Party Games?

Scarlet

Daphne is moping. It seems that the island security system is very restrictive on where she can swim. Tina is trying to cheer the mermaid up with her magic tricks, with limited success.

The three missing harem members return to the fire, bearing much grilled chickens, with some grilled onions and peppers. Smells good. Tina, drooling over the food, pulls out bottles of hot sauce, chips, guacamole, and a bunch of other food stuff out of thin air. Daphne pulling out an entire set of folding chairs and a table in the same basic fashion is extra freaky. Soon enough, those of us with bad table manners are eating.

“Eating utensils?” Dinah asks.

Daphne, about to chomp straight down on a drumstick, asks, “What are eating utensils?”

“Daph, before you start, remember what happened over lunch?”

“Oh, yeah,” Daphne blushes, “That was embarrassing.”

“Wait, what happened?” Francis asks, worry across his face.

“She chomped straight through the stick on her corn dog. Had to do the Heimlich maneuver. She can’t eat like a savage when she’s in human mode.”

“Needing to learn to walk and eat without dying?” Tina teases, “Looks like your newest girl is a sexy baby, Francis.”

Daphne blushes as some of the girls laugh at Tina’s bad joke. Scarlet and Francis are not amused. Dinah is annoyed, “So, eating utensils?”

Josie picks up a tortilla. “Here’s how you serve yourself. Tortillas are edible gloves.” She picks up a chicken breast and nibbles on it.

With the brief lesson complete, everyone starts eating. Mmmm, this is good.

Tina, between bites, tries to keep the conversation going, “So, last night we played this weird game, I think. I was soooo wasted the whole time. Be nice to get a refresher. And Daph and Francis should answer the questions, too.”

Dinah, ever the Team Mom, summarizes the game and everyone’s answers. “So, Daphne and Francis, how about it? Food that reminds you of home? What’s most attractive in a woman? First celebrity crush? Who made you realize you’ll be chasing skirts?”

“Well, this hotel is my home and I haven’t ever had the chance to leave it, so I can’t really be reminded of home. Still, my answer to question number 1 is Thrapsalo. They are in the ocean and are so fun to chase. Usually they shoot themselves out of the water to try to escape. I feel so accomplished if I’m able to successfully jump out of the water and catch them mid-air. Egg sacs, the bigger, the better for question number 2. First celebrity crush would be Isla, who was the first Host for the HH: Cruise season. Man, her egg sacs got huge once she was **** into the harem.”

“Wait. Hold up. Your first celebrity crush was a Harem Hotel season host? Really?”

“And hosts can be **** into the harem?” Everybody, especially Francis, shudders at the thought.

“Well, the only media we were allowed to consume was other seasons of the show, and that was for research. You know, looking for transformation or challenge ideas, figuring out ways of generating drama, fun rule tweaks, you know, research. And, usually, the host is a total hottie. A sadistic hottie, but a hottie. At least a portion of the frenzy’s hatred towards that bitch Beckie is that she’s not nearly as hot as the previous host for this set, or as hot as some sea slugs we have here. And, yes, if a host screws up badly enough, they often get to choose infinite torment or being bound to their season’s Master. Anyways, unisexual species, so either I ‘chase skirts’ or I’m having sex with sentient beings not from my species. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, Master. Your turn.”

“Across the river back home is this little restaurant and they have the best barbacoa. My, ‘hey, I survived the semester’ treat always include a trip there. They do it proper, burying the cacheta in a charcoal pit wrapped in leaves. So good. My slow cooker version pales in comparison. Ya’ll are gonna tease me, but I really like proportionality in a woman. Nothing too ****. If it’s not too embarrassing for me to admit, I find all of you attractive in your own ways. First celebrity crush is Marina Sirtis; she played Deanna Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation. If you want me to pick a cartoon character like Tina, I’d go with either Pumyra from Thundercats, maybe Gadget from Chip in Dale? Puberty hit for the chasing skirts question, I guess?”

“Man, old man, how embarrassing is it that none of us know what you’re talking about with your celebrities? And, c’mon, surely you can give us a name or something for who got your engine revving for the first time.”

“Hey,” Tina interrupts, “I remember the Thundercats remake. Why did you fall in love with a bad girl?”

“What? Never watched the remake. Pumyra was a cinnamon roll in the original. What they do to her?”

“She was a vassal for the spooky mummy guy.”

“Oh. Okay, So the remake no longer exists. If you want a budding sexuality story, I guess I can talk about the first time I tried asking someone out. It was spring during my freshman year of college and our Freshman Bio lab TA was too lazy to learn people’s names, so he assigned us seats in alphabetical order. My partner was this beautiful girl named Estella. Picture a taller, less unkempt version of Indigo. She was from a couple of towns over from us, Josie. We hit it off and I was crushing on her so hard, so quickly. But the nagging feelings of inadequacy kept me from making a move. It took some of my squad from the college militia branch getting me wasted for me to work up the nerve the night of the lab final. They borrowed my phone and texted her about meeting up to look at our results together. So, they **** me, super hung over, out of bed, cleaned me up, and marched me to the meet up. And the first thing she showed me was her engagement ring. I didn’t even notice that on of the more studly types in class asked her out about a couple of weeks in. In fact, she thought I was gay. I kept my shit together long enough to get back to the dorm room and then I didn’t get out of bed for 2 days.”

Skye, who’s been pretty quiet, pipes up, “I’m sorry, my lady love. Surely, you found somebody that loved you enough to allow you to court her at some point, right?”

The silence is deafening. Wow. Maybe one of us just needs to get him laid.

He changes the subject, “Hey, Daphne, as my magic advisor, can you tell me why I feel so drained from this morning?”

