Take a Breath

Gil didn’t get up when he felt the skyblock shake. It was fine. The girls weren’t stupid. Whatever they decided to do was probably fine. He waited until it was done, and he went back to bed. He woke up several hours later, cracked his neck, and got back into the fray.

He stepped out of his curtained off section of the barracks and went to the soldiers first. They’d lingered long enough, and he didn’t really see any reason to hold off any more.

“Thank you, men.” He said, “You did well. I truly wish I could offer you more than my well wishes and this departure.”

He gave a crisp salute, which they returned, then with a few taps on his tablet the four men vanished into nothing. Each left behind a small gift, and shockingly good ones at that. He knew that normal Gachas had better odds than the lesser ones, but he hadn’t really expected this good a return on investment.

The three soldiers sold for a riding crop, a 1 credit chit, and a character card. Farley dropped twice as much as the soldiers: another character card and a credit chit, bringing Gil up to 6. He’d gotten a lot out of these guys while they’d been alive, and just as much when he sold them.

The cards were both T1, but pretty good for T1. The Shinra soldier’s card was someone named Johnny, and showed a man who had a shredded physique and aggressively gelled red hair. Given that he was a T1, Gil imagined he was more sculpted than he was fit, but he was probably in at least as good a shape as Gil himself. If nothing else, he’d probably be a good option to use on Flashbang as an intermediate “fixed” step if those healing flowers got him into a state where he could walk but not fight. If nothing else, he was from the same world as Vanessa; his baseline and upper limit would probably both make anyone in Brockton blush.

Farley had dropped a card for someone named Cecelia, who was a sexy maid. Not really what someone would think of when they heard that description, of course, but true nonetheless. She had the Maid tag, she had visibly large breasts in her picture despite her clothes being a button down shirt and heavy coat, and she was a pretty if slightly gaunt redhead. The very brief blurb on her card claimed that she was the lowest ranked person in some kind of loyalist conspiracy in her world. Probably the good guys; evil conspiracies don’t have named cute girls as the bottom rung of their organization.

They’d be tossed into the pile of T1 cards he had accumulated, along with Shiho and the cards dropped by a few of the goblins. Some grunt level cultist dressed like a scholar named Helga, who was approachably pretty and whose only listed skill was “sex cult recruitment,” and a blonde noblewoman named Johanna Stiegler who had some basic business management skills.

The last item, the riding crop, was somewhat unusual in that it had a requirement for its use.

The Mistress’s Riding Crop- When used to deliberately strike an individual who finds the user attractive, the target’s emotional responses to cruelty will be redirected into pleasure and lust in relation to the user acting upon the target. The effect is magnified if the target is already a masochist, submissive, or has notably low self esteem. Treatment that can not be rationalized as play, for example acts that actively endanger the target’s life or harm non-consenting third parties, will not be inverted and can permanently sour a relationship depending on context. One use.

The effect requiring physical attraction to work was a big roadblock. Gil wasn’t bad looking, but he wasn’t the kind of brooding daddy that showed up in women’s romance stories. Anyone he could use the riding crop on would probably be emotionally close enough that he didn’t need it anymore. He did, however, have someone on his payroll who could absolutely meet that requirement for anyone she wanted. Every woman was gay for Rose, and he could remember her mindset from when she’d possessed him well enough that the requirement that she be sadistic wouldn’t even register as a drawback to her.

He swept his gaze across the skyblock and was unsurprised to find a confused looking desk attendant sitting alone near the campfire. She had a completely empty plate in her lap, and looked mildly distressed. He sighed. The girls probably thought she was grieving and needed space, or maybe they’d asked her questions before going to bed and she didn’t have anything to say. He walked over to her.

“Can you identify weapons?” Gil asked her. “How about currency? Not specifics, just… can you tell if something is a weapon?”

“I… think so?” She said, looking at him uncertainly.

“Alright, see that pile?” Gil pointed at the large stacks of materials Snow had made out of the random goblin and monster drops. “I want you to take anything that is not in a pile with tons of other things exactly like it, and you’ll use the station in that building to identify them by name. Memorize the names. Anything you have identified, I want you to take…”

He looked around the skyblock and finally settled on the money changer block. It was solid marble and not really used for anything else except storing and converting money. Mostly in the form of gold ingots and silver coins, for the sake of density.

