Week 3 Carla's Date: Preshow

Laura was used to being stronger than a lot of women. Not because she was particularly well muscled, like her ex-girlfriend now fiancée, but just from being so much taller than average. Even so, hoisting a full-sized person across one shoulder would have been a struggle, if she could have done it at all. But now, now she was carrying a body that was metal and not flesh. And she was doing it without much effort.

Maybe she needed to check out the gym after all.

"Okay, out with it. Exactly what kind of research are you doing? This thing looks way too advanced for a sex doll. In fact, she was awake and walking when she followed Mark to the party. Why is she off now?"

Tracy rubbed the back of her neck with her chromed hand. "Uh, yeah, funny thing there. Soon as Mark transferred her over to me, she started doing a system scan on my laptop, trying to find as much out about me as she could to 'optimize' herself for me. It was kind of creepy, and I needed to stash her before Cassandra noticed. So I turned her off, and Sam showed me a room I could hide her in until we snuck out."

Pinching her nose with her free hand, Laura shook her head. "You're hiding taking this thing from Mark's host? What are you thinking?"

"Relax, I don't think she really cares. She didn't go hunting when Mark was one short when they left. I think Mark's just trying to give her plausible deniability or something. Besides, he said it was made clear he owned the bot and could do what he wanted with it. And this is just an empty shell now, an extra body for the main to use as a remote. Apparently she has a ton of them. I take it Cass uses them something like Shar's ghosts."

Laura relaxed some. If another host wasn't going to come looking for her little sister, that was good. "And the research?"

The teal-haired cat girl looked ecstatic. "I'm going to revolutionize robotics! Now I have not one but two advanced alien robots capable of independent thought, emotion, Penny's got a soul! Once I root around in this one's programming enough to understand it, I'm going to send Mark a copy of what I learned. Then I'm going to dig into its guts and make some changes, promised Mark I'd make her look different before sexing her up. Which was another reason to turn her off."

"Before she found your porn stash?"

Tracy laughed unapologetically. "Yeah, no telling what she'd have made from all the video I've been recording."

"Are you making sex tapes of us?!"

She looked a little sheepish then. "Not really. Just saving some memories. What I really want to do is see if I can do with her what Penny's engineer managed. I may not have all the magitech he used to give Penny a soul, but I can try to make her her own person. She's a blank right now, and I wanted her as uncorrupted as possible before getting started."

Laura looked her little sister over and smiled. This obviously meant a lot to her. And she supposed such advanced tech was indeed a huge deal. "Fine, just try to be careful."

"Yeah, no problem, you know me. Besides, she wants to be useful. Even as a blank she's already primed to do anything her owner wants, and that's me." She rubbed the back of her neck again. "Weird stuff that. I swear some of her programming looks like transformations."

The tall redhead stopped in her tracks and looked down at her sister. "How do you know what transformations look like in computer code?"

Tracy looked around, obviously trying not to match her older sister's gaze. "Well, I may have sorta found files on everyone in the Castle's database, you know, just looking around for anything interesting. And they weren't encrypted or anything, so I figured, why not take a look? It's not like I changed anything."

"You think this robot was a contestant? Someone eliminated and turned into a machine?"

Blue eyes met green then. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"Tracy! Was. This. A. Person?!"

"No way! Def not. Mark wouldn't do that. Like I said, this is just a drone, an extension of the main bot back at his place, this is just like an extra set of clothes, that can act independently... I think she might have been a contestant though, the original. I think he's trying to help her, which is why he wanted me to look at her code and see what I could figure out."

Laura started back towards the Moongate. "Just be careful Tracy. If Shar knew how to reverse an elimination, I'm pretty sure she would have done something for Susan's grandmother." Or Candy's great aunt. "I don't want to see you get eliminated fucking with it."

Tracy was very clear on not wanting to be eliminated, which was why she was very careful to get Mark's permission to have access to his droid's secrets. "Should be fine, I'm just doing research like I said, he's the one doing dumb shit. Even if they are just playing their big Larp right now. Probably."

