“I prefer the brain, but I might still extract Life
Whatever the process of extracting game Resource Resource
A city trash dumpster sat next the curb, one lid flipped open. He figured they probably shouldn’t drop another dead body in Betty’s trash as it would surely become noticeable to someone somewhere at some point. It might be best to get rid of the corpse in a public place and trust the game system would sweep it under the proverbial carpet on their behalf. Once again rendered numb by atrocity, Robin unceremoniously dumped the dead skunk into the trash bin. He briefly tried wiping off stray bits of black and white fur sticking to his vest, but gave up. He didn’t really even care that her natural smell, stink and all, lingered in the fabric. He retrieved his Santa SackFlesh
Half-fearing to hear sirens in the distance, Robin wondered if the two women had sounded any sort of alarm or had called the police. Ashalina’s turgid pace provided a tense and painfully slow walk back home. Luckily, nothing out of the ordinary occurred by the time they entered Betty’s house. He figured they were probably safe from official scrutiny. Numbness was slowly replaced by dread at the confrontation he was about to have with the devils, especially with Yarya. He had been tasked with gaining recruits and had, maybe, accomplished that. But he had also lost the cabal’s only other member so they were no better off than when he had left, membership-wise.
“Do you have anything to eat?” Ashalina asked in a whisper. “I am so very hungry and can barely walk.”
The zombie stood there in the living room like a wilted house plant. She obviously was out of juice, all her AttributeFatiguedDisabled
“And what, Hell tell, is this?” Yarya demanded as she came in from the back porch.
Robin cleared his throat. “Um, this is Ashalina. We, uh, found her in the park just like the kids said. There’s um, some bad news…”
The succubus waved his comment away with one clawed hand and gestured vaguely at the zombie’s grey outfit. “Pish posh. I see you haven’t bothered to Convertanything in this city if I can’t get better help.”
Ashalina stared emptily at the devil. “Do you have any food?”
Yarya waved a hand again. “Don’t worry about that, my dear. My brother will fetch you something in a bit. First, let’s get you properly associated, shall we?” In the kitchen, the devil found a pad of large, customized, blue floral sticky notes with blurry title script that might be Betty’s name. She scribbled a couple lines on it and showed it to the zombie. “Read this and sign it.”
Ashalina read over it with an empty, sloe-eyed expression. “Sure. I willingly ascribe to the tenets of the Yar-bryl Cabal. Yarya is my master and I the minion.” She smudged one gooey fingertip on the bottom of the note in way of signature. Her hijab shifted from dirty chrome to blotchy red.
“What the fuck is that about?” Robin demanded.
Yarya looked at Robin as if he were slower-witted than the zombie. “Obviously, it’s a contract. The same agreement you and StinkPew have with me. With us, I mean.” The last correction was made hastily as Zebryl walked in from the back yard to join the proceedings.
“I never signed any contract,” Robin said. “Neither did Stink… pew.”
“Oh, she most certainly did,” Zebryl explained. “Firstly, she voluntarily entered our HomeBaseCaptive
Robin had, but he figured it more a factor of time spent in the house, not due to some insidious devil’s bargain riddled with loopholes and caustic clauses benefiting only Yarya.
“Oh, you poor, ignorant, little Mystic
A wicked gleam blinked in Zebryl’s eye. “In the most satisfying way, if you ask me. We consummated a blood contract, my dear lover, that first night we lay together If not by one pen, then by another.”
Robin sucked in his breath. That night had been a whirlwind of ecstasy and frightening new kinds of pleasure — some of which, honestly, bordered on torment. He had no clear recollection of what he might have said in the heat of passion.
Zebryl placed his arm soothingly across Robin’s shoulders. “Oh, worry not. You were most desirous of my ministrations, I assure you. You swore yourself to pleasing me in body and mind. Such oaths are just as binding as signed paperwork. And there is no doubt that I made you bleed, if only in moderation, during our ceremonial lovemaking.”
