Up and Coming 1/Prologue – A Place called Home

Without Neora in the room, the last bits of tension in it finally went away. A long sigh escaped Terua as she picked up the full tea cup that the Dark-Eyed Doll had left behind. The inhumanly long arm of the crone managed to reach far enough to pour the contents into a small cauldron by the side of her desk.

“That was horrifying,” she muttered, adjusting the witchy overcoat of her oddly mixed attire, business and woodland wisewoman fused into one outfit. “You never really know who is involved in what in Iridescia, do you?”

The joke fell on deaf ears. The confession that she knew her organisation had been infiltrated still hung fresh in the air. Nyx, particularly, continued to glare. “You ought to have warned us.”

“I did,” Terua spoke more measuredly now. “Again, I told you that several of the megacorps have an eye on this area. Do you want me to beat you over the head with the implications next time?”

Nyx glared at the elderly woman until Eldred raised a hand. He was too tired for this. Ultimately, it didn’t really matter to him who was or was not involved in this area. The only goal was to get strong enough to be under no one’s sway. “Anyone else we should be wary of?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Terua responded, her voice creaking with each carefully enunciated syllable. “I make it a point not to dig deep into my clerks for this exact reason. These matters are all greatly beyond me.”

Eldred just hummed. Her lack of ambition did not surprise him. She had reached a level of exceptionalism that fulfilled her appetites and here she was, brewing her potions. “Well, if that’s everything, I’ll go and get some shut-eye.”

“There is one more matter, actually,” Terua told them.

“Urgh, what now?” Avari groaned. The gremlin was cranky about a lot of things. She was drenched in hurricane water (Eldred still did not understand how that had happened) and tired. Not that his bratty CFO needed any reason to be abrasive. “Make it snappy.”

Terua patiently folded her hands on the table, a gesture made a bit odd by the length of her spindly arms and the distance between her bent elbows. “It is about your compensation for the last mission.”

“Take all the time you need.” Avari rubbed her hands, her sweet, docile tones clashing with the raw greed in her body language. Chuckling, Eldred watched this unfold from the sidelines. “I was under the impression that there would be no compensation, it being a trap and all.”

“I believe that was their original plan, but a marked package has reached me.” Terua tilted forwards. “It is a rather considerable sum… but it is hush money. They do not want the identity of Vex leaked. Neora has already asked us to do this, so we can take this money without further consideration.”

Avari and Terua engaged in a short back and forth about the split. By the end of it, neither of them seemed pleased, though the gremlin’s expression changed immediately upon them leaving the building.

The trip back to their home base was a quiet one. Staying awake in the train was a task of near impossible difficulty, but through the availability of Avari’s tits, he prevailed. He would have had the gremlin right then and there had he not been that knackered. At this hour of day, with their destination, they had the entire car to themselves anyway.

The streets of Rust-Grass were busy with shambling people. It tempted Eldred to call them zombies, but with an actual undead lady by his side such misuse of terminology was inviting misunderstanding. These people were mentally dead, filling the void with booze and other cheap drugs they cooked up in the unclaimed houses of the decaying district.

One made the mistake of swaying towards them, too high on substances to control the impulse of being close to attractive women. He barked obscenities as he approached. A casual backhand by Eldred sent the man stumbling back into a small pile of trash bags. The driven man stopped for a moment, looking at someone who was, even without rain, in not terribly different a situation from the one that had led to his own spiritual rebirth.

If that hoodlum had the potential to do the same, then he would. Eldred hadn’t smacked him hard enough that he needed a health potion, so the trio just moved on.

At the edge of consciousness, he thought back to that fateful night. The voice of the woman had mixed with the rushing of the rain and the pounding of his heart in his ears into an indiscernible pitch. Her shoes, however, were burned into his memory. A nice shade of red, vermilion perhaps, with cute ribbons and a golden art-deco pattern. She had been rich, the potion had made that much obvious. Proper health potions, shelf-stable and capable of providing universal healing through simple splashing, were incredibly expensive.

Through the gate of the chain-link fence, into the derelict structure and then up into their bedroom. Eldred was clean enough after the hospital visit that he did not care about simply dropping down on his bed of pillows and mats. Ellie mumbled something in her sleep as he pulled her against his chest. Avari hugged his back, pressing her naked breasts against him. It was almost enough to make him stir awake again.

Only almost though.

______________________________________________________________________

After the temple invasion, two weeks passed with very few events.

Avari finished her first Cultivation – an Earth Core. She had gone with that element following a pre-planned idea. She reasoned that by combining Earth and Shadow into gravity powers and then adding a bit of Air, she could create a power she conceptually dubbed ‘Value Magnetism’. Basically, she wanted a kind of power that let her float around on piles of gold coins.

