QM: Behold the fruits of writers block, boredom and a muse that insists on playing with certain characters before it does anything else. This is (hopefully) going to be a quest of quick, shortish updates that doesn't take itself too seriously. It's sort of Flexible Survival inspired, but only in broad strokes.
April 1st, 2011. For most of the world, unremarkable except as the date of yet another disaster. But for those who had the misfortune to be in Brockton Bay on that date, it is F-Day. And it is the day the Infection arrived in the city.
Early in the morning, an exceptionally thick fog rolled in off the Bay, apparently no different than many others before it. And if many people woke up exceptionally horny that morning, they thought nothing of it. Even when the fog was still blanketing the city as people started leaving the house in earnest, it was irritating but not remarkable. The first signs something more than bad weather was afoot came in the form of countless rumours of people getting lost and somehow ending up in places it made no sense for them to have reached. Most spectacularly, anyone whose course would take them out of the city supposedly found it taking them into the centre instead. Then by mid-morning, rumours of public indecency abounded, escalating rapidly from people masturbating in the street to multi-person open air orgies between complete strangers, large portions of the population suddenly seeming to care about nothing more than getting as much sex as possible, as soon as possible. Finally, in the early afternoon, the first rumours of transformations began to circulate. Men suddenly growing large breasts, women sprouting feathers on their arms, pets suddenly becoming bipedal, and other, stranger, changes spread throughout the city.
A powder keg on its best day, the situation in Brockton Bay quickly deteriorated as accusations of responsibility flew between the gangs, the authorities and the regular populace. By the morning of April 2nd, open gang warfare had already begun, and in the days that followed, between the changes and panic caused by the Infection and the actions of those who sought to turn the situation to their advantage, the city quickly descended into chaos.
You, however, know very little of this, despite being Amy Dallon, aka Panacea, super Parahuman healer and the sort of person you'd expect to be called in first to deal with an unnatural super infection, for two very good reasons. Firstly, you got spectacularly fucking lost somehow when walking down the drive to collect the post, resulting in a hilarious morning of wandering around in your pyjamas and slippers, trying to find your way back home, or failing that, to a working payphone. Secondly, the Infection tried to, well, infect you around noon, your powers tried to fight it off and things got...weird. You remember feeling feverish, but also really horny, and seeing some really bizarre shit while stumbling through the fog like a drunk, most of which you're pretty sure you hallucinated (dancing whales in space has to be a hallucination, right?). You don't know when you blacked out, but you're pretty sure stuff you don't remember has happened, given that you're currently stark naked in a basement somewhere, covered in a thin layer of rapidly vanishing goop and stark fucking naked. Also, given the light coming though the small windows, it appears to be dawn, so you've lost most of a day - at least.
The thin, fog-filtered light also reveals you're not alone in the basement of goop (or in your nudity). Looking around, you see four bodies sprawled out on floor, some stirring slightly, some snoring faintly (Pick 4):
[Party] A tall, long haired blonde young woman with a fantastic ass.
(Possibly you should feel guilty about being able to recognise your sister's naked ass at a glance?)
Spoiler: Stat Block
Unlocks hitting things hard.
[Party] A reasonably athletic blond boy of above average height.
(Ugh, far more of Dean than you ever wanted to see. It's bad enough hearing about it!)
Spoiler: Stat Block
Unlocks raging jealously.
[Party] A tallish boy with red hair, slightly thin but in good shape.
(It would be wrong to give him lockjaw to avoid the jokes. It would be wrong to give him lockjaw to avoid the jokes.)
Spoiler: Stat Block
Unlocks easier captures.
[Party] A dark-haired young man, tallish and relatively muscular.
(Well, he's certainly...here? You suppose that's good?)
Spoiler: Stat Block
Unlocks a tank.
[Party] A short girl with dark blonde hair, in very good shape for her age.
(Sleeping Vista is adorable. Awake Vista having been told sleeping Vista is adorable is hilarious.)
Spoiler: Stat Block
Unlocks fast travel.
[Party] A fairly pretty, somewhat athletic young woman with dark blonde hair.
(For someone you've never seen before, her sleeping face is irritatingly smug)
Spoiler: Stat Block
Unlocks item identification.
[Party] A thin teenaged prettyboy with dark, curly hair.
(Something about this guy makes you think he's not the sort to freak out about waking up naked with random people.)
Spoiler: Stat Block
Unlocks someone to do unethical shit.
[Party] A tall, slightly scrawny girl with long, curly dark hair.
(Hello, random stranger, I'm Panacea and I'll be nude in a basement with you today!)
Spoiler: Stat Block
Unlocks local mini-map.
[Party] A fairly average looking young girl with dark brown hair.
(The only thing worse than waking up near a random naked preteen is recognising them as the mayor's niece.)
Spoiler: Stat Block
Unlocks detailed odds of success.
You've just about had time to take in who you're sharing a basement with when the first of them come more-or-less awake. The noise starts at that point, and goes on for some time.
Eventually, you reach the limits people's ability to shout wildly, and can come to an agreement that there are vital questions that need answering - What was going on before you passed out? How long have you been unconscious for? Why are you all here? Where is here? Is there food somewhere around here? Is there underwear somewhere around here?
The basement contains the answers to none of these questions, but the fog isn't quite as thick as the last thing you remember, so with some careful exploration of the building above your basement and even more careful peering through windows, you're able to work out roughly where you are. Probably.
You are (Pick 1):
[Location] On the edge of Lord's Market
(Excellent starting salvage, stronger random encounters, not suitable for a long term base, dangers on all sides.)
[Location] Winslow High School
(Good starting salvage, organised opponents on random encounter table, currently inhabited by unfriendly people, threats on about half its sides.)
[Location] In one of the outbuildings of Brockton Bay General Hospital
(Moderate starting salvage, Significant Infection exposures on random encounter table, best place to find records straightaway, safe-ish surroundings.)
[Location] ...How did you not recognise your own basement?
(Poor starting salvage, standard random encounters, lots of investigation leads, safe surroundings.)
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Last edited: Jun 21, 2020
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ava2607, THECKING, Randomtrol and 158 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 1, Part 1 (Dawn)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
Spoiler: Rolls
"Right, so the first thing we need to do is work out how we ended up naked in a high school basement." Vicky says, once the initial panic has died down and everyone has introduced themselves. She's floating cross legged a little way in the air, and since "It's all girls here." she's being gloriously unconcerned about her bare breasts. "What's the last thing everyone remembers clearly? And when? I was flying around looking for Amy about...five-ish? Late afternoon, for sure."
