Discoveries and a confession

By the time Elsie and Blue found Kevin in the main room of The Long Rest, he was alone. While the room was never fully deserted, even in the small hours of the morning, most of the random fantastic creatures did their best to ignore and get out of the way of the party. When Elsie called out, “Where’s everybody?” a few eyes turned towards her, but all but Kevin’s swiftly returned to what they were doing.

“No idea for Hwa, Stheno got a minor quest that has her off searching for the sites of Altars to Olympus, I have to assume that’ll come up on her day this week. Hazel is out with Tess showing Abby around now that she’s here permanently.” Kevin paused briefly, obviously lost in thought as he added, “Penny hasn’t come downstairs yet.”

As he finished speaking, Elsie and Blue walked across the room to join him at the table he occupied, where a small array of breakfast foods were already laid out and waiting. The DM only seemed to notice the harpy’s new outfit when she arrived, and he took a double-take once he got a good look.

Blue’s magically sculpted body was clad in an outfit that was probably an homage to the one worn by the protagonist of the classic martial arts film ‘Arrival of the Serpent.’ While the male actor of the film had been shirtless for most of his well known scenes, the harpy wore a light blue sports bra which hugged her breasts tightly and left the rest of her tanned torso exposed. The black pants she wore hugged her hips and ass far more tightly than the baggy ones the star had worn, but the reference was clear enough for Kevin to pick up on it immediately.

Legacy of the Dragon (Outfit)

Become peerless! Improves the wearer’s stamina, mental fortitude, and ability to endure debilitating effects by 20%.

One Inch Punch: Wearer is more sensitive to penetration

Two Finger Push-up: Wearer is more sensitive to manual stimulation

Elsie pulled up the description and showed it to Kevin while Blue preened as he looked her over. The outfit looked amazing on her, of course—the new body her initial monk transformation had granted her meant she oozed sex appeal and would have looked good in rags—but what surprised him was how comparatively normal it was. Sure, it highlighted her porn-star body, but it wouldn’t have raised eyebrows if she wore it to a yoga class.

The expression on Blue’s face shone with hope and she twisted slightly from side to side. “Do you like it?” The expression on the harpy’s face was hopeful, absent any trace of guile or manipulation.

Kevin couldn’t help but smile. “You look amazing, Blue.” The harpy darted over and wrapped her arms around his side in response and squeezed him in a tight hug that lasted only a moment before releasing him to find her seat.

Once Elsie and Blue had caught up on breakfast and, in Elsie’s case, coffee, Kevin asked about their plans for the day. “Don’t you have a quest today, Blue?”

She nodded quickly. “I do!”

Quest: Places of Power (Weekly Quest)

Objective: Reveal three places of power to the party leader (0/3)

A quick read through it had Kevin quirking his eyebrow. “What’s a place of power?”

Blue shrugged. “Dunno, but they show up on your character sheet when you get there. I found like four the first day.” She quickly revealed the relevant tab, only for Kevin to realize that he not only had access to the same one, he already had a few places of power marked on his own. The Temple of Athena was listed, as were The Long Rest and The Master’s Suite. There was a ‘fast travel’ option listed at the bottom of the page, but even after he selected one of the locations, the button remained grayed out.

When Blue compared them to her list, she nodded absently to herself. “Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm. That one and that one and… that one.”

She didn’t explain herself, and Kevin realized that as the morning had gotten on Blue had become more withdrawn and stopped volunteering as much information. It took him a moment to recognize the hidden effects of her Monk transformation were starting to wear off. When he’d given her a few orders to get her to back off in the bedroom that morning, it had pushed her to behave in a more cooperative—and submissive—manner.

It got her to back down, and to go with Elsie to the shop without complaining. Now that it’s wearing off, can I afford to let her seize the initiative, or should I give her another command to test how quickly it takes effect?

Kevin shook his head a moment later, realizing that he’d lost himself in his own thoughts and tuned out Blue’s mumbling. When he looked to the other side of the table, he caught sight of Elsie. He’d all but forgotten that the brownie was there since she hadn’t said a word in minutes, but by the expression on her face she wasn’t offended at being ignored. Instead she looked thoughtful, though the moment his eyes landed on her face she perked up and canted her head to the side as though to ask, Did you need me?

He offered her a smile instead, doing his best to seem reassuring. He’d gone along with the Brownie when she first arrived and, within a day of meeting him, demanded to be throat fucked. Now that he knew more about how insidious the effects of of Lily’s—no, Lilith’s—transformations were, he wondered if he’d been too quick to get on-board.

It’s entirely possible that having a twenty-something British girl ask me to fuck her face influenced me to make a decision with my dick, instead of my brain, he thought with a heavy dose of self-awareness. Elsie had turned out to be incredibly helpful to have as an ally, so he couldn’t say that he regretted his decision, but a pang of guilt washed through him when he thought about how he’d taken advantage of her.

