“Master… Master…”

John made an unwilling sound as he opened his eyes and stared into the darkness of his blindness. It had been weeks since he had last woken up in a manner that left him wishing he could close his eyes again. Usually, he either woke up because he was rested or because he was getting a blowjob. Either of these were things he could have only dreamt of before starting to eat healthily and gaining a whole slew of somewhat sex addicted lovers.

There had been one recent case where he had woken up because he hadn’t been able to breathe. Cause of that was that his face had been buried inside Salamander’s cleavage. That had been out of the ordinary, but not unpleasant.

Getting shaken awake was not exactly his chosen way to start the day. His wishes were somewhat followed when Aclysia stopped shaking him. Instead, she presented him with a phone. All things he saw through her eyes, the Mandala Sphere only just rose from its socket while he took the phone. Whatever the reason for this call was, it had to be urgent enough that the weaponized maid ran the risk of displeasing him.

“John Newman here, what is the situation?”

“The situation,” the Horned Rat responded in a nonchalant tone, “is that you’re a terrible disappointment. I just heard about your quote-unquote break-up with Marie. I hoped a relationship with her would bind you closer to the Illuminati. It would ensure the alliance of our guild even if you grew to hate me. Instead you only fulfil my secondary objective of giving her a talking to about her attitude.”

“…I’m going to hang up now…” the Gamer grumbled and already moved the phone away from his ear. His mind was trying to decide whether he was going to scold Aclysia first or go back to sleep. The former won out. Spanking her ass was a great way to spend the morning and he wasn’t that tired. The first rays of daylight softly illuminated the curtains. Around him, the harem was slowly roused to awake themselves.

“Alright then, guess we will have the meeting without you,” the Horned Rat cackled, causing John to freeze in his motion.

“You’re going to need to send me some other princess substitute from the Illuminati that’s a tad easier to deal with,” the Gamer groaned and put the phone back against his ear. “I can feel the hate growing by the second.”

“Tigeeeer, why are you talking to Dick first thing in the morning?” Rave wanted to know, sleepily raising her head. “It’s not even seven.” She blinked to find that she was now right in front of John’s groin. “Oh, hello actual dick,” she sleepily remarked and gave it a quick peck.

“He’s decided to have the Florida meeting right now,” the Gamer told his girlfriend, resisting the urge to brush his hand through her hair and encourage her sleepy instincts.

“Do ya need me for that?” Rave asked with a long yawn.

“No, it’s fine if I go by myself.”

“Fantastic, see ya when I’m awake.” Her face plopped back down on her cushion, which happened to be Eliza’s thighs.

“You might want to bring Nia. See you in Paradise,” the Horned Rat said and then hung up on John.

“But why does he need to do this before breakfast…” John mumbled, while leaving Aclysia and Beatrice to wake the elemental girls that weren’t sleeping inside their dwelling place in his soul. Because he was going outside of even their ludicrously extended range of operations, they had to come along with him. The alternative was the incredibly unpleasant feeling of void and them having an urgent need to find him. Being shaken to wake up was at least mildly more pleasant. Especially since they could just go inside that soul-space and continue sleeping.

John noticed that Nia wasn’t in bed and neither were Scarlett, Metra and Siena. Reaching out mentally to the moonshade elemental, he dropped the attempt immediately when he walked into the living room. There, Siena and Nia were sitting on the table and having some tea and biscuits. “I see you’re having a stiff morning,” Siena hummed, making a nonchalant gesture towards his morning wood.

“And I have no time to do anything about it,” the Gamer sighed. “Have you been keeping tabs on the situation?”

“Yes,” Siena said and finished her cup of tea. She remained seated as John marched towards the bathroom. He could afford skipping the morning shower, but he could hardly show up to a meeting without brushing his teeth. “I’ve already told Nia about things.”

“That’s good,” John shouted from within the bathroom, while fiddling in his contact lenses and Possessing them. “Why’re you awake at this ungodly hour anyway?”

Nia must have guessed the question was coming, as she answered right away, “Siena showed me around the Midnight Forest.”

“Fairies are pretty torn on blanks,” Siena added, her sensual voice carrying her amusement. “They like the odd nature but are tormented by Nia’s potential to erase them. A truly wonderful mixture of interest and terror.”

“Shometish I’m reminded tshat you are kinda ehvil,” John answered, moving the toothbrush around at the same time. Ignoring the little hourglass on the cupboard under the mirror, the Gamer got done with brushing his teeth in less than half the recommended time and then stepped back into the living room. “Thank you, Beatrice,” the Gamer said when he was offered two granola bars and some jerky. Not the best breakfast ever, but he could eat it on the go. “To the teleporters, I don’t want to miss whatever the Florida people have to say to the Horned Rat.”

Siena went incorporeal, Nia stood up and, together with the maids, followed John. After wolfing down the granola bars, John chewed on the jerky and put on his clothes. Both food items were homemade. Beatrice had turned her tendency to focus usefulness over taste into something that didn’t just produce nutritional paste. Instead, she had learned how to make numerous lasting foods. They weren’t as good as Aclysia’s cooking, but they did fulfil their purpose of being a quick and healthy snack quite wonderfully.

The maids and the pariah had an easy time getting dressed on the move themselves. For Nia it was just a mental switch, for Aclysia and Beatrice, it was a body process that took a few seconds. By the time they arrived at the teleportation room, John had finished his breakfast and felt mostly awake. There was that unpleasant, slight burning on his eyes, but otherwise he was fine.