"I was trying to get back home after somehow walking down our drive and onto the Boardwalk." You say when no one else looks like volunteering. "It was a little after noon, my powers suddenly picked up a weird organism around me, and then everything turns into a trip the Merchants wish they could sell." You keep wanting to gesture with your arms, only to remember as you start to move that you need them where they are to cover things up. You must like you've got some kind twitch, and the look on Vicky's face suggests much teasing will happen, once you're safe enough for it to be funny.
"I was getting a lift back home after the Youth Guard made Piggot take us off the streets due to 'Potential exposure to Obscenity'. So a little after three. I think the van stopped suddenly?" Missy answers next, after a moment where she clearly worries what's safe to give away before remembering she briefly turned the basement into an Escher painting when she woke up, so hiding Vista's identity isn't really a concern at this point.
"Um...about an hour earlier for me." Dinah's voice is quiet, the younger girl having screamed herself hoarse before recognising Vicky (given you woke her up, the whole thing's little irritating to remember). "My uncle sent someone to get me from school, but the driver got lost on the way back. They pulled over to try and get directions, but someone grabbed them. There were people trying to smash the windows on one side of the car, so I got out the other door and ran."
"I was, well, here." Taylor says. The tall girl seems most bothered of all of you by being nude - she's backed herself into a corner and is sitting hunched in on herself even more tightly than Dinah. "It was just after lunch finished, around two fifteen. Sophia came through the door of the classroom - literally through, like a smoky black ghost - and attacked me. Scratched the hee-ck out of my arms like she had claws and I... Probably outed myself as a Parahuman to the whole school by setting every bug I could on her to buy time to get away. Sh-eet."
"You can swear, you know." Missy interjects as Taylor hurriedly changes what she was going to say again. There's an awkward pause as the other girl fails to respond, which turns to an alarmed one as her face goes slack and her eyes glaze over. You leap to your feet, afraid she's having some kind of seizure...
And end up plunging forward when your foot slips on a patch of still drying goop, at the same time as Taylor suddenly springs to her feet. A jumbled moment later, you're sprawled out full length on the floor, something warm and soft pressing against the sides of your head, nose poking into something warmer, softer and damp, vision full of short, curly dark hair. For a brief moment, you think you've somehow managed to shove your nose into your new acquaintance's mouth. Then you realise the uncertain, pleased-yet-angry noises you're hearing are coming from some way above your head. You shuffle carefully back slightly, and are rewarded with what you can now see are Taylor's knees clamping hard around your head before you can get all the way out of a much lower set of lips than the ones you were thinking of. You can just about see Taylor's face turning a shade of red you normally only see on people explaining how, exactly, a lawn gnome got wedged in so tightly as to require Parahuman assistance, and you're pretty sure your face is the same colour.
It should be easy for the two of you to untangle yourselves, but Taylor seems too shocked to move and you don't dare to move enough to pull free, plus a small but annoying part of your brain is distracting you by alternating wildly between joy at the fact you're a twitch away from tasting a girl's pussy for the first time, and despairing that the girl isn't Vicky.
"Well I never! There are children present, Miss Dallon!"
Vicky's call, in full "Outraged old church lady" falsetto, breaks the fragile stillness griping the two of you, and you jerk apart, Taylor pressing up against the wall while you scrabble backwards on your hands and knees. Then you realise the view you're giving the rest of the room while doing so, jump to your feet, quickly realise no matter what you do with your hands it's not much better, and resort to trying to project an aura of "Nothing Happened" as you walk back to where you were sitting earlier. Missy and Dinah seem willing to go along with it, both looking politely away from you and Taylor while looking mildly embarrassed themselves, but the smirk on Vicky's face makes it plain she's only holding back the teasing for now. (Worse, there's not even a hint she found any of what just happened stimulating, just funny. A girl you've known less than half an hour and two twelve year olds have officially shown more interest in checking you out more than your beloved sister.)
There's a long pause as Vicky looks around with a shit-eating grin while everyone else shuffles awkwardly in place, then Taylor lifts her head and starts talking in the hurried, clipped way of someone who wants to get it over with so she can go back to hiding until the earth swallows her, please and thank you.
"So. I'm a Parahuman. I control bugs. And sense them. My range is generally a couple of blocks. There are no bugs in my range. None. That's impossible. Especially here. There were enough bugs in the walls I could avoid them blindfolded."
That's...worrying. You can't think of much that could do that while leaving your surroundings as intact as they looked in the glimpses you could see, and none of that much would leave the five of you alive. Excluding "Some new, extra weird bullshit power", but that's only slightly more helpful than throwing your hands up and blaming aliens.
"It gets...worse? Weirder?" Taylor continues after a moment for her words to sink in. "My powers have...changed. I tried to reach out for bugs when I realised I couldn't feel any earlier and... It was like a computer rebooting, but in my head. And then I could sense...everything."
"Everything?" Vicky asks, incredulously, seconds ahead of Missy.
"Everything that's not moving much, at the very least. It's like I've got a map of everything in a block or so in my head. I might be filling in some of the details since I know the area, but I can tell you there are thirty seven cars in the parking lot, and they're probably been abandoned because there's an overturned bus blocking the road, so it's not just stuff I already knew."
None of the windows face towards the front of the school, so if that turns out to be accurate, it's pretty good proof of what she's saying. Well, you suppose she could fake getting that information through a sense of the surroundings with the scale of bug control she implied having earlier, but you can think of no good reason anyone would. Vicky still looks sceptical, but before you can say anything, Dinah mutters something quietly to herself, then speaks more loudly.
"Ninety seven percent chance telling you all helps." As you blink at the non-sequitur, she continues. "I believe I am a Parahuman too. Since a few weeks ago I've had a board in my head, one with thousands and thousands of coloured panels on it, and when I hear a question about something happening in the future, the panels all start flipping, and when they stop I get a percentage chance of whatever it is happening. And my power says there's a ninety three percent chance there will be thirty seven cars in the parking lot when we go look. I only get numbers in the nineties for things I could work out will happen soon even without my powers, or almost certain things like it raining here at some point in the next year."
