“Okay, let me recap, just to make sure we’re all on the same page…”
Jaxie leaned forward on the stool while rubbing her temples.
“After having your Gifting trials or whatever the fuck we call them, you ended up in a black place of nothingness that’s supposedly halfway between Tonshlur and the Stream. You then talked to the dying ghost of a goddess who used the last of her power to give you one of the Mythic classes of the old world and turn you into an Echo. However, since the goddess is now completely dead, that means nobody else can get a class. That leaves the Syndicate without any forces for future generations, and in turn means that the world will be completely consumed by the Hollow unless humanity finds a way to destroy it first.”
Eris was quiet for several moments before letting out a pathetic squeak. “Theoretically?” Alex sighed in response.
“However, because you’re an Echo, you have the potential to become extremely powerful and might be able to help the Syndicate win the war.”
“...Theoretically?”
Alex turned an empty cup over in her hands, again and again. “If I didn’t know you so well, I’d say you were lying. “
“I’m not lying.”
“I just said that you weren’t-”
“Guys!” Jaxie lowered her hand and stared at the floor. “We have to tell the Syndicate. That Ell’s an Echo. And all the business about no more Giftings, too.”
Eris practically leapt out of her seat. “No!” Both girls turned to look at her with confused expressions. Eris withered. “It’s just, we don’t know anything for certain right now.”
“You just said you saw a goddess die,” Alex frowned.
“I don’t know what I saw, okay? I mean, you two still have your classes, right? That means magic and power can linger. Maybe the Gifting will still work.”
“Ell,” Jaxie’s brow furrowed, “we have to tell them. We became part of the Syndicate as soon as we swore that oath.”
“We can’t. At least, not yet.”
“Why the fuck not?”
Before Eris could muster a response to Jaxie’s interrogation, Alex let out a calm breath. “Because Ell has to become a terrible person, first.”
Eris froze. Jaxie raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?” Alex gripped the cup in her hands tightly and stood.
“The Echoes of the old world. They were the only people that had classes back then, and the classes were only given by the Seven. The Echoes were super powerful and led the world through a golden age, but almost every single mention of them also points out their indulgences and sins.” Alex set the cup down on one of the worktables. She kept talking.
“They would save a city from horrible monsters, but only after they cut out the hearts of innocent sacrifices or were paid a king’s ransom. As a reward for acts of virtue, they were given entire banquets’ worth of food that they would eat in front of the hungry, or provided with endless partners to have intercourse with. Statues of gold were built in their honour on street corners. They kept the most accomplished people as slaves and would sit out entire wars just because they didn’t feel like saving people.”
All three girls were completely silent. Eventually, Alex sighed.
“These indulgences were so profound that the Echoes sometimes referred to themselves under a sin. There was Agalvald the Greedy, the Lycanthrope who hoarded over fourteen million moons’ worth of coins in his lair. Edna the Warlock, whose official title was ‘Crumb Counter’ because if anyone was caught stealing her food she would vaporise them on the spot. Even Manner, the Paladin of Hate who only went into battle after his armor had been painted with the blood of a child. Not a single one was a good person.”
Jaxie glanced over to Eris, The brunette looked worried. Eris turned her gaze back to Alex. “How do you know all that?”
“The library’s less than five minutes from my house,” Alex said. “And it’s a very small library. ‘History’ did a decent job at keeping me occupied when I finished the entire ‘Fiction’ section.”
Jaxie blinked several times. “Hold on, just because all the Echoes of the old world were bad people doesn’t mean that Ell is. Come on, you know her just as well as I do, and none of those people sound anything close to her.”
“Of course.” Alex crossed her arms. “I’m not saying that she is a terrible person. I’m saying that she needs to become a terrible person.”
“What makes you think that?”
Eris coughed, drawing the attention of both girls. Her voice quivered. “Because it makes me stronger.”
Alex nodded. “Based on records found that predate the Sundering when the gods perished, scholars deduced with reasonable confidence that each Echo seemed to be aligned with a singular sin. Furthermore, it wasn’t their classes that made them powerful, but rather the amount that they indulged in their specific sin. A Summoner based on Pride would become stronger the more that people worshipped them, in the same way that a Monk of Sloth would increase in power the less they actually fought.”
