Divinity Rescue Corps

Fairy Poppins wanted to be the one to accompany me, but I put a stop to that. She always turned every action we undertook into a shameless sex act. She made sure I knew I’d regret it before I set off,  zipping around angrily in circles, but I tried to placate her with promises of a hook up as soon as I could manage it. Unfortunately my Persuasion skill check failed by a slim margin, and since it was contested against a sentient creature, I couldn’t spend further Tokens.

Sigh. If there was one consolation, it was that Jacoby demanded we check out the area affected by sick divinity.

“Fact-finding mission then,” I said. “One hour, tops. Let’s go, Expedition Leader.”

Jacoby leveled a flat glare my way. “Do I hand over the title of Expedition Leader to you?”

“Come on,” I said. “You were going to need a threat analysis of that thing anyway. Let’s go.”

“I don’t know what kind of protection you have against gods, but I don’t have any,” she said.

I summoned my Prismatic Apparel to me and handed it to her.

Prismatic Apparel

Item, Wondrous, Legendary

This set of clothing is able to be shaped in any way the wearer wishes. Merely turn the articles inside out to alter their form. The color of the new form will be randomized.

This item has the following properties: godsbane, unbreakable, soulbound, returning.

Godsbane: While wearing this clothing you are assumed to have +5 Resistance to the Gods.

Unbreakable: This item never takes damage and can never be destroyed except by divine power.

Soulbound: this item belongs solely to you. You may gift this item to another, but the item may never be taken from you.

Returning: this item returns to your possession at a thought.

“This thing right here has a skill called Divine Resistance at level 5. All you have to do is put it on.”

She took her time identifying it, then goggled at me for a few seconds before slipping it over her shoulders. Yes, Divine Resistance was a thing, a thing that this item had. Then, reconsidering, she turned it inside out and frowned at the way it turned into a dress.

Hey, it had pockets.

“I’m not sure if I can wear this,” she said, and turned it inside out again. It became a windbreaker this time, and she nodded at it. “All right, that’ll do.”

We were going over to the derelict, deserted part of town, and that was that. This spherical town had a god problem, most likely, and Jacoby and I were going to figure out what before I went a step further.

She’d be complaining about the heat a few minutes later, around the time we got our first Durability check and I received nine and a half hours of exposure time before I was affected. She’d be asking me to turn around so she could strip off her tactical ops vest less than five minutes after that. When I told her she could just leave it on the ground rather than carry it, she eyed me with amazement and suspicion. She could just… what?

I gestured to the area around us. “There’s literally no one around us. Nobody’s going to take your stuff.”

“It’s… spooky,” she said.

“Correct.”

“Where are they all, and why did they abandon this part?” she asked.

“For some reason, the Nakamamon from other this area felt the need to leave.”

I spotted two figures in the shadow of a house, engaged in some rhythmic contortions. I couldn’t help but chuckle… most likely some horny teenagers getting away from their parents’ overbearing rules and taking advantage of some privacy to get their freak on.

In the area affected by a sick or dead god.

I shrugged. Not my circus and not my monkeys.

“What happens to them?”

“Not sure, but hopefully nothing,” I said. Hopefully they’d just smash and then get back to safety. So far, malfunctioning gods hadn’t been directly responsible for any deaths.

Another pair we found a few houses later was also standing in the shadows, but they weren’t playing hide the sausage. These two were standing and holding hands, discussing something in low tones.

“Okay that’s a little strange.”

The couple spotted us and went deeper into the shadows, then disappeared into a side alley.

Jacoby froze. “There’s something around the corner. I can hear it.” She blushed, her pale Asian skin going bright red. “They’re… uh…”

“Engaged in acts most carnal?”

She regarded me, breathing heavily.

This could be a situation involving the god that had empowered me. The Lovers.

She stopped. “They… stopped.” I could hear a furious argument a little ways away, shouts and shrieks of betrayal stuffing up the stillness.

“I’m going to go ahead and say the situation we’re looking at here is a mental one… I mean first a divine ailment, where the god might be dead and we need to resurrect it, but then a mental ailment, where we need to set the god’s mind right. That’ll fix whatever is making these people pound each other relentlessly.”

After dealing with the fighting aspect problem.

Jacoby was staring at me oddly.

“I don’t make the rules,” I said. “We just dealt with a similar thing back in Slinktrickle. Stole everybody’s clothes.”