In the silence that follow, you fancy you can hear the needle pinging against the top of the Thinker scale. Precog powers are generally considered strong, informative and reliable if you can ask if it will rain next week, get the answer "Taupe" and have this mean rain next week two times out of three. A power like the one Dinah apparently has is so far beyond that it's buzzing the Simurgh in orbit.
"Okay, all five of us are Parahumans. That can't be a coincidence." Vicky says at last. "But only three of us are Capes, which...it's not impossible someone realised the two of you had powers even if you weren't advertising them, but if someone was putting that sort of effort into identifying Parahumans, I wouldn't expect them to just leave us in a basement to wake up after they made their move. Plus, if they were looking for female, teenaged Parahumans, I'd expect... With all the weirdness with the fog, we could have all ended up near something with an area of effect, but I'd expect her to get caught too... Taylor, the Sophia you mentioned - is she a black girl, about your age and height, with an attitude like she blames you for the cactus shoved up her butt?"
You and Missy both snicker, remembering when the younger girl coined that phrase to describe Shadow...Stalk...er... ... ...You can never admit to Vicky how long you took to realise what (who) she was thinking of. Taylor practically spelled out her powers in her story! (You can't even blame distraction, since the "distraction" Vicky will jump to is even worse teasing material!)
"Er...Yes, she is. How did you-?" Taylor looks bewildered at the turn the conversation has taken..
"Short version is she's also a Parahuman. So unless there was a lot of time between you getting away from her and the last thing you remember?" Taylor shakes her head. "Then I can't think of anything targeted that would hit us and not her."
"It could be the Empire." You point out, mostly to play devil's advocate.
"Nah. Even if Kaiser huffed enough jackboot polish to make grabbing a Ward out of a PRT van sound like a good idea, he'd have sense enough not leave a group like this alone to wake up and plan." Your sister responds, flippantly but accurately.
"I have a number of concerns related to Sophia fucking Hess being a Parahuman the heroes in the room know the first name of without her being locked up somewhere, but I've got other things to worry about first." Taylor says, uncurling to look at the heroes in the room with surprising menace. "Just to make sure, Sophia's power doesn't let her turn into a cat or anything like that, does it?" You shake your head."Okay. When Sophia attacked me, it wasn't 'like' she had claws, she actually had claws. Coming out the paws she had for hands all of a sudden."
"That's..." Vicky blinks in shock, and it takes her a few goes to continue. "Right, part of the reason Mum let me go looking for Amy again despite getting nowhere earlier was the hospitals calling about people showing up with strange changes to their bodies. She didn't tell me any details, though."
"I heard rumours about that." Missy says. "It was mostly Clock passing along 'People on PHO say they've seen people who saw...' but something had a lot of the PRT staff whispering to each other and shutting up fast if they noticed anyone getting close enough to overhear. The bits I caught sounded like that sort of thing."
"Not that it's not worrying to hear about, but does it matter at the moment?" You ask. When you get confused looks in response, you continue. "I mean, it's plain to see at the moment that none of us have grown tails or anything, so it doesn't make a difference to our immediate situation, does it?" Vicky and Missy, at least, look like they want to argue that, but can't think of a good objections.
"We could be about to?" Vicky volunteers at last, uncertainly. "Like, whatever was happening didn't hit everyone at the same time, so it could still..." She trails off.
"But Amy could check, right? Our body getting ready to sprout scales would be obvious, wouldn't it?" Missy suggests. In normal circumstances, you'd expect the signs of sudden scales sprouting to be hard to miss, yes. Something tells you it might not be that easy, but checking everyone can't hurt.
You start with your sister, and what your powers tell you has you frowning in short order. You ask her to wait when she asks what you found, wanting to check the others before you say anything. Missy and Dinah give you the same weird and worrying results as Vicky, with the extra puzzle of Missy's scars having vanished, but it's examining Taylor's body that confirms you're seeing what you think you're seeing. It also lets you put some of your memories from before you blacked out into context, and make sense of some of the odd things you've felt through your powers since walking up.
As the others listen in appalled silence, you explain what you've found. All of your bodies, practically down to the cell, are absolutely teaming with some kind of strange organism, like nothing your power has ever seen before. It's too complicated and coordinated to be a bacteria, but far too small to be any sort of normal organism. You're pretty sure that despite it being too big for "natural" airborne spread, the original strain of it you were all exposed to was airborne. None of you have that strain any more though - your powers apparently couldn't stop the original version from infecting you, but they could modify it into something much safer and less transmissible. How that strain got into the others though, you've no idea. Why it apparently made you all strip and hide in a basement is a puzzle, too. The now mostly dried goop covering you all and the room when you woke up was apparently a by-product of your modified strain fighting the original one off, so at least that's explained!
You stop for a second, aware you'd started sounding a bit manic towards the end, and look at how the others are taking it. Everyone looks some combination of shocked and worried, but no one looks disbelieving or has asked if you're "sure" at least. Once you've regained a bit of composure, you continue on with the really worrying bit.
The original strain and your modified one are not the only ones - Taylor has traces of a third strain, one almost certainly contracted through the now healed scratches on her arms. You can't know for sure because the traces are too small to examine clearly, and you don't remember enough details of the original strain to compare properly, but it's pretty likely the third strain was a natural mutation of the original one, and you doubt it was the only one. The bad news is your powers don't seem to work fully on whatever the organism at the root of all this is, so if anyone does get infected with another strain, you're unlikely to be able to help much in fighting it off. The good news is that "your" strain appears to be bolstering your immune systems, so hopefully you're all less likely to be infected by any other strains you encounter. Which is not a licence to be reckless about exposure, Vicky. (When you get a chance, you also need to talk privately with Taylor and warn her to be careful, since her immune system seems strained, like she's recovering from a recent illness, so she's likely more vulnerable to infection.)
(There are a couple of things you your powers are telling you about potential effects of the strains you're not going to bring up, at least until you have more evidence that they're actually possibilities. Asking a group consisting of two pre-teens, a relative stranger you nearly accidently gave oral to, and your beautiful, naked sister who appears as frustratingly straight as ever if they woke up feeling hella gay this morning, because you may have accidently created infectious lesbianism... You might actually die of mortification. And approaching people privately to ask will just come off as creepy as fuck, given the current circumstances.)
After a couple of questions from the others to clarify what you learned, the group falls into a pensive silence. It stretches for several minutes, presumably because everyone is as unsure as you are what to actually do with the new information. Then Missy stretches an arm towards the wall furthest away from anyone, which starts to warp in eye-twisting (and slightly stomach-churning) ways. After a few moments of thoroughly mangling space in the area, the young Ward releases the effect and speaks.
