We y there for some time. I was reading through the abilities again, and staring in wonder at the changes coming over me. In under two weeks, too. My level in Pleasure Seeker had risen from 3 to 5. I was a level 10 Healer. I had crafted a cure and saved a god’s life.

  Level 2: +2 skill points

  Level 3: Gained Ability: Hard At Work

  Level 4: +1 Ingenuity, +1 Attribute point

  Level 5: +2 skill points

  Level 6: Gained Ability: Healer’s Endurance

  Level 7: Gained Ability: Healer’s Resistance, +1 skill point

  Level 8: +2 skill points

  Level 9: +1 Affinity, +1 Attribute point

  Level 10: +1 Ability upgrade

  This was a lot. This confirmed, first, that Attribute points weren’t going to come easy, and second, that skill points weren’t going to come much faster. However, I had several abilities to read through and understand.

  Healer’s Endurance

  (Special Ability, Common, active)

  You may spend a Durability Token to resist the need for sleep for 10 hours. Penalties for sleeplessness are suppressed during this time, but are doubled and take effect afterwards.

  Healer’s Resistance

  (Special Ability, Uncommon, active)

  You may spend a Durability Token to resist damage from a Nakamamon or godly being. Long term effects are reduced by 75%. Onsets of all diseases, venoms, poisons, or other afflictions are tripled, as are intervals. Lasts one day.

  You may spend an Ingenuity Token to gift this ability to a willing target for one day.

  Onset was the time these things took to start damaging you, and the interval was how often the damage recycled. This would be extremely useful the next time I went ahead and tried to pet a god, or was sideswiped. Triple the onset sounded good, until you considered that a box jellyfish could kill you almost instantly.

  Cross fingers that nothing here was box jellyfish or blue-ringed octopus deadly.

  Oh, who was I kidding? I gave up on the silly wishful thinking and read on.

  Ability upgrade was exactly what it seemed like: I could boost one of my special abilities into whatever it would become next. In scrolling over the three abilities at my disposal, I tried to assess which of them would be the most beneficial to upgrade. Usually you went with the highest rarity, since it would upgrade the best. Meaning Healer’s Resistance should prove to be the best shot for upgrading.

  I looked over the upgraded versions of Hard At Work and Healer’s Endurance just in case.

  Hard At Work presently doubled my Token successes while doing my css job, which was huge. The upgraded version made it so assisting someone at their job only cost me 2 Tokens instead of 3, effectively reducing the difficulty of a task they were doing. Not nearly as good as I’d hoped, but also not bad. Larelle and Tara had both helped at a rate of 3:1.

  The upgraded version of Healer’s Endurance added a 25% boost to hit points if I spent a Durability token.

  In both cases I had the option of 2 new ways of spending Tokens, and one of them made me a bit tankier.

  Healer’s Resistance, the uncommon power, gave me the same deal: spend a Durability Token, and this time it would grant me a 30% resistance to whatever element that was dealing me damage, along with a 30% damage reduction against that same element.

  All three of these seemed pretty great, and I couldn’t be sure which would come in handy. I wanted advice about these from Rainer. I also wanted to see his mustache face again, and ask him about whether I’d be transferred out of here and start doing house calls like Regina thought. So for now, just left that.

  As for my 2 Attribute points, I was sorely tempted to go with Physicality again and turn myself slowly but surely into an Adonis. Still, it seemed like Affinity was extremely important, because of magic being absolutely everywhere.

  I’d gotten one Affinity from Level 9. I could afford a point in Physicality.

  Christopher Fletcher

  Healer - Trainee 10

  Pleasure Seeker - Novice 5

  Attributes:

  Affinity 4 (4/4)

  Durability 5 (5/5)

  Ingenuity 6 (6/6)

  Likability 5 (5/5)

  Physicality 4 (4/4)

  Free Tokens: 6/6

  Unspent attributes points: 1

  Healer Skills:

  Diagnosis (physical 3, spiritual 3, magical 3, mental 3)

  Treatment (potions 2, salves 2, tinctures 2, elixirs 2, unguents 2)

  Develop cure (swarm 3)

  Develop cure (small 3)

  Develop cure (unique 7)

  Administer Cure 7

  All other skills unranked

  Unspent skill points: 11

  Special Abilities:

  Hard At Work II (Uncommon, Passive)

  Wild Lore (Common, Active)

  Healer Special Abilities:

  Healer’s Endurance (Common, Active)

  Healer’s Resistance (Uncommon, Active)

  Divine Gifts:

  Floral Knowledge (Rare, Passive)

  Pleasure’s Bounty (Legendary, active)

  Entwined Ecstasy (Legendary, active)

  When I looked over the level up rewards for Pleasure Seeker, everything was different.