“I want you to take it to that platform and set up around that desk.” He continued. “That will be your station when you aren’t needed elsewhere, ok?”

Her eyes brightened, and she nodded. She stood up, leaving the still dirty plate on the ground next to her seat, and tottered off to the loot pile in her high heels, her cotton ball tail swaying as she rushed towards the structure she craved. Gil rolled his eyes and started scrubbing the plate clean. The waitress would have been very handy right about then; no doubt she’d have gathered up the plates and cleaned them the moment the two NPCs were done eating. That wasn’t something desk attendants did, however.

Gil and the desk attendant bustled around for the rest of the morning, with her identifying the gear and him setting up the worm meat in the smoke houses so it could be dried. He stopped to try the bread from the Skyblock’s new bakery, and it was easily as good as advertised. He tore off a chunk to eat, and it had a faint buttery, nutty flavor to it. He took another bite to see if he could identify it, and before he knew it he’d eaten an entire loaf of fresh bread right there at the counter. Gil shrugged, poked his head into a dark building full of strobing lights that he guessed to be the dance hall, and brought the second loaf for the desk attendant to eat whenever she got hungry.

He ended up sitting just outside the armory, cataloging his items and only looking up when he heard something unusual from the desk attendant. She always read the names of items aloud to herself, which were usually something like “crude spear” or “hide coat,” but every once in a while he heard something more interesting like “Staff of Baduum.”

Apparently one of the goblins had dropped a charred black staff, which Gil’s sense materia told him would probably magnify any magical energy channeled through it. Given how heavy the thing was and how Gil still hadn’t been able to justify splurging on an inventory, he figured it would be good in Silky’s hands. She’d gotten pretty good with materia, and she was still only a bit above average in a close quarters fight. There was also a club called “Wallopa’s one hit wunda” which would apparently hit very, very hard exactly once before exploding, and a “Fightier Choppa,” which was a generically magical battleaxe Gil set aside for Keilnei.

Speaking of Keilnei, she woke up before the rest of the girls. To Gil’s shock she quietly strode out of the barracks in a black bunny girl suit. She even included the ears, cuffs, and little bow tie, though the heels were missing on her hooves. A shame, too, as she was definitely strutting rather than simply walking in the bunny suit. She strutted right up to Gil in fact, and raised an eyebrow.

“What are you doing here?” Keilnei asked, as the desk attendant tottered past her to grab another single item to identify. “Shouldn’t you be helping the new girl?”

Gil shrugged.

“She’s doing a good job.” He said. “She’ll definitely be done by next week, so there’s no real reason to interfere.”

“You’re going to put her to work like this immediately after what she went through?” Keilnei demanded. “She wouldn’t even tell us her name last night!”

“She doesn’t have one.” Gil said with a shrug. “Doesn’t want one, either.”

Keilnei narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. Gil held up one hand to forestall her complaint, and turned to the attendant.

“Hey!” He called. “Would you like a name?”

“I’m sure whatever you came up with would be fabulous, Mr. Gilbert!” She answered, not looking up, “There’s no need though!”

Gil looked back at Keilnei with a raised eyebrow. She rolled her glowing eyes.

“We still need something to call her, even if we have brought home a madwoman.” Keilnei said. “That poor server didn’t seem to understand we were leaving her alone…”

“She’s not insane, nor is she stupid,” Gil said, having grieved quite enough for one NPC, “If you’d like, we can give her a name for your sake. Just don’t kid yourself into thinking it’s for her. She doesn’t care. Hey!”

“Yes Mister Gilbert?” The desk attendant said, walking into the armory with arms full of crude hide hauberks.

“Your name is… uh… Deska now.” He said, smashing together the words of her title. “The other girls are going to want something to call you, so just tell them that if they ask.”

She nodded cheerfully, but she’d nodded cheerfully at everything he’d said all morning.

