“I was considering it, but then I remembered I had more fun people to hang out with,” Maximillian responded swiftly and straightened up. “So, I left it up to chance.”

“I’ll have to fine you for a violation of the bro code,” John joked. “Would you prefer to take a punch to the jaw or buy me and my harem here a round of drinks?”

“What if I don’t do either?” the gravity king asked.

“Then you’ll have one strike on your account. At three strikes I get to violate the bro code once for free.”

“That sounds highly made up.”

“It totally is.”

“What would you even use that for?”

“Well, you do have an attractive sister.”

“For all I care, go for her, might distract her from all the giant things she’s spending money on.”

John sighed, “It’s no fun if you don’t push back, buddy. Would you really sell your sister for a round of drinks?”

“I would give you a round of drinks if you can make it so I don’t receive a text from Lydia every couple of weeks ‘requesting’ me to talk some sense into Ria,” Maximillian returned and was momentarily distracted by a laughing woman running over to him and hugging him from the side. Her large breasts squished against him in the process, a feeling that John knew well enough himself.

“What’re you letting us wait for, hm?” she asked in a sweet voice, kissing him on the cheek. She was blonde, tall and the type of MILF that was likely not an actual mother and not quite old enough to develop any wrinkles but had that early-thirties aura of kept charm and starting wisdom to her.

In her specific case, the age John guessed was only five years younger than she actually was. In the Abyss, those things could often be misleading, but she was rather weak, at level 19, and her aging had barely slowed at all. It was safe to say that it was only the lack of wrinkles that made her appear younger than she actually was.

“I just ran into a friend of mine,” Maximillian said and gestured towards the Gamer. “Natasha, meet John Newman, John, Natasha.”

“A pleasure.” He raised his hand in greeting.

“Oy,” Rave interrupted. “Why don’t we get an introduction!”

“Because the patriarchs are talking,” Maximillian answered and then snickered. “No, seriously, it’s because it would take me like ten minutes. That aside, I don’t know two of you. No… wait, Gnome, is that you?”

“Y-yes?” the earth spirit answered as if she actually wasn’t too sure about that, looking down on herself. “Sorry if I don’t like normal? Is that bad? I know I’m plain and…”

“No, no, you look good, John is lucky to have you.” Maximillian was smooth to ease her fears with his soothingly deep and youthful voice. “You just look different from when I last saw you. The dress is a dead give-away, and now that I actually look at your face, you haven’t changed that much. The hair was what had me momentarily confused. I like the way the braids unite at the back, makes you look very ladylike.”

“Umu,” Gnome let out a shy whisper and fidgeted in her seat, not quite knowing what to do with all those compliments. Across from her, John just smiled. Depending on who it came from, he would have reacted quite differently to one of his girls getting complimented. Maximillian was someone he trusted and the self-exiled royal wasn’t using anything close to a flirtatious tone anyway.

“If you don’t mind me asking, who would she be?” Maximillian continued, pointing at the goth girl two chairs down from John. “Pretty sure I never saw her before.”

“You did,” the elemental in question commented, her voice turning everything she said into lyrics that only needed a few underlying instruments to become a proper song. To make it a bit easier, she momentarily dropped her shapeshift, showing her true nature of greyish blue slime with medium-sized dark antlers on her head.

Maximillian didn’t need that hint; he was already continuing when he had heard her speak. “Ah, Undine… huh. Really like the gothic look, fits your personality. Hope you don’t take that the wrong way.” She didn’t, instead turning her head and tuning out of the conversation entirely to listen to Sylph ramble about whatever currently held her attention. Likewise, the brown-haired man turned his attention back to John. “Did anyone ever tell you that the fact that you can ascend your elementals reliably at such a pace is pretty bullshit?”

“Yes, that has been brought up before,” John said.

“Oh – my – self!” Natasha suddenly exclaimed. Either she had spent the past minute in a daze or she had simply waited for an opening in the conversation. “You’re really John Newman? I mean, you aren’t as famous as Max here, but I still didn’t think you two were actually good friends!”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” Maximillian wanted to know. There was a very distinct smacking sound and Natasha perked up, as the man next to her was (likely) groping the butt he had just spanked. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“Well, you talk a lot if the day is short,” the blonde joked and earned herself a second slap, moaning encouragingly. “Harder, daddy,” she gasped, completely serious.

John hadn’t been that interested in that woman from the start. After knowing she was here with someone else, especially someone he knew, he got his desire down to some instinctual ogling. Now, even that threatened to die completely as she said the forbidden word. ‘Well, whatever he likes, he likes,’ the Gamer thought.

“Hey, is it true you can make women stronger by sleeping with them?” Natasha asked. “There was something about that in an article I read about how the queen of Germany suddenly became stronger.”

“There is a bit more to it than that,” John answered, “especially in Lydia’s case. The short of it is no.”

“Ah, sadness,” the blonde sighed and looked at Maximillian. “Thought you could teach that trick to my lover boy here.”

“Not everyone here is blessed to break the rules of magic as we understand them,” the gravity mage said and leaned down. “I think you will find that I can supply you with enough satisfaction as I am.” The two of them kissed and John just let them have the moment. He had his arm around his girlfriend’s shoulder and was playing with her. As greedy as he was, he was happy to let other men have their fun with any women that were theirs. Even in front of him, for the most part.

