For the first time in weeks, I had a stillness, a silence, and a solitude almost complete. It was a different feeling from what I was used to now, since I’d surrounded myself with lovers and smiles and giggles and gasps of pleasure.

Although it would take weeks or longer for the creeping influence of the sickened god to take over the entire town, I wanted to get on things before they got worse. There was a palpable sense that this situation wasn’t as bad as in Glumpdumpkin. The insanely high horniness effect wasn’t as strong as it could be. It also didn’t blanket the entire town, telling me they might not yet be dead and exploded into… what? Strap ons and crotchless underwear? What would the Lovers transform into when they died?

“I’d rather not find out,” I said.

My mind wandered to everything else while I honed my mana sense and tried searching out The Lovers by third eye alone. Closing my eyes, I cast my mind back to the girls. I had no idea where they were or what they were up to. Had the Agency caught them or had they escaped? Did the Agency operate another portal, or more than one, and had they located it? I imagined, for whatever reason, Drat to be hunched over a computer with a cigarette hanging from his lips… or better yet, multiple computers. I wondered if he could hack more than one at a time. In my imagination, he let himself be captured so the girls could follow where he was taken. Or he implanted himself with a tracker.

Time had passed, but without calendars or consistent seasonal change here, there was no good way to say how far along Tara might be. Ivy and Isabelle had reconciled over the week we’d spent on earth, but Ivy was pretty horny for that D, and it had gotten her in trouble with Izzy. I hoped they were still okay.

And Cinzy. She was tough, but she also possessed a marshmallow center that I had found and repeatedly poked. In the butt. I wondered how she was faring.

Oh, who was I kidding? Tara and Cinzy and the others had lived out their whole lives without having me in their beds, and could manage another week or three.

I pushed aside the nagging thought that the Agency would disappear them to a tiny concrete cell beneath Guantanamo and just make them rot. Although I should’ve asked Jacoby to look into their whereabouts and condition, I knew she didn’t have that kind of influence with the higher ups.

My third eye drew my attention with a tugging sensation. The mana flowing through this area was constantly being interrupted and redirected. It was thick with divine influence.

“Bingo,” I breathed, “was his name-o.”

When I had to make a Divine Resistance check, I knew I’d hit pay dirt. This one was difficult, but only required 5 successes, and my Divine Resistance was still 9 without Prismatic Apparel. Adding in my Durability, getting 5 successes was not an issue.

The Lovers, the little bit of them I’d seen months ago, looked like two humanoids, faceless with curious yellow eyes, covered in green mossy substance… and having sex. You couldn’t tell where the one started and the other ended, because they were sort of fused in the center where they were getting it on.

There was only one.

“You’re not a Highlander,” I breathed. “You’re supposed to be two.”

This one was curled in the fetal position, and I was able to get a better look at it now, through the steady pulsing of horny energy emanating from it.

It was like what would happen if you asked a six year old to draw a person, but they colored it green and gave it two yellow eyes. And that was it. No other facial features, no hair, no musculature, just a crudely made humanoid body of blocky torso, two stick arms, and two stick legs.

“Heyyyyyy,” I told it gently. “Where’s your better half? I’m here, okay, I’ll help you out.” After all, it had given me the tools to boost my stats through the healing power of plentiful copulation. It had given me allies to help me in the healing process by gifting powers to them.

The distress radiating off the god… half of a god?… calmed just a little. I felt so terrible for this thing, which always had its other half conjoined at the nether region, to suddenly be torn away from it.

Meaning I was left with a very real problem. Without Shakindria, my own Telekinesis ability from her was completely insufficient for the job of lifting an entire god to get the two of them together. Even if I had a cure, which I definitely did not, how was I supposed to, uh… get them screwing again?

Using Mana Affinity, failing several checks and looping back around to the one I’d already found, then succeeding several more checks, I soon located the other half of The Lovers only about a hundred feet away.

“Huh,” I said, peering down at the other Lover.

It was somehow in someone’s family room, inside a gigantic mushroom house where the stalk was something like fifty feet across. A staircase had been carved into the stalk’s thick outer wall, and led up almost another fifty feet to where it mushroomed out into the cap.

“Stop it,” I told my brain, and peered down at the other figure in the fetal position. The lump of fuzzy greenish stuff had its yellow eyes wedged tightly into its fuzzy greenish, shapeless knees. “Hey there, I’m uh… I’m the doctor around these parts. I’m going to see what I can do to help you and your partner get back together.”

I ran the Diagnostics tools over the two of them, using first one and then another magical stone to get a sense of what magical affliction it might be. Afterwards, I checked it over for obvious physical illnesses. No golden ichor or rainbow colored blood leaking from anywhere or pooling anywhere else, from a place I couldn’t see.