The way she described it—her reasoning at the time, it was good enough for me. How much of ‘I want to live a life of hedonistic adventure’ was the result of a goddamn Babylonian goddess, or whatever Lily is, messing with her head?

He realized he’d been staring at Elsie the entire time he thought about it—and he hadn’t been subtle. The brownie was still wearing the skimpy cosplay-costume of an Outfit, her small but delightfully pert breasts shown off in the cups of the yellow bikini top, but when he looked up and realized she’d caught him ogling her, the smirk she gave him was sultry.

Inviting.

Before he could let himself get too deep into that thought, though, he felt a tugging at his sleeve as Blue demanded, “Come on! I wanna show you the first place and you walk slow!”

The harpy was surprisingly strong for someone most of a foot shorter than him, and built on slender lines apart from her somewhat exaggerated chest and hips. Kevin managed to resist being pulled from his chair, but had to reach out a hand to brace it against Blue’s shoulder keep his balance as he did so.

She froze at his touch, a faint shiver running through her at the touch of his hand on her bare skin. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips, before Blue gave him a sudden, intensely hungry look that had Kevin reconsidering his plans. “I’d like to go with you,” Elsie interjected suddenly—apparently sensing his need for a distraction.

She was just in time—Blue’s eyes widened at Elsie’s suggestion, then she nodded eagerly. “Yes, yes! You should come with us.”

Kevin carefully withdrew his hand in the moment Blue looked away from him, and by the time she turned back he was rising from his chair. “Let’s get going.” He had to be careful not to phrase the statement as a command, since he wanted to avoid putting undue influence on Blue, but as the trio headed towards the door, he was left with lingering questions.

Did she take that as a command anyway? Who determines if something is a command or a suggestion?

What am I going to do with a simmering sex bomb of a harpy all day?

Abby had seated herself on a carved marble seat, while Tess watched from the edge of the clearing. She wasn’t sure if Hazel had brought the chair there, somehow, or if instead the nymph just found a stone chair in the woods and declared the area her grove.

The four elven acolytes were all joining in to teach her sister the Druid arts—some of them more helpfully than others. Winter’s acerbic remarks were insightful, but tended to be delivered sarcastically, while Summer’s bubbly enthusiasm sometimes diluted the helpfulness of her instructions.

None of them even knew if it would work. Abby wasn’t technically a contestant on the show—not a member of the ‘Party’, though she now appeared as her own sub-menu under Tess’ character sheet. She might not be able to learn a class, but she wanted to dive into exploring the world and her big sister wasn’t willing to put her foot down and hold her back.

So instead, she was sitting back and watching, from a distance. There had been a moment when they first arrived when she realized that she and Tess couldn’t actually understand the disciples. While the translation magic that Elsie had somehow activated allowed all members of the party to converse freely, even without a common language, it apparently didn’t work with people outside of the party. The elves were able to speak English, so they had no difficulty conversing with Hazel without magic, but Tess and her sister had been deliberately held out of the English language program in her schooling by her mother.

What English Tess knew was the result of an attempt to catch up far later than her peers. She’d taken an introductory course in her first year of university, but hadn’t found time in her class schedule to follow up with another one.

With a sigh, she’d informed Hazel of the problem, only for the nymph to point out that they still had access to the original ‘Tongues’ spell that had allowed them to talk during the first few days.

It hadn’t been a surprise to discover that Hazel was more than willing to do her part to activate the magic. She’d wrapped her arms around the selkie’s and by the time Tess had pulled herself away from the nymph’s surprisingly sweet lips, she’d discovered her younger sister’s lips locked to those of the redheaded elf, Autumn.

It made sense, of course, and would work as far as Tess was aware, but the sight of her sister kissing someone sent a strange shiver through the selkie. She found herself licking her own lips, unsure of whether she wanted to speak up or let them keep going after the necessary thirty seconds had passed.

Then Abby cheerily requested to be taught magic, and the five scampered into the middle of the clearing.

“Hey, Hazel.”

The older selkie’s voice was soft, as always. Though her younger sister was obviously the more exuberant of the two, there was a fierce protectiveness about the way Tess watched Abby that Hazel found somewhat endearing. Also a little concerning, given the implications of Lily adding Abby officially to Kevin’s totally-not-a-harem. “Hmm?”

She turned and gave Tess a dreamy smile. The expression came naturally to the nymph, but she’d learned in her life that pretty often it was easier to turn her personality up a little and exaggerate her expressions slightly. It made it easier for people to underestimate her. Hazel generally preferred to be an open person, but projecting an easygoing and unflappable persona made it easier for people to open up to her in turn.

“Can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course.” The selkie’s tone made it obvious that she was concerned about something, and it didn’t take a genius to tell that it was probably her younger sister. Abby appeared to be taking everything in stride. Better, even, since despite the inherently hazardous nature of their environment, the white-haired girl appeared to be genuinely enjoying herself.

