“Why are we going outside?” John wanted to know, following Maximillian just as the other two men were. “The teleporter is upstairs.”

“We’re walking there,” the royal decreed.

“We can’t walk there, we’re on an island, you goddamn moron,” John responded and pulled a beer out of his inventory. He had wondered why Maximillian had insisted on filling up his pocket space with all of that alcohol. Now he knew. With no bottle opener at hand, John just put his thumb at the edge of the cap and flicked it off. The grating of the metal over his nail was far from pleasant, but with superhuman power, none of that really mattered. The cap bounced off the ceiling and landed somewhere in the hallway. John had forgotten about it by the time the sound stopped ringing. “We’ll just hit the coast.”

“It’ll work out,” Maximillian responded with total certainty.

“What if it doesn’t though?” John asked.

The answer came immediately, “Then we’ll move up and go back to your teleporter and lengthen our drunken stroll. Giving you and Ted a little bit more time to sober up to the point where you can appreciate twirling women’s bodies.”

“…Point taken,” John said and took another sip of his beer. With the water in his system, he was already feeling much better. Although he didn’t plan to stop drinking while they were walking, his intake had to decrease. Mixing drinks was impossible without stopping and a pain even if they did and beer lasted a tad longer when it had to be swallowed between steps. “Hey, hey, Ted, he called us drunk, what do you think of that?”

“Guilty as charged,” the general responded and made a demanding gesture in John’s direction. The president of Fusion withdrew and opened another beer. Then they moved outside. A soft breeze greeted them when they stepped onto the lawn.

“Why is there wind?” Magnus wanted to know, immediately spotting the oddity of this.

“Roaming air elementals,” John explained, looking around and finally spotting a few green dots that flew westwards. “It’s a nice change from all the heat. Weather Tower can’t make winds yet. Could make it rain though.”

“We’re not in danger of some roaming fire elementals torching us, right?” Maximillian asked.

“Better not,” Ted grumbled, “with my current alcohol levels, I’d burn too well.”

“They respect Salamander too much to cause problems,” John stated. “’Cause she got the biggest tits.”

“When I saw her new form, I wondered if you had finally seen the light of tit supremacy,” the big-boob-fanatic Maximillian hummed.

“You’re German, you’re not allowed to talk about supremacy of any kind.”

“I’ll do what I want.”

“…I expected you to respond ‘I’m an Austrian!’”

“Which makes me a German,” Maximillian said, with a raised eyebrow. “I’m not a separatist. I’d much prefer it if Germany was unified under Austria than under Prussia, but the unified bit is what’s important to me.” The gravity king took a sip from the bottle of water he had taken along with him. “Of course, I’m an Austrian before I’m a German and a German before I’m an Imperial.”

“…That’s an odd way to say European,” John said. “Or is that what people of the Greater Empire call themselves?”

“Latter,” Maximillian gave a short answer while they went down the stairs of the south-eastern tip of the star fort and then across the bridge spanning the moat. “Don’t you have ferries or something?”

“At this hour? No,” John responded. “People want to sleep, you know?”

“I think you can hire ferrymen without problems. It’s not the most skilled of labours,” Maximillian pointed out.

“Not my issue. The ferries are operated by private companies; if one of them decides that it’s financially viable to work through the night, they can do it no problem.”

“Ah, I thought you had a monopoly on transportation.”

“No, just a number of agreements regarding what they are obligated to do.”

“Is one of those obligations to ship your drunk body from one shore to the other?”

“Funnily enough, that never came up in negotiations.”

“Ah well, it will work out,” Maximillian insisted. “You’re on my side, right, Magnus?”

“I just like taking a stroll,” came the simple response.

With many more words along the way, that was what they did. They had to stop a few times, courtesy of one man or another needing to take a leak. With nothing but trees and each other around, that wasn’t an issue, luckily. They hit a spontaneous stop, however, when John saw something move between the trees. Something above the size of a fully grown cat, approaching the middle-sized dog breeds that commonly roamed streets.

In a mood for cuddles, John squatted on the corner of the road and extended his hand. Wiggling his fingers, he waited for the being to come to him. “What are you doing?” Ted asked.

“Attracting a ferocious thief,” John told him and wiggled his fingers a bit more. “Come here,” he said in a tone between command and request. Slowly, a certain birdcat tapped out of the safety of the trees. Warbling, Velka went up to the Gamer and smelled his fingers. It was the smell of the alcohol, in all due likelihood, that had her more cautious than usual. Once she had a bit of a nibble on his fingers, however, she was behaving like usual. “Have you met Velka before?” John asked Maximillian.

“No,” the king responded, as all four men came to stand or kneel around the small animal. They all had to go through the usual three step program of being inspected, being smelled and being nibbled at before they were allowed to pat her. “I heard of Magryphs, but I didn’t think they’d be this soft,” Maximillian said, while scratching Velka under the chin (or the relative equivalent on a bird head, past the beak).