Jaxie’s eyes were wide. Eris gave a slow, confirming nod. “All of my skills have levels and I can spend a resource to advance their progression. Supposedly, that makes them stronger outside of my own class level.”
“A resource you collect by committing sin, I assume?” Alex drummed her fingers against a bicep of her crossed arms. Again, Eris nodded. The room fell silent once more.
“Which sin are you connected to?” Jaxie asked after a long moment. Eris paused.
“Lust,” came the eventual reply. That caused both Jaxie and Alex to raise eyebrows.
“Lust? Really? As in… sex and stuff?” An odd grin started to crawl across Jaxie’s mouth.
“I didn’t choose it,” Eris said quickly with reddening cheeks. Of course, she technically had, but definitely not with intention. She just wanted clarification for a question and Demeri had taken it as the answer. “It just kinda happened and now I’m an Artificer of Lust.”
“So you’re a crafter that gets stronger the more people you hook up with?” Jaxie was chuckling. “That’s wild.”
Eris’s face was bright red at this point. She hid it in her hands. “I didn’t choose this!”
“Okay, okay!” Alex started walking back over, silencing Jaxie’s snickers. “Do you have any specific details on how you collect your resource to become stronger?”
Eris talked into her palms. She couldn’t look them in the eyes while explaining this.
“I have a skill called Desire’s Reap. It gives me a resource called Desire by engaging in sexual acts, and provides more Desire if the participant is aroused. Another skill called Enhance lets me spend that Desire to make my skills stronger.”
Eris spoke too quickly, not pausing for anything. It was easier to just say it as fast as she could instead of drawing it out. It didn’t help that Jaxie gave a seductive whistle. Eris heard a smack, presumably Alex slapping Jaxie.
“Alright…” Alex began, “does it specify any kinds of acts, or is it left ambiguous?”
A groan. “Kissing.”
“That’s it?”
Eris’s face was extremely hot in her hands. She nodded. “I think if I level up the skill it’ll add more stuff, but for now it’s just that.”
“Should we test it?”
Eris lifted her head to stare incredulously at Jaxie, who had been the one to ask. “What?”
Jaxie gave a nonchalant shrug but couldn’t hide her grin. “If you make your skills stronger by spending Desire, shouldn’t we test and see how much kissing actually gives you?”
“You mean, like… right now?”
Eris watched with wide eyes as Jaxie stood from her stool and walked over to where the redhead was sitting. She stopped right in front and slowly bent over at the waist, real low, until her face was level with Eris’s and a few inches away. Jaxie’s eyes seemed to be staring into Eris’s soul. She could smell the brunette’s shampoo.
“May I?” Jaxie asked. Eris replied with a teeny tiny nod, too afraid to do anything else.
Jaxie closed the rest of the distance and kissed Eris. It was extremely gentle- Jaxie barely even pressed her lips into Eris’s. It was a soft, caring touch from the violent Berserker. Still, it had Eris reeling.
Forget the butterflies. Eris had pigeons fighting over the sandwich in her stomach. Her heart felt like it was going into failure and she didn’t know what to do with her hands. One of Jaxie’s gingerly cupped Eris’s cheek for a moment before Jaxie pulled away. The kiss barely lasted a few seconds, yet Eris had trouble thinking. Her head whipped to the side in shock when Alex cleared her throat.
“So, how much did that give?”
“I- uhh…” Eris looked inward.
Desire’s Reap {Passive} {1}
Engage in sexual acts with others to collect Desire. Desire is collected in the following ways;
Kissing
Additional Desire is collected based on the arousal of the active participant(s). Current Desire: 1
“Err… one point.”
Jaxie was still bent over in front of Eris, so when she spoke again Eris could feel Jaxie’s warm breath on her face. “Do you think it’s a one-and-done, or can we get any more?”
“It’s umm… we may as well check.”
Jaxie must have taken that as acceptance, since she brought her hand back up to Eris’s cheek and used it to close the gap between them. This time, Jaxie was a bit more firm. Their lips flattened against each other instead of a gentle touch like last time. The pigeons flapped their wings again and Eris had to stop herself from moving with Jaxie as she pulled back after a few seconds. Jaxie’s blue eyes were damn near intoxicating this close and she smelled so good. Eris actively forced herself to focus on the task at hand. At least it was easy to check.