Her eyes got real wide.

“Yeah, you’re wearing the gift of a god that died, we brought back to life, then healed up.”

She looked down at the windbreaker, a stylish thing in geometric blocks of different color: forest green, a mid-tone greenish gray, and a darker greenish gray. Turtle gray, is a good way to describe it. She hadn’t zipped it up, but had her hands jammed into the pockets, like it would help keep the contagion from infecting her.

Since Jacoby had stripped off the tac vest, I could make out the black tank top underneath, and the way her small breasts were pushed up and together into a modest cleavage.

I then caught myself looking at about the same time as she looked up and caught me.

The first thing I did was make sure she wasn’t going to start getting symptoms and fall victim to the divine contagion. Getting a read on her Durability check situation, I found that she had a little over an hour. It would be enough time to head in, assess the situation, and get out. I offered up Healer’s Resistance. It would allow her to extend her immunity from the divine effect by a lot. Whatever mental affliction these people had, it wasn’t something she wanted.

“I’ve never seen houses like this,” she said in awe.

Just like in Glumpdumpkin, these houses were all… unique. Bizarre.

The crystal one was the oddest, because it was overgrown. It was a squat structure of maybe twenty feet high, forty feet wide and possibly fifty feet deep. Now it was nearly thirty feet high, and had expanded outwards with a crystal spike to pierce the house next door. Someone clearly needed to come back home and… trim their house I guess.

There were other examples of weirdness, but we couldn’t investigate.

With my Ingenuity raised up this high, I noted an increase in my ability to memorize things. It hadn’t been hard to see the map of the town, glance up at the town itself, and know exactly where I was going. The small fountain roundabout that served as a well was just there, the crystal house that was eating up the next door neighbors’ house was there, and that meant one street and three houses that way was the hidden portion of the god. Simple. A ten minute walk.

“How do you want to handle this?”

Jacoby shrugged in the Prismatic Apparel. She was still complaining about the heat, and in my periphery I got flashes of her trim stomach. “I’ll put the Wizards on a circle of divine protection, and we’ll set up camp here, so you can study this in your off hours.”

“That’s good.”

“The moment we’re done with these other five fighters, we’ll be out of here, you understand?”

“Come on,” I said, and gestured to the district around me.

She didn’t like this, and it was pretty easy to see why. She’d been very mission-focused ever since I met her, and this was a hundred percent not her mission.

It was either her people becoming my new Divinity Rescue Corps or trying to handle it with only Regina, Alan, Larelle and Chrysta. I thought it over while she did the same.

“Fine,” she said. “We’ll help you with this.”

“I’m glad.”

She regarded me silently for some time, and we reached the end of the affected area. The house at the end of the block here was smaller than I expected, with only six feet of clearance. Jacoby was tall enough in her combat boots to scrape her head on the ceiling.

“I don’t get you,” she said.

“How’s that?”

“I expected some BS, but you’re exactly who you appear to be. This… earnestness. It’s very odd.” When I looked the next question at her, she went on. “People aren’t who they claim to be, Fletcher. Women put on a mask, men put on a mask. They pretend to be what you want so they can lure you into situations. And they take what they want, get you into position, and then they drop the act. You see who they really are, and it’s not who you fell… it’s not who you thought.”

“Ah.”

“But that ability you have, it showed me all about you, who you are. You’re really this… person.”

“Yeeeeeaaaaahhhh?” I asked. “Clearly.”

“Not clearly!” she said. “Guys just want something. They’re controlling douchebags, or manipulative scumbags.” And dirtbags, sleazebags, and maybe even fleabags.

“Fair,” I said.

“And wider than that, everyone has an agenda they push. They could push that agenda with subtlety or out in the open. They could orchestrate their agenda. I’m working for someone who has plans and ambitions. But then this magic ability showed me your fracking soul. A guy who’s good and fair and has a big… uh… anyway, then I go and find out you’re involved already. You’re… taken.”

“To be fair, I’m not taken. I have a bond mate, who happens to enjoy the mating process, kind of a lot actually. She knows and fully accepts the idea that I will both be with other women, and eventually want to mate with other women in the, uh, baby making sense.” As soon as Jacoby’s eyes lit up, I held up my hands to stop that train of thought. “I have… other companions too.”