Stepping onto the local teleporter, John was brought to the Transport Station in a flash. He had to stand there for half a second, before the Building registered his intent to move again. One second, he was looking at his Palace, the next he was standing before the skyscraper named Paradise.

“Took you… loooooong enough…” a yawning Wendy greeted him; her sass greatly diminished by the fact that she looked even more tired than he did. “Urgh, just come this way, let’s get this over with so I can get more of my beauty sleep.”

“You really don’t need it,” the Gamer remarked, while looking at her ass under the short skirt. The urge to tap it again was especially strong. Because he was so used to being balls deep within someone after brushing his teeth and especially after breakfast, his desire to fuck was spiking. His morning wood had settled, but now it threatened to rise again. Under such circumstances, he was even more direct than usual. “How about we fuck after this meeting so we can both wake up properly?”

“I’m down,” Wendy responded and let out another long yawn. “Not to wake up though, even your cock can’t work that miracle. Just fuck me hard so I can pass out properly. You’ll do great as a Nyquil alternative.”

“If you’re that tired, why did you come to get me?” John wondered while they entered the skyscraper through the front door. “You could have sent someone else.”

“Yeah, as if anybody else is awake at this hour,” Wendy mocked, and then grumbled to herself, “Fucking rat, coming in after I’ve been asleep for two hours, unannounced, saying he wants you in the meeting. What an ass.”

“A dick,” John corrected.

“No, I like those.”

“Fair enough,” he conceded and hummed to himself. It was oddly pleasant to hear that Richard wanted him to be present. It took some of the annoyance out of the situation. “What is this meeting about anyhow?” he wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” Wendy told him. “Alice insisted on it, you go ask her.”

Scratching his head, the Gamer stayed silent from there on out. They walked through the many-doored corridors until Wendy stopped and grabbed a handle, bursting into the room.

“There, I brought the stud!” she announced as they entered a room that reminded John of school. Wooden tables stood next to each other, with unnecessarily uncomfortable and small chairs next to them. There was no chalkboard or teacher’s desk, but even this basic component reminded John of his terrible education experiences. He was immediately uncomfortable, his stomach twisting into a knot.

‘Now that’s an interesting feeling,’ he analysed himself. ‘Slow breaths, you’re not fourteen anymore and you could slap Frank silly now. No way could he take all the money you saved up to buy the new World of Warcraft expansion after school.’ By the time he picked a seat, the knot had mostly resolved, although a fundamental dislike for the environment remained. He gently moved into Aclysia’s mind to keep her from randomly smashing the furniture that made him so uncomfortable.

The Horned Rat was sitting behind one table at the right-hand wall, downsized to accommodate the surroundings. Alice was sitting on a table at the left-hand wall, her legs dangling over the edge. Wendy and John sat closer to the left side and by the entrance, Aclysia and Beatrice standing behind their master. Nia walked into the middle of the room and stood there. “Hello,” she said, to no one in particular.

“Glad you could make it,” Alice said, her face a blank mask. John had always found her empty smile unnerving, but this was even worse. Exactly because he knew the first Maiden of Null could emote, her blank face carried all the threat that Nia’s still expression had lost through exposure to it.

“You’re doing well,” the Horned Rat remarked. “Have you gained some weight? I feel like you were thinner when you left me.”

Nia bowed down and grabbed the edge of her skirt. Pulling it up to barely socially acceptable levels, not that this mattered around Florida people, she showed off her legs. Although not at a properly thick level yet, she had successfully gained some definition over the past ten days. “I am working out,” she said and dropped the skirt again.

“That will have little practical effect, but if it makes you happy, I suppose it’s a good thing,” the Horned Rat remarked.

“It makes John happy. He wants me to have a bigger butt.”

With as much of a deadpan expression as a skull could have, the Horned Rat turned to look at John. “Of course he does,” he stated. “You continue to aim low, don’t you?” The Gamer just shrugged. “Is Nia maybe an acceptable princess substitute to keep binding you to the Illuminati?”

“She is more than a princess substitute to me and I guess it does make it harder to stab you in the back if it will make her sad,” he thought out loud. “Congratulations, you managed to get what you wanted before you knew you wanted it.”

“Brazen of you to assume this wasn’t my plan all along,” the Horned Rat responded, cleaning his claws of some minimal dirt. “Anyway, as entertaining as all of you are, I have forges to attend to. Let us get on with this. What do you desire from me? Knowledge? Power? An explanation for some past perceived slight?”

As the Horned Rat asked, he looked around the room in a thorough fashion. The red flickering in the otherwise empty sockets of his skull analysed every corner in an almost paranoid fashion. John had gotten the ability to pierce illusions from receiving some of the Horned Rat’s powers and the Visions of Calamity were capable of further dealing with them. Doubtlessly, the god of future calamity was a master when it came to information manipulation. It was quite fascinating to the Gamer to see this being visibly search for anything wrong going on.

‘I wonder if this is related to a certain chicken not being present,’ John pondered, still convinced, and growing ever more so, that Fred was something more. His current guess was that she was the goddess of illusions or something of that nature. His attention shifted to Alice when she finally opened her mouth.

“None of that, no,” she dark-haired pariah said. “You can stop looking for someone else. I wanted this meeting.”

“And I still desire to know what for,” the Horned Rat responded, focusing on the pariah.