"Whatever the organism Panacea found is, it's everywhere still. It doesn't block my powers, I think it's too small, but it's enough that I feel a little resistance, like I'm trying to use them slightly too close to something alive. It's in the wall, too, not just on it, and it goes a way into the dirt behind it."
"I think it might be mostly inside the wall." You say, after concentrating on what you can feel where your bare skin touches the floor (This the first and hopefully last time you've used your powers through your butt). "I don't feel enough of it for there to be a layer on top of surfaces - come to think of it, I'm not picking up the sort of stuff I normally would on a surface - no bacteria or anything like that." It seems weirder and weirder the more you think about it once you realise, and you think you know how Taylor must have felt, feeling "No Bugs At All" earlier. Even in the cleanest of hospitals, "No Bacteria At All" just doesn't happen.
"Can you try warping the wall again, Missy?" Taylor requests suddenly, shortly after you speak. Missy looks puzzled by the question, but does so, and a few seconds her mouth falls open in surprise and she twists to stare at Taylor. The patch of wall about a foot across that stands out as the only un-warped part of the wall gives you a pretty good idea why.
"Most of its easier, but it's like that one bit of wall is alive. How did...?"
"My powers seem to let me control the...what-ever-it-is. It took me a bit to figure out, and it's nowhere near as easy as with bugs, plus it doesn't move all that quickly, but it seems to work. Amy, I've moved as much of it was I can into a layer on top of the that bit of wall, can you check how your powers read it?" Taylor's voice and body language become much more confident as she speaks, and she shifts out of her corner and into a non-hunched up sitting position for the first time.
Touching the wall, you find you can clearly feel the organism. There's a very slight amount of traces of "your" strain, but most of it is the "basic" strain. You think. It's in some kind of closed up, semi-active state that somehow stops you from getting a proper read on it, which is weird and rather annoying. Did whoever created the stuff deliberately include things to thwart your powers, somehow, or is it just coincidence?
"Wait, wait, waaait." Vicky bursts out just after you tell the others what you found and sit down again. "Taylor, you can control this stuff, right? And there's a kind of this stuff in us, right? So can you control us?"
Taylor immediately wilts out of her confident posture. "I was trying not to think of that." She says in a small voice. "I don't think so? I can feel it in you, sort of, but it's really... Faint isn't the right word, I'm sure I could pick you out anywhere in my range, but it's less...present, somehow. I have more of a grasp on the fog outside."
"Good. That's, err, good." Vicky responds, awkwardly. Seeing the way Taylor has drawn in on herself again, you kind of want to say something to comfort her, but you can't really think of anything better than "Hey, don't worry! My power has scary implications I resolutely ignore, too!" which is...no.
Silence reigns in your basement again for several minutes after that, then Missy jumps up and claps her hands.
"Okay, we're not going to get any further sitting here trying not to look at each other. Taylor, I know you said you weren't sure about moving things earlier, do you have a better idea now?"
"I... It's hard to be sure without anything to compare it to, but I think I'd get at least some idea? I think I've felt things pass through the edges of my range a couple of times since my powers, ah, rebooted." The dark haired girl answers after thinking for a moment. "There's no one in the building with us, as far as I can tell." She says before the Ward can ask, then frowns and continues. "On the lower floors, at least. There's a couple of big concentrations of, err, stuff on the top floor and roof - if someone's in those and not moving much, I'm not sure I'd notice."
"Good enough for now. Do you know if there's a battery powered radio anywhere in the building?" Missy asks, and Taylor's brows furrow in concentration for a minute before she answers.
"There's a radio in the staff room but I don't know what it runs on. The one in Principle Blackwell's office is plugged into the mains, but I've seen a portable one on her secretary's desk a few times. That's on the top floor, though. Oh! There's one in the janitor's office, and that's right next to the stairs to this basement."
"This basement?" You ask.
"Even if it is tiny, you wouldn't expect the school to leave this place mostly empty if it was the only basement they had, would you? I think this might be meant as overflow storage for cleaning stuff or lab chemicals, not that Winslow can afford enough of those to worry about 'overflow'." You had wondered why a school basement was a small, empty concrete cube with a very heavy door, but it hadn't seemed important enough to ask about.
In the time it takes Taylor to answer your question, Missy moves from where she's standing to the top of the stairs in a single step, makes the door at the top shrink into an eye watering blur, looks through the doorway for second, vanishes from sight with another step, and moments later is back where she started, a small, stained and battered looking portable radio in her hands. She turns it on, frowns slightly when it produces nothing but static, then tunes it to a channel that seems to play nothing but a repeating series of twelve tones. They don't mean anything to you, but something about them makes Missy and Vicky look very worried after they've played through a few times.
"Is that the pattern I think it is?" Vicky asks.
"If you think it's the situation completely, utterly, fucked pattern, yes." The younger blonde responds, and the two look pensively at each other.
"Um...Missy? What are we listening to? And what does it mean?" Dinah asks, just as you open your mouth to ask if there's anything the two of them would like to share with the rest of the class.
"PRT discreet status channel." The Ward answers distractedly. "For getting an idea what's going on if direct contact is impossible or too risky. What it's playing at the moment is the code for 'Active threat, local PRT headquarters compromised, local authorities compromised, no outside help expected'. It's about the worst one in the book that doesn't involve Endbringers."
"The good news." Vicky says with forced cheer as you're processing. "Is that it being on the channel means, quote, 'All PRT and Protectorate staff and affiliates are allowed and required to take whatever steps are necessary to insure the survival of themselves and as many civilians as possible', end quote. Now, I might be bullet proof regardless, but I doubt anyone will argue 'being naked' is a survival issue. So, not only may we ransack this place for some goddamn pants, we are positively encouraged to do so!"
Your sister floats over to Taylor, pulls her to her feet and slings an arm over her shoulder, prompting the other girl to flush with embarrassment while you try not to seethe with jealousy. Especially since the two are about the same height, and the dark haired girl can't seem to help but sneak glances at the point where the side of Vicky's generous chest press against her far flatter one. Vicky seems completely unaware of any potential awkwardness, instead grinning widely as she continues.
"You know the lay of the land, T. Where's the hot place in Winslow High to pick up some new threads?"