“She’s very soft,” John agreed, taking his pet from the royal to scratch the base of her wings and coerce her to purr. To his enjoyment, she obliged. He bowed forwards. Velka stretched her neck to meet him and softly bit his nose. John laughed. She pulled back and looked into his glasses. Her head darted forwards and grabbed them at the bridge. The Gamer’s vision was suddenly plucked from his head. Using her cat instincts, she avoided her owner’s attempt to grab her.

John took a single step and immediately fell down, his source of vision bouncing in Velka’s beak. The Magryph fled back into the forest, eventually flying away with a triumphant warble. Louder than that was the laughter by the other three men. “VELKA!” John angrily shouted into the forest, but the Magryph was still flying away.

John separated the Possession and got up. “Fantastic, now I’m completely blind.” A hand came for the back of his head. He caught it moments before it reached him. “I still have supernatural senses… Maximillian?” he had to guess who it was.

“Really, you can sense movements around you?”

“Thanks to my good connection to Sylph, I can sense the airflow a little bit,” John explained. “Same as I can do for the other elements. Also, my generally high Stats allow me to sense a lot of movements around me with my skin alone.” Letting go of Maximillian’s hand, John scratched the back of his head. “Still, this is annoying. Give me a second.” He walked over to a nearby tree and Possessed it to serve as an effective mirror. Then he retrieved one of the contact lenses from his inventory and put it in. A moment later he did the same with the second.

Since he had sobered up quite a bit, the vision issue was now fixed again.

“Truly a majestic thief,” Maximillian hummed, looking in the general direction of Velka’s flight.

“A thief that will be punished later today,” John grumbled and they went back on their way. Relatively soon after this incident, they hit the water. Just standing on the beach, the four men looked out across the ocean. “Seems like it didn’t work out.”

“Seems so,” Maximillian agreed.

They walked all the way back to the Palace, up to the roof and finally went through the teleporter. By the end of all of that walking, they were at least moderately recovered. From where John had put up the outpost for the Transport Station, it wasn’t a long walk to the Little Whirl. They still had to pass through a fair bit of the Bae Circle district, but that was fine by them. The Hudson Barrier’s red-light district was busy as usual. Men were seeking out their favourite establishments to pay for lady favours. Women were happily offering those favours in exchange for money or just for the fun of it. Sometimes those roles were reversed, but the trend went as expected. Kinky couples roamed the streets together, entering shops that offered more distinct services than simple sex, be it renting rooms to go after more specific fetishes or stores for toys, drugs and other interesting supplements.

The four men were often recognized, but John’s public request to not be bothered was still being honoured. Only a few times did drunken women, be it on lust, alcohol or some other substance, come about to bother them. All of them. John and Maximillian were the more popular people to flirt with but Magnus and Ted weren’t left out by any description.

Those instances became rarer and finally dropped when they had made their way to the ‘better’ part of the district. The buildings of the CPDI and the SSSN were around there. Although they weren’t establishments to be frequented, both still had lights on, and John saw a catgirl get fucked against a window in the CPDI building. Uncaring, he moved on. It wasn’t too long a walk from where they were to the Little Whirl. Rave’s club was also quite close.

The long shape of the strip club with its cylinder-shaped attachments soon appeared in front of them. Feeling oddly patient, they stepped into the waiting line, but were quickly waved out by one of the bouncers and let in through the VIP entrance. Walking up to the reception desk, Maximillian did the talking, John did the paying and soon they had a lounge to themselves.

“This is a nice place,” Ted remarked.

“I know, right? I come here whenever I’m in the area,” Maximillian enthusiastically responded, while ordering himself his personal stripper. Since they were four people, they could ask for five of the working women to join them here. One was to use the central stripping pole, while the other four were to serve one of them each. “Alright, things you should know. The girls here wear chokers. White choker means that you only get to look, don’t touch. Black choker means you can touch if they agree. Red choker means you can fuck them the moment they stroll in.”

“Noted. I’m not here to have sex,” Ted said.

“Your loss,” Maximillian hummed.

“Let me guess, you’re calling Aletra?” John asked, remembering the ebony nymphomaniac who had served the king last time. She had been an extremely horny and blowjob happy thing. Not that the submissive stripper, Lemia, that had tended to him had been much different.

“If she’s available… which she is,” Maximillian grinned and pressed a button on his phone. “What, you telling me you’re not calling a red choker girl?”

“I don’t plan to, no,” John responded. “I think I’ll just get myself an appetite and stroll over to Rave’s club and fuck Eliza once we’re done here.”

“What if they quit before we do?” Magnus asked.

