Ash regarded Tinniel after they’d reached the items shop. He let her stew in the vagueness of whatever she’d just insinuated. He was pretty sure he understood what she was getting at, but he hated beating around the bush.

“I’m not going to… what?”

“Use me to get experience points?”

“You’re not a dish towel,” he said. “I’m not gonna wring you out for a few drops of water. That’s not how it works.”

“Are you sure? Because here’s what I see… you’re surrounded by gorgeous girls and all of them laugh about how you, you know, bone them on the regular, and they’re all okay with doing it with you, and I guess doing it with each other. And like, that’s not me. I’m a one man girl.”

“I was too, until this whole thing started.” In truth he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d gone from two girlfriends to seven, but there they were. It involved a quite spirited little nellwyn being down to fuck basically any and everyone, and wanting to surround him with a phalanx of gorgeous women.

“So I’m just saying, you don’t have to try putting the moves on me. It’s not like you’re an ugly guy or an asshole or anything. You seem nice, and you’ve got muscles. And your… your equipment you’ve got, it’s fine.” She was blushing. “It’s too big, but that’s not even what I’m worried about.”

He let her keep right on trucking. It seemed like the more prudent course of action, to just let her talk it out.

“I’m not even worried about pregnancy. Isn’t that weird? I have this little button in the menus and windows and things, it says I can just turn your sperms into mana, I mean a guy’s sperms, not your sperms in particular. The guy whose sperms I’m interested in having in me.”

He started chuckling, and she grew tense.

“What?”

“You just said sperms entirely too many times.”

The flush she’d been experiencing spread down the sides of her neck and over the tops of her ears, and she ducked down into herself like she was a turtle, or like he was going to punch her or something. He considered telling her that he would naturally resize to be exactly what size she needed, and he might even grow wings to transform into a fey for their sexual encounter, but figured it wouldn’t help. She was adamant.

“You don’t have to worry. We can get separate rooms and everything. You’re right, honestly.”

“What do you mean? Right about what?”

“I have a lot on my plate, girl-wise. Like a ton.” She blew out a long sigh in response to this, which sent him laughing again. “Is it that much of a relief?”

“I mean it’s like, you said before, but I believe you now.”

It wouldn’t be hard to seduce her, all things considered. He could boost his attributes and skills with one or more of his Bard abilities, give her a disarming smile, and watch her soak through her panties in a heartbeat. It felt like cheating though, like he shouldn’t be able to.

“We have bigger worries,” he told her. “Let’s focus on what matters, and if we get caught by a series of ultra powerful bounty hunters, maybe I’ll pull you into a dark alley and pretend to make out with you so they think we’re just some horny lovers, instead of who they’re looking for.”

She stared at him, and finally twitched a smile. At last, she said, “All right. Deal.” And, get this, she thrust a hand out at him.

He took it, and feeling silly as hell, shook her hand in a neighborly manner. Like they were talking about who would mow the shared strip of lawn between their two houses and how often, instead of whether or not she’d be joining his growing harem by spreading her legs for him.

“Now, you can have this hand crossbow item, or we can go find you something specific.”

“Specific, please.”

He nodded. “You got it.”

The item shop was a near identical version of the class ability card shop across the market, with the menu leading from class to weapons, armor, accessories, and other. Pretty soon they had an Arrow Generator that produced not just arrows each minute until it reached two dozen, but randomly produced arrows with elemental effects several times per hour. It wasn’t quite an excellent item, but it was far better than what she had, and the shopkeep was willing to take the Hand Crossbow in trade, plus 5 coin.

 The little gnomish inspected the card carefully, proclaimed it undamaged and basically mint condition, then snapped it into a glass case so it wouldn’t get frayed corners, creases, or damage to the holographic bits.

“Question for you,” Ash said.

He had the gnomish shopkeeper’s attention.

“I have me a series of gems.”

“Don’t take gems as payment,” the gnome said.

“I was wondering if there’s another use for gems,” he said. He considered talking about an old video game, and why he thought these might be useful instead of simply being used as coins, but knew it would sail way over the tiny guy’s head.

“Don’t think so. I’ve seen plenty of gems come in here, and none of them been used for anything but mounting on necklaces and rings.”

Ash tapped his lower lip. “You got any gems then? I’m looking to upgrade this Polished Opal.”

“After polished you get a superior gem. You really want a superior opal? I can see what we have in stock.”

While he stepped out, Ash picked up a Gold Necklace and looked at it. The card itself was empty, without a single effect. It wasn’t magical in any way. After the name, it had the type (jewelry), the rarity (uncommon), and the durability (149/150). Of course it also had an illustration of how the necklace looked like on a fair maiden.

“You want to adorn your girlfriends and make sure everyone knows who they belong to?” Tinniel asked, a bit snidely.

It wasn’t a terrible idea, actually. They weren’t slaves in need of a brand, but he bet they sure would like some jewelry as gifts. The problem was, he’d have to buy all of them the same gift or risk revolt. Different gifts and they’d start demanding which was the most valuable, like he was playing favorites and one of them had to be the top of the heap. Nope, he would get them all identical gifts or nothing.