It would be wise to leave out the two bondmates situation for the time being. There was no telling what would cause a girl like Jacoby to arrest me and bring me back to the HQ. Just telling her about

“I thought you could only bond one Nakamamon,” she said, blinking in confusion, and that spark of ambition was there too. Her own ambitions included, that I knew of, to put in a good report with the Agency. She needed me for that. Meaning that in the next few days, I needed to make the best impression possible, and persuade her to let me go. If I couldn’t do that, I would be forced to persuade her team to mutiny.

And if I couldn’t do that… I’d figure something out.

“I was under that impression too,” I said, “but I was talking about human, uh, partners.” There was definitely no reason to give her any more reasons to turn me in to the authorities, such as my ability to bond more than one Nakamamon at a time.

“Partners. As in… plural.“ She ruminated over this for some time, which gave me the opportunity to pinpoint the source of the divine weirdness. I entered this very small house, lit by small floating glob… sconces. Heading through this small and difficult to cross secret passage brought me into another realm entirely.

This district of Flunt-on-the-Rustle arrayed with a curious pizza configuration that took me a minute to get. The three main streets that created the six pizza slices of this area ran literally around the whole inside of the sphere. You could walk the entire circumference of the town and be right back where you started. I grinned and blinked away the thought.

The overwhelming lust of this place was tickling at the back of my mind. Luckily, the effect faded at the borderline, where the townsfolk here watched us with silent and interested gazes. I could just about sense them asking questions about our purpose here. And why, pray tell, were we not stripping out of our clothes and going at one another like rabbits… or dancing away from the lust zone and laughing nervously at the near miss. A few of the younger-looking Nakamamon had been doing that when we showed up. So blocks in this district made no sense. The pointy bit closes to the crossroads could be a big wedge, or a small flatiron building.

We mapped the whole of the affected area by walking on its edge, which took us only about an hour. For me, sensing the divine with my Mana Affinity skill and my Affinity attribute was becoming much more comfortable, and Eagle Eyed helped. Jacoby didn’t fare as well, though she did have boosted regular senses.

The area was heavier on one side than the other. And I was almost certain this was The Lovers.

“You don’t… what is that?” she asked.

“That,” I told her, looking at the glow emanating from the middle of a house’s yard, “is a god.”

“I don’t want you anywhere near it,” she said.

“Understandable,” I said. “I’m going to have to heal it eventually.”

“Understandable,” she repeated. “For now though we focus on the job at hand. But I need your recommendation on a site for our headquarters, since the townsfolk have already evacuated and are sharing quarters. Can we commandeer some of this space using a spell?

I thought we could. If the Wizards could put up one of their big circles of protection, they could probably do most of the drawing with Prismatic Apparel on. Just like they’d done with the sounds of the captive animals or keeping out the pests from the swamp, I knew they could handle keeping divine interference out.

Jacoby agreed, and though the head Wizard would later frown over the idea, he would nod in agreement. Pushing out an affect that was already in existence was more difficult than keeping something out of a circle that you’d already made, once it tried to get in, but more difficult didn’t mean impossible. Eventually he would take up my divine gift to give him Divine Resistance, and set about the task of drawing a circle so large it could accommodate half a dozen tents for two, the cages for the affected Nakamamon, and a space for me to work. It would’ve felt cramped, but luckily he was drawing this circle around an already existing series of buildings. They would play host to Jacoby’s team, with plenty of room for the different teams: the Guardians, the Wizards, the support staff (Oz and Savannah) and even a small house reserved just for Jacoby. Finally, I’d get my own place, where they’d draw up and cast another protection circle to keep the sound of the four remaining Nakamamon from driving me out of my mind.

They’d end up giving me the largest building in the area, a large treehouse some fifty feet across and several stories tall. A staircase directly molded out of the trunk led up to the living room and kitchen area, with attached small dining room, before other twisting staircases provided a way to bedrooms, closets, and bathrooms. They hadn’t been carved out of the heartwood, but rather the heartwood stood in the center, with the room ballooned around it. Without any interior decoration, the plant aspect who’d lived here grew out the rooms, then smoothed the bark on the inside of the walls and floor. Leaves sprouted from the window sills. The stairs were left rougher for traction.

My life was so weird, I didn’t even question it. Yep, house that’s a tree.