“Yeah, the progressive aspect of most of your transformations are tricky, especially since Beckie wanted to automate as much of the show’s management as possible. So, we layered them. Like one of these onion thingies. Essentially, when you get one of those transformations, we apply every version of it to you simultaneously and have them peel away the lesser ones, allowing a stronger version of it to manifest, as triggers are met.”

“So, I got hit with 26 transformations at once, not 4.”

“Well, when you put it that way, yeah. If it wasn’t for some of the dimensional rules, you’d probably have died from soul instability today.”

Another deafening silence. He looks guilty. He stands and starts to head back to the hotel, saying, “Sorry. Well, I’m about ready to hit the hay. Goodnight, all.”

Scarlet finishes up the last bit of her meal and says her good nights. She jogs to catch up with Francis; she makes it to the base of the stairs to the Master’s Suite at the same time he did. The redhead touches Francis on the shoulder, accidentally brushing his hair in the process; he gasps, the turns around, asking, “What’s up?”

“Can we talk about my transformations? We didn’t really get a chance to do so this afternoon.”

“You okay spending the night with me? I’m probably not going to be great company.”

“Maybe I can help with that. We need to help each other, right?”

He nods towards the stairs and offers his arm. Scarlet slips a hand around his elbow and the two walk up the stairs. He fires a text off to this Zoe mermaid as he slumps into a chair in his reading nook. Scarlet takes another chair, asking, “So, you’ve had a day, wanna decompress a little? Talk about your frustrations?”

“I’ll manage. What can I do for you instead?”

He’s deflecting. Turning offers of help back on me. Ugh. So wanna flick the bean just trying to think about it.

Before she can get back to him, a mermaid shimmies over. She looks excited, exclaiming, “Are we doing an upgrade again? I’d love more baby batter.”

“For Scarlet’s The Magic of Student Loans transformation, what can I do to alleviate it? Any way we can lessen the amount of knowledge suppressed? Or maybe allow her to re-learn things?”

“Best we can offer is to make the exchange rate more generous. Say a trigger to bump it to 1 BP = $500, 2 triggers for 1 BP = $1000?”

“Francis, I have so much BP right now. I could simply buy the upgrade.”

“Um, no. The upgrade you can buy exchanges all of your high school knowledge with heterosexual sex techniques until the loan is paid. As I already told the Master, we’ve been order to screw you lot by the bitch Beckie.”

Another deafening silence. Francis stares at Scarlet, looking like he is considering the best route. Scarlet is glaring at the mermaid. Eventually, Francis asks, “How large is your loan? Presuming we can’t convert the BP at the end of the game for something better, if we can get the conversation rate sufficiently fair, you may be able to pay of the entirety of the loan here. You did just get a transformation that lets you earn BP.”

“300-something thousand dollars. Didn’t need to think about it while I was still in school. They probably have a better idea of the exact amount than I do.”

“So, if I bump you up to 1000 dollars off the loan per BP, then you’d need 300 BP and some change.”

I’d be most of the way there. But is it too selfish to take this deal? I mean, we just heard how unstable he is right now and I’m asking him to suffer more for my benefit. And then I’m spending the bulk of my BP on myself instead on the team.

Scarlet’s indecision adds a new wrinkle, as this Zoe mermaid wishes to haggle, “I’ll throw in an upgrade to the new transformation if you get the better Loan upgrade.”

“What do you want to push me further along? The clothes one is currently a bit problematic to trigger. And I imagine the voice one would be unpleasant for you to upgrade currently.”

“You are not going to let me back off of this, are you, Francis?”

“Nope. I know how much the Loan transformation bothers you.”

Again, too self-sacrificial. He really needs to work through some things and he won’t do it until I can guide him without bringing myself to orgasm. Reluctantly, she comes to a conclusion, “1 clothes, 1 singing. Don’t want to **** you too far down the clothes until you are actually ready for it.”

He turns to the mermaid. “Do it.”

Scarlet checks the transformations on her phone as the magic triggers:

The Magic of Student Loans +1 – Why should Scarlet have access to knowledge she has yet to pay for? Scarlet will lose the ability to recall any non-sexual fact or technique she has learned throughout her college career until she has completely paid off her current student loan balance. Scarlet will be unable to relearn information gotten from college; attempts to relearn information will result in increased arousal instead. This transformation does not otherwise affect Scarlet’s intelligence. Before the game ends, she may use BP to pay off her debt at a conversion rate of 1 BP = $1000; later transformations may allow Scarlet to earn BP by stripping. Any debt that remains when the game ends must be paid for by Scarlet earning money from adult entertainment performances (Bimbo; Progress: 0/319).

Work/Study Girl – Scarlet has been neglecting her part-time job. Perhaps returning to the working world would do her some good. On evenings that she does not have a date with the Master for the rest of the game, Scarlet must perform at least one striptease in the hotel tavern. Scarlet will be able to earn BP from other contestants and hotel staff based on her performance. As part of her work/study program, the tavern will pay a bonus (equal to 10% of her tips, with a minimum of 1 BP/day) directly towards her loan (Working Girl).

Francis: Clothes Make the (Wo)man Progress +1

Francis: Good Vibrations Progress +1

Francis: Identity, Interrupted Progress +2

With the triggers complete, Francis passes out. Scarlet rightly freaks out, texting the group chat. Moments later, Daphne is shouting at the foyer of the Suite; Scarlet rushes over to see the mer-girl, face flushed and weakly dragging herself along to smooth marble floor. “What happened?” Minutes later, a very angry Dinah stomps up the stairs, spiting out, “What did you two just do?”