The priestess, Gina, arrives

In my writing, I may have been somewhat misleading; I was not actually saved in a timely to escape this, as Regina called it, "ass-beating." The unfortunate smack of a paddle connecting with bare, jiggling flesh-- the kind that I understand is just perfect for being spanked-- echoed throughout the arena of the church as Regina #2 reigned blows upon my unguarded posterior. I felt myself becoming distressingly wet behind the thin black bikini that ordinarily would have been just barely hidden behind an armor loincloth, now exposed to the open air and to the face of God or whatever deity in the church, while my legs kicked the air and my butt-cheeks wobbled under a close grouping of thwacks. "Oh, Tabby! Not a lot of Ringmasters ask for this kind of thing. It's much more common for me to be on the receiving end once they awaken to sadistic pleasures, not that I object to that sort of thing. However, as the universe's most divine bottom/top switch, I'm finding being on the giving end quite exciting!" Regina #2 cackled, gripping the paddle tightly. It was barely possible to hear her over the sound of my own ass being brutalized.

"I'm glad- GERK- you're enjoying- OOF- yourself!" I managed to snark, as my exposed flesh rippled with each strike. "I don't think I'm learning anything though!"

"You're so impatient! We're still getting to that part," Regina #1 sighed. I couldn't see her face from this position, with the blood rushing to my head and her face pressed to the small of my back, but I could tell she was rolling her eyes. "Allow me to do a little more table-setting with a few additions to that legend you heard earlier."

"Can you make it quick?" I questioned. The increasing sloppiness of my pussy told me that my physiology was settling into this getting my ass beat thing, but my mind wasn't there yet, and thus, what I felt in that moment was mostly frustration.

"The priestess of this Church of Motherly Burden, Gina, assists those in need. So in order to be rescued, you must first be imperiled. Understand?" Regina #1 spoke at a close distance, barely muffled by my back. "After that, we will get to that lesson you've been raving about. Why, your friend should be here any minute now."

In terms of expediency, I would say that Gina's arrival felt somewhat like waiting for my favorite doujin artist to release the next volume of their promised lesbian ninja mind-control comic. That is to say: it felt like it was never going to happen and I was thrilled out of my mind once it finally happened. From the back of the church, perhaps the choir area, a voice could be heard: "No rough-housing inside the church!" Her voice still sounded the same as ever; I was worried she was going to have some put-on high fantasy accent or something.

"Rough-housing" seemed like a bit of a funny name for what was happening to me, I thought, but I was rejoicing all the same. "Save meeee!" I bellowed at the top of my lungs, kicking my legs more furiously as if to draw her eyes to the situation at hand. "My HP is critical! I'm about to either die or awaken to a really inconvenient fetish!"

"Tabitha? Is that you?" she questioned, slowly adopting the tone of urgency I wanted from her. From the other sounds I heard, I could picture her lifting whatever garment she was wearing to head towards me more quickly, as the sound of footsteps drew closer. "Oh, what the devil..."

"Yeah, what! Do these angels work for your god or something?! Can you tell them to stop?!" I pleaded, tapping one foot up and down upon the strong back of the one suplexing me in place. I knew her body was ordinarily soft, but right then, it was like touching solid marble.

I allowed myself a brief respite from pain and indignation to look over the upside-down figure of my old friend. I'd given her a priestess outfit alright, based off something I'd seen in a video game, with a tall cleric's hat and a blue garment somewhat similar to what Regina was wearing, but with a skin-tight orange bodysuit underneath, as well as short, brown gloves and boots. The gold cross across her luscious breasts was similar. Actually, this was a pretty bizarre looking outfit now that I was looking at it. Something like a nun's habit might have made more sense. On the other hand, it did give me a great look at those curves she normally hides up with a business-like pantsuit, so this wasn't bad at all. Interestingly her stylish, thin-framed glasses were the same as ever. Why did I leave hers on and take my own off when I made this world?! Couldn't I have fixed my vision if I was going to do that?