  Level 2: +1 Likability

  Level 3: Gained Ability: Hard At Work

  Level 4: +2 skill points

  Level 5: +1 Durability, +1 free Attribute point

  The progression seemed far better than the basic Healer css, with Attribute points coming twice in four levels. Healer attribute points came at levels 4 and 9, though it was 4 total points.

  Also, Hard At Work upgraded itself to level 2 from getting it twice. I had to grin at the idea of what Hard At Work meant for a Healer versus what it meant for a Pleasure Seeker. Anyway, it meant I would be getting the 2:1 assistance ratio for helping out others with their checks, and I didn’t need to spend my level 10 Healer upgrade on it.

  I left my st Attribute point for now. My stats were far higher than they had been just a few days ago, and I didn’t know where this one needed to go… yet. I’d figure it out soon. Same with the skill points. I wanted to have some handy in case I found myself trying to treat a Nakamamon made of rocks or nightmares, or something even crazier.

  I was brought out of all the system stuff when Regina’s finger began to circle my nipple. She had seemed pretty dazed after our encounter. “You’re going to fork that other girl, aren’t you?” she asked.

  I just looked down the length of my body, with her leg draped over my torso and her thatch of pubic hair slowly grinding onto my hip again and again. I looked back up into her eyes.

  “You want me to, don’t you?” She wanted me to do Tara. The idea turned her on.

  “You really won’t think I’m a sludge, will you?”

  “I promise, unless you’re fracking half the people in the castle on a regur basis, I won’t think you’re a sludge.”

  She chuckled and continued slowly gyrating against me. “Half, huh? I think I can up my game and start fracking, um… about a hundred people in the castle on a regur basis. That’ll be well under half.”

  “Please don’t,” I told her, also ughing. “Just so long as you don’t think I’m a sludge either.”

  “You? Pff, you’re like the farthest thing from a pyboy there is. Which is why I have to tell you, I’m a bit surprised and delighted by this whole thing.”

  “Delighted?”

  “I kind of want to corrupt you. You’re so pure. You don’t have any vices.” She got up and straddled me, holding my arms up over my head and hanging her hair around me like a curtain. “The question isn’t whether you’re going to have sex with this mysterious other girl.” Out of the side of her mouth, she said, “although I totally have enough details to figure out who she is if I wanted to.”

  “What is the question?”

  “The question is whether or not I’m going to be there. And then the second question is whether or not I’ll be joining.”

  ***

  I struggled to use the brush on the stones in the boratory. It had been hours, and for whatever reason, the bubbles here didn’t seem to want to stop multiplying. It was like one of those horribly funny videos about a bathtub overflowing with bubbles, or adding bubble bath to a hot tub.

  And it was already a full day after we’d failed with this version of the cure.

  I had been inclined to ugh about it when it was suggested that I help clean up, and I ughed even louder when the scrubbing started. I had a long-handled brush, like a dust mop but with Rainer’s thick, bristly mustache stuck on the end. My mood turned when the hours began to pass without any change, matching the sour faces of the other attendants they’d put on this job.

  “Sorry, everybody,” I told them, but I only got sullen and dark looks in response.

  Tara didn’t seem to mind the work, but Timmy and his two buddies hated it. They also responded badly to Tara’s familiarity with me, scowling while they pushed frothing bubbles into a fire Nakamamon who popped them and did nothing else. Eventually, I saw some whispering happening between Timmy and one of the other runners, and I had to tell her to scale back the flirting a little.

  “We can talk ter,” I whispered.

  “You got it, big guy,” she said, then went and was her super bubbly self with Timmy and the other runners.

  Rainer joined us in the cleanup effort, initially jolly about being saved. Soon though, he begged off, saying he was exhausted from too much strain on his body over the st two solid days of being on death’s door.

  “You take a rest,” Tara said, and led him out. “You don’t have to worry about this little nonsense at all. We’re all going to be just fine, all right?”

  “Fine?” Timmy grumped. “Fine? Why is it we get all the garbage menial jobs, and that guy gets to go…” He trailed off, seeing the expression I was giving him.

  “Is there a way to change your css from Ranger to Healer?” I asked.

  “Hey, you, if you’d have done your job right, we wouldn’t be here at all,” one of Timmy’s buddies said.

  “And if you two had been Healers in the first pce, I’m sure you would’ve done a much better job,” Tara said, chin jutting at them. “Now shut your yaps and get back to scrubbing, before I remind you, again, that Fletcher doesn’t have to be here at all, and he’s doing us a favor helping out. What a nice guy who could probably stand to get a reward for all his hard work and kindness, and his bravery for choosing the only dangerous job in this whole pce.”