Robin’s stomach shriveled at this revelation. Not only had he unwittingly bound himself to these devils, but he had done it through mind-blowing, hole-ripping sex. And here he was thinking the incubus had actual feelings for him; might actually care about him; might have his best interests and safety in mind. “So is that all I am to you, Zebryl? Another conquest? A sworn minion to your cause? Whatever the fuck your cause actually is?”
Not bothering to prevaricate, “Well, certainly. At least in part.” He began to rub Robin’s shoulders noting the tension bunched up in them. If he intended it to be a sensual move, Robin was too heart-hurt to take it that way.
He shrugged out from the devil’s touch and took a step back. “You are such a piece of shit. All along I thought you actually cared about me. Shows what kind of love-starved simp I am.”
Zebryl reached one clawed hand out in an attempted gesture of sympathy.
Robin slapped it away. “Fuck that and fuck you! I’m outta here, bitches. You can take over this town without me. You can stuff your contract back up your twat slots. Hope it gives you paper cuts.” He stormed off toward the bedroom to gather his meager belongings.
“That’s not how it works,” Yarya called out drolly. “You belong to our Cabal
“Or until you die,” Zebryl added callously.
Robin hurriedly tossed the Instruction Manual, which he had left out on the dresser, into his Santa Sack
? ? ? ? ?
He spent the next few hours aimlessly wandering. According to the Instruction Manual’s map, he had ended up back in the suburb’s pseudo-commercial district, near where he had originally appeared. The map still had a pulsing blue icon marking Monika’s apartment and about two and a half miles away simmered the red icon of the devil’s HomeBase
He sagged dispiritedly onto a bus bench. With no idea what day of the week it was — probably a weekday as traffic was fairly robust and there weren’t many shoppers walking about — he pulled the arcane walkie-talkie out of the Santa Sack
and angels and shit. This dumb ass is a literal death trap and I’m down to four . I am soooo screwed.
Then he remembered the 66 Flesh Resources
He concentrated on the pages depicting his SkillsNaughty & Nice TalkSpell
Oh, so you want to get yourself all learned up? Are things not working like you hoped and dreamed? Well, blow out your snot block and take a deep cleansing inhale, cuz yer about to get schooled.
The Naughty & Nice TalkSantaSack
Contrary to how you might think it works, it is predicated upon the base behavior of the recipient but on your the person getting your gift. How you treat them or how you speak to them or how you think of them will determine what sort of present they get.
Son of a jizz wizard’s crusty cum towel! His reckless mouth is what got StinkPew killed. He had been yelling at her and calling her names as he’d reached into the bag unwittingly activating the naughty version of the spell. As a consequence, he’d pulled out a gift that blew her head off. Either he needed to never use the spell again or he was going to have to become more mindful about what he said and how he said it. He couldn’t go around yanking out grenade gifts every time he cussed.
The Santa SackPlayercould he do?
He turned back to the map page and found his attention drawn to the blue icon of Monika’s residence. It was probably a dumb idea, but maybe she could help him. She might know a way to destroy the sack, but she’d probably want him to gift her something from it first. If he was very careful and polite, he might be willing to try it once more. If he could pull out something positive and coax her into destroying it, he would be free of the dread and responsibility of owning it.
Maybe Monika would be grateful enough to let him swear allegiance to her HomeBaseMystic
Heaving himself off the bench, Robin walked slowly toward Monika’s apartment. He felt extremely worried about throwing himself upon her good graces once again, but hopefully he had a real bargaining chip this time.
When he arrived at her building he pushed the button to ring her apartment. He waited. No answer. So he pushed it again, then twice more after still no response.
As dumb as that sounded, that might be what it took. Cause a scene and force her to pay attention. It was also possible she simply wasn’t home. Maybe he could get his Santa Sack
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Robin sighed and opened the mouth of the sack and prepared to discard his d4BrawnAttributehad killed StinkPew and had failed to keep Betty safe, but hopefully if he didn’t say those things out loud the sack would do as he asked.
