Tour Part 1: A Doorbell, Some Lunch, A Coffee Table

Mona

I screwed up real bad, didn’t I?

Mona sits on her throne as her harem (I have a harem!) are not exactly happy with her preferences. The Host’s and her assistant’s faces are more neutral, but Mona still feels a little judged. She folds in on herself a little.

The Host lets out a breath before starting up again. “As is tradition, immediately after the opening ceremony is the tour of the hotel. Our first stop is this room. This is the throne room. We will be hosting most of our gatherings here. Every morning will properly start with a little production meeting, where I make announcements and we talk about the schedule. It’ll start 9 AM sharp. Tardiness will be punished. Please don’t make me punish you. This is also the base floor of the hotel. Upstairs are a number of floors for you all to peruse. Tina, my bonny bunny, if you’d take the contestants upstairs, I’ll handle our dear Mistress.”

“Yes, ma’am!” the bunny salutes, “On it! Cuties and Kevin and Craig, if you’ll follow me, we can get you all situated. Forward!”

The others follow the basically naked bunny, Ms. O’Connor-Peters and Craig a little slower than the rest. The Host, this blue Undine cosplayer, watches them leave. Then, she turns to face Mona. She stands, hand resting on the pommel of her sword, waiting for Mona to speak. The gamer is just sitting there, trying to make herself smaller.

The Host spins around on her heels, and starts to strut away, expecting Mona to follow. The host is taller, her legs longer, her stride more forceful. Mona has a jog to catch up. She’s already a little out of breath. Tyalangan speaks over her shoulder, “So, Mona, how are you feeling after all of that?”

“You care?” Mona asks, hoping to get her thoughts together. She’s scared, worried, hopeful, overwhelmed, and still really horny.

“Of course. Part of the job. So, how are you feeling?”

Mona was about to answer, but waits, hearing the murmur of the surroundings stop. She finds herself standing in the grand hall of a castle. There are dozens of people, none of them human, all stop and take a bow. Elves, bronze and lilac skinned, mostly in (super skimpy) noble finery, bunny-girl maids in (super skimpy) uniforms, a few wolf-people guards. The Host says a few words of thanks and the crowd returns to what they were doing. The balance of her feels tick a little further towards fear.

The duo soon stops at the entrance to what is labeled “The Harem Wing.” Huh.

“So, the tour bit first. See the doorbell?”

Doorbell? Sure enough, a doorbell is placed beside the entrance-way of this Harem Wing.

“A Mistress perk. That doorbell is only visible to you. Ring it and I’ll hear, and I’ll come. You have another in the Mistress Suite. Again, ring it and I’ll come. Do note that I’m always aware of what’s going on. I don’t need the doorbell to decide to show up, but it’s a courtesy. Make sense?”

Mona nods.

“Good. Now, how are you feeling? Seriously?”

Mona whimpers, “Scared. Horny. Overwhelmed. How can you think I’m going to be able to deal with all this?”

“You will. The game will change you, **** you to grow up. And I’m here to help.”

Mona scoffs, “My kidnapper, she wants to help? Really? Why?”

“I got something like consent, but yes. As to why, I wasn’t lying. Me and half of mine are from your world. It’s not our world anymore, but we want to save it and we are using the show to make that happen. And Tessa is my kid sister. I want you and yours to succeed, to earn the power necessary for saving your world, to find love and happiness among each other.”

Mona thinks on it for a minute. “You really think I can do it?”

“I know you can.”

“How? A lot of experience **** people for dating shows?”

Tyalangan sighs, then stares for a moment, as if she’s considering her answer. “Because I was in your shoes, once. About a century ago by my perspective, about the time you were born by yours. Me and mine survived the game and built a life together. I meant it when I said we are running this as a family. My staff are my companions from my harem, plus some of my adult children. You have access to my season in the Mistress Suite, should you want to watch it. I will note that my season is a lot darker than what I intend for you and yours. For now, let me make you some lunch, then we can continue the tour.”

The fuck? She went through this and thinks that making others experience this is a good idea?

Andromeda

As the group follows the ravishing rabbit-girl up a curved flight of stairs, Andromeda contemplates the assembled group. The criminal in the orange jumpsuit is just behind Tina, seemingly enthusiastic to see what is in store for them; while Andromeda doesn’t know much about her, the criminal seems glad to just be out of jail. Tegan is behind her. Again, Andromeda had little dealings with the archer, but news of her making the Olympic team hit school; she will at least be mildly useful in a fight. Kevin, another kid from high school, is closest to her. He looks worried, muttering quietly about how much trouble Mona has gotten herself into; Andromeda is **** to agree. The art on that card flashes in her mind again; she shudders and forces herself to focus on the sounds behind her. Ms. O’Connor-Peters is huffing as she climbs the stairs. Andromeda hopes that, once the teacher is returned to her physical prime, she will be more helpful; the fact that she seems single-minded in her focus on her brother does not bode well for the moment. Finally, Craig is cursing up a storm at the tail end of the line. He seems hard to control, Andromeda supposes is a polite way to put it.