“Then I will find Eliza in my bed and fuck her submissive cunt,” John said it in an incredibly blunt fashion. “I’m really craving myself some Eliza right about now.” Glancing at the bar. “I’m also craving myself a Sex on the Beach. Guess I will call a white choker girl that mans the bar. What about you two?”

“If you do that, I won’t call anybody,” Magnus said.

“Same,” Ted agreed.

“In Romulus’ name, you people are boring tonight,” Maximillian complained. “Do I need to get you completely drunk to have you do interesting things?”

“I think being monogamous makes me interesting, in these circles,” Magnus joked.

“Touché. I guess Ted isn’t allowed to fuck another women without his mistress around?”

“I can, I just don’t want to,” the general responded in such a tranquil tone that it didn’t leave an opening to mock the statement.

“I’m really disappointed that you leave me alone with my perversion in this, John.” Just as he said that, Aletra came strolling down the staircase that connected this level, where the bar and the stripping pole was, to the level with the bathrooms and the beds.

“Hope that won’t stop you, Max,” the dark-skinned stripper with the body of a dancer purred as she took each step with sensual precision. She was already naked, wearing nothing but a pair of black high heels and her choker. With her small breasts and otherwise balanced body, the young woman wasn’t Maximillian’s usual choice of partner. Her pure sluttiness must have won him over, especially since their relationship was purely based on his trips to this establishment. “I got ready for you the moment I heard you were in.”

“What a good girl.” Maximillian smiled. “No, it won’t stop me at all. Disappointed my fellow men would be so limp tonight, but what can I do?”

“Bit weird you so badly want all of us to have sex in the same room,” John confessed his feelings on the matter.

“Hey, I just thought you might want to take advantage of the fine offers of this place, but if you don’t – you don’t,” the gravity king declared, his eyes glued on the approaching Aletra. Soon their lips met and Maximillian was mostly lost for conversations.

“Well, since he is having fun over there, we should decide what stripper we want for the central pole,” John suggested.

The Little Whirl was as interesting as it had always been.

______________________________________________________________________________

The evening fizzled out eventually. Maximillian got preoccupied with Aletra. Ted, Magnus and John threw some conversations around while they indulged in the view and the service. While John did manage to stay strong in terms of not fucking any of the strippers, he had a shot out of the strippers cleavage on more than one occassion. After about two hours, the general passed out in his chair and the king retreated upstairs to take things from teasing and blowjobs to proper fucking.

Shortly thereafter, John and Magnus decided to finally call it a night. Exchanging a few messages with their respective partners, they found out that much of John’s harem and Nina were still in Rave’s club. They walked over and were let in by the bouncer without issue. There wasn’t even a line anymore; Rave had closed her building to be a purely private endeavour hours ago. The bouncer was just there to inform people of that and because he was contractually obligated to remain until six in the morning.

Although they knew the girls were somewhere in the building, they had no idea where. John’s first instinct was to check the bar on the base floor, which was partly the right choice. He found Nina, Gnome and Siena there, having a relatively private chat about some things that John could only guess was emotionally loaded. Since they stopped talking the moment John and Magnus walked in, he only had the vulnerable expression on Siena’s face to make that guess.

“And there’sh my shaviour!” she slurred, tried to get off her bar stool, fell over and passed out.

“…I guess I will ask what that was about in the morning?” John asked, while checking on the moonshade elemental. Simply mumbling in her sleep, the shadow spirit had not harmed herself in any way.

“Yes,” the autumn elemental responded, sounding both drunk and tired. “Give’er here, I’ll take her to bed with me… to sleep…” That last part had just a tinge of panicked addition in it. Gnome was truly too tired to properly emote. John picked Siena up and handed her curvy body over to Gnome, who then went towards the room behind the bar and the stairs located there. In the meantime, Nina had a short talk with Magnus. The two of them also went upstairs, but only to get to the teleporter. They would spend the night in the tower John had built for Magnus in the Guild Hall.

“Everyone else is downstairs in one of the side rooms,” Nina told John before she left. He thankfully nodded and they said their goodbyes.

Now alone, John headed underground. Down there was the wet dream of every rave enthusiast. A dance floor with colour-changing floor tiles, a complete cascade of flashing lights, massive speakers everywhere, several layers to dance in a body grinding crowd or with a nice amount of space and side rooms that could be dedicated to more specialized tastes. All of it set in a noise isolated underground network that no police would ever come and bother and under a government that allowed most drugs, no questions asked. One of them, alcohol, was readily available on a second bar that was more optimized for beverages to go than the traditional inn design one upstairs.

There were traces of recent usage all over the place. Empty bottles were scattered all about the place, spilled drinks made parts of the floor sticky and discarded clothes were left here and there. Regardless of that, the main floor was empty, the non-essential lights out and the music reduced to a background beat. John strained his ears and listened for any voices. Pretty quickly, he picked up laughter. A particularly manic laughter, belonging to a person John really wanted to see right now.