“I suppose that will have to do.” Keilnei said. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing, she’s an NPC.” Gil said, “She’s made with the only kind of soul that the Company can actually make for itself. They’re a bit… different. Speaking of strangeness, why are you wearing that? I’m not complaining, but…”

Keilnei looked down, a tiny spark of pink seeming to glint in the light of her eyes. She checked her body, unconsciously displaying her muscular thighs in the process. The way she spun in place was slow and deliberate, and she faintly smiled when she finished her turn glancing down at Gil’s lap.

“Is there something wrong with it?” She asked, genuinely confused. “It’s very comfortable, and I’m told it’s self cleaning. If you think I look good in it, why wouldn’t I just wear it?”

It wasn’t the suit that Gil had gotten for Ireena, nor was it the Bikini armor he’d purchased for the team. It appeared that Keilnei, the centuries old veteran, had used the eleven chips he’d given her to buy a dance hall and a playboy bunny uniform to use as loungewear. He couldn’t really argue with her logic, nor did he at all want to discourage her from wearing the high cut leotard and fishnets in his presence, but it still surprised him.

“I guess I don’t see why not, but just… well, you’re likely to get some odd looks.” Gil said. “Snow is still a bit scandalized that other women wear pants. I’m not sure how she’s going to respond to you not even wearing pants.”

Keilnei stared at him with utter bewilderment, as if the idea of judging someone about their fashion choices was entirely foreign to her. He gave up immediately. Explaining the concept of a handgun to her had served some utility. Modesty didn’t really have a place on the skyblock.

She completely reoriented back to more practical matters when he handed her the magical axe, which was only a bit larger than her current weapon of choice. She hadn’t suddenly become vapid; she just seemed to like the clothes.

“It’s… rather well weighted.” She said, hefting the crude axe in one hand.

Her outfit made her look patently ridiculous with the lashed together slab of metal on a stick, but she had no difficulty swinging it and it fit into the same belt sling she used for her old axe. He pictured her with the Shinra rifle added to the mix, and somehow he knew she just wouldn’t care about the strangeness of the ensemble.

“So, what is the plan for that girl, Noa?” Keilnei asked, sitting close enough to Gil that their legs pressed against one another. “That was what the whole dungeon was for, yes?”

“Most likely I’m going to ask that you manage that.” Gil said, “My menu says she’s basically fine right now, so it shouldn’t be too hard. You’ve got the navigation skills to orient. If you can borrow both Noa’s and Terra’s eyes, you should be able to manage it without much trouble. You’ll need to shift back to your own body to access your own skills, but I think you should be able to guide the two together. I have something else I need to do.”

“Another dungeon?” Keilnei guessed. “Who would that one be for?”

“No, actually.” Gil said. “It would be nice, and I think I’ll be going after the Queen trying to kill Snow next, but I’m a bit short staffed to try something else as difficult as Noa’s dungeon and we only have two days till portal time. I have a new item I’ve been looking at.”

He pulled out a smooth blue stone he’d picked up in the bazaar and showed it to Keilnei. While he did, Deska rushed back and forth between the armory and her new station, creating little displays for any unique items she had, with the character cards and tag tokens prominently displayed on the marble money changer.

“This opens up a new tab on this.” He said, holding up his tablet. “I don’t really get involved in PvP as a general rule, but when I do I prefer the blue or gold stone. Or green, but that hardly counts.”

“Do you intend to explain, or are you just going to be cryptic?”

Gil flashed Keilnei a smile.

“There are six kinds of common soapstone I know about. Gold, green, red, black, purple, and blue. Gold allows someone to visit and assist a friend in their own world, like with my missions. Green lets you go to a shared neutral space to trade and socialize, like the bazaar. Red allows you to raid another person’s world and duel them to the death for resources. Everyone resurrects afterwards, but transferred resources stay transferred.”

“And blue?” Keilnei asked, visibly rolling her eyes. “If you don’t feel the need to explain each and every other variant first.”

“Blue is for defenders.” Gil said. “When someone is invaded by a superior force, they are allowed to put out a call for aid. Blue lets you see what someone is offering, and what they are up against, at least in broad terms. Then you can take enough people along in order to even the odds.”

“You like protecting people?” Keilnei said, smiling.