Nothing happened. The BrawnReadyStoopid knapsack! I should sell you to a wereHorse and let you get turned into saddlebags.
He tried several different phrases and different Attribute
Good golly miss Holly Jolly Two Shoes! You can’t gift anything. That would be selfish and quite counter to the notion of giving unto others. But, by all means, feel free to keep tryin’. You’ve got nothing else to do, am I right?
It was very tempting to hurl both the book and the bag into traffic. He didn’t.
Turned out that luck was on his side. Monika came to the middle window and opened it to let fresh air in.
“Hey! Hi! Monika. It’s me. Can I come up and talk with you? Please?”
Her dark face sifted through shock, then befuddlement, leaving a granular allotment of pure disdain in the sieve of her demeanor. “I see you’ve gone Infernal
Robin held out the red sack with wide arms as if to show off his Santa shorts and the sleeveless vest. “Yeah, I know. It wasn’t really my choice,” he said apologetically.
Monika remained silent for a minute. “You know I’m trying to keep to myself out here in the burbs. I’m not really in the market to make friends.”
Robin tried shrugging cutely. “But, I thought we friends already.” He could hear her suck on teeth even over the traffic noises. “I come bearing gifts, if that changes your mind at all.” He shook the SantaSack
“It looks empty, you Noel nitwit.”
“I promise you it’s not. If you let me come up, I can show you.”
Monika crossed her arms. It took her another minute of silence before she relented. “Fine. Whatever. Come on up.”
When he got settled on her couch, in the same spot he had chosen last time, he held open the sack for her to examine. She pulled goggles down over her eyes from the tangle of braids on her head. Maybe they were magical gear that helped her inspect Equipment.
She spent a bit of time examining the bag, nodding and muttering to herself. “Well fuck me sideways.” She handed the sack back to him. “How did you come by a
“I had no idea it was that important!” Robin whistled. “Are you sure? It’s just my starting satchel that got upgraded in the devil’s HomeBase
Monika snapped the goggles back on top of her head. “Well, you must have attracted the attention of someone pretty high up.” She paused. “And I mean, like high up.”
Robin had no idea what she meant by that. Maybe Monika meant Yarya? Yarya had seemed pretty powerful, but not like top tier powerful. Sure, the succubus had survived a direct confrontation with an archangel, but that hardly qualified as ‘really high up’ in the game world. For kryse-sakes, she was slumming it out here in the burbs like Monika. How powerful could she be?
Maybe Raflili had something to do with this? Had the archangel somehow taken an interest in him? No, that couldn’t be it. Robin already the bag before meeting the scary hot Celestial
“I don’t know. What kinds of things are you capable of gifting?”
He didn’t want to let on to how new he was at this, and certainly not about the dangers of drawing out something apocalyptic, so he feigned more confidence than he felt. “All kinds of things really. You make potions, right?”
“Sure,” she answered cautiously.
“Maybe a new bottle of some sort?”
Monika looked disinterested in that idea. “How about a new glass kit, you know like those you see mad scientists use in old movies? I recently broke some of my titration gear so I could use some new flasks, beakers, pipettes and stuff.”
“Cool. That sounds perfect.” Robin remembered those terms from high school chem class, but he he feared he could only picture them through Scooby Doo cartoon memories. Knowing that if he wanted to gift something permanently so it didn’t evaporate after 30 seconds, he would need to spend a whopping 12 of his 28 Attribute
According to the NaughtyNiceamount limitation which was currently “tiny”. That was obviously sufficient to make a single death frisbee, but was likely inadequate to manufacture a whole chemistry set.
The Instruction Manual had informed him all spell traits could be sped up, increased or circumvented by expending even more AttributeamountMentalAttributed6Essenced8Bohdid12PresenceMad Scientist’s Glass Rack of Liquid Libation and Terrific Tonics
Like an old-timey clown car routine, he spent the next three minutes pulling out an endless series of glass tubes, candle burners, beakers, bottles, jars and vials. Monika’s coffee table proved insufficient to hold it all so he carefully piled the last few components on the couch. By the time the sack offered up no more goodies, Robin’s head was throbbing. It felt like he might be getting a migraine.
