“Seriously, Luci, every time I call you to be a little bit violent, you give it the minimal amount of effort!” Gaia complained, while everyone gathered in the ruin of the church. Hovering on her spot, the supreme deity seemed to listen to something that John couldn’t hear, and then sighed. “I guess that does make me the idiot. Anyway, off you go. I will need a bit more time to give you a proper body.” A snap of the green-haired creator’s fingers, and the angel was gone.

‘She must have said something along the lines of ‘why do you keep giving me those missions then?’ I guess,’ John thought and turned around to properly look at Gaia.

“Look at you, using faith as your shield,” the supreme deity immediately began to sass him. Tapping the top of the cross with the index finger of her right hand, she caused small ripples in reality just by interacting with it. “Never took you as a religious man, but hey, the second you’re cornered, you come running to Jesus. You know that only praying when you need something is pretty rude, right?”

“I’ll write it down somewhere,” the Gamer sighed. The not-so-subtle complaint from Gaia was that he almost always complained about things he didn’t have, rather than thank her sometimes for what she did give him. Putting his arms around Rave and Aclysia, he looked up to Gaia. “I have a good life thanks to the help you gave me. I am genuinely gracious for all you did…” he looked at the field of crosses around them, “…even if you can be a bit moody.”

“You had to ruin it, didn’t you?” Gaia wanted to know.

“I would have thought it anyway, so there was no way to prevent you from knowing,” John returned and then grinned widely. “If you want me to thoroughly thank you, you’re welcome to visit me at any night.”

“You DARE suggest that-“ Moira started, only to be interrupted by her Lady raising a hand.

“We did it before, relax.” That announcement had the opposite effect on Moira, completely stunning her where she stood. “What? You thought I was a virgin deity?” Gaia asked in an amused tone. “Come on, you must realize that I’m not about the chaste life. Just look at the side effects your own powers have, not to mention the extra spells I packed into the guidebooks of your seers. My highest priority is to see life flourish and that’s pretty hard if you don’t continue it – also sex is really great fun.”

Moira was dumbfounded, and Rave used the opportunity to ask. “What side effects?”

“You shall not…!” Moira snapped out of her daze only for Gaia to chuckle.

“I won’t tell.” The deity with the perfect ass crossed her arms. “Again, Moira, relax.”

“I’m sorry, holy Lady,” the Warden fell on her knees, “I did not mean to doubt you. But… if you will allow me one questions…?” A gracious gesture left the redhead to continue. “You said that we serve less of a purpose in this reality than others… what did you mean by that?”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” Gaia told her. “What is the core mission of the Order, Shield Warden?”

“To protect the innocent,” she responded in a strong and convicted tone.

“Right, and how many innocents are there in the Abyss? Don’t answer that, it’s a rhetorical question leading into the revelation I want to get at. How many more would there be if I didn’t erect a barrier between the magical and the mundane?” There was a short gap. “Literal billions,” Gaia then answered her own question. “That’s what I mean. In many, if not most, branches of reality that are similar to this one, I did not institute that separation. In those, the Order serves a much more needed purpose.”

“I… understand?” Moira did not sound like she really understood at all. Obviously, she got the concept, but John could see that she had a large number of other questions. “Then what is our purpose here? If our true founding purpose is to keep the hands of evil mages from hurting the mundane, then our Order should… what should it do?”

“Protect the innocent,” Gaia seemed almost amused. “I also told you I have high expectations of you and the Order earlier. Don’t mistake the fact that you aren’t as important here to mean you aren’t important at all. You’re a powerful group of powerful individuals. Like all humans, you have decisions to make that will change the world for better or for worse. Keep that in mind and don’t disappoint me. Even if I don’t intervene, I’ll be watching.”

“I understand, my holy Lady.” Moira lowered her head in respect.

“And why the heck am I here?!” Wendy wanted to know. “I’m a cooking goddess, why did I have to fight an angel?!”

“If you don’t want to be here, we can change that.” A snap of her fingers, and the supreme deity had the fast-food goddess disappear from the barrier. “Greasy bitch, thinks she can sass at me,” Gaia grumbled and turned her attention back to John. “Anyway, if I want to fuck you, I’ll come to you, it’s that easy.”