There are a number of places in Winslow you can find useful stuff, even without heading to the potentially less safe upper floors. Between the layout of the school and blocked halls, none of the locations are particularly convenient to each other. Every location after the first has a 25% chance of a random encounter afterwards, which may or may not prevent further looting (75% chance of combat, results will determine if looting is interrupted). Vote for the order the party will try to visit the locations in by rank ([1, [2, [3, etc):
]Changing Rooms
5 rolls on Clothing loot table, 1d55 additional rolls with chance to roll on the following loot tables: Clothing(60%)\Carrying(25%)\Hygiene(10%)\Valuables(5%).
]Cafeteria
5 rolls on Food loot table, 1d5 additional rolls with chance to roll on the following loot tables: Food(70%)\Carrying(25%)\Valuables(5%).
]Main Basement
2d10 rolls with chance to roll on the following loot tables: Tools(25%)\Equipment(25%)\Carrying(20%)\Food(15%)\Clothes(10%)\Valuables(5%)
]Staff Room
5 rolls, one on each loot table for room, 1d10 additional rolls with chance to roll on the following loot tables: Information(40%)\Valuables(20%)\Random(15%)\Food(15%)\Comfort(10%)
]Gym Stores
2d10 rolls with chance to roll on the following loot tables: Equipment(35%)\Carrying(35%)\Clothes(25%)\Random(5%)
]Lockers West
1d103 rolls with chance to roll on the following loot tables: Random(50%)\Comfort(20%)\Information(15%)\Hygiene(10%)\Clothes(5%)
]Lockers East
1d103 rolls with chance to roll on the following loot tables: Random(50%)\Hygiene(20%)\Comfort(15%)\Information(10%)\Valuables(5%)
QM: To be clear, you're guaranteed to loot rooms 1 and 2 successfully, and even if there's a random encounter after room 2, it doesn't automatically mean you won't hit room 3 or later.
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Last edited: Jun 27, 2020
Jun 14, 2020 ReportLike QuoteReply
ava2607, Randomtrol, ZhaWarudo and 186 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 1, Part 2 (Still Dawn)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: Apparently my muse and I have different ideas what "shortish" updates look like.
Spoiler: Rolls
Leaving the basement and heading out into the corridors of Winslow is less awkward than you would have guessed, if for some reason you were asked before all this how you'd expect to feel wandering naked around a school with four other girls. Part of it is having a goal in mind, you think, and part of it is the touch of unreality the sheer quiet and stillness of the building gives things, but the biggest thing is simply that you've been awake for nearly half an hour now, and in that time you've seen (and given) enough accidental glimpses of things normally covered that it's stopped being shocking. Not that you're all completely indifferent to your state of undress - for example, Vicky insists on being at the front of the group, and while having the Brute go round corners first is generally a sensible idea, she keeps bobbing up and down as she floats along, and the rest of you keep missing steps and bumping into things because her bare, perfectly sculpted ass is suddenly at eye-level. She seems utterly oblivious to the effect she's having on the rest of you, and no one can bring themselves to draw attention to it (Because it's too embarrassing, of course. Not because you're enjoying the view too much, certainly not!). It doesn't even help answer your worries about the effects of your modified strain of the organism on sexuality - Vicky's ass is more than wonderful enough to distract even a straight girl.
One thing that isn't a concern with your nudity, oddly enough, is the state of the halls. There's a slightly spooky lack of debris in the halls, despite broken windows, missing doors and the two classrooms you've passed looking like a riot broke out inside. Not that the halls look clean - according to Taylor, they never got better than "grimy" before this, and whatever happened here apparently left all manner of suspect stains all over the place. But "apparently" is the word. As you discovered after accidently stepping on a large patch of slimy looking white stuff, it's all just...cosmetic. It might feel unpleasant, but none of it sticks to skin, and to your powers it might as well be recently sterilised rock. It's enough to make you half expect to discover you're on a set somewhere, or hooked up to some ill-advised VR headset of L33t's, despite the impracticalities of such a scenario. You are sure at least that it's not a very weird dream, though. In all your dreams with this much naked Vicky, she's not this unaware of your feelings, even to begin with. In fact, by this point she's usually returning them. Enthusiastically. Energetically. Excitedly. Erotically. Expli-.
"The locker rooms are just around the corner." Taylor's voice jolts you out of your pleasant daydream. "Since this all happened on a Friday, people might have taken stuff home already, even if they had to evacuate or something, but there's always things left lying around." She pauses, then adds; "Most of which doesn't threaten to float through smell alone."
Vicky is half-turned round to gag exaggeratedly at the comment as she floats wound the corner, and so doesn't see whatever she hits until she bounces off with a soft thump. The rest of you hurry to catch up, and find that corridor ahead is blocked, wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling, by a barricade of junk. There are plenty of chairs and desks, of course, but you can see at least two car doors, several large concrete chunks, and one corner of a large dumpster, just at a glance. It's all wedged together tightly enough a normal person would have next to no chance of dislodging any it, too. Of course, Vicky's not normal, but when you look at her your sister shakes head, pointing upwards
"I don't like the look of the way the ceiling tiles are bulging. If I knock out the wrong bit, it might bring part of the second floor down on our heads."
"Forty one percent chance it could happen." Dinah chimes in.
"There you go. Not worth it then, assuming there's another way round?" Vicky asks Taylor.
"Ah, yeah, there is. We'd have to go all the way round the building, but the main hallway's all joined up on the first floor." The dark haired girl answers. "But can't Missy just do what she did with the door earlier to make a path?"
"No, it's all too close together." The shorter blonde answers. "I don't need much space to work with, but I do need some. More than usual, with my powers picking up everything as half-alive, or whatever." She gives an adorable grumpy pout for a moment, then catches herself and puts on her "professional" face.
"Oh." Taylor frowns in concentration as she looks the obstruction over. "I thought it might not have much of the organism in it, it hardly feels there through my powers." She frowns more fiercely and lays a hand flat against one of the car doors. "I think it's...set, somehow. Like it's in a different state than the stuff in the walls, one my powers don't have a handle on. Back the way we came then, I guess." Taylor says, suiting actions to words after giving the barricade a final frown. With a sigh, you follow.