"It's definitely not something that they should be doing inside the church," Gina agreed, with a perturbed expression then cleared her throat. "These are guardian angels, you see. I believe that they saw you enter with a weapon in hand and perceived you as some sort of threat to be eliminated. I'll command them to disperse!" I noticed now, for the first time, that she was carrying a tall, golden staff, tipped with spread wings like an angel's just behind her back. She raised it into the air dramatically, then ordered the host of wrestling angels with a commanding voice. "Allow me to handle our visitor! Return to the kingdom of heaven!"

"Aaand here we go. It's time for that lesson," Regina #2 winked, finally easing up on the paddling that had punctuated most of the dialogue so far. "Good luck." I felt the grip of the first one blessedly easing up on my gut and my arms, allowing me to now lay flat on my back as the two of them shined brightly, then vanished in a swarm of what I'd earlier thought to be dust motes, but I would henceforth think of as sadistic angel particles.

As I landed with a thud, I felt my red buttocks stinging and my lower lips slobbering and twitching with over-excitement. I had so much to tell Gina, but all I could do was wince and look up at the ceiling. "Fuuuuck," I swore, turning over onto my belly to serve the dual purpose of hiding my immodest groin and relieving the tension on my raw ass. I needed some kind of healing ointment, salve, or maybe a magic spell. "Oh, right! Gina, you're a priestess, right? You can heal me!" I insisted, trying to turn my head to watch her.

As she knelt next to my fallen body and regarded me with a sympathetic expression, I noticed something else in her face, a feature that I'd often thought about when seeing her close distance on the Boom call cameras: she looked really tired. The make-up hid it at a distance, but it was clear to see she was overworked and not getting a lot of sleep, even in this priestess rendition. "Of course. Hold still and I'll take care of it," she responded, smiling slightly as she set down her staff. I'd been expecting some kind of prayer or magic spell to come next, or perhaps another grand motion of her scepter, but to my surprise, her next action was to place both hands upon the big, wounded surface of my butt. Something on my face must have revealed how excited I was to have my butt groped by my long-time crush, because she fixed me with an unamused frown. "Is something wrong? This is a standard healing technique wherein I expend magic points to heal your injuries."

"N-No, it just feels very nice," I answered, wiggling with pleasure on the ground as the soothing magic flowed through my booty. I could get used to this kind of attention! "Oh yeah! So I'm here as an adventurer to collect you for my party." I jumped straight to the point.

At this, I heard an even deeper sigh rise from her chest to her throat, exhaling in a deep breath. "Tabitha... I thought I told you," she grumbled, then adjusted her glasses with two fingers to sit perfectly on the bridge of her nose. "I don't have time for parties or games. This church is my work and tending it is a full-time responsibility. I have to heal the injured. You know I'll always be there to heal your injuries, but to frolic around with you is just not something I have time for."

"Oh... But, wait, no! I'm not talking about a party like that. I mean that I need you to party up with me as a healer so that we can complete the ultimate raid event: vanquishing the Demon Lord Regina to reclaim internet for mankind!" I responded. That last part was a sticking point for me.

The answer didn't seem to improve Regina's outlook much. Her ruby red lips fell into a frown and her eyes remained unreadable behind her glasses as a beam of light fell across them. "So that's why you're here? To enlist me for your party because you desperately require my healing?" she questioned, then rose to her feet, so that I now stared up at her from the floor. I nodded dumbly. In response, she crossed her arms and frowned. "Then you must know the legend... Before we leave, we must perform a ritual together, one blessed by God and witnessed by his followers. I can't leave the church until that ritual is completed."

Even now, she was tied to her work! "Can you tell me anything more about the ritual?" I questioned. "I feel like this is Metal Gear and I'm being told to get the code off the back of the box, but I'm just renting, so I was never given a CD case to begin with."

"My soul is tethered to this place. To my work. Simply put, my work is my life," Gina answered, throwing her red hair over one shoulder and crossing her arms beneath her breasts, while staring at the stained glass windows depicting her own side profile. "I can't take my mind off of it. I feel like the only way I would ever be allowed to leave this place is if..."