“ It hasn’t changed.”
“So a one-and-done. It’s gotta be per person, then.” Jaxie actually sounded excited. That alone made Eris’s heart flutter. Alex chirped in and Eris couldn’t help but notice that there was a twinge of pink in her cheeks as well.
“Or it could be a cooldown. You might not be able to gain Desire from the same person again until a certain amount of time has passed.”
“So you think that there’s a cooldown and it’s separate for each person?” Jaxie asked. Alex gave a questioning nod.
“Possibly? The stories about Echoes engaging in acts of Lust almost always mentioned a large quantity of… partners.” Alex blushed a bit harder and looked down. “I doubt that the Echoes could become as powerful as they were if each partner could only be involved once. They would have simply run out of people to gain power from otherwise. That’s why I think it's a cooldown for each person.”
Jaxie shrugged. “Or it could be a cooldown in general, regardless of different people.”
“I don’t think so.” Eris collected her thoughts enough to shake her head. “Lust is typically considered ‘sinful’ in the sense of infidelity. If two people have… uhh, if they have sex twenty times, then that’s not really sinning if they’re together. If one person has sex with twenty different people, that’s a completely different story.”
“Hmm…” Jaxie sat back down on her stool. “We can always test it just to see.”
“How?” Alex asked. Jaxie gave another shrug.
“Easy. You two kiss. See if it gives Desire. If it doesn’t, then that means there’s a cooldown on the gathering itself. If it does, then the cooldown is individual for each person.”
Eris and Alex both looked at each other with red in their cheeks. “Uhhh…”
“What’s the big deal? I kissed her, so you can too.”
“She’s… your girlfriend?” Alex tried.
“So? We’re testing skills. Gotta do our best for the Syndicate, right?”
Alex’s eyes were so wide Eris thought they would pop out of her skull. It was several moments before she spoke. “Only if… are you…?”
“Uhh, yeah?” Eris felt her entire face flush. “Sure? If you’re okay with it.”
Once again, there was silence. It hung heavy and awkward. Eris wasn’t sure what to feel. It was much easier with Jaxie. Even though Eris screwed things up, it was easy to let Jaxie kiss her because she already knew how Jaxie felt about it. With Alex, there was no such confirmation.
Obviously Eris crushed on Alex a bit as well- not quite as much as Jaxie, but Alex was still attractive, strong, proud, and unbearably nice. Whereas Eris and Jaxie were somewhere loose, hovering awkwardly between the ‘friends’ and ‘girlfriends’ column until they had some kind of talk about where they stood, Alex had always been firmly in the ‘friends’ section. That only made it weirder when Alex tentatively scooched her stool until the two were sitting side by side.
Eris tried not to focus on the fact that Jaxie was sitting just a few feet away, watching them. This felt wrong- doing this kind of thing with another girl when things were still being questioned with Jaxie. Somehow, that made the decision solidify in her mind more. If it felt wrong, then it was sinful.
Right now, she needed to be sinful.
“You should also test to see if there’s a limit.” Jaxie’s voice halted Alex, who started to lean in a bit. Eris turned her head around to face the brunette. She raised her hands. “What? I’m willing to bet that longer kisses will give more Desire, since my little peck only gave one point. You should try and see how much you can get before stopping.”
Eris looked back at Alex- the blonde was bright red. She looked worried.
“Sure?” Eris offered. She wasn’t sure whether that suaded Alex’s nerves or made things worse. Either way, both girls were very tentative when they twisted in their seats and leaned towards each other.
When their lips touched, it was soft and uncertain for several seconds. The warmth building in Eris’s chest inspired one of two decisions. Since they were testing if there was a limit, that removed the option of pulling away. Eris leaned in further, pressing more intently. Her hand instinctively went to the back of Alex’s neck. To her surprise, Alex did the same. Furthermore, their lips were now forceful against one another- flattening under the pressure between them. Eris’s lips parted.
Over the course of several more seconds, their awkward, tentative kiss had rapidly turned into open-mouth necking. Eris couldn’t quite believe it. A minute ago, her maybe-girlfriend kissed her. Now, she was actively making out with a VERY platonic best friend in front of the aforementioned maybe-girlfriend.