Knowing you've got much further than expected to go before you find clothes gets everyone moving faster, so despite having to retrace your steps and go the same distance the other way, it's only a few minutes later that you're giving another blockage evil looks. This one, according to Taylor, is not only cutting off the hall, but is about two meters from the main doors and stairs. The five of you give serious thought to just busting out a window (They're small, high and barred, but none of those would stop you if it came down to it. They'd barely even slow you down, in fact.), but, assuming the upper floors aren't blockaded too, there's still another route that doesn't involve going outside naked. You all feel obliged to at least try to avoid potential public nudity, so off to the side stairs you trudge.
Fortunately, you come across no more blocked corridors on your way to the stairs, and when you reach the second floor, there are no holes in the floor or similar annoyances to deal with, just a weird floor plan that means you have to walk halfway round the building to reach either of the staircases that will hopefully get you to the changing rooms and clothes.
"Since we've had to come this way, it might be worth checking out the staff room." Taylor suggests. "Some of the teachers keep a change of clothes there - in a tiny closet that people get dared to make out it all the time - and it's only a little out of our way at this point."
None of you see any reason not to, so you divert your course and soon arrive at a sturdy door. Beyond is the "Faff Room", according to the defaced lettering on the sign beside it. The first thing you notice as you enter is the air is heavy with the smell of sex, mixed with something musky and animal. The mess of cushions and shredded cloth in the middle of the room seems the main source, given how stained it all is, but all of the furniture (and walls, and most of the floor... ) looks like someone's had sex on it at some point. The room looks to have been ransacked at least once as well. Paper and bits of fabric are strewn everywhere, while the cupboards near the sink are bare, their doors hanging loosely on their hinges. The drawers of the filing cabinets are pilled in a heap in a corner, and the door to the closet that was your goal here has been ripped off to reveal nothing but empty hangers and shreds of cloth remain. The door itself is leaning in another corner, and looks to have been used as a scratching post by something with big claws and paws about the size of human hands. You can't help but shiver slightly at the sight. It's one thing to know people might be growing paws and claws, it's another to see proof of it. Especially since there are several sizes and layers of slashes, implying multiple people scratching at it over time. Which leads to another worrying thought. You've all been assuming (and hoping) that it's Saturday and you've only lost most of a day, but while the trashed classrooms could have happened in that time, and it's just about believable those two trash barricades could have been built in the same timeframe, this place has been used as a sex nest for days at least, and you're fairly sure Taylor would have mentioned staff orgies at some point.
So, while Missy and Taylor poke around in the closet, Vicky lifts the filing cabinets to look behind them and Dinah stares around in horrified fascination, you look for anything that might tell you the date. The clock on the wall is surprisingly still intact and ticking, but while it tells you it's not quite seven o'clock (presumably in the morning), it doesn't show the date. The only electronics left in the room are a smashed computer and a security camera that someone has ripped off a wall and placed on a desk on the far side of the room from the door, pointed towards the closet for some reason. Neither of those will be much help, so, with great reluctance, you start poking through the less stained looking piles of paper. Most of what's readable is just random school admin stuff, but you find a couple of bits of newspaper with the date intact eventually, both from local papers. One is dated Monday, 4th of April, and has the headline "Mayor Calls For Calm" intact, plus a picture of Mayor Christner at a podium, through everything below that is shredded, and the other is in even worse condition, with just part of the headline remaining. It says "Madness Grips Ci-" and it's dated Wednesday, 6th of April. Which makes today Thursday at the earliest, and probably later, unless one of the people who've used this room brought a paper to read after they fucked. Calling out what you've found for everyone to hear gets some surprised noises, and Vicky drops a coffee table with a clatter in her rush to come look at the bits of newspaper, but it doesn't really change your situation at the moment, so everyone soon goes back to what they were doing.
You keep poking around, but don't find anything else of interest before Missy and Taylor come out of the closet with a metal box, about the size of two shoeboxes, that was apparently missed by previous looters legitimate searchers due to being hidden in the ceiling. It turns out Taylor's powers can pick up on things like that, though she has to be relatively close by to get details. Opening the box reveals a layer of dehydrated meals, then underneath them is a laminate sheet covered in some kind of code, and below that, you find a notebook, a complicated but sturdy looking multi-tool, a tightly packed sleeping bag, 150 dollars in bundled notes, and a drawstring bag that turns out to be full of small cut gems. Whatever sound the three of you make at the last find, it's enough to convince Dinah to stop hovering near the door and come look, and her startled squeak prompts Vicky to stop rearranging furniture and join you all.
"Niiice." She whistles at the find. "Someone's a pepper - and a serious one. That's got to be at least half a grand in gems, plus the cash and the rest of it isn't cheap stuff. Your powers detected it, right Taylor? Is that why you wanted to come here? They pinging up any more hidden treasure around the school?"
"Not quite, more like...I think I knew there was something hidden in this room, but until I was here and looking I didn't know I knew, if that makes sense?"
"Thinker powers can be like that." You assure her, seeing that the other teen looks worried about being believed as she explains. Even if her main power is a Master one, she's definitely got some level of Thinker secondary.
"Right. So, if I think about it, there are areas of the school that I get a 'might be interesting' feeling from, but not really why or how much could be there. I get a more accurate location when I'm close by, but nothing on why my power thinks it's worth checking out. I get a feeling from inside that armchair over there, and I guess there could be something hidden there, but I also get the same feeling off that busted camera on the desk, and that's not hidden at all."
Vicky immediately darts off to examine the chair, soon turning it over to reveal a slit in the lining on the bottom, which she promptly sticks a hand in. While she's rummaging, you turn to look at the camera. It's just an ordinary, broken, security camera from what you can see, still trailing broken wires and brackets from being torn free of wherever it belongs. Vicky most have knocked it when she was moving things earlier, since it's not pointed straight at the closet any more, but more into the room. More or less straight at where you've gathered to look in the box, in fact, which is a slightly creepy coincidence. Vicky finishes cavity searching the chair before you decide if it's worth checking if the camera is hollow or something, and flies back over holding an actual shoe box. Opening it reveals an actual cloth treasure map, with the city on one side and riddles (written with bad "Pirate" phrasing and spelling) on the other. It also contains a tightly rolled bundle of what turn out, when Vicky unrolls them, to men's porn magazines. The sight of which is enough to make your sister drop the box with a loud "EWWW!", spilling a coiled leather whip, a large bottle of expensive lube and what you realise after mounting embarrassment is a very big strap-on. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Taylor flush bright red, then make a nauseated face as the contents of the box, and what it implies about at least one of her teachers, register. Missy and Dinah mostly seem puzzled by the reactions of the teenagers in the room, but then Missy looks more closely at the strap-on and her eyes go very wide indeed. In the vague, desperate hope that breaking line of sight will let you avoid the question you can see forming on her lips, you lurch forward to grab it and shove it back in the box. The second you touch it, however, you freeze at what your power tells you.