  The other three fell darkly silent, and the next several hours were spent in growing pain from every part of my body, but especially my legs and back. The scrub brush wasn’t quite long enough, so I had to bend over a little, and that was enough to turn several hours of scrubbing from painful into unbearable. Still, I couldn’t just let Timmy and the boys do the work. There could be no giving up.

  Finally, after what felt like an eternity, we had isoted the source of the bubble production, and threw it in front of the fire Nakamamon for it to roast.

  A fresh gout of frothy bubbles spurted out and covered half the room, but they didn’t spread any further than that.

  “I’m calling it!” I said. “You guys can come back after a meal, or come back tomorrow. We did the majority of the work, and we’re okay for now.”

  “Tara, you coming?” Timmy’s friend called.

  “I’ll get Larelle's magmamander back to her first,” she said. “You guys go on ahead.”

  The disappointment turned all three of them frosty once more, and they didn’t waste any time in getting the funk out of there. I boosted myself up onto the workbench to get the bubbles off myself, since they’d coated me almost up to my knees.

  Tara came sauntering over, smiling. She had swapped the flesh-toned yoga pants for stark white yoga pants, which I found both funny and cute. Staring at her long legs now, it wasn’t cute. It was very sexy, especially when she did a pirouette and threw her blonde hair up. Up top, the shirt no longer hung over her hips and part of her butt. Instead it was a form-fitting zip up hoodie. Although it was thick and comfy, it somehow made her look sexy regardless.

  “Well, big guy, it’s just you and me.”

  I burst out ughing. “I think you’re incredibly attractive, but there’s no way we can do anything here and now. The door is open, the pce is full of bubbles, Larelle’s magmamander is still in here somewhere under all that, and she’ll come looking for him sooner rather than ter.”

  The realization that a sorority goddess was hitting on me should have frozen my insides and stopped my heart from beating, but instead I just got butterflies in my stomach.

  Just.

  I had been inside her. Hell, I had bsted off inside her multiple times. Repying the scenes in my head did not make her actions now any more understandable. Her expnations made sense intellectually, but made zero sense instinctively. She was just going to test me out in bed.

  Just for the sake of scientific curiosity.

  “So,” she asked conversationally. “Did you have a talk with your not-exactly girlfriend? I think you did.” She grinned and squinted. “I’m reading… yes. Wow that must have taken some serious balls. Dagnabbit, Fletcher, you sly dog. You know, I’m surprised I haven’t heard your name all over the castle, I mean I guess I have. People are talking about the new Healer. I’m more surprised that nobody’s come up to me going ‘oh my gods I can’t believe you and Fletcher!’ Which means you haven’t told anyone. And I can say that with confidence because I get some pretty insane jobs all over the castle, top and bottom. So, big guy, you have to tell me. What did she say? Did you tell her who I am?”

  I would’ve ughed at just how much she could go on, but instead I checked the hallways for listeners.

  “I didn’t tell her your name, but she could probably find out if she did any kind of digging. I wasn’t very careful.”

  She waved that way. “Okay I keep going too fast. What did she say? I have to know, you’ve got me on pins and needles here, Fletcher.”

  “She’s… interested in talking about, maybe, um… being there. With us.”

  Tara’s eyes shot wide open. “Holy spaceballs, Fletcher. Are you sure this isn’t a set up to find out who I am? No, I don’t think so. If she was into revenge and wanted to figure me out, she’d just find out who was on duty to go grab up pnts and herbs with you. Meaning… she really does want to be there?”

  Her face went sck as she thought through all this.

  “Is she bi then? Holy mackerel, Fletcher, did you nd yourself a freak?”

  I faked a cough as someone rounded the corner of the hallway, and I changed the topic to types of Nakamamon she wanted for her companion.

  “Oh, I’d really prefer one that makes me hard to see. If there’s a psychic one that can mask us from people’s minds that would be so cool. I don’t really want to be out in the wider world without any kind of escape pn. I mean obviously everyone wants a flier, but then you have to go on certain missions all the time. They keep relegating the fliers to the Guards and you Healers. I’m okay not getting— okay are we good to talk the other thing?”

  She looked around, and sighed. We’d entered a more poputed section of the castle.

  “I want something fluffy, like Regina,” she said. “Ugh, she’s so lucky doing the guide missions back to the portal. I’m thinking about whether or not I want something small that I could carry and cuddle, or something a lot bigger.” She gave my arm a quick squeeze. “I really like big, if you know what I mean. Bigger being better.”

  “You are incorrigible.”

  She grinned at me, and let go of my arm several seconds ter than she should’ve. “Big and cuddly, if I have my choice. Real big, real cuddly.”

  I just shook my head.

  This is Christopher not believing his luck.