That was still some time in the future though. For now, Jacoby had me to herself, and walked beside me clutching one arm behind her back at the elbow. It thrust out her small breasts, and I wondered how intentional that was.

“You know…” Jacoby said, as if testing out an idea.

She stopped when we came upon a young Nakamamon. Very young. This looked like a Cyclowl but smaller. Where the Cyclowl had been maybe two feet high, this wee baby owl was no bigger than six inches. Identify did the job.

Snowlet

Basic Nakamamon

These tiny ambush predators summon snowstorms or blast snow out at their prey to disorient or blind them. They make excellent air conditioners if kept in the home and fed well during scorching summer months.

Typical length: 1-2 foot wingspan (small)

Typical weight: 0.2-1 pound

Gender: unknown

Aspect: cold/creature (beast)

Transformations: Snowlet -> Cyclowl -> Owlectric

Snowlet has been added to your Nakamadex.

“That,” Jacoby said, “is freaking adorable.”

“And in danger.” The seductive influence of divinity wasn’t meant for a creature this young and not yet ready for sexual maturity. I didn’t know what would happen if it remained in this charged atmosphere, but I wouldn’t have to find out. “Okay little one… we’re going to get you out of here.”

It was cold, but I only realized how cold when I went to pick it up and my hands nearly froze solid. The cold damage was intense.

You have been hit with Arctic Explosion. You have no skill in Cold Resistance, nor clothing that would provide any.

“That’s okay,” I told it with as soothing a voice as I could muster. “I know you’re scared, but you’re going to be fine.”

I spent the Durability Token for Healer’s Resistance.

Healer’s Resistance IV

(Special Ability, Uncommon, active)

I- You may spend a Durability Token to resist damage from any source. Long term effects are reduced by 90%. Onsets of all diseases, venoms, poisons, or other afflictions are quadrupled, as are intervals. Lasts one day.

Despite taking only ten percent of the damage, it had already damaged me for nearly a quarter of my overall HP with a cold attack.. And despite the damage, the frigid owl in my hands was very uncomfortable. I spent no time holding it, but trotted closer to the safe zone.

Then I flung the little cutie pie after only holding it for ten seconds. Ten very long seconds.

“Did you just… throw a baby?” Jacoby asked, with what I felt like was the appropriate amount of amusement.

I snorted laughter. “Had to be done. It’ll be find outside the affected area, and it can fly.”

“So you throwing it had nothing to do with the frostbite you almost got in your fingers?” She asked with an eyebrow arched.

I snorted laughter. “Too much exposure to these kinds of situations and you end up with divinity poisoning. Just don’t phrase it like that and we’ll be fine. You’re supposed to throw birds.”

She shook her head. “Divinity poisoning? I don’t want to know what that looks like, though I would hazard a guess that you have contracted it no less than three times.”

We walked on in silence a little while, with her periodically glancing my way. She’d been on the cusp of saying something personal before the appearance of the Snowlet. We’d done our circuit of the neighborhood and were essentially done.

I surveyed the homes and appreciated the weirdness, while tracking Jacoby’s thought process and facial expressions in my periphery. Finally, biting her lip, she spoke up.

“You allowed me a glimpse into your very soul, Expedition Leader.”

“So I did.”

“We are in a divinely influenced, deserted section of town together,” she said.

“So we are.”

She stepped even closer. “I think you showed me your innermost self for a reason,” she said.

“So I did.” Several reasons actually, but who was counting?

She kept advancing, until we were inside kissing distance. Her chest was less than an inch from mine, and my chin hovered over her shoulder. Her chin was touching my shoulder, given she was shorter than me. The next words were very quiet. “I find you quite attractive, Expedition Leader.”

“What a coincidence,” I told her in much the same hushed tone. “I find you very attractive as well, Expedition Leader. May I call you Esmerelda?”

Her volume dropped until the breathy whisper that emerged was barely audible, even though her cheek was close enough to my ear that the tiny hairs felt her. “I want to fuck you, Fletcher.”

Her breasts were now pressed against my chest, and the erection now painfully tenting my pants was pressed awkwardly just above her mound.

“I want to pull out your cock and suck on it until you beg me to let you cum,” she continued. Her voice continued to come out shaky. “I want to push you down on your back and tie your wrists to the bedposts, then slide my tiny little Asian pussy up and down your shaft until you’re leaking precum and crying because your dick is moments from release. And every time you get there, I clamp my hand around it to stop you.”