“It’s about Abby.”

“Worried about what Lily is going to do to her?”

To Hazel’s surprise, Tess gave a slow shake of her head without taking her eyes off her sister. The tableau of vine-clad elves dancing around and laughing as they tried to teach Abby how to talk to plants looked like something that might have adorned the cover of a lurid fantasy novel from the seventies.

She had quite a collection of those back on Earth—assuming the commune hadn’t fallen apart without her in the ten day’s she been gone. For all she knew her property had already been claimed by the state and her books were long gone, but it didn’t help anything to worry about it so she put it firmly from her mind and focused on Tess.

“No. Not—not exactly, anyway. I mean, I can’t say that I’m happy about it. I love my sister, but I’d rather she wasn’t here, you know?”

Hazel nodded. “Sure, of course.”

Fortunately, the selkie needed little encouragement to continue. “But it’s not that. It’s—” She suddenly paused, glanced around, and lowered her voice further. “It’s about me. I—when I first got my transformation, it was overwhelming. All of my senses were on fire—sight, hearing, taste, smell. Touch. I could barely keep it together. Even after I started to grow accustomed to the ability to smell how long it had been since someone showed from across the room—or being able to smell how horny a woman was from five paces away—my sense of touch—”

She trailed off, but Hazel kept her silence. So far, it didn’t seem like Tess actually needed any input, as much as she needed someone to dump her worries on, and she was happy to play the part of listener.

“It was like my entire body was a raw nerve. I’d take a step and my outfit would rub across my nipples slightly and I’d have to rush back to the room to—you know—”

“Masturbate?”

Tess nodded, her pale cheeks turning a faint pink as she blushed. The fact that she’d just admitted that she had to run to her room several times to play with herself the first couple of days of the show seemed to pull the selkie back into the present a little and she finally looked away from Abby to meet Hazel’s gaze. The nymph gave her an encouraging smile, and she continued, “It got worse when I transformed. Or maybe—I was still used to it, but the extra adrenaline running through my system made it easier to just go with it. I looked good, I felt better, and if I kept transforming it never had the chance to catch up with me. I could just ride the excitement.”

Again, Hazel nodded in understanding. “I noticed you stopped doing that.”

Tess grimaced. “I—the day we all went to the river, the ‘attack’ she had, that was me. I didn’t realize the shared senses were going to work like that. I—I got horny, so I slipped away to play with myself, and Abby—” She trailed off, but Hazel knew what she meant. She’d been there, had seen the young woman suddenly writhing in the throes of pleasure.

She put two and two together, and asked, “So you felt guilty about that? Making her orgasm in front of all of us?”

Tess nodded. “Yes, but—” She flushed again, a slightly deeper pink that stood out only because of her extremely pale skin. “That night, I tried to explain what happened to her, and I wound up—” She paused for a moment as she struggled with something—either the words, or the willingness to say what happened next. “I had sex with her. With my little sister. I started telling her what you’d been talking about, and I could feel the effect my words had on her body—how much it turned her on. I didn’t even think about it. I’m not sure I ever asked if she wanted to, and even if I did, I’m not sure I would’ve taken no for an answer.”

Hazel studied the young athlete carefully. Tess’s gaze had drifted off to the side again, and from the expression on her face she was starting to lose herself in her thoughts, so she seemed ready for a more active conversational partner. “Are you worried about the effect that had on her, or on yourself?”

The question seemed to surprise Tess. She turned towards Hazel once more, then hesitated as she thought about her answer. “Her—right? She’s my little sister.”

Hazel shrugged. “She is, but she’s her own person and—young as she is—she’s an adult. It’s up to Abby to decide if she was harmed by an experience, and from the way she’s behaving it doesn’t seem like she thinks she was.”

“She’s eighteen, Hazel. She’s basically a baby.”

Hazel laughed. “You’re all babies, sweetheart. Every last one of you, except Stheno, and Hwa. Even Kevin. Do you think that just because he’s thirty-seven, he’s that far removed from the child inside? He made up an entire fantasy universe that was so vivid some extra-dimensional god decided to make it real on a whim.”

Despite herself, Tess cracked a faint smile. Hazel took it as a win, and continued, “I’m over a hundred years old, Tess, and I only started to feel like I knew what I’m doing in the last couple of decades. Everyone is just making it up as they go along. If you’re worried about it, talk to her.”

“It’s too hard.” The words came out without hesitation, but from the look on Tess’s face, she wished she could pull them back.

“I don’t think you have a choice. It’s not like you’re going to get away from her as long as Lily has anything to say about it, and it’s clearly eating at you while you try to keep it buried.”

Tess sighed, and closed her eyes.

“I’ll—I’ll try.”

“That’s all anyone can do.” The saying was trite, Hazel knew, but sometimes it was necessary to remind the young that they were mortal.