"... If you didn't have to do your work?" I answered her, now finally standing back up to my feet so that I could match her evenly. It felt more normal to look down at her slightly, given that I was a fair bit taller.

"But that's just it. You, Vivi, Rene... taking care of the three of you is a full-time job," she grumbled, turning her eyes aside and looking regretful that she had to spell it out plainly. "I can't slack, not even for a moment."

I tilted my head slightly, then pressed one finger to my lip. "We know you're overworked! We're always offering to help and you never accept it. We're more capable of organizing ourselves than you might think! Most of us know all the same stuff about the database that you do and if need be, we can talk to our clients-"

"Database? Clients?" Gina asked, now looking as confused as I did.

"Whoops, I mean... Nevermind. What I mean to say is, uh, maybe we can learn some healing magic and you won't have to do all the healing yourself?"

The pained expression she returned made me think that I was somehow missing the point. Frowning, I dropped my arms to my side, feeling a little self-conscious. I could tell she wanted something from me, but it was hard to say what. I was starting to get a picture of it... "the Church of Matronly Burden" was referring to the way that Gina was always **** to be the mom of our group, taking care of all of the oversight and shepherding us around to keep us on task. The "trial" referred to breaking down some sort of barrier between the two of us and restoring our relationship. The way to fix it probably wasn't a matter of swords and sorcery or solving some sort of puzzle. Rather, it probably meant taking some actual, concrete step towards figuring out the fracture between us and repairing it.

"Gina... I'm just a dummy manga-buff, okay? Without a thought bubble, I can't tell what the heck you're thinking. If there's something you want, I can probably give it to you! Just tell me..." I begged her, clasping my gloved hands together. When she didn't respond, I refocused my attention elsewhere: this time, to the ring just underneath my gloved finger. It was burning slightly, as though Regina was trying to summon me. Experimentally, I snapped my fingers, to see if she'd be summoned again.

She wasn't, but what was summoned was a menu-screen, floating midair in front of my face like something you'd see in Sword Art Online or some other goofy video game anime. On it, I saw a skill listed: Divine. Like imbuing a weapon with divine energy? Or like some kind of light spell? Curiously, I tapped my finger onto the interface, but drew back as a light flashed from it and Regina materialized next to me... or rather, a little cherub with Regina's face. It kind of looked like the chibi art you see all over the internet, with an over-sized head larger than the body. "Hello! For one effort point, once per day, I can help you to divine the answer to some question by offering a hint. Since you tapped the interface, you've already spent it! It's simply this: I want you to consider again the very nature of the ring and this whole quest."

"A-A simpler hint, please. Onegai," I entreated the cherub.

"Fine. This thing about feelings and work duties and all that... sure, it's a soap opera. Drama. Whatever. Okay. All of that is missing the point! If resolving that sort of thing was the key here, I would have thrown you all on a therapy couch, gotten it over with, and then we'd get back to the fun stuff. No, when it comes to the ring, it's all sexual fervor, all the way down. That means that whatever trial you must resolve, it is sexual in nature," Regina explained, raising one finger and smiling a horny grin that didn't match her cute body. "Try approaching it from that angle." She disappeared quickly with a bright flash, leaving the two of us staring, dumbfounded.

"Sexual? I assure you, I do not require anything sexual from Tabitha!" Gina scoffed, taking the wind out of my sails before it even had a time to start them billowing. "Besides..."

I perked up, nodding and encouraging her to go on.

"I mean... We were all pretty frisky, back in college," Gina explained, clearing her throat before continuing. "Rene always went without a bra. Vivi would watch porn at night when she thought no one was watching. You were the worst, always ogling us and reading doujinshi with characters that looked like us. You must know that I shared the same persuasions as the three of you. So it's not as though I didn't have certain thoughts about what it might be like to share an experience with one of you." Her voice seemed to be cracking, like she was having a hard time verbalizing this secret she'd been living with.