“Ohhh,” I said. The intensity to this fantasy wasn’t like any of the girls I’d been with.

“I edge you for hours. Literal hours. And when you finally blast off, it’s the hardest orgasm of your life, and you paint the ceiling.” She rocked forward and pressed herself against my bulge, which definitely needed adjusting. “I’m pretty proud of my ass, Fletcher. I’ll make you watch me mount you, reverse cowgirl, and you get a show like you’ve never had before. You get to see every bit of you slide up inside me over and over again. It’ll be magic… the disappearing reappearing cock trick. And I know you’re an ass man, so you get to see my ass flex with every bounce.

“If you cum inside me,” she promised, “I climb off you and leak it right into your mouth as a punishment.”

“Oh.”

“So you’d better not cum until I say so. Jacoby needs a lot of orgasms to tide her over.”

“Do I get to play with your clit while you ride me?” I breathed.

“If you’re a good boy,” she teased. I was glad to hear a smile in her voice there, through the oozing lust and the darker undertones of domination she was throwing around. “Maybe I unlock the handcuffs and you get one hand free.”

“I’ll take what I can get.” Gods but I wanted to shift and get my cock into a more comfortable position, but the magic would be completely shattered. I guess this was already the first step of the journey of suffering for pleasure that Jacoby wanted to introduce me to.

“You can play with my nipples while I fuck you,” she went on. “I have very sensitive nipples. I can get myself off by going without a bra and rubbing my favorite cashmere sweater over them for a couple of hours.”

“That’s so hot,” I said.

“Can I confess something?” she asked, back in that barely audible breathy whisper. Could she confess something? Beyond wanting to tie me up and fuck me for the better part of a full day?

“Be my guest,” I told her.

“I’m not wearing a bra now… I’ve been rubbing them against this tank top the whole time we’ve been together. It made me so horny I can hardly stand it.”

“Well,” I told her, “You’ve been edging me for hours, you made me splatter the ceiling, and then you got me hard again so you could ride me reverse cowgirl.”

“You don’t cum as fast the second time,” she said.

“Of course. I just wonder when you’re going to allow yourself to have some pleasure.”

“I forgot,” she told me, and slowly drew herself up onto her tiptoes to grind her pussy against my pants-covered bulge at a better angle. “I sat on your face while I was edging you, and forced you to use that tongue to work my clit.”

“Ohhh.”

“Then I kept you riled up with one hand while I put my nipples up to your mouth.”

I leaned forward now, and swayed side to side just a bit. The fabric of her tank top and the windbreaker moving against those hyper sensitive nipples for real.

“I’ve been cumming the whole time,” she moaned.

“And playing with your own nipples when we finally get to the reverse cowgirl.”

“That’s right,” she said, voice strained, before I felt the orgasm hit her. The tension she’d had built up suddenly drained out of her and she jumped and shuddered. It was a minute before she picked her chin up off my shoulder.

“That was hot,” I told her.

“I’m not done fucking you,” she said. “Where were we?”

“Hmm… you had edged me for hours, made me eat you out, let me lick your nipples, finally let me cum, and then you were in the middle of sliding up and down my pole reverse cowgirl because you know I’m a butt guy.”

“Aaaaannnnd,” she drew out the word with a hissed breath. “You get to see my asshole the whole time. Maybe I tell you to put your thumb up there. And maybe, if you’re good, one day I push that gigantic tool of yours all the way up into my guts.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath, like she’d just brought herself to yet another climax by giving voice to her fantasy.

“Would you stop me?” she asked in a small voice.

Here was the breaking point. Here is where I needed to be careful. Jacoby had been someone else’s property, she’d been controlled and demeaned by others for her whole life. If I said the wrong thing, she’d bolt and never look at me or speak to me again.

“The only thing stopping you from doing it now,” I breathed, “is that you’ll contract divinity poisoning.”

She drew back, frowning, and concentration filled her face. Accessing the UI, she found the countdown timer until she would run out of Divine Resistance and get whatever these people had.

“Sheep dip,” she said, deflating a bit but with a satisfied smile.

“We’ll find the time,” I told her, “if you still want to.”

“More than ever,” she said, froze staring at me, then darted forward and kissed me.

This is Christopher about to have serious blue balls.