"What the hell?" You mutter as you settle on your knees and elbows, moving your hands along the strap-on and its harness as though that will somehow give your power new information. "It's alive? No. It can't be, there's nothing to be alive. But it's shot right through with the organism. But it's in a different state again, compared to in the blockages, in the walls or in us. Most like in the walls, waiting for some sort of stimulus. Not clear what. Can't tell the strain, either. How does it fold up like that when it's not active? Taylor, does this feel different to you?" You ask, shifting back on to your haunches so you can shove it distractedly in her direction, mind still whirring as you try and make sense of what your powers are reading.
"I, ah, I err, I really hope you mean with my powers there." Comes the choked sounding reply
"Yes, of course with your powers! What else.. would... I... mean...?" You trail off as the question brings you enough out of answer-finding mode to actually think about the last minute properly. Your face starts burning instantly, and with a series of jerky motions, turn your head very slightly in Taylor's direction. What you see prompts you to drop the strap-on with a mortified squeak and bury your head in your hands. When you'd distractedly thrust the giant sex toy at the other girl, you hadn't considered that she was standing and you were on your knees, meaning you'd stuck the end of the dildo between her thighs. And it's only due to the fact she has long legs that it was actually between her thighs, rather a euphemism for sticking it into somewhere a little higher up and much more personal. (A small part of your brain points out that given the size of the thing and how tight Taylor looks, it probably wouldn't have actually gone inside, as it were, so-. The rest of your brain mercifully beats that part into silence before the train of thought can go any further.)
"Oh my God, I'm so, so sorry. I-" You babble, as soon as you can get the words out rather than just vague sounds of mortification, still not daring to take your head out of your hands and look at anyone.
"Forget about it."
"But I nearly-."
"Forget. About. IT."
Taylor's tone brooks no argument, and the expression you see when you look up is fierce enough you nearly hide again before it moves away, presumably turned on the source of the whispers and giggles on your other side. Missy and Dinah are wearing matching looks of (utterly unconvincing) cherubic innocence when you turn to look at them, and you quickly decide that as long as they're willing to pretend you still have dignity, saying nothing is the best option.
As you're getting to your feet, you realise that been uncharacteristically quiet through this debacle, and you turn worriedly towards Vicky. Concern of impending sisterly teasing is quickly replaced by actual concern when you see she's hanging in the air, face and body slack, eyes fixed on something in her hands. You have just enough time to see the cover and realise it's one of the porn mags, held in a way that suggests she was trying to sneak a glimpse inside without obviously opening it, before it suddenly flares with light and falls apart into a shower of grey dust, which vanishes before it even reaches the floor. Vicky's body arches, and you start to move, then-
"OH! OOOHHH!! OOOOOOH!!!!"
-she lets out a series of moans of the sort that you've occasionally been (un)lucky enough to hear through the walls before. The blissful expression on her face and the trickle of liquid down her smooth thighs is enough to confirm what just happened. Your panicked sprint turns into an awkward hop, and you share a "What The Hell" look with the four people in the room that haven't just spontaneously orgasmed. You all stand their uncertainly for a few moments, then Vicky's eyes flutter and she seems to come fully awake.
"Oh my God, oh my God that was so weird." She immediately jerks several feet into the air and away from the pervy box, then turns until she spots you, then in a blur she's in front of you and holding your hand. "Ames, I need you to tell me I'm not going to grow a dick."
"I...Wah?! You? Dick?!" Is your eloquent response, your brain throwing up cascading errors as parts of it unwillingly form the image of a dick between Vicky's legs and promptly shut down in horror.
"It was horrible! I caught a glimpse of one of the photos in the magazine and then I was me but I had a dick and a woman in a leather catsuit was sucking it while another one smacked a whip against my arse and called me a naughty boy, and then a third one showed up and shoved a strap-on dildo down my throat and the second woman started ramming me up the butt with something and the first one started fucking herself on my dick and... It was horrible! Please! Make sure I'm not going to get a dick!" You regain enough mental balance to do as requested while she's talking, and as far as you can tell she's no more likely to grow a dick than she was earlier. You briefly consider pretending that you're not sure for a few seconds, as revenge for the massive TMI (and hearing her describe sex with a woman as horrible), but decide instead to get away from the subject of dicks as soon as possible.
"I hate to say this, but I think you need to check out one of those magazines, Amy." Taylor says once Vicky's stopped spinning you round. You give her not-particularly-hating-to-say-it expression a look, but before you can say anything she continues on like she was just taking a breath. "The one that Vicky triggered was suddenly really active to my power for a split second before it fell apart, and if I focus I can just about pick the others out from the background. It might help to know what your powers get off them."
You don't have any good counter argument to that (despite your suspicion it's revenge for the Strap-On Incident), and the remaining porn mags have been in a pile on the floor for long enough that if looking at the cover triggered anything someone would have activated one by now, so with great reluctance and looking at it no more than necessary, you place your hand on the top of the pile. The conclusion of your power is tentative, like it needs more examples to be sure, but it seems like the magazines have the form of the organism that becomes active once on a specific stimulus, then dissipates. How it knows someone is looking inside it rather than at it, and how it then causes some kind of pre-scripted, really intense, sex dream/hallucination remains a mystery.
In addition to the magazines, it turns out the strap-on does indeed stand out in Taylor's powers when she focuses, as does the whip, and, more surprisingly, the sleeping bag. Examining them all, you think in the end that all three have a form of the organism that is simply passively part of them, continually altering (enhancing?) them in some way. This form doesn't appear capable of affecting anything but what it's inhabiting, or spreading itself in any way. The sleeping bag only has this form (which is something of a relief), while the whip and the strap-on have another form which you think is repeatable activation in response to stimulus. None of you really want to consider what might activate the strap-on, or what might happen when it activates, so after you win a game of rock-paper-scissors, Taylor gingerly picks up the whip, moves to the other side of the room, uncoils it and flicks it weakly at the wall.
The results are spectacular.
