The Squeeze

Quickcast raised to level 8!

Achievement unlocked! "A Million Miles Away"!
You've opened tunnels over 1,000 times! You could've probably circled the world by now!
+2 INT
+2 WIS

Spiraling Snake style raised to level 18! Style quest unlocked!

NEW STYLE QUEST: "The World Serpent"
You've learned 18 levels of the Spiraling Snake style! From here on out, no quest reward or effort will level that style; only completing the objectives below will bring your mastery to its final stage!
OBJECTIVE #1: Take the throne of Gunter, the Kingdom of Deserters.
OBJECTIVE #2: Take the throne of Delu'velu, the Kingdom of Scaled Roots.
OBJECTIVE #3: Reach Tier II.
REWARD: 50,000XP, +5 to INT, +5 to WIS, +2 to Spiraling Snake style, +1 new Spiraling Snake style power, and a second style slot unlocked!

Objective #3 of "The World Serpent" complete!

Achievement unlocked! "Speed Demon"!
You've used quickcast over 100 times in under ten minutes! What could possibly need doing that badly?!
+4 INT
+200MP

Achievement unlocked! "Map of Impossible Worlds"!
You used the map function to completely reveal a barrier of one square mile or greater. That must've taken a minute!
+3 INT
+map function now works in the real world

Achievement unlocked! "Right Where It Belongs"!
You've branded either another summoner, a **** owner, or someone else for whom the brand is acute karma. Show them what they've earned!
+3 STR
+3 LIB

Achievement unlocked! "The Collector"!
You've branded four or more monsters you plainly intend to fuck! Don’t you have enough humans to bone?
+5 LIB
+5,000XP

Achievement unlocked! "Shaking the tree of Sephirot"!
You've taken out a ranked member of the Cabal! That's... well. Good luck.
+10,000XP
+1 skill level [23 hours, 58 minutes, 37 seconds remaining]

John casually flipped through the notifications, his eyebrow only raising at the quest he had readily ignored while Juniluny was still running amok. That dark magic menace, once a source of terror, now sat upright on his bed, inhaling deeply before releasing the requested flood.

“My vault is opened by biometrics, warded against magic and armed to shock any unfamiliar user attempts; I keep all the useful baubles in the third drawer of the white filing cabinet in the lab; I can’t give you back any of your soul, but I do have a secret stash of three emergency soul gems—no, my gems!—I keep it inside the middle pillow of my bed; I could only teach you my power if you submitted to-!”

“Stop.” Juniluny’s mouth closed, and her eyes began to glisten as she realized what she had been denying: she was his, completely and utterly, without even the lash of pain she needed to control her slaves. His slaves, now, she feared. “You have a vault?” She nodded, and John shook his head at his own distraction. “No, no, that’ll be later. Look: you said you can’t restore my soul. What can?”

“N-Nothing!”

John’s glare encouraged her.

“Well! I mean nothing... because you must mean the reasonably possible! There are theories about the Dream, mad theories by mad men who were left touched when they chose to dabble in Creation herself. But I’ve rightfully chosen not to drink reality-warping poison, thank you quite kindly.”

The Dream again... “Without any stupid metaphors... what... is the Dream?”

“The Dream is a stupid metaphor,” Juniluny taunted, though her attitude melted as he grimaced. “The Dream is raw, unformed creation, the sea of souls, the source of the mind, the will of the universe, that which permeates even the true voids in space... it is what eventually formed you, me, and everything- if you think these are stupid metaphors, then you asked a stupid question, because this is as close as anyone’s come to figuring out what it—the Dream, or Creation, or Gaia, or whatever it is—actually is!”

“So... I can’t be healed without it... what about Kim?”

Juniluny scoffed. “The Northern Wind killer? No, she’s probably far gone by now, and the world’s a better place-“

John’s hands slipped onto the halfling’s neck and very nearly closed around it. She swallowed her last words; he felt the pulse of her throat against his palm. “I already tore her out of that machine. She’s alive... but damaged. Can the machine give back what it took?”

“No!” she defiantly yelled. It was the truth, then.