“Would you mind if I asked you a question as well?” the Gamer presented an inquiry.

“It’s always the same with you children, I reveal myself for thirty seconds and you have three-hundred questions about reality,” she groaned. “Okay, go ahead.”

“I would just like to know what happens whenever the Gaia Dependency Factor reaches zero,” he said and looked at one of his hands. “My powers’ inner workings are basically entirely beyond my reach, will that ever change?”

“No,” Gaia put it rather simply. “You can interact with the way the Gamer powers work under the hood just as little as any human can actively interface with their metabolism. Your powers react to your desires though. I guess you could call it a wish fulfilment engine,” she snorted, “not entirely inaccurate, looking at your life. Then again, it’s not THAT easy either. No matter how much you want a Skill that would allow you to immediately kill whoever you look at, even if I wasn’t around to limit something like that – which I don’t, by the way – you wouldn’t get it and you certainly wouldn’t get it in a Class like Fateweaver. Thematic restrictions apply.”

“Huh.” That basically confirmed what John had been guessing, but it was still ridiculous to hear. “Wish fulfilment engine, I like the sound of it.”

“It sounds like bullcrap,” Moira intervened from the side.

“It very much is,” John agreed and looked back up at the cross. The now lone cross, Gaia had taken off without a single further word, disappearing into thin air without any issue. “Well, she goes like she came. Should we go as well?” he asked. There were a few moments of hold-up, as damaged clothes needed to be changed out of or otherwise repaired, but after that they were right out of the barrier.

At least the area of Miami they were in was fairly peaceful. Low traffic and few people around to interrupt with the fact that they appeared in reality. Not that they would have noticed anyway, Gaia’s laws shielded them from that much.

“Honoured Warden, Gam- J-john!” Lorelei greeted them in a slightly surprised tone. “I’m glad to see you back unharmed. It appears you have withstood the test.”

“It would be more accurate that we got off easy,” John reported, wearing an unhappy frown. To cheer himself up, he bowed down to his girlfriend and gave her a particularly long and particular deep French kiss. By the way she wrapped her arms around his neck to stretch it out even further, it was obvious she needed a bit of happiness-affirmation after what had happened. Neither of them liked losing, particularly in such an utterly one-sided fashion.

Eventually, they had to separate and the Lightbearer continued the conversation. “Yeah this, what was she called, Luci?”

“Lucifrena,” John told her.

“Right, Lucifrena was like… I wouldn’t say holding back, although she was also holding back… she went after random targets at random times, so she never finished anyone off.”

“She only fought because the Lady asked her to,” Moira nodded along, “a task to which she should have gone with more enthusiasm. Regardless, it turns out that observing your efforts has brought me more than one worthwhile thing already.” The Warden smiled as if she had been blessed. “Talking to the Lady in person, such a great honour. Were your talks with her enlightening, Lorelei?”

“The Lady was as cryptic in her words as she often is in her visions and words, although I have been granted a bit more clarity in the scope of time involved,” Lorelei responded and bowed before John. “It will be an honour to meet you again, honoured Gamer. May your colours grow even more intense.”

That sounded a bit more final than he would have thought, but John wouldn’t have put all those points into Charisma if they netted him nothing. Just as she straightened up, he bowed down himself and took her hand, gently kissing the back of it. “I’m not known to disappoint, particularly not when it comes to beautiful ladies,” he told her as he straightened back up, not letting go of her hand. Following a purely spontaneous wish, he reached into his inventory and retrieved a small ring. It was of a bronze colour, with triangular areas that were either lighter in colour or purple tinted gripping into each other. In their continuation, they formed a ring around the centre of the ring, surrounded by the bronze main material. “Take this with you. Check it for spying enchantments first, if you want to, but I would be honoured if you wore it.” He paused for a moment, winked and then said, “This one on a finger without cultural significance.”

She shook her head and took the little thing. Whether she already knew there were no enchantments on it or she just trusted him there weren’t, she slid it over her left middle finger right then and there. Any mundanes were too far away to see the Baelementium ring slightly shrink to fit her perfectly.

