Thankfully, neither of the two other girls seemed particularly interested in bringing attention to the tears that Eris wiped away with a hand. She sniffled once, twice, cleared her throat, then let out a breath as she looked inwards. Her eyes went wide.
“T… thirty points.”
Both Jaxie and Alex recoiled. “Wow,” Jaxie said. “That’s more than I expected.”
“How much of it do you think was… you know?” Alex asked hesitantly with a red face. Eris coughed and stood from Jaxie’s lap while quickly buttoning her pants.
“Well, the regular kissing seemed to cap out at around seven points. If we apply that for both of you, then that’s fourteen. The other sixteen would then be all the… extra stuff.”
“Don’t forget that you get more Desire based on arousal. I’m turned on- are you turned on?” She looked towards Alex who blushed and stammered. It seemed as though the Knight had been caught attempting to adjust her pants. She gave a meek nod and turned away quickly.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. I’m turned on, Alex is turned on, and you came. That’s gotta give some points. So that sixteen is accounting for how much the fondling would have given, all that extra arousal, and then any further bonuses for having both of us at the same time.”
A moment of silence followed. Jaxie ended it with a grin. “So, wanna see if you can upgrade the skill again? See what comes after fondling?”
Eris looked down. “Levelling up becomes slower and slower as a person becomes stronger. I’m willing to bet that my skills would act the same way. There’s no chance that it doesn’t increase the amount of points needed with each level of the skill.”
“Well, we can still check.”
“Yeah,” Alex said. “Put a few points into it and take a guess to see how many it would take to level. Then figure out whether you want to put the rest of your points into it or something else. If your other skills only need twenty-five points to get to second level, then you could still level something up even after testing.”
Eris shrugged, then pulled up her stat window. She let five points leak into Desire’s Reap. It felt like a few drops in the cup. She shook her head.
“Nah. It’s gonna take a lot more points to level it up again.”
“How much do you think?” Alex asked.
“I dunno. Best guess? At least a hundred and fifty, and that’s the low end. Might be closer to two hundred or maybe even two-fifty.”
“Eh,” Jaxie cocked her head. “Thirty points a session, two sessions a day. Add in the princess and we could probably smash that out in just a few days. Really double down on your gathering skill first so that levelling up everything else is easy.”
Eris blushed about the comment of her roommate, then shook her head.
“As effective as that might be, I’m still going to be making equipment that people are relying on to survive. Especially yours. Crippling my strength right now to blitz through progression later is gonna put you two in danger with lackluster equipment.”
Jaxie grinned. “Aww, c’mon! We’ll be fine. You said yourself- you’re about as strong as a normal Artisan right now. You’d be making the same power of stuff if you weren’t an Artificer.”
“Still. I am one, and it’s up to me to make you two the best equipment I possibly can. I won’t back away from that. At least let me level up Novice Artificer. Aside from Crafting Points and Resilience, it’s my only other upgradable skill right now. Those other two only amount to Durability at the moment, but Novice Artificer is Quality which is a lot more important. Let me level up that one, and then I’ll go back to Desire’s Reap.”
Silence. Then Jaxie shrugged. “Fair enough.”
Eris let out a breath. She willed her intent and the points she had gathered into Novice Artificer. Thankfully, it seemed that like Desire’s Reap, bringing it from first level to second required twenty-five points. A flush of warmth surged through her body and goosebumps rippled along her skin. Her fingertips felt hot. All of it only lasted a moment before everything returned to normal. Eris refocused her gaze to her stat window to see the change.
Novice Artificer {Passive} {Level 2}
You have a natural talent for crafting. Any product you craft gains a {50%} bonus to its Quality, applied after all other bonuses.
Her eyes widened. “Wow. Went from a twenty-five percent bonus to fifty percent.”
“I’m guessing that’s a lot?” Alex asked. Eris nodded quickly.
“Yeah, it is. Quality is pretty much the most important stat for the crafting of any item, since it’s a bonus that’s applied to every part of an item’s stats- including Durability which I’m already increasing. A fifty percent bonus to Quality is pretty much on par with the specialists- like a full Metalsmith or Weaver. At least for first level.”
“And your bonus is multiplicative since it’s applied afterwards, unlike others,” Jaxie added. That made Eris blink.
“Right, yeah. A fifty percent bonus that applies to every other bonus already on the item… wow. Crazy.”
“Cool. That takes care of that. Wanna go check out the Obelisk?” Jaxie asked. Eris tried to deal with the whiplash of a sudden conversation change.
“Oh, uhh… sure? Alex?”
The Knight still looked quite uncomfortable. Jaxie chuckled.
“If you need a moment to go take care of yourself, go right ahead. We’ll wait for you.”