John pulled up his spell list, and Juniluny watched with wide eyes as he tapped on a floating, translucent screen. “What... what is that...?”

He didn’t bother to answer her. He read Restore again... and shook his head. Would this strange new damage count as a disease or dismemberment or plain damage in its purview? He wouldn’t know until he tried.

She read over his shoulder... and looked down at her hands. In all her panic, it hadn’t dawned on her that all her fingers were back. “Did you...?”

“You can release people from the Maze, right? Can anyone leave the Maze without you?”

She wanted to shut her mouth, but the words tumbled away. “I can cast a release spell that deposits anyone in my Maze into any relatively empty space the Maze occupies in the real world!”

“The Academy, then?”

“The sewer... where your lot belongs-“ He commanded her with another stab of his eyes. “The Maze should be in the old sewers underneath the outskirts of the city.”

John raised an eyebrow at that. “The Maze... moves?” Wait, on the outskirts? Why would there be old sewers there...?

“I move it,” she confessed. “It’s another spell.”

The Gamer nodded slowly to himself. Baby steps, John... first, I need to get everyone somewhere safe... and then deal with this one. “Do you need your lab to do any of that, or any more... 'soul'?”

“It just takes quite a bit of soul energy... though I do have enough in me to move it- fucking devil’s balls, why won’t my stupid gob shut?!”

It'd probably be more than she deserves. He looked her over as he remembered the starved, scared animals, the damage she already did, her intentions on her and Tricia... His eyes eventually came to rest on her huge nipples for long enough for her to notice; the petite brunette crossed her arms over her tits as if she had any say in the matter. I should let her do it. I should make her do it. Just keep casting spells as she wastes away. I wonder what that would look like? It would be justice. I could even let her feed on things just to make her do it again and again- John inhaled sharply. His mind was wandering again... That's... that'd be no better of me. Focus, John. “Can you take soul energy from anything that isn't alive and likely to suffer?”

“Soul gems, spirit rods, a number of printed currencies in certain Kingdoms... but that’s not what you’re asking, now is it?! You're going to make me use my precious stash- oh you- fat tits of Gaia, WHY CAN'T I SHUT MY FUCKING-?!”

John blinked out of existence.

"Dah, gah!" Juniluny nearly leapt from the bed. It was one thing to see him do it in her Maze and simply appear elsewhere... but here, where she felt small and alone, the Cabalist scanned the room with building alarm. She eyed the door with more distrust than hope...

But she had no time to contemplate an escape from wherever she was. As instantly as he had left, John popped back into existence... now with his hands cradling dozens of small purple crystals, each glittering with power.

They say that a halfling’s appetite is a human thing, but their avaricious natures are wholly goblinoid. Her troubles had, amazingly, temporarily faded before a collection of soul gems that dwarfed any amount she had ever seen, much less the humble stash of them in the ornate box in her vault or the tiny trio in her pillow. “That... those... that’s ah... that is...” Her eyes finally reached their maximum, saucer-like size as she mouthed wordlessly at the handfuls of soul gems. A bit of drool glistened at the rim of her lip.

“Each of these has five levels... wait, you wouldn't even know what I'm talking about. Look, will these work?”

“Oh yeah...”

“Good... because you’ve got work to do.”

The three girls continued their awkward glances at one another as distrust mounted... until a tunnel yawned into existence overhead. Despite being flat against the domed ceiling, the chest-sized hole showed John’s face with a hallway framing it before he finally blinked in near Moira and Kim. "Hey... sorry I took so long," John muttered as he looked over Kim. The portal closed, but Layla’s mouth opened as she tried to manage some kind of alluring, stylish greeting she had never prepared.

Wordlessly, he began to focus on a Restore spell as he took in the martial artist’s ruined body. He hadn't even noticed the tense, and then stunned, silence of the girls.

Every conscious woman present spoke at once.

"Did you kill her?" Moira demanded.

"YOU'RE BACK!" Layla yelled in a casual voice that failed to be so.

"You spared her?" Galley very nearly said in an elevated voice.

Moira looked to Galley, but John went ahead and answered as he charged his spell. "No, I did not."

