing that?" she asked. "You could teach me a thing or two."

"If you like," Amara said with only a hint of twinkle in her eye. She sat down on the bed. "I believe that I am ready. You may do whatever you like with my body... I will not break." She lifted one leg, and then set it down again, in a different place. Somehow, that simple gesture transformed her from a gentle, healing presence into an erotic **** of nature. With longing in her wide eyes, Eva stumbled forward, buried her face in her legs, and eagerly began to worship.

Amara cooed and cradled the mage's ears as she licked deeply, too busy savoring the smell and the taste and the feel of it to even think about what might turn the woman on. But Amara's voice was gentle and her touch was tender as she encouraged Eva's sensual explorations. When the thirsty mage had drunk deeply and still found herself needing more, she looked up into her eyes helplessly, silently pleading.

"Come here," Amara said simply, and Eva crawled up her body into her arms. She began to stroke her, and touch her, slowly watching Eva's expression as the emotions crossed her face. "I sense that you are close," Amara whispered into her ear. "Do you want this?"

Eva emphatically nodded her head, so Amara's gentle, delicate fingers began to work their magic.

"Eva Beela," she murmured, "I gift you with your first taste of a woman's love. May this moment inspire you for the rest of your life."

"Friggin' drama queen," Niki muttered.

"Shush," Shiroe said, giving her shoulder a shove. "Don't you remember your first time?"

Eva's head turned as she remembered that a world existed outside of this woman.

Shiroe and Niki had, of course, been sitting there this whole time, watching the two of them fuck while having tea and muffins.

The realization that she was being watched pushed her over the edge, and turned what was already an unforgettable first into a powerful reinforcement of her kink, and vice versa.

"Eva will need to be a good girl for one day," Shiroe said. "Amara gets to be the bad girl tomorrow."

"Yeah, I guess she earned it," Niki grumbled.

Eva threw her arms around Amara.

"Thank you all. I am pleased that I was able to be of service. Do you mind if I start right now?"

"You can climax, if that's what you mean. But I suggest you wait until tomorrow for the true debauchery to begin."

Amara nodded once, the epitome of gentle grace. "I will take it under advisement."

Then she began to cast a heavy healing spell on the diminutive mage in her arms, and they both began to scream with uncontrollable joy.

Shiroe ran a few easy Quests with the weaker party members, just so he could see the group dynamic for each combination of Adventurers. Whenever possible, he led teams consisting of one of the most hopeless of his new recruits, alongside one or two ladies from his increasingly seasoned "first generation" of hotties, and when he could get one, a single high-level professional adventurer. As for the adventurers who seemed like they were only in it to get close to the girls, he introduced them to each other, grouped them up by level, and ran Quests with them that felt right for the skillsets of each group.

"How come you're the only one that gets to group up with the women?" It was a question that came up frequently.

"I'm sorry, but the weakest party members need my help the most."

"Oh yeah? Then how come you aren't taking Ronaldo?"

Ronaldo Greenwin - Talks a good game, but useless in a fight
Level 3 Bard
Encourage Allies - friendly units who can hear you gain a +1 bonus
Cantrip (Instant Bath, Musical Sting, Parlor Trick)
Boost Charisma - Temporarily seem better than you are
Silver Tongue - Tell people what they want to hear
Ear To The Ground - You know most all the latest gossip

"Ronaldo's day will come," he assured them. "Right now, I'm still waiting for him to finish planning out his character build." Truth be told, unless he pivoted hard when he leveled, he would probably be more useful to the group by staying in town. But that didn't seem like a truth that they were ready to hear right now.

"I'm not even sure if you can call it a Party anymore," Amellia observed. "It's more like you're forming your own Guild, or perhaps an army."

Shiroe pushed his glasses up his nose.

"I'd appreciate it if you refrained from starting rumors, Miss La Cour."

Something about the way he'd said that sent shivers up Amellia's spine.

And they only got worse when she heard his next words.

"Saturday. 2pm. Your flat."