The tall redhead nodded, more reassured. The Larp had sounded odd. She wasn't sure about a two week long challenge, as much as getting to join in to help her friends and family sounded a lot better than just sitting back and having to watch the action from the sidelines.

"No work on that today, though." Tracy continued. "Too busy with the contest and the orgy. Might try to get some work done tomorrow. You and Susan have any plans yet?"

Before Laura could answer, they reached the Moongate and transferred over to the room atrium, where they were greeted by Tracy's companion. "Salutations!"

"Penny! I missed you. You would have been such a hit at the party, but Shar said no. I'm gonna try to take you to the game though, Sam promised I could go."

Laura knew that Penny was plenty strong from watching the show. "Here Penny, take this." The orange-haired robot accepted the red-haired burden easily. "I'm going to go get changed. Don't be late Tracy." With that, Laura was gone. Vanished to her own personal Moongate.

"Who is this Tracy?" Penny held up the white skinned android.

The cat girl was all smiles. "That Penny, is our new friend."

"Hello friend." The orange-haired woman told the still sleeping robot sincerely.

.

Candy had taken a quick shower and changed into one of her usual pastel sundresses. Knowing she had some time before meeting up in the auditorium, and with the details still clear in her mind, she had borrowed Misty's sketchpad and a pencil to draw Chloe from memory. It had been amazing to spend time with the other blonde woman, who turned out to be another kindergarten teacher of all things! Candy understood her pain, too. Until recently, she'd never thought she would be able to become a mother, let alone be having twins! But Harem Hotel was a place of miracles, and she just knew Chloe would find hers. To that end, she'd altered her drawing of the other woman somewhat, depicting her as roundly gravid beneath breasts that would seem huge to anyone who didn't know Susan. Later, she would ask Misty to use the sketch to do a full, proper painting of the woman and ask Shar to send it to Arabella's season for her. Candy also wanted to send a letter to the super nice redhead from the party who had also been pregnant.

As she was finishing up, she heard boots in the outer room. She'd heard talking earlier, but had been too busy to check. Poking her head out of the Dragon-marked door, she saw Anna striding towards the Phoenix, combing snarls out of her long raven black hair. "Anna!" Flashing to her tiny form, the energetic blonde flew out and spiraled around the other woman, giggling. "What were you doing?"

Anna stopped short as her friend started buzzing around, feeling really grateful for the magic comb as it slashed through snarls effortlessly. "Hey, Candy. I just went for a quick ride after breakfast since the day's going to be so hectic. Did you guys have fun?" A party with people from other harems had sounded interesting.

Landing on Anna's shoulder, Candy gave the muscular woman's neck a hug and kissed her ear. "So much fun! Would you believe I met another blonde kindergarten teacher?! And there was so much delicious food! And Andy loved my gift!"

About to ask more questions, Anna was interrupted by a new voice. "What's up bitches!" Looking over at the Unicorn door, Anna saw a freshly scrubbed-looking Tracy. "We all meeting up here before going down?"

Anna shook her head. "I wasn't planning on it, I was just dropping something off at my room first. I think most went to hang out there and wait instead of wandering around."

"Well, we can go together now." Candy enthused.

Gesturing towards Anna's door, Tracy nodded along with the tiny blonde. "Yeah, drop off whatever, and we can be fashionably late. Laura's probably already gone down by now."

"Eh, I was just going to leave my jacket and comb, but whatever. It can be a statement." Putting the comb in her jacket's inner pocket, she walked back to the center of the Moongate as the teal-haired cat girl skipped over. They could probably use the big silver disks standing anywhere on them, but for some reason, most seemed to feel more comfortable doing so from the center. Thinking of going to the auditorium brought them to the gate by the dining room. "Huh, looks like it's on the first floor."

"We could take your bike there then."

Anna shook her head. "We are not riding my bike down the halls, Tracy."

.