“What is going on in your teensy little brain right now?” she asked, in an amused and hushed tone.

Something else was happening in his teensy little brain, and he hoped he was correct.

“Okay, we have ourselves a Polished Opal,” the gnome said, then froze. Clearly he was concerned that Ash was going to try to steal the card, but the relaxing of his posture meant he understood Ash was only looking, he was right here, and he wasn’t going anywhere until his questions were answered.

They didn’t have unlimited coins, but enough. He bartered several common item cards away to bring the price of the Opal down, then paid the rest off.

“I want to test something now,” he said. “If it doesn’t work, I won’t be buying the necklace… if it does though, I’ll take it. How much?”

The asking price ended up being a hundred and twenty coins, which was fair, he supposed. By spending a few mana, he brought the necklace out of card form and had in his hand a thin, strong chain of gold, along with a diamond shaped pendent. He enjoyed the way the chain pooled in his hand for a moment before holding it up, and getting the pendant hanging down. Then he took the Superior Opal in hand and examined it.

The gnome was watching with his full attention now.

The illustration of the gem made it appear to be something like a rainbow in stone form, with veins of orange and aquamarine with flecks of green and milky white. When he fed mana into it, he full expected nothing to happen, but only a tiny bit of mana did the trick, and the gem appeared in his hand, smaller than the head of a toothbrush.

Immediately a UI message appeared.

 

You are about to slot Superior Opal into this Gold Necklace. Superior Opal will be consumed. Gold Necklace has one gem slot. Slotting this gem into this item will result in the following properties:

+25% unholy resistance

+3 meters to holy aura range

+10% effectiveness of holy spells and special abilities

+10% hit points

This process is not reversible. Do you wish to proceed? Y/N

 

“Ohhhhhhhkay,” he said, and immediately regretted selling off that ruby back in Mexicali. Then he clicked No, took out his Naturally Occurring Diamond, the common rarity version, and fed a few points of mana into it to wake it up.

 

You are about to slot Naturally Occurring Diamond into this Gold Necklace. Naturally Occurring Diamond will be consumed. Gold Necklace has one gem slot. Slotting this gem into this item will result in the following properties:

+5% all resistances

+1% hit points

This process is not reversible. Do you wish to proceed? Y/N

 

No, definitely no on this one. No wonder the ritual to purge the taint of the demonic entities in the town cost four Polished Diamonds. If he could get a single Superior Diamond, or whatever was above Superior, he would have something really powerful.

“How did you…” the gnome asked.

Ash rifled through his inventory and brought up the only other really nice gem he had, a Superior Obsidian. It was a gorgeous gleaming ebony, with flecks of white here and there, and soon became a large cut gem in his hand, round and sparkling.

 

You are about to slot Superior Obsidian into this Gold Necklace. Superior Obsidian will be consumed. Gold Necklace has one gem slot. Slotting this gem into this item will result in the following properties:

Once per day, fade into shadows and reappear out of another shadow within 20 meters

+10% chance to succeed at a physical Sly check

+10% to critical chance when wielding a dagger

+100% to critical damage when wielding a dagger

This process is not reversible. Do you wish to proceed? Y/N

 

Here he pressed Yes and watched in fascination as the obsidian flashed out of existence and reappeared in the necklace’s pendant. Tinniel made an appropriately awed sound.

The Gold Necklace turned back into a card, but it had changed titles. It was now the Shade’s Heart, and had upgraded from uncommon to double rare.

He turned to the gnome and produced his coins card, which was getting pretty low by now. “I’ll take it.”

 

***

 

They made their way out of the shop in silence. Stunned and awed for the both of them.

“Did you know that would happen?” Tinniel asked.

“I had an inkling.”

“Nice of the shop owner to give it to you for free,” she said.

He chuckled. “I probably just gave him some thousands of coins worth of new items to make. He knew what I was doing the moment I started doing it.”

”It was incredible.”

“And more importantly, I have other inklings. I’d like your bow, if you would,” he said.

When she produced it, he fished out the Superior Opal and tried again.

 

You are about to slot Superior Opal into this Simple Short Bow. Superior Opal will be consumed. Simple Short Bow has two gem slots. Slotting this gem into this item will result in the following properties:

+3-6 life drain on all arrows fired

+12-40 damage against all unholy creatures

+10% chance to inflict necrosis on a target

+increased durability

This process is not reversible. Do you wish to proceed? Y/N

 

Now he had some serious choices to make. Go get her a better bow? Give this kind of thing to one of the other girls? Wait to level up the gem?

“If I do this, you’ll need to promise to stay with the party,” he said. “No bugging out and joining another adventuring party that isn’t headed by a sex freak, okay?”

She laughed. “Just so long as you keep your word.”