Alex blushed, hard. That didn’t stop her from giving a quick nod and promptly leaving the shop with fast steps. When it was just Jaxie and Eris, the Berserker sighed, stood from her chair, and walked over to Eris. She didn’t fight when Jaxie pulled her into a tight hug.
“Are you okay? I didn’t go too far, did I?”
Eris buried her face into Jaxie’s chest. “No. It’s just… It feels yucky.”
“Oh come on, I’ve seen the way you look at Alex. You both want it.”
“That’s the yucky part! I shouldn’t want it. I want you, forever.”
“This again?” Jaxie laughed and rubbed her hands over Eris’s back lovingly. “Sweetie, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with liking multiple people. So what if other people like to call it bad? That’s not up to them to decide. If you enjoy it, and everyone who’s affected by it enjoys it, then what’s the harm? It also helps to make you stronger with your class, so all the better.”
“Still…” Eris tried, but her voice wasn’t working. Instead, she pulled from Jaxie’s chest to look up at her face. Jaxie smiled with an exasperated expression, gave a wide roll of her eyes, then lowered until their lips met. Since they had been focusing on making sure Alex was never the odd one out during the Desire session, Eris was made aware that this was the first real time they kissed so far today. She all but melted into Jaxie and found herself rising up onto her tippy-toes to try and keep the kiss connected when Jaxie raised her head again. Sadly, Eris simply didn’t have the height. Jaxie’s blue eyes twinkled.
“What if I admitted that I think it’s better to share?”
“Huh?”
“I think…” Her hands lowered to rest on Eris’s waist, “...that it’s really, really sweet how you want to stay faithful. However, I don’t want you to stay faithful. Not like that. Not by making me the only one.”
Another kiss silenced Eris before she could protest. It left her flustered when Jaxie pulled away again.
“I want you to stay faithful by being with whoever you want, whenever you want. Then, when all of that’s said and done, I’ll know that you love me when I’m the one that you come back to in the end.”
“But it’s still cheating…”
“Oh, for the love of-” Jaxie sighed through a smile. “Darling, get that filthy word out of your mouth. ‘Cheating’ is subjective. Some couples think that sleeping with other people is cheating. Some think that it’s kissing. Some even draw the line at flirting. Me? You could fuck your way through the entirety of Marrix and I wouldn’t bat a godsdamned eye.”
Eris was quiet. Jaxie planted a kiss on her nose. “I’ll tell you what- let’s give it a good, solid test. During our Desire gathering session tonight, let’s invite Alex. Then, we won’t have any dumb rules or setup like just now. We’ll have a proper threesome where the three of us fuck each other. That way, it’ll be like a stress test. We’ll see how okay you are about me with other women, and you’ll see firsthand that I’m okay with you sleeping around, too. If you still feel weird about it afterwards, then we never have to do it again. We’ll keep our relationship with just you and me, okay?”
Eris had a blush on her cheeks, but she still managed to squeak. “But… what about Alex? What if she says no?”
Jaxie cocked an eyebrow. “She’s jerking off to the thought of kissing you while I made you cum, and you’re worried she won’t be down for a threesome? Darling- you’re the smartest person I know but you’re still pretty stupid sometimes.”
It was hard to take the thought out of Eris’s head. It was too exhilarating to ignore. Her, Jaxie and Alex. Nude, kissing, and groping each other. The three of them, locked in the throes of pleasure. Jaxie making out with Eris and feeling her up while Alex was positioned in between her legs…
Eris had to shake her head and try not to rub her thighs together as the trio walked. At least it became easier to think about something else when the trio approached the center of Marrix.
The ground opened up in a hexagonal pit hundreds of feet on each side. It dipped down into the earth about as deep as the CDF was tall, with long staircases on each side of the hexagon and dozens of elevators- both personal and industrial-sized. At the bottom, there were hundreds of people bustling around and going about their business at the nexus point of the entire campus. The only buildings were a few emergency medical clinics amidst dozens of pavillions and benches scattered among brick walkways and patches of well-trimmed grass. It was like a miniature park, but that wasn’t the reason for all the people. They were there for the Obelisk.
Though the manmade-crater in the ground that it emerged from was over a hundred and fifty feet deep, the colossal, five-sided pillar of stone reached at least three times that amount above the trio’s heads. It was the same shade and texture of polished obsidian glass, with a base probably close to sixty feet in diameter. It tapered slightly as it extended upwards before it ultimately ended with a blunted tip. Even from the edge of the crater, Eris could see that the Obelisk was damaged- massive cracks started about a third of the way up the pillar and branched off to show that the artifact was in three massive pieces but somehow held together.
About thirty feet away, Eris noticed that some kind of tour group had stopped at the edge of the stairs and an older, middle-aged man with glasses and a tweed jacket seemed to be giving an explanation. Eris motioned for Jaxie and Alex to follow as she moved right up into the crowd to hear what the man had to say.