For now, I couldn’t help them further. Finding them was enough.

Without the notes Alan dutifully carries him everywhere, it was up to me to scrounge through the old brain and do my best to get a list of cure ingredients. This came in the form of a relaxing stroll around the affected district of the town with Azalea and April.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a whole lot of Healer knowledge in your brain, would you?”

Azalea regarded me silently for a short time. “You’re odd.”

I shrugged. There was no refuting that.

“The God of Apparel was a medium sized god, so the dosage will be about the same, which is good. On the other hand, not only do I not have the vast majority of my ingredients, but I don’t know which ones to use.”

Azalea shrugged. “Oh well. We tried.”

Laughing, I walked on. “Oh, I’m not giving up. What I need to do…”

Drat would’ve understood what I was about to do.

“Finish your sentence?” Azalea asked.

I reached down into myself, got ahold of all the Ingenuity Tokens, and spent all 9 of them in one fell swoop. I then transformed my 8 Free Tokens into Ingenuity Tokens as well.

A curious sensation of expansion followed, along with a slowing of everything around me. I was simply able to react faster to everything. Had Jacoby’s people attacked, I would’ve known exactly how to deflect every one of the Guardian strikes in order to put them in the line of fire for the Wizards’ magic attacks, and position myself perfectly in order to handle Jacoby’s arrows. I would’ve been able to throw anything directly at Savannah’s throat to stop her from talking and using her abilities.

I experienced, for the first time, total recall.

All the clay tablets I’d been over with Alan, or Cinzy, or any of the Divinity Rescue Corps were instantly in my mind.

I filed through them with alarming speed and found The Lovers referenced in nanoseconds. A few more nanoseconds later and I had the description of the god. Below that was a proposed cure formula.

“Crap,” I muttered, and dashed into the nearest house. Azalea and April ran to keep pace. I soon found myself in one of those bubble houses. I was glad to have one of these, because the walls were soft and pliable.

“Writing implement,” I demanded. “Uh… sorry about this.”

I pulled one of the venom spines out of her tentacle, wiped the toxin off onto my pants and began inscribing in the wall.

Five minutes later, I had the recipe and the instructions. I also knew what else I needed to do.

Checking over the notifications, I found I had leveled up in Pleasure Seeker and Healer both, a fact which brought an instant smile to my face. I spent the time taking stock of my level up information first.

Healer Level 32: +6 skill points, +1 Ingenuity

Pleasure Seeker level 29: +6 skill points

“Aww yeah,” I muttered to myself, and set about putting those skill points where I thought them best allocated.

I really wanted to divide them equally, as was my policy. On the other hand, I was in the habit of spending them 12 at a time on Healer, and only spending 6 was going to be tricky. I wanted, now that I’d seen the bonuses for Nakamamon aspects, to have at least 1 level in each.

For now I allocated them where I knew they were needed: Develop Cure (Huge) along with Develop Cure for Human, Diagnostics, Treatments, Instinctual Spellcasting, and Mana Affinity.

“And Instinctual Spellcasting reaches level 10,” I told myself.

I didn’t even have a point for Mana Shaping, the skill that let me channel mana effectively into those insanely complicated constructs. I had to wave my hands around and siphon mana from different chakras at different speeds, a feat that was hard enough with my low level skills and meager abilities. Skipping a level was unthinkable.

Before I confirmed, I considered. I hadn’t had trouble creating Treatments for some time. Instead of another level there, I put one in Mana Shaping. My inner compulsive spark, the one that wanted me to have my levels all balanced out, cringed at seeing Diagnostics and Treatments at different levels.

“What’s the point of having a second class if I can’t funnel a couple of levels over into Healer?” I asked myself, and put one of my six into Treatments, just to assuage the awful asymmetry.

With 5 more levels in Pleasure Seeker to dole out, I tried to focus on the old standbys: Adaptability, Pheromones, and now Group Play. Nothing beat adapting to weird Nakamamon physiology so I could engage in activities with a 3 inch tall super horny fairy with a neglect complex, though giving out my Qualities to my partners came in a very close second.

“Two more,” I muttered.

I had 3 Qualities at level 1: Flexibility, Seduction, and Refractory Period. The first two were much more what I wanted, though Refractory Period was something I’d needed just now with Celine and Azalea.

With faith that my Durability could handle the lagging Quality level, I put one each in Flexibility and Seduction.

Achievement: first attribute level 10

The system has regarded 9 as the human maximums. You have officially surpassed this! Congratulations on being more than human.

Reward: +1 attribute level

I breathed out a breath of amazement and joy. All trepidation over my mother’s situation had faded to the back of my mind. She had Regina, Alan, Vellenia, Shakindria, Tweedle Dee, Muppin, Airaconda, Garnet, and McCauley Skulkins with her. She’d be fine.