Once Tina reaches the top of the stairs, she starts to walk backwards, her hips swaying in a tantalizing manner. “Welcome, cuties and Kevin and Craig, to the second floor of the hotel: the general amenities floor. Don’t worry; it’s bigger on the inside than the outside. The spiral staircase keeps going up, but we’ll check out the upper floors in a bit. While we aren’t going to tour everything on this floor, you will have some time to wander the hotel after the tour is up, so you can see things that interest you. The doors to the left over there lead outside to the castle grounds. There is a bunch of neat stuff outside: the pool, a vineyard, the Bazongas Delgado Memorial Botanical Gardens, training grounds for various disciplines, and even a little hallowed ground for my witchy patroness! You can take a look later. Questions?”

“Excuse me, but did you say Bazongas Delgado Memorial Botanical Gardens?”

“Yes, yes I did. Mattie was a bit of a troll with that name. And the statue. Anything else?”

Tegan, with much venom in her tone, asks, “I assume we could not just escape from the castle grounds?”

Tina seems to ignore the tone, shrugging, “I mean, you probably could, but going out the front gate of the castle is way easier. You have free rein of the whole Royal Quarter, so long as you don’t go breaking into peoples’ homes or anything. If you wish to explore beyond it, you just need to get a hotel staff member, like yours truly, to accompany you. So long as you are in your bedroom by curfew, you are welcome to come in and out of the hotel. Just don’t make us have to hunt you down. Anything else?”

Seeing none, Tina continues to walk backwards, pointing to rooms as she goes. An Arcade straight out on an 80’s movie. A Bowling Alley Tina suspects no one will ever use. A Media Room with a selection of movies from their world and a curated collection of Harem Hotel seasons at their fingertips. Research for later? A Library with more books than they could read in several hundred lifetimes. More research for later. A Games Room with a wide selection of board games and other such diversions. A small collection of shops, the oddest of which is either the gas station from their world called Kang-oo’s or the one called Dungeons for Damsels. And finally, the place they are stopping for a bit: the Hotel Canteen.

“Did you know that a canteen is another name for a cafeteria? I thought it was just a thing you carry water in. Normally, breakfast is from 7 to 8:45, lunch is from noon to 2, and dinner is from 6 to 8, but we did grab you all at weird times. Anyways, you should be hungry. C’mon, let’s say ‘Hi’ to Skye.”

Despite the canteen being compared to a cafeteria, it has more akin to the dining room of a bed and breakfast. A lovely fireplace crackles in a corner, with a couple of overstuffed chairs beside it. An eclectic collection of tables and chairs are scattered about, the largest of which could accommodate all seven of “the harem,” provided they ever get to that point. Of course, everyone scatters to the smaller tables. Andromeda sits across from Kevin at a two-seater high top.

Andromeda gets straight to the point. “Kevin, I know we haven’t spoken much about anything ever, but what do you know?”

Kevin stares at the gamer, evaluating. He leans in to whisper, “I was told to keep what I know secret. Let’s say Mona is in waaaay over her head and I am here to bail her out. You?”

“I saw the thing, I think. Tyalangan gave me a visual impression of it, at the very least. We need the others to buy into the threat that we are to face. I am not exactly a people person. Ideas?”

A third voice interrupts, “Why are we whispering?” Then, a little louder, the voice adds, “Hello, I am Skye, what can I get you for breakfast, or lunch, I guess, given the time?”

Andromeda and Kevin both jump. This Skye is short, not quite five foot tall, with long, shiny silver hair, bright violet eyes, and lilac skin. She smiles, holding a little notepad like she’s a waitress. She is only wearing a rope, tied around her breasts as if it were a bra. Andromeda turns aside and blushes.

Kevin finds his voice first, “Ah, ma’am, why are you naked?”

“Why are you clothed? Clothing is so... indecent.”

Neither human knows how to respond to that. Andromeda, wanting to move this along, queries, “What are our options? We haven’t seen a menu.”

“Whatever you wish, provided we can make it from local food options. Some ingredients may be substituted in strange ways, but we are quite good cooks here.”

Andromeda orders chicken and waffles, even after being told that the local equivalent of chicken is a cockatrice (a 5 leylines 2/4 creature with flying and deathtouch). Kevin gets bacon and scrambled (cockatrice) eggs. Skye pulls out glasses of water, some coffee mugs, and a pot of coffee out of nowhere, placing it on the table for them. Was that the inventory feature in action? If so, that is some trick.