Laura had almost worn her dress again after a nice hot shower. With no one else about, she quickly gave up getting one of her shirts on over her wings. In the end, she'd just decided to go with only a bra along with a pair of jeans since she was being casual. Everyone here had seen her in less already. The amphitheater had ended up being down a long hallway from the dining hall. Almost everyone was gathered around when she opened the double doors. Interestingly, the room ended up being more stage than anything else, with just a single row of seats in front. In the center, of course, was a large throne-like chair obviously meant for her. Well at least she'd be comfortable. "No Anna?" She asked Stacy, who had been nearest the doors. Probably waiting for Tracy.

"I thought she ended up going with you. I haven't seen her since breakfast."

Anna had stayed behind when everyone else left, but she had definitely not been at the party. Laura shook her head. "No, it was just the three of us." Then Evelyn caught her eye as the elf ran up to her.

"I'm so sorry! I should have been there to help you get dressed after you got back."

Laura gathered the green-haired woman's hands, which she'd been wringing nervously, in her own. "It's okay, Evelyn. You were here with the group, which I believe is what you are supposed to be doing."

Susan wandered over too, resting a hand on Stacy's shoulder. Laura blinked. Was it just her, or was Susan taller than she had been? "So how was the party?" The cow woman asked.

Shaking her head, she had to be imagining things, Laura smiled. "It was a lot of fun. Shar gave me some special **** to take that some of the masters, and I apparently need to even feel drunk anymore. Oh, and we started a master's support group of all things. A couple of them really need the support honestly. It seems we were really lucky to get Shar as our host. One apparently just let his master come to feel bad about how much better everyone else had it."

"Wow, that's pretty fucked up." Tracy hadn't mentioned anything that bad to her in the seasons she'd watched, Stacy thought.

Nodding in agreement, Laura continued. "Indeed. Two of the male masters at the party even have lesbians in their harem. Andy's best friend apparently got some kind of special deal, so she's safe, but the other one at the party seemed a bit haunted, though she said that she was in a good place currently. And don't get me started on what we found out about Harper's season."

Stacy grunted. Good host or not, they'd still been kidnapped for a sex show. "I suppose things could have been a lot worse here. Shar's not actively antagonizing anyone. Unless you count the traps.

"I think that's why she has the traps, actually." Susan said. "They add drama without her having to actively mess with us. Having been a contestant herself probably has a lot to do with how she does things."

Just then, the doors opened again, as Anna came through with Candy on her shoulder and Tracy following behind. "Where's Penny?" Laura asked, seeing that the catgirl was without her companion.

"She's keeping an eye on my package. Besides, she didn't want a cheerleader outfit, she's really set on that dirndl."

Laura thought of a strange robot wandering the halls, looking for Tracy. "Probably for the best."

Musical laughter brought everyone's attention to the stage, where Nimue stood proudly, and for once not naked.

The elder Fae was wearing a skimpy gold and blue sleeveless cheer top and a short blue and white skirt. The most clothing Laura had seen on the blue-haired woman. Having gotten everyone's gaze, she continued. "Everyone's here? Good let's begin." The blue-skinned Fae gestured to the steps at the side that led up to the stage, then back to the left side of the stage. "Let's get everyone into the changing room off stage while Laura takes her seat.

"I see you're getting into the spirit of things." Laura quipped while the others made their way around.

Nimue grimaced. "Someone had to. Shar refused to wear the outfit I ordered for her, and since Evelyn is competing, I'm in charge."

"What?!" The green-haired elf looked stunned. "I'm not in the competition, I'm not in the harem."

"Yet." The reguvinated host said with a wink. "You made an outfit, even if the duo had to talk you into it." Laughter came from the British women. "Why would we deny our audience? If you win any prizes, Shar said they can be added after you join."

Instead of arguing further, a blushing Evelyn raced after the others. Laura got comfortable in the big padded chair. This would certainly be interesting, she really hoped she wouldn't have to vote.

Bonus pic by Little Miss. Cowgirl Susan