Monika sucked her teeth then whistled while donning her goggles once more. “Holy shit sticks! You really did it. This gear will boost my productivity like tenfold and make my potions probably three times as effective. This is incredible. Thank you.”
Despite the blinding pain behind his eyes Robin felt proud. He had used the sack for good and no one got hurt. Maybe it was worth keeping after all. “Would you mind if I got some water, please? My head is pounding. I think that took more out of me than I expected.”
“Sure, sure,” Monika said with a wave of one hand. “Help yourself in the kitchen.” She was busily studying all the glassware through her goggles and making happy, eager, chipmunk sounds under her breath.
Robin returned to the couch to rest his head on the back of it with closed eyes. He concentrated on deep, slow breathing, a trick that could usually stave off a migraine. However, a stray thought brought his Attributed8 ReasoningImpediment
New Impediment:
You will now experience a pulsing palpitation in those two indentations at the side of your eyebrows. Your noggin’s gonna feel like a drum set every time you have too deep a thought. It’ll feel like IQ points getting nut-cracked under pressure. Use your brain too many times and kiss your notion of gettin’ into Harvard goodbye!
At first that sounded horrible, but then he realized the ImpedimentDots
Monika looked up from her new glass gear. “Yeah, sure. One of those test tubes in the rack next to the dishwasher, the one with a thick green liquid in it. That oughta help. And so will this.” She reached into one of her belt pouches and pulled out a yellow FaithResource
Robin did as instructed. The potion tasted like how mildew smelled, but the Faith dollop’s Margarita flavor washed that right out of his mouth. Amazingly, when it should have taken four dollops to recover just one of his AttributeImpaired Reasoning d8d10 Willpowerd6 AwarenessReadyED Fedorad8 Reasoning
Thankfully, Monika seemed to become more affable as she put her new glassware away in the second bedroom. She had turned that space into a wild and rather cartoonish laboratory full of jars, jugs, boxes, bags and overflowing shelves. Robin stayed on the couch with his eyes closed but was happy to chat from a distance.
“So, do you have any idea how I might have gotten this Relic
“Damed if I know,” Monika admitted over the clinking of glass. “I’ve been working on a theory, for years now, that there is some supreme intelligence overseeing all this game activity. It might even be the creator of this world, though I have little understanding of that aspect. It has always seemed intriguing that everything here is so… United States-ey.”
“Your research, then, has been about the Creator itself? Do you think they’re an American? Like… a human American?”
“Mostly, yeah.” She paused for a moment while grunting from the other room as she shoved a table and a couple heavy-sounding boxes around. “I think I’ve told you that I’ve been here for about ten years. The calendar and clock all works according to Earth norms, but all the supernatural creatures we play against are from, as far as I can determine, actual worlds.”
Robin gave a low whistle. “Like, from our galaxy or universe?”
“I’m not sure on that. Maybe. Most of the non-human Players
“Huh. Yeah. Zebryl, one of the devils I was with, described his home world, interestingly translated as Hell—”
“Yep, that’s what I’ve heard them call it too,” Monika confirmed.
“— he said the place was really hot and desolate, that he is from the eighth level or circle or something. He and his sister seem to really really like sunny days, so I’m guessing he’s telling the truth about that part, at least.”
“I once chatted up a lightning demon of some kind. I don’t remember her name or which exact ‘level’ of Hell she came from, but it sounded really windy and sky-like. She described their world as a spiral planet, though I never got more details other than their planet shared a solar orbit with the Celestial’s
“Wow! So angels and demons are from the same solar system. I’ve never heard of a spiral planet before, so maybe they from another reality or dimension or something?”
“Yeah, maybe.” Monika sounded too distracted by her process of organizing to discuss it in more detail. “See that bookshelf by the window? I’ve got a bunch of journals there with my notes and speculations. Take a look if you want.”