With the distraction of meal ordering out of the way, Andromeda tries to steer the conversation back towards solving the cataclysmic crisis that will befall them at the end of this “game.” Kevin listens, at least. At the end, the student sighs, “We both know enough to take this seriously, but it’s going to be hard to get the others to see it right now. Honestly, Ms O’Connor-Peters may be the only one who will take it seriously period. Tegan is a psychopath, always has been. Belinda over there is a convicted eco-terrorist. And Craig…”

“I will NOT be touching your copulation organ, you... you unsupervised male!” Skye is fuming, her hair floating in a bath of silver fire. Craig is actually cowering from the girl, a solid two feet shorter than him.

We have our work cut out for us, huh?

Mona

Gotta say, this crazy Host lady is a good cook. Even if she made me something weird.

Mona is sitting at a large dining room table, a steak with some orange fries and asparagus on the side before her. The steak (already mostly devoured) is normal enough, though way fancier than what she’d get. Asparagus is weird and she doesn’t understand why the fries are orange. At the head of the table is Tyalangan, utterly and completely nude, eating her lunch as if being naked is no big deal.

“Not that I’m complaining, but why’d you free the nipples?” Those delectable nipples...

“Family rule,” Tyalangan replies, “No clothes in the harem wing. It is a consideration we’ve made for my first wife. Her first transformation made her embarrassed by the concept of clothing, to the point where she is unable to stand a few of us wearing clothing around her. So, we all don’t wear clothes in here.”

Still so weird, the idea that a Mistress from one season would Host another. I get she wants to save our world and all, but...

Tyalangan interrupts Mina’s thoughts, “Finish your veggies. We got more touring to do.”

“Can I have a mess of not weird orange fries and some ketchup instead?”

The **** glare the Host gave freezes Mina’s blood. She eats the orange fries. Oh, these are actually good. Sweet and kinda cinnamon-y. She even forces herself to eat the rest of the asparagus. Ugh. Vegetables. Gross.

The sight of Tyalangan’s hips swaying as she walks away from the table distracts Mona for a few moments, but she scurries along to catch up. “So, we saw a doorbell. What exciting thing are you showing me next?” Mona hopes the Host does not take her snark too seriously.

The answer is apparently a coffee table. A disturbing coffee table. A toned but pretty curvy girl with fins coming off of her (and a rock embedded in her chest?) waves as the two approach. She smiles with a big, shark-toothy grin. “Hi, Beloved! Hi, Mona! You ready?”

“Mona, this is Daphne. She’s the dungeon mermaid we mentioned in the rules.”

“Nice to meet you, Mona. My eyes are up here.”

Mona blushes, having been caught drooling over mermaid boobs, and looks up to stare into those pretty aqua eyes. She gives another terrifying smile. Then a fox appears on top of the mermaid’s head. It hops into Mona’s arms, wiggling its two tails. CUTE!!! While the Host is quietly saying some gibberish, Daphne instructs, “Okay, so we are going to practice that scrying power you got during the opening.”

The fox continues to act very affectionately. Mona, struggling to hold onto it and give it scritches, interjects, “Why?”

“So you get the lesson from this part of the tour. So, take your thumb and press it into Vix’s forehead, right between the eye ridges.”

Mona does as she was told and a little trickle of information flows into her mind. The results are disturbing: Añil “Indigo” Rodriguez. Level 4 Familiar. Fae fox. A bunch of units and numbers that make little sense right now. And then, Mona drops the familiar when some Spanish words start to appear.

“The fuck!?!?!?!?”

A snap of the fingers, and the fox is on Tyalangan’s shoulder instead of hitting the ground. The fox is munching on what looks like Skittles as the Host explains, “Mona, meet Vix. Or Añil, if you prefer. An old DM rule: actions have consequences. Vix here is one of my original contestants. She earned an elimination and this is the result. I want you to understand that eliminations are terrible, terrible things. I don’t know how many of your contestants will earn one. But, however many earn them, you are the one that will have to live with the consequences. I bear the responsibility to take care of Vix. While we have worked out our differences, the burden still hurts. She’s not a great conversationalist any more, so if you will please scry the coffee table, I would appreciate it.”

This creepy coffee table is a person? Fuck. Mona hesitates, sitting on a couch, then presses her thumb into the creepy coffee table’s forehead. The same sensation of information occurs, with similar disturbing results. Jenny Ackley. Level 0 Civilian. Coffee table. Stats and numbers. Then, a transformation description that chills Mona’s bones to the core. Mona breaks contact, cursing again, “The fuck?!?!?!?!?”

Tyalangan doesn’t answer with an explanation. Instead, she mentally projects, “Jenny, dear, would you share your story with Mona? I think it would help. You got 56 minutes. I am sure Mona would love to tell you about things you’ve missed in the real world.”

Then, Jenny starts to speak in Mona’s head in a voice that is pure 90s Valley Girl. Vix is in Mona’s lap, nudging for more pets. The Mistress, being soothed just as much as she soothes the familiar with rubs, just listens.

I can’t let this happen to the others. I need to be better.