Eldred had questions about that and deeper Cultivation, which Avari told him to hold back until she had a proper room to hold her next presentation with. An effort that was ongoing in the background.

While he and Nyx continued to go out, taking on the jobs offered to them by the New Foundations corporation, Avari and Ellie remained back home. One shortstack continued to learn, absorbing programming knowledge like a sponge that had grown in a desert and was finally exposed to the ocean. The other shortstack was overseeing the construction efforts that, funded by their reward money, did a rapid and expert job at repairing their ruin of a base.

It was truly interesting to behold. Eldred and Nyx would be out on different worlds for one to three days at a time and return to see that inherited ruin changed. Eldred only caught parts of the process, trusting Avari entirely with the finances and planning. What he did know, he learned because he got curious during shared meals or because she shared it with her own chattiness.

Though the building WAS a ruin, it was a structurally sound ruin. The inspector that had scanned the feasibility of the project had assured that much. All of the load-bearing walls were still intact and the concrete mixture used, after over three decades of curing, was basically just stone. Working on the ruin could begin as soon as they had the money. Since the local administration was more of an office to appease homeless people, there was not even the pretense of needing a permit or anything else. All that they required to start building was for both sides to honour the contract made.

The first couple of returns, Eldred saw the structure get cleaned out. The marks of battle, holes in floors and walls, were turned into clean squares. The old furniture, be it rusted tables or sorry remnants of carpets, were ripped out.

Once that was done, the transformation of the entire office structure was rapid. A dozen construction workers laboured from dawn to dusk, pouring new concrete, setting windows, installing new doorframes, and switching out the broken lumens. After the foundations came the proper decorating. Eldred only heard that it had started before leaving for a particularly long mission. When he and Nyx came back, the construction crew had left and the finished project stood proud, a new construction in a derelict district.

The previously bare concrete of the wall had been largely covered in grey plaster. The inoffensive colour was disrupted by large, bronze-framed windows. The upper and lower floors’ window positioning largely matched. Between them, plates of black marble had been integrated into the façade, with standardised art-deco patterns laid into them in gold. A light overhang of the flat roof provided a bit of rain shelter to the plants decoratively planted around the structure. Both above and below, the building was trimmed with fiery red lines of a bright, crystal material.

Though the shape of the building remained, fundamentally, a rectangle, the entrance had seen the addition of a bulky, black-gold frame that made it stand out prominently. A clear vacancy above it marked the spot where the still undecided name of Eldred’s corporation should go.

Eldred walked past the chainlink fence, following a path of light grey, polished stone that had been laid across the freshly trimmed and cleaned lawn. He recognised his building in its form. Nothing about the layout of the walls had been changed. Still, just from the outside, it was an enormous change.

The change on the inside was even stronger. Both he and Nyx inhaled deeply the second they stepped through the dark-oak double door. What hit them wasn’t the scent of dust and completed decay but the fresh smell of recently cut and placed wooden planks.

The flooring was dark wood. Each plank had metal laid into it, created in a factory to fit together perfectly into another art deco pattern that matched the one on the dark grey-gold walls. A new reception desk had been placed in the middle of that room, a gorgeous thing that matched the oaken floor perfectly.

Eldred was tempted to explore his building immediately. Depriving Avari of showing off what she had spent the last two weeks getting exactly right would have been a quick path to getting a deserved berating though. “AVARI!” he shouted into the structure, almost marvelling at the minimal echo that came back. The walls were not as smooth as before, greatly diminishing the bounce back. Once they filled the rooms out with proper furniture, they might not even hear their own steps anymore!

He waited for a few seconds. The flooring was not so thin that he would have heard the shortstack move on the upper floor. He only caught her approach once he heard the tapping of office shoes on the floorboards. The door on the other side of the room, dark, opaque glass framed by gold, slid to the side, revealing a very pleased Avari.

The gorgeous gremlin’s gait emphasized the jiggle of her barely contained breasts. White cloth strained, the blouse unbuttoned far enough to give an ample view of her deep cleavage. Black, shiny material clung to her upper thighs, the pencil skirt just long enough to hide her womanhood. Polished black shoes and a clipboard rounded out the secretary outfit.

“Hey there, handsome,” the gold-eyed woman purred. “Have you brought back more money?”

“You should already know the answer to that,” Eldred responded. He didn’t even bother scanning his own account. “I assume it’s what put you in such a great mood.”