He grinned evilly at her. “Whatever do you mean?” And then fell back laughing when her eyes widened in fear, before she got that he was joking.

“Really though, are you sure you want to do this?” she asked, and started listing all the other ways the opal might be put to better use. It might go into a piece of armor, and they didn’t know if the jewelry effect was the same as the armor effect. It might do better in a different weapon. Mizu and Netsu were both powerful warriors who could better use the gem effects. It turned out that, since she was the bow’s owner, she could see the empowerment effects in her UI just as he could.

In the end he decided to hit Yes. Tinniel had several things going for her. One, she was woefully underpowered. Two, right now they didn’t have a healing option and life drain was incredibly powerful, especially at low levels. Three, they might end up fighting unholy creatures and most of the girls already had a couple of tricks for those. Four, she was right here, right now, with him. That meant she needed a better head start on success, because he was bringing her into far more danger than a lowly Amateur would otherwise see.

Among the other cards he had, he found a Polished Ruby, and this only added +4-7 fire damage to every shot, a 5% chance to inflict the burning condition, and lowered enemy resistances by 5% on top of that. She readily agreed, then threw herself into his arms as soon as he handed the double rare short bow back to her.

She hugged him tight, thanking him several times over, but then disengaged and stared hard at him from her place in the bear hug.

“This wasn’t your ‘bang the fey free’ card,” she told him.

“I’ll somehow survive with the seven other women who’ve been throwing themselves at my feet,” he said drily.

In the end, they had a good laugh over it, and he figured out that he needed to put the Deck Erector in with only gem cards. He had only uncut, naturally occurring gems, but that wouldn’t last long.

All the others went into Rachel’s inventory for now.

He found her in the tavern, wringing out sodden clothes in front of a roaring blaze. The rest of the patrons here crowded around the fire in various states of nudity, slapping soaked clothing onto the stone floor to let the fire dry them. Ash counted more than one young lady shy away from eye contact as he surveyed the room. He felt flattered by their inability to look at him.

“Where’s Lucy?”

“Up in the room. Dead tired,” Jezebel replied. “Baby kept him up most of the night.”

“So…” he said, and looped the necklace around Rachel’s neck, then clasped it. “This is for you.” Then, pointing at Jezebel, he said, “And no getting upset about this. It’s a Rogue-specific item, and we’ll find something for you I’m sure.” If it ended up being necessary.

Jezebel beamed at him, blinking several times. “Whatever do you mean?” she asked sweetly. “My husband is the one who gives me jewelry, Ash Phoenix.”

He narrowed his eyes and grumbled at her, which sent her off on a laughing fit.

“Ash?” Rachel said in wonder. “What the hell? Where did you… where did this… holy shit.”

She leapt into his arms, and he noted a lot of eyes snap to where she was now wrapped entirely around him, tail swishing back and forth. She was purring, too. Loudly rumbling from deep in her chest, and nuzzling the side of her face into his neck.

“To keep it, you’re supposed to put a ring on it,” he said. “But the gem was too big for a ring.”

Now she jerked back and stared into his eyes, hard. She climbed back down off him, yet held him by the shoulders. A string of emotions flickered across her face in rapid succession, and they nearly caused him to laugh, but he didn’t want to ruin the moment.

“I’m not… we’re not… right here, are we?” she asked him, and eyed the room warily. Still, her chest was heaving and now her tail was flicking back and forth in agitation. “I’d have to say succubus.”

“It’s because you mean a lot to me and I want you to to have my back,” he told her. “I can order you around sexually later.”

She seemed to deflate before his eyes. “Oh, thank fuck. I don’t know if I could handle doing humiliating shit right now.”

“You two are awfully cute,” Jez said. “Does she really do anything you ask?”

“I haven’t crossed any uncrossable lines,” he said.

“Yet,” Rachel added, not breaking eye contact.

He had a growing ember of unease about how this conversation was going, and didn’t want to pursue it further.

“And Ashley doesn’t mind you two… getting together?” Jez asked anyway.

“Nope,” Rachel said, and flashed an indulgent smile at the elf Druid. Then she molded herself against Ash’s body. “I’m… his.”

“Let’s grab some food,” he said. Any way to break free of this conversation, please and thank you.

“I can’t get over the name of this town,” Jezebel said. “And hey, did you know that the internet isn’t gone?”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“All the knowledge on the internet. It’s still available.”

“How is that possible?” Tinniel asked, and shot up fast enough to get the attention of basically the whole tavern.

Jezebel threw this off with a dismissive shrug. “I have to use a knowledge spell, like scrying, in order to get at it, but I can find maps of the old world, and zoom in on them and everything.”

“I don’t see how that’s helpful,” Rachel said.

“But it is totally amazing,” Tinniel corrected.

“Guess what this used to be,” Jezebel asked, but didn’t wait. “The Beaver Creamery.”

Ash chuckled, while the other two groaned.

“And did you know Beaver had a Beaver Canyon Park?” Jezebel asked. “Totally real place. I didn’t just make it up.”