I always saw Gina as the most prudish of the four of us, so it was indeed enlightening to hear that she'd seen us that way. "Oh? Well, it's not too late, actually, I-!"

"But!" the priestess cut me off, turning and thrusting her scepter so that it rested just under my chin, as though she was going to jab me in the throat with it. "It was pointless! Counter-productive, even! I was already doing so much, balancing all of our workloads, picking up the slack whenever it came up! I thought about it, and you know what occurred to me? A relationship or even a fling with any of you three... It would just be more work! That's all you three are: more work! You all have such ridiculous personalities, fetishes, kinks, needs, wants! I couldn't handle any more in my pile then and I can't now!" she exclaimed, smacking the butt of her scepter down against the hardwood floor. "I know how it all would have gone because I played it out in my head! Can such uncaring people really be any more caring in the bedroom? So late at night I just... I just handled myself in the bathroom, because all of you have always been so-!"

I finally understood what I was meant to learn here and how I was supposed to resolve it. Without further hesitation, I placed both hands upon my friend's shoulders and leaned in to grab her lips in my own. For a moment, it was as though my glasses had been replaced; I saw her wide eyes through the frames of her own spectacles at close distance, while I began to search the inside of her mouth with my tongue in my untrained approximation of a French kiss. Very soon-- almost immediately-- her eyes narrowed and I found her reciprocating the gesture. I moved my hands from her shoulders to a more romantic position, cradling her lower back, as I pulled her closer into my mostly exposed body and kissed her deeply, with the combined urgency of someone both solving a quest and resolving a long time relationship dispute. Finally, once I'd gotten my point across, I allowed her to withdraw a bit, noticing a trail of saliva running from her pretty red lips to my own as she wore an uncharacteristically flushed, erotic expression on her face. "Gina... That was really it? You wanted to do a hook-up, but you thought you'd end up being taken advantage of?" I asked, staring into her sparkling blue eyes with my unattractively squinty, dark ones.

She nodded sheepishly, then looked aside. "Sorry. I didn't want to insult you. But that's how it felt... You all had such crazy personalities and... and I read your doujins, saw Vivi's porn, heard Rene's jokes. I just thought that if I... If I ever revealed that part to you, I'd end up with yet another full time job," she spoke quietly, allowing herself to return my embrace now. "I didn't want to take on another commitment. I just wanted something easy."

"Well, you can quit worrying, for once, because I think I just solved this trial. What you wanted was for somebody to please you in a way that, uh, pleases you! To be pampered and taken care of for a bit. A-And I know it's a little weird, but now I know that I can be the one to do it!" I resolved myself, as I held Gina's body more tightly to my own and took her lips once again. This might sound funny after I just described having a sexual awakening at being totally overpowered by two angels, but for now, I used my own strength, letting Gina settle into a submissive role and guiding our motion. I backed her up until her butt connected with one of the pews inside of the church hall and she had to catch herself with one hand upon the wood. Despite my dominating position, I allowed myself a silly grin. "I can't believe you wanted me, all this time!" I giggled, grabbing both hands daringly upon the pleasant swell of her buttocks beneath the robe, over the bodysuit.

Red-faced, she adopted a stern frown. "It was more of a general feeling towards all three of you," she explained, as though trying to cut me down again.

I wouldn't back down this time! "He he he! It's no use, because I felt the same way! It isn't a problem at all!" I cackled, enjoying the trembling of my friend's body as I kneaded the softness of her ass-cheeks with my over-sized hands. "I just wanna tear off this cosplay and we can show each other how we feel! This fantasy is actually pretty great! Itadakimasu!"

"Wait, Tabitha! Actually... Actually, I think we're forgetting something," Gina interrupted, pushing me backwards slightly with surprising resistance to stop me from putting her in another kiss-lock.

Pausing with a dumb, kissy-face expression on my stupid face and my mostly exposed body covered in sweat from all of the wrestling and romantic exertion so far, I tried to call to mind the aspect of the legend I was forgetting...