“Mhhhmmmmight be part of it.” The gremlin hummed, then gestured around them. “Just look at all of this! The last worker drove off not thirty minutes ago.”

“You certainly made your home,” Nyx commented.

Now that his banshee mentioned it, Eldred registered that the grey, black and gold colour scheme matched one of his employees a whole lot better than it did the CEO. “I added red trims to the ceiling and foundation to represent our boss’ fiery attitude,” Avari confessed to her priority with a broad smile. Tail wagging, dark lips spread into an innocent smile, she asked, “Can you blame an avaricious gremlin for wanting her home to be golden?”

“Is it actual gold?” Eldred wondered, inspecting the metal inlays under the varnish and in the walls.

“Nooooooo,” Avari let out a long, disappointed sigh. “That wasn’t in the budget. It’s a bronze-based alloy that just looks a lot like gold. All of these parts are factory-made too. It looks expensive, but in terms of an office building, it’s more in the lower-middle range.”

That was to be expected. Their mission rewards were pretty incredible by the standards of Eldred’s old life, but where they were going, it was an entry-level salary. A corporation with three single Core Cultivators was good, but it wasn’t impressive.

“Now, I did take the liberty of dictating the interior design, but I have here the matters that I know your perverted ass really cares about.” Avari waved around the clipboard, then read from it. “Before I begin the tour, there is the question of an updated dress code. Now that we have a good cushion of funds, I have taken the liberty of ordering a multitude of your preferred outfits.” She lifted one of her heavy breasts, painting soft shadows on the white blouse covering her. “With replacement outfits the worry about getting them dirty or ripping them to shreds disappears. Therefore, as CEO of this harem company, would you like to change your previous directive?”

Said previous directive being ‘complete nudity’. Eldred rubbed his chin, weighing the matter for only a split second. If he wanted his submissives to be naked, he could just order them to strip. Having them run around in hot secretary outfits with short skirts for easy access was much hotter and it would be less problematic if they ever did end up having visitors. “Let’s switch that to secretary uniforms.”

Avari wrote down his directive with an approving smile. “Very wise, sir,” she said, a bit of teasing sneaking its way into her official tone. “What about underwear? Bras?”

“Forbidden.”

“May I recommend an added exception for high physical activity or meetings with important members of other corporations?” Avari kept that cheeky but even tone that Eldred expected of his CFO. “These tops are of very high quality, so there’s no discomfort from having them rub against my nipples when I just move around regularly, but for sport and such I would appreciate something with more support.”

Eldred loathed the loss of watching Avari or other extremely endowed women jiggle all over the place, but he did acknowledge that it must have been hell on their backs and shoulders. “Very well, I will allow you to add exceptions for the necessary niches,” he spoke, himself speaking with a mixture of amusement and utterly serious authority. This was very important company policy.

“Truly, you are the embodiment of a proper CEO,” Avari remarked.

Nyx hung from his neck, as she so often did, and cooed, “Without a doubt, he is.”

“What about the question of panties?” the gremlin pulled up her pencil skirt, revealing her black lace underwear.

“Up to individual choice,” Eldred answered swiftly. He would find equal joy in removing those as he did in finding free access. “Same for stockings and other such legwear that works with the pencil skirt.”

“As you wish, sir,” Avari made a couple of marks. “On that matter, do you have a preferred title to be addressed as?”

“What are my options?”

“The typical spread is ‘Master’, ‘Sir’, ‘Owner’, ‘Boss’ or ‘Daddy’.”

“Definitely not that last one!” Eldred reacted with instinctive aversion to it. He had always found the implication of faux incest in porn weird. He would not bring it into his own bedroom. “I’ll make a decision on this later. For now, each may use their own preference.”

“Very well, Chief Executive Penetrator,” Avari answered with a smirk and made one more note. She lowered the clipboard. “Now that I know that I am dressed according to the guidelines set by our highly perverted and insatiably horny CEO, may I show you the building that you left me to design for you?”

“Drop the act, you loved it.”

“Psh, and? You still left me to do it,” Avari smirked. “So, if you have complaints about my decisions, put them into the complaint box.”

“We’ll see if that’s necessary… oh, and one more thing.” Eldred closed the distance. “Company policy means I get to steal all the kisses I want.”

“That doesn’t even need to be written down.” Avari’s voice dropped into a low purr as he leaned down. Lips met in a hungry embrace. It had been almost four days since they had last touched each other. Tongues wrestled. A hard nipple poked Eldred’s palm while he kneaded her abundant chest. He continued doing so even after their mouths disconnected. “This is your harem, Eldred,” Avari panted. “Welcome home.”