“I’m flattered, honoured John,” she said and blushed, quite a bit but not as strongly as before. Maybe Gaia had given her some extensive love advice or maybe she was just getting better at handling these things because of repeated exposure. It was a bit sad to see her lose it, innocence was always adorable, but it made interactions a bit less awkward. “Warden, I recommend that we leave now. Our work here is done.”

“Is that the Lady’s will?” asked the redhead, even as she began leading the way away from the group. The answer she received was too quiet for John to hear from a distance.

He got a full ten seconds of staring at Lorelei’s ass under that pencil skirt before his girlfriend poked him in the ribs. “A: why did ya have a ring on you?” she asked a slight note of jealousy in her voice. It had been a very long time since he had genuinely heard her put on a tone like that. She stabbed him in the ribs again. “Two: why did she get it? Ya have a lot of girls here that would like some gifts from you, ya know?”

“Do I? Most of you don’t really care much about impractical things. At least not the jewellery kind.” John was genuinely curious there. “I think I shower you in gifts already.”

“Your cum isn’t a gift, Johnny.” He swallowed the ‘it kind of is’ joke. If Rave had a cat tail, it would have been moving in a threatening fashion right about now. “I don’t care for jewellery, okay, ja, got me there,” his girlfriend conceded. “A RING though.”

“Well, I had it because I’m looking into making as best a ring I can. That one, while beautiful, did not measure up to the task I want to use one for.” That wasn’t to say it was a failure, it was a very beautiful ring and John had been deliberating what to do with it. He gave his girlfriend a long look to indicate what he would need an even more gorgeous ring for, without actually saying it.

Rave left her threatening pose and straightened up with a smile. “Oooooh, okay,” she grabbed his arm. “Now you’re raising my expectations.”

“I will meet them,” he told her and looked over to Vita and Wendy, who were still hanging around. “So, unrelated but important question, what about today’s challenge?”

“Just pick something and you’ll be the winner,” Wendy waved off. “This was supposed to be a freebie anyway. I don’t care what you make of those last two bets that much, really.”

“If you say so,” John shrugged as best he could, his arms were now claimed by Rave and Aclysia. “Fusion demands that Florida will wait until federal development projects allow for the deployment of IBMAs in the area.”

“Alright, I’ll spread the news,” Wendy said and started marching off. “You lot have fun doing whatever you want to do.”

“That’s a good question, what do we do?” Rave wanted to know.

“I would have a suggestion,” Aclysia chimed in, leaning in to kiss John’s neck. “How about we return to the hotel and reaffirm our status as living by letting Master repeatedly cum inside us?”

“I like that idea,” John gave his obvious opinion. “Let’s do that, sleep, deal with whatever last insanity they have in store for us tomorrow, and then get the hell out of this state.”

Rave kissed the other side of his neck, while Beatrice, in an effort to stay included, hugged him from behind and pressed her squishy breasts against his back. All around, he was the envy of every last man, and a whole bunch of the women walking by randomly.

“Don’t ya like this city?” his girlfriend asked. “Kinda have to say that I feel happy around here. Weather is nice and hot, the people are fun and I really like the local dress code. Being, ya know, whatever ya want including nothing.”

“You would like it here, my beautiful freaky girl,” he laughed and kissed her on the forehead. “I do like the dress code and the people have been alright, all things considered. So has been the weather.” He looked at the cloudy sky. “Not that we had a lot of luck with that this week. Anyway, my problem here is that this is just… too much of everything.”

“Can’t handle so much crazy for so long?” Rave asked.

“If I stay here for too long, I’m afraid I’ll get caught up in their crazy ways. Not wearing anything and having public sex and parties every day is very seductive,” he admitted and then sighed. “But I want my responsibility back and to solve problems. Just sex and fun, as good as it feels, isn’t that fulfilling.”

His girlfriend hummed. “I get that, oddly enough. Don’t feel as strongly about it as you do, but I also kinda miss doing productive stuff… Will ya put a long-range teleporter down here though? For vacations and government purposes?”

“Whenever I get extra ones, I will strongly consider it.” He nodded. “Anyway, we should get back to the hotel and do the sex thing. Tomorrow, we’ll get back home – hopefully.”