The clattering of falling crockery and a string of curses came from the other room as Robin went to the bookshelf and picked out the oldest, thickest-looking leather tome of them all. He thumbed through the pages — all hand written and illustrated — marveling at the sheer amount of detail she had accumulated. Monika was a scientist, indeed. Her notes appeared thorough with time and date stamps and cross references to other volumes.
Robin was so engrossed in the book he actually screeched as one of the windows shattered inward spraying glass shards across the carpet and shredding the blue curtains. He nearly dropped it but managed to clutch tightly enough to keep it from falling or getting damaged. The last thing he needed was being responsible for fucking up Monika’s hard work. She had clearly spent years accumulating data and knowledge about this place. Who knew what sorts of secrets she had uncovered.
Turning his head toward the windows, Robin saw Zebryl hovering in the windowsill, wings flapping lightly to keep him from falling out onto the street. He was obviously being careful not to enter the HomeBaseCaptive
“Robin, come along,” Zebryl coaxed.
“No.” Robin crossed his arms in defiance.
The incubus pursed his lips over long, sharp canines. “Oh, do stop being silly. You belong with us.”
“You mean you?” Monika snapped stepping into the living room armed with a bandolier full of colorful and glimmering test tubes. “He’s not a piece of property.”
Zebryl slowly turned his head to the alchemist, eyes narrowing with a hot smolder. “Do mis-preposition me, Mysticus as life is likely to become more… in these parts in the very near future.”
“And who’s fault is that, you flaming bat?” Monika asked impudently.
Zebryl ignored her and reached one clawed hand out to Robin again. “Come along. Don’t be so recalcitrant. I can carry us both, at least for a little way.”
“I’m not going back with you, Zebryl,” Robin said defiantly. “I’m pretty sure you lied to me about Betty’s death. You only really care about yourself and Yarya. I’m just a used condom to you at this point, so you might as well throw me away.”
“That’s the last thing I want, Robin.”
Well dam-it if the devil didn’t sound sincere. Robin hugged the big leather tome to his chest unsure what to do.
“Begone from my home, devil,” Monika warned. She had selected an icy, light blue vial from her bandolier holding it ready to throw.
Zebryl continued to ignore her. “Robin, have you ever had sex while plummeting from the clouds toward the ground? We could —”
Monika nearly shrieked in disgust. “Did you have sex with that monster? That’s just… nasty.”
“Not to mention rather painful,” Robin admitted quietly out the side of his mouth.
Monika’s eyes widened ever further. “Get the fuck out of here! Both of you.”
Robin panicked and snatched his Santa Sack
“No way. Never! I told you I work alone. It was a mistake to invite you up here again.”
But he had given her a gift… one that bore a steep cost to his Attributes
“No!” Robin screamed as he dashed to interpose himself between the projectile and Zebryl. His attempt to swat the vial out of the air with the SantaSackAgilityd4 Fortituded4 BrawnDanceSkill:
ROBIN’s RESULTS: QUALITY = 14
BRN/FOR d4 = 1
Dance d12 = 4
Dance d10 = 5
Dance d8 = 4
MONIKA’s RESULTS: QUALITY = 16
AGL d6 = 1
Throw d10 = 6
Throw d8 = 8
Throw d6 = 1
Neither of the humans had particularly good dice rolls, but Monika’s results were slightly better than Robin’s. He missed hitting the potion. It shattered on the windowsill narrowly missing direct contact with the devil. The result of the vial’s breaking was a wickedly cold blast of arctic air and icicle shards. Zebryl’s fire whip blew out like a candle as he was hurled backward. Robin was blown out the window to plummet toward the sidewalk. Robin’s d6 FortitudeInjured
Zebryl swooped down like a hawk catching Robin in a strong embrace around his chest before they both hit the pavement.
“I don’t want to see either of you again!” Monika yelled. “Stay away from me!”