Eris couldn’t fight the fire building in her stomach. Not only was kissing extremely intimate, but it was also unreasonably fun. Eris didn’t want to stop. It felt too good to have a mouth pressed onto hers. To have a tongue battling with hers every time their lips met and then parted. She scooched her stool closer to Alex and leaned into the Knight. Alex gave out a moan.
The reality of the situation seemed to set in for the both of them. At the sound of Alex’s obvious pleasure, both shot their eyes open and pulled away simultaneously. Eris’s cheeks started to feel as red as Alex’s looked. Alex coughed and slid her stool several paces away. Jaxie whistled.
“Well, that was certainly something. How much did you get?”
Eris idly wiped her mouth and looked inward.
Current Desire: 5
“It’s uhh- it’s up to five now, so four points.”
“Furthermore,” Alex wasn’t meeting either Eris’s or Jaxie’s gazes, “that means the cooldowns are independent for each person.”
Something caught Eris’s eye and it made her blush just a little bit harder- which shouldn’t have been possible. Regardless, the sight of a bulge starting to tent out the front of Alex’s jeans sent even more heat through Eris’s face. Eris coughed and turned away. Meanwhile, Alex stood up at a bit of an angle, obviously attempting to hide her hardening lower member.
“Actually, you two should continue the conversation. I… I need to use the washroom.”
Alex waddled off towards the trio of washrooms located towards the back of the distillery. Technically, it didn’t matter which ones they used since this place was abandoned, but the ‘Men’ section ended up becoming an extra storage area for assorted materials anyway. That meant the ‘Women’ and ‘Futanari’ washrooms were the only ones that Eris bothered to fix the plumbing for. Alex vanished into the ‘Futanari’ section.
“You know she’s going to jack off, right?”
Eris tucked her head in shame at Jaxie’s words. Jaxie laughed.
“Hey, don’t get all shy about it. This is your class. Whether you like it or not, you’ve gotta accept that your life is about to get a lot more intimate. Just be glad you didn’t blow chunks like last night.”
Eris’s face heated. “This is so weird.”
“At least it’s a decent option,” Jaxie offered. Eris titled an eyebrow at that. Jaxie shrugged. “If the kind of things you’d have to do is anything like what Alex said about the Echoes, then the sin of Lust is probably the best one.”
“What are you talking about?”
Jaxie started listing off with each of her fingers. “Well, Wrath is the obvious one. If you had Wrath, you would need to be killing or torturing people- probably innocent ones. That’s a big no-no. Then there’s Greed, which would likely have you hoarding money and necessities while stealing from everyone else.”
“Uh-uh.”
“I thought so. Gluttony would probably be the least of an issue, but if it really wanted to delve into sin it might involve making other people starve while you took all their food. Plus, you’d probably get all fat and stuff if you never stop eating.”
Eris said nothing. Jaxie continued.
“Envy would be weird, but it might be connected to the ‘slave’ thing that Alex mentioned. If anyone’s better than you at anything then you’d be forced to imprison them or something so you can get more powerful. Or hell, maybe you just take their power directly. Could you imagine that? Stealing someone’s class?”
“Definitely not,” Eris shuddered.
“Yeah, it sounds pretty fucked. Anyway, Pride probably needs you to treat yourself like a god compared to everyone else, so you’d end up as some snobby bitch forcing people to make statues for you or feed you grapes or something. Finally, Sloth actually seems like a polar opposite to Artificer. You’d progress your skills by doing nothing, but your entire job is based around making stuff all of the time.”
“So what about Lust?” Eris asked with a raised eyebrow. Jaxie grinned.
“Honestly, I see nothing but upsides. You get to enjoy yourself all the time with whoever you want, you don’t have to have your entire personality replaced with a steaming pile of horse shit, you get to do the job you love, and you don’t have to hurt or inconvenience anyone. In fact, you’re going to be giving out happiness and pleasure. Making the world happier and becoming stronger at the same time sounds like a damned good deal.”
Eris contemplated many things in her head. There was truth in Jaxie’s words. Out of all the sins she could have received, Lust certainly wasn’t the worst to indulge in.
What a weird birthday present.