“The Obelisk is our fastest, but also the most dangerous way of progressing your strength and earning moons. We still don’t understand the full scope of the Obelisk, despite having been studying it for hundreds of years. By our best guess, it was made by Artificers under the employ of the Gereige empire in the old world as a way to provide a near-unlimited supply of resources. This was done by a spatial distortion that seems to manifest matter into any number of various forms, via environments, creatures, or otherwise, all of which could be harvested and removed from the Obelisk back into the world. Considering the complete lack of any reports at all about it, we have come to the conclusion that it was done so in secret by the empire, specifically to avoid letting any other countries know of its existence.”
“We believe the Obelisk used to have a myriad of other features available as well, but sadly all we can do is speculate about what those may be. That is, of course, due to the damage that you can see. When we discovered the Obelisk shortly after the Hollow began, it was already broken into three pieces and barely functional. We provided as much repairs as we could, which brought it into the current state. Now, users can enter the Obelisk and it will send them to a random, highly hostile environment filled with monsters, traps, and even puzzles that must be solved to avoid dire consequences.”
Eris didn’t even realise that she found herself interlocking fingers with Jaxie until the Berserker started rubbing her thumb on the back of Eris’s hand. Meanwhile, the man finished his speech.
“Through testing and time, it was surmised that the Obelisk shapes the encounters and environments it creates based on the users that enter, with the intention of creating a difficult but possible experience. For example, a group of people who are all level one will face a much easier set of encounters than a group of level fives, but the respective difficulties would be almost identical, comparatively speaking. Because the encounters inside are very much real and serve as phenomenal combat experience against a variety of potential threats, the Obelisk is by far the most effective way to further progression.”
“Why couldn’t the Syndicate provide better repairs to the Obelisk if it’s so dangerous to use in the current state?”
A guy in the back of the group raised his hand as he spoke. The man turned his gaze over to him.
“The simple answer? Because just like I said earlier, we simply do not understand it. Every piece of information we have about the Obelisk is produced entirely through speculation and testing. Unfortunately, that is a similarity shown through many of the artifacts of the old world and is the primary reason why we believe it was made by Artificers at all. If you may all humour me for a moment, I would like you to Inspect the Obelisk.”
Eris raised an eyebrow, as did most of the other people in the tour group. Even so, she focused her eyes on the Obelisk as the man started speaking.
“Now, you’ll all notice that you can’t. No information of any kind appears. Even more curiously, it doesn’t react like an unknown material would. Aside from crafters, when you Inspect something with a purpose you don’t know, the information window is lackluster and provides no real knowledge. However, that item still provides a window. The Obelisk, and many other artifacts created by the old Artificers do not. They provide no information of any kind to anyone, which makes determining their purpose and functions difficult.”
“In regards to repairs, imagine this- Imagine that the Obelisk is one massive, complex machine with thousands of parts, and you found it broken on the side of the street. You know that it’s broken, but you’re wearing a blindfold and you have no context for what it’s even supposed to be. You don’t know what purpose a ‘repaired’ version of the machine is used for, nor what steps would need to be taken to get to that repaired state. However, there are parts of that machine that are still moving and seem to be working. In that situation, the best anyone can do is the most obvious of ‘fixes’ or else they risk causing more damage. Now, does anyone else have any questions? Please don’t shout them out.”
Many raised their hands. Eris would have too, if she had been paying any attention at all to the entire last part of that conversation. Her focus was directed inwards, to the window that appeared in her mind when she Inspected the Obelisk.
Abstract of Eternity
Durability: 17%
A monolith that serves as a gateway to distant realms. Created by Balzonest Exxinter, Ymetri Faraday, Nasha Ignes, Phrom Ladana, Rallan Oje, Ihxal Wb’bami and Vojemala Ywer. Made from white marble, the souls of the creators, and a concoction of Zhuul Somnere.
Additional effect: Collusion
Unauthorized individuals may not use the Abstract of Eternity.
Additional effect: Convergence
Authorized individuals may forcibly transport targets through realm connections.
Additional effect: Confinement
Delegated prison realms are one-way only.
Eris must have had a blank expression on her face, since Jaxie lightly squeezed her hand to bring the girl back to reality. “You okay? What’s wrong?” Eris stared back at her with wide eyes, then at the people around them. They weren’t paying attention, but Eris wasn’t going to take any chances.
“I umm… I think the three of us should go back to my dorm.”
“Why?” Alex asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Because I need to talk to you in private. Urgently. About… your preparations to go into the Ab- the Obelisk.”
Eris flicked her eyes to the people around them, trying to convey that this wasn’t a conversation that could be had in public. Thankfully, Alex and Jaxie’s faces seemed to indicate that they got the very obvious memo. Jaxie accepted Eris’s tight grip on her hand and nodded.
“Sure. Let’s go talk.”