She wouldn’t, but facing free points and the congratulations ding of getting rewarded, it was easy to believe she might. After all, my mother was highly intelligent, and highly capable. She was surrounded by higher level beings, and Nakamamon who were all sorts of awesome. Airaconda could fly with a rider. Vellenia could breathe underwater, throw water around, and Shakindria could throw around basically anything else using telekinesis. Tweedle Dee could charm the pants off a devout widowed crone.

“If crones wear pants,” I muttered to myself. “Whatever, let’s move on.”

Achievement: Think you’re so smart…

Your Ingenuity has reached level 10. The system regards 9 as the human maximums. You have officially become the most ingenuitive… ingenuity-filled…ingenui—

Ingenius! IN-GEN-I-OUS! For the love of Pete, could you GET ON WITH IT?

You’ve become more ingenious than basically anyone on earth. Feels good, huh?

Reward: +5 skill points

I heard the snort of laughter before ‘You’ve become more ingenius’ and it was definitely the same sound Jocinda had made when I spoke with her. The indignant fury was definitely Claudius. I wondered about those two. Where was she? Where was he, for that matter? I didn’t think I’d seen him around the HQ castle in the weeks I’d been there. As for Jocinda, she could obviously be anywhere in this world. As a Druid she could made a home literally anywhere.

Knowing what I knew about the classes here: Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Wizard, Bard, Healer, Guardian, I could say with some certainty that Druid powers were like my Healer ability Verdant Rejuvenation, but in the hands of Trent. Every plant thing you could think of, and a bunch you couldn’t. She could definitely make a tree into a house like we’d seen in Glumpdumpkin, and a handful of the homes here.

Heck, she might be in one of the houses in Flunt-on-the-Rustle and I’d have no idea.

Mostly I wondered a few things about what they’d done: how did they get to this world? What gave them the power to create the system like they had? What led to their falling out?

Probably Jocinda snorting and throwing back her head after naming another Nakamamon, town, or other natural wonder. Heck, she had almost certainly been the force behind naming the moons of this world, and Claudius would have to look at them every clear night.

“Snuffletrouser von Zipyankee,” I muttered.

I snorted laughter myself, and shook my head. I wouldn’t get anywhere with any of my problems thinking about those two weirdos and their bizarre proclivities, their contentious history.

Breathing out, I turned my attention back to the UI. I had an attribute point to boost, and 5 bonus skill points. Today was my day.

Looking over my character sheet, it was clear I could boost my Affinity to 10 also, but my Ingenuity told me I wouldn’t be getting a better achievement out of it. Affinity just didn’t exist on earth.

Plus, there was the problem of my back, hips, and thighs. They were beginning to ache again. When Muscularity and Agility became attributes, they’d split down the middle. The old pain of my debilitating injury was back.

“No more,” I breathed, and sank a point into Muscularity.

Now, 5 more skill points. These ones were going to go where I was going to put them initially, but my skills looked nice and rounded out. I was closing on level 10 in a lot of my skills. And now that I had them, a point for each of the Nakamamon aspects I hadn’t gotten to yet: electric, air, fire, dark… and fighting. As much as I might not want to, I needed the lowered difficulty if I was going to have to work on more fighting aspects.

Achievement: Varied Expertise

You have a point in all known aspects of Nakamamon, making you broadly capable of rendering aid to all different Nakamamon in the known world, even those who might wish you harm. This is no small feat!

I guess it’s pretty good.

Do you EVER keep yourself from butting in? Good gods of the world, woman, hold your tongue for once!

Reward: Your Nakamamon Cure Development skills will be collected into one skill known as All Aspects.

I had a look over my character sheet, savoring how far I’d come and how many skills I’d accumulated. I had to admit, I was pretty impressive.

Christopher Fletcher

Healer - Apprentice Arcane Mender 32

Pleasure Seeker - Initiate Indulgent Consort 29

Attributes:

Affinity 9

Durability 7

Ingenuity 10

Likability 7

Agility 5

Muscularity 6

Free Tokens 8

Healer (Arcane Mender) Skills:

Diagnostics 9

Treatments 9

Develop Cure (swarm 6, small 6, medium 6, large 6, huge 5)

Develop Cure (All Aspects 1, unique 9, human 5)

Administer Cure 10

Instinctual Casting 10

Mana Affinity 6

Mana Shaping 6

Spellcasting (Abjuration 1, Conjuration 1, Evocation 1, Transmutation 3)

Meditation 4

Pleasure Seeker (Indulgent Consort) Qualities:

Girth 2

Load 2

Stave Off 4

Length 4

Tongue 3

Adaptability 10

Pheromones 8

Refractory Period 1

Flexibility 2

Group Play 5

Seduction 2