The Gamer was completely fine with this specific instance because he didn’t know or want Natasha. What the two of them did was none of his business. He would have been a tad uncomfortable if they started fucking in front of him. Past incidents had shown that alcohol or certain social situations could erode even that feeling. It was also waning in general, courtesy of these things just happening a lot around him, particularly in their current environment.

What John would not tolerate was a woman he was interested in, Marie, for example, being even just kissed by someone else in front of him. Even if it would be completely consensual, it would have irked him quite a bit. That feeling was true even for women he KNEW for a fact were sleeping around with other men, such as Cindy, Worlina and Wendy. They could do whatever they wanted when he wasn’t there, not his call to make, but while he was around, he had his rules.

His actual harem was obviously only his under all circumstances. The only, potential, exception that existed was if any of them found a woman they were interested to bring home for a night. Some lesbian fun outside the harem was allowed, but that was it.

“Anyway,” Maximillian continued once his kiss broke, “I’ll take the fine and buy the first round of drinks. Unlike you, I’m not so stingy.”

“Yay, free stuff!” Sylph exclaimed. “I want a pina colada!” Everyone else handed out their wishes as well and Maximillian went to order. In the meantime, the pins were lowered by the machine and John, having been the first to put in his name, was also supposed to be the first to throw a ball.

He tried a few different ones. Weight was less of an issue than a proper grip. Once he felt like he had picked a fitting one, he went up to the lane and tried to mimic what little he had seen about proper bowling form in his life. The large sphere rolled over the wood, on aim to the centre of the triangular arrangement of pins. Then, on the last fourth of the way, it suddenly curved sideways and only hit the four on the left side. John clicked his tongue.

“Ya aren’t all that good at this,” his girlfriend pointed out.

“I’ve never been one to intuitively know my way around sports.” John shrugged and grabbed another ball, not willing to wait until the machine spat the one he had used back out. “Unless Gaia gives me a Skill for bowling, I’ll have to try and learn this first.” For all his Physical Stats, the fact that he was a nerd under all that muscle didn’t really change.

He adjusted his form a little bit and thought more carefully about what he was doing. There was a spin to the throw that would influence its trajectory on the smooth floor. The problem was that John had no experience in bowling and could do little more than guess how much force he should put into things. In an effort to gain intel, he made a throw that he was certain was going to miss.

‘Being a superhuman sure shortens the amount of practice needed, but it doesn’t replace it,’ he thought as he watched the ball roll off to the side and fall into the ditch, disappearing without netting him any further points. The machine registered him four points for that round and replaced the pins.

On the lane next to his, Sylph raised a comparatively tiny bowling ball and executed the perfect form. At high speed and in a flawlessly straight trajectory, the sphere slammed into the standing pins, striking all of them down in a single hit. “Yay!” the air spirit exclaimed jumping on the spot. “I did it, strike! Strrrrike! Strrrriiiiikeee!”

The first round went down about as expected. Almost everyone present cleared the lane in one throw, with the occasional two. Only John, Undine and Gnome weren’t able to do that, and the earth spirit at least managed to clear it with two attempts, whereas Undine was just as bad at things as he was.

Maximillian returned, hovering all of the drinks ordered in front of him on a large tablet. “We finally found a game you’re awful at!” he declared after having a look at the scoreboard. John’s beverage, a glass of gin and tonic, was floated upwards, pulled by a black spot that hovered above the tablet and now went in John’s direction.

“Thank you, Hawlper,” John said to the sapient black hole. He had no response for his buddy. Either he would figure this game out in time to turn around the score, somehow, or he wouldn’t. In the latter case, he didn’t want to eat any sort of boastful proclamations he had made.

“No problem.” The bass-heavy voice of Maximillian’s contracted gravity elemental reminded John of Jarvis from the Marvel movies. A Jarvis that had gotten a heavy injection of bass-boosting on an equalizer, to the point that it was more a tremor than a voice. Actually, his voice sounded nothing like Jarvis, he just had that general servant-like tone.

The drinks were distributed and John called to the second round. While his own lane was nothing but white pins, there was a blue and a yellow one on Sylph’s lane. “What’s that?” John asked Maximillian. Since the gravity king had been here for a little while longer, he expected him to know about any quirks of the place.

“Whenever you throw a strike, two enchanted pins get added to your throws for the rest of the game. If you get a spare, it’s only one,” Maximillian said. “Keeps the challenge up.” Maximillian had just said that when Sylph threw her second ball of the evening. The white pins were tossed aside without issue, while the yellow pin slowly hovered upwards. The intention was likely to force quick throws, but Sylph didn’t really know what the word ‘hesitation’ meant, so it was caught up in the impact. The blue pin created some sort of minor barrier around it, but the ball just smashed right through it. “…In theory. For your girls, you might need some stronger enchanted pins than they have in this place.”

“Well, maybe it will stack up enough to give me a chance at catching up?” John suggested and got a pitiful glance from the gravity king. “Fuck you,” he grumbled, and his buddy snorted.

“Not my fault that you decided to surround yourself with women who are basically all physically superior to you,” Maximillian pushed back and then grinned when one of his girls came over, allowing him to show off a bit by groping her sizable tits. “You should look for women that have their centre of gravity a bit higher.”

“Yeah, well, how about no.” John grabbed his bowling ball and tried his best.