“When it doesn’t cost me anything?” Gil said, “Hell yeah. The absolute worst thing that can happen is that me and my team get booted out, unpaid, when I die or my employer loses the bout. It’s great for training, and there’s all sorts of weird edge cases. I’m actively encouraged to push the system to its limits.”

“So who are you bringing?” Keilnei asked. “Nessa?”

“Probably not. Her skillset is a bit narrow.” Gil said, “I don’t get to know a lot about a world before I go, or what I’m up against. I get a few notes, like tech level and maximum allowed power scaling, but it’s generally best to bring a well balanced team or a strong jack of all trades, instead of one powerful beat stick. After all, someone might being a bigger beat stick. Anyway, it looks like Snow is up. Do you want her, Nessa, Garri, or Silky as your assistant on this?”

Keilnei gave Gil a sour look. She wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about any of the people Gil actually had on the skyblock at the moment, and hearing him list them off just made it worse. She liked Snow just fine, but she didn’t come across as the most reliable person for a military rescue operation, which is what Keilnei saw this as.

“Nessa, I suppose.” She grumbled. “She should be fine as long as we stick to the mission.”

Gil enjoyed the view as Keilnei strutted away, her ass swaying enough to probably be deliberate. The suit had reshaped itself for a Draenei’s anatomy, placing the cotton ball of fluff at the end of Keilnei’s own natural tail for some reason, and it bobbed along merrily.

Gil rolled his shoulders, wondering if a PvP bout this close to portal day was really a good idea. His team couldn't permanently die, but they could get injured or fatigued. It worked like the bazaar; time stood still while he was there, but anything short of death that happened? Still happened. Even so, his eyes kept drifting back to a specific listing.

Sir Lucan the Butler (+70)* vs Shuuzou Kusai (+143)

Offered payment: Ante + considerations

Tags: Medieval.

Power Cap: T6

Ante + considerations was just about the highest reward someone could offer without having anything actually worth offering. It didn’t bode well for the guys chances, frankly. Any invader needed to wager a certain value as payment, either in the form of assets or cold hard credits. The more they outnumbered their victim, the bigger the ante on their side and the smaller the price they could extract on victory.

In other words, the less plausible it was for the defender to win, the more the attacker would lose if they fucked up. Offering Ante + considerations meant that this Lucan guy was willing to offer the entire prize if he won, plus he was open to offering additional payments to be negotiated in person.

Given the massive 73 point discrepancy, Gil didn’t blame the guy. He would probably only lose 1-2 credits in value if he lost with a field looking like that, but nobody liked some bully strutting into their house and demanding things, even if they only wanted 5$. His offer could reasonably be translated to “fuck this guy, if you can kick his ass for me I’ll give you whatever. It’s the principle of the thing.”

That might have been enough for Gil on its own, if he felt like fighting a hopeless battle. What he couldn’t ignore was the lack of star next to Kusai’s name. The star indicated testers and other Company employees. Kusai was a customer. An actual customer, one who paid for the privilege of a customized life, and apparently he couldn’t think of anything better to do than attack people with overwhelming force.

The odds would be stacked against Lucan, not just because of the numbers. The attacker chose who to bring, while the defender’s entire retinue counted. Any dispute requiring rules interpretation would bend towards Kusai, because he was the customer and Lucan was property. In all likelihood he was only even able to interfere with Lucan’s test because he’d been pulling this kind of shit on other players enough to get reported into oblivion. The Company didn’t want him fucking with other “real” people.

Fuck him. Gil wanted to hurt him. To bloody his nose during a milk run, or at least make him work for it. Gil wanted to take what was his, whatever handful of credits he’d been forced by the Company to wager. If he got to walk away with someone or something actually useful, so much the better.

Gil’s finger hovered over the button, but he didn’t press it on impulse. No, he needed to be absolutely certain that he was fully kitted out first. He needed to decide on the best team he could bring, squeeze out every edge he could without going over budget. He walked over to Deska’s new shop, and started shoving magic items into a backpack.

Consumables were meant to be used, after all, and only companions would factor into the official balance of power.

••••••••••

So, who are we bringing? We are down to two teams based on the last poll, plus some variants and last minute things Gil could spend money on for an extra edge.

https://strawpoll.com/PKgleQ7b4Zp