"I can still... hmm... it's not quite her, though..." Galley sniffed at the air, her brow furrowed in concentration.

Layla thought to deny such claims, to accuse these wretched women of trying to defame her man... but while her man's beautiful, thick, virile aura washed over her in the tiny lab... she could also sense an odd, deformed copy of it only a few yards away. She eyed it through the wall: a darker shade of blue, some kind of off-shoot... but also kind of twisted like the aura she had seen coming down the elevator before they were all banished to this awkward prison. "She's... what happened to her...?"

Moira’s nostrils flared. "John Newman, what did you do-?!"

"You captured her?" Moira didn't dare look at Galley; somehow, the giant, absurdly-dressed woman had nailed Moira’s immediate suspicion. The Order mage looked at the back of John's head with a curious glance. In her same, almost sleepy voice, she said more than John had heard from her since they met. "You're supposed to be able to capture Abyssal summons. She's a weird one, and she sure doesn't smell human. Probably Abyssal then, or close enough to count... but mostly, I figured she smells 'weird' now... like your kind of 'weird.'" Moira's face grew a few shades redder. "Ah, I mean magically, not... eh, anything else-"

"She works for the Cabal, John!"

"She works for me, now," he simply retorted.

Layla remained silent... but she continued to stare at John with eyes of glittering wonder. A summoner... that captures Abyssal creatures?! Even mages powerful enough to make a barrier like this?! My future husband is so... so talented! So powerful! With our powers combined... yes... yes...!

Moira's gloved hand fell upon John's shoulder. He continued to focus on Restore, feeling its power build as he focused on it... but also feeling that every passing second was increasing its potency by exponentially less amounts. It's been about a minute, and the falloff is already-

"So you're a Cabalist, too," Galley simply declared. Her body stood a bit straighter.

"Lady help us, don't be a fool! Of course he isn't!" Moira turned back to her secret husband. "John, this unacce- John, please, is not like... like everything else you've done wrong! This is the Cabal! Renounce what you just said... and promise to surrender her to the Order."

Juniluny Snickerbottom... you're moving the barrier back to the Academy, right?

<Gah, and you're a telepath?! And yes, yes I am!>

I guess she doesn't need to know...

<I can hear you, you snot-nosed hoodlum!>

The Restore spell seemed intent on barely growing further. He moved his hand closer to Kim's still-ruined torso; it was a flat plane of leathery skin and brown splotches wherever it wasn’t visible, hideously calloused gashes. Hellfire seemed to cut as much as it burned, and it hurt John to look upon her for any longer.

Moira did not relent, however, and hissed her words into his ear. "John, I will not be able to protect you; you have to turn the Cabalist over to the Order-!"

The Warden's veiled threat distracted John, but not enough to lose his spell as his fingers touched the uniformly ruined body... and his mana pool shrunk to zero.

Your Restore healed Kim Moon for 6,934 damage, healing her to full! Your Restore regenerated her hair, digits and skin! Your Restore healed her puberty damage! Your Restore corrected her stunted growth!

John's eyes grew wide as he felt the flesh grow against his hand. The rest were left staring as a silver light suddenly bathed the girl on the lab table. It continued to burn her silhouette into their irises... until, as it faded, the image was replaced with an athletic, perfect-skinned, and full-haired Korean woman. More than full-haired, John and Moira realized: her short, almost bob-like cut had grown to be long enough to dip between her shoulder blades. The hyper-rejuvenated Kim blinked with sudden awareness and two good eyes. She met John's vision. She turned and saw Moira staring back at her as well.

Both of them looked down at her body. Kim followed their eyes... to a healthy pair of B-cup breasts that shouldn't have been there. Over them, she caught the glare of a mysterious, shady-looking girl aimed at her vagina--the new challenger--like it was going to attack someone. Said girl then stared daggers at the unfamiliar breasts... and Kim slowly pieced together the reason why: it was the same reason she felt an alien but pleasant feeling...

John's confused hand was presently cupping her new left tit. His fingers shifted slightly and gave her melon a single, involuntary squeeze.