Instead of waving weakly, the whip lashes forward, smashing a divot in the drywall. There's a long, shocked moment as you all stare in disbelief at the soft looking leather of the whip, then Taylor flicks it again, this time with more confidence, and the same thing happens. Then she flicks it at a side table and it wraps unerringly around a leg before dragging it some way back towards her. She raises it again, then stops and calls you over.
"Can you check if it's doing something when I swing it, Amy? I've never used a whip before, but it's like it just does what I want it to do if I make any effort at all to try and make it."
A hand on her shoulder from behind as she swings the whip a few more times doesn't let you pick up anything beyond a faint, to the point you're hardly sure it's there, increase of nerve signals down her arm to where her hand grips the whip's handle (and maybe into the whip?). You move closer, intending to shift where your hand is to somewhere closer to Taylor's hand is gripping the whip in the hopes of catching what's happening better, only for the movement of a cooler current of air across your bare nipples to abruptly remind you of how much you're not wearing, and stop and pull back before your put yourself into a position that, on reflection, would have been a rather...suggestive...even if you were both fully clothed. Hoping no one notices your face pinking slightly, you step further away and ask Taylor to pass you this whip. Purely so you can see if your powers detect anything happening in it directly when it's used, of course (you can't, it turns out). And with both you and Taylor having got to have a go, once you declare that it seems safe, Missy insists on having a turn, and then coaxes Dinah in to having a go. You leave them to it, and head back over to the boxes as snaps and a rather adorable cackle denote Dinah getting into the swing of things.
You pack the various items from the survival kit box back into it without hesitation - it's all useful stuff - then consider the contents of the shoe box. The lube is high-end enough stuff to have value as, well, a lubricant, so that goes back in. The treasure map is of more questionable value, but it's light and you know curiosity will niggle at you if you don't hold onto it long enough to see if you can work out the riddles, even if you never go look where they lead, so it goes in to. The whip seems to be a surprisingly effective weapon, so it's worth bringing along, in the box or in someone's hands. The porn mags and the strap-on, though... You sigh heavily.
" I'm going to have to bring them along for comparing things to, aren't I?" You ask the air.
"Seems that way." You startle at the sound of Taylor's voice, not having heard her come up behind you. "If it helps any, I was thinking I'd need to bring them too. I'm hoping if I have known examples of them nearby to get used to, I can get better at sensing the different types of effects without focusing specifically on doing so."
That's two good reasons to bring them and only embarrassment against doing so. With another great sigh, you quickly put the items in question back in the box and close the lid. Hopefully Vicky sneaking a peak in one of the magazines and cumming in front of you all creates sufficient potential for mutually assured teasing that she won't say anything. And hopefully Missy and Dinah are still at the stage where bringing up sex stuff is more embarrassing for them than whoever they want to tease.
"Shall we see if we can figure out why you're picking up the camera while the others are still playing with their new toy?" You suggest after the two of you move the boxes next the door. (The current game seems to be "make Vicky touch the whip", and it's producing a lot of giggling. It's a good sign, given how dour both the younger girls have been since you all woke up.)
"Might as well."
The camera's moved again when the two of you go to look it, this time to point at the left side of the room, and you frown at the way it seems to be pointed wherever in the room the most people are whenever you look at it. It must be a coincidence, it's just laid on the surface of the desk, not on anything that could move it, but it's a rather creepy one. There's still nothing remarkable about the camera when you look at it up close, but touching it confirms yet another different form of the organism, alongside the "does something in the right circumstances" kind. You haven't the faintest clue what the new kind does, but the time your hand's in contact with the camera while you're looking at it is apparently enough to trigger the "activation" kind. Both forms of the organism within the camera unfurl into an active state, and you react instinctively, your powers gathering as much information about the "baseline" strain of the organism as possible before they return to their unreadable dormant state. You're surprisingly successful for how brief the window is, but you're distracted from thinking about what you learned by the way the lens of the camera ripples and produces some kind of faintly glowing crystal full of black-purple smoke. It hangs briefly in the air in front of the camera before dropping, and Taylor grabs at it with a shout of shock. The second her hand closes around it, it gives off a bright flash, one that blinds you even through you don't see it with your eyes.
When the spots fade, you're standing in nothingness. The only things you can see are the others, standing with you in a line in front of four lines of glowing text. The first line is a nonsense collection of letters and symbols, while the second reads "1. Sophia and Maddie Make a Porno.", the next "2. Madison's Transformation Video Journal" and the last simply "3. Exit". The second line has a blue glow, the other numbered lines grey ones. You realise, with detached calm, that you just know, somehow, that this isn't something "real", but instead something like a shared vision, how your minds make sense of the "recordings" stored in the crystal. Given the lack of panic from everyone else, you assume they have the same knowledge.
"I have absolutely no desire to watch anything that puts 'Sophia' and 'Porno' in the same sentence. Can we skip the first one, please?" Taylor asks the air, which doesn't respond. With a scowl, she jabs a hand into the "E" of "Exit". Nothing happens. She tries swiping her hand through the text of the third line. Still nothing. She glowers at the second line, then defiantly crosses her arms and looks away, face set in a defiant pout. After several moments in which nothing changes at all, you and Vicky exchange reluctant looks, and a round of rock-paper-scissors later, Vicky is reaching out to touch the second line of text. As soon as her fingers brush it, all the text vanishes, and the blackness around you swirls with colours.
The colours soon resolve into the staff room you were in before, in more-or-less the same state, but the furniture in different positions. The room has a single occupant, a fairly short girl with a cute face who looks about your age. She's wearing a stained strapless top and denim skirt that strain to cover her very considerable breasts and even bigger rear. Her brown hair is streaked with green, and patches of her skin are also green, with an odd sheen to them. She's also frozen like a statue in the process of turning to face the door, a worried look on her face. A glowing "play" symbol hangs in the air above her head. All of you are floating in the air above the desk the camera is sat on, and even though you don't look transparent, when you look down you still somehow see it as though there's nothing in the way, and you quickly discover that if you think about viewing the room from a different position, you move instantly there. (To Taylor's annoyance, trying not to view the room or just look at a wall doesn't work.)
"Is that...Madison?" Taylor says, when she runs out of ways to try and avoid looking at the room.
"Do you know her, Taylor?" Dinah asks.
"I...I'm pretty sure it's Madison Clements, but even ignoring the green, she wasn't built anything like...that!" The tall girl waves flusteredly at the brunette's body and briefly does the universal hand sign for "huge boobs" as she tries to get her point across.
"Well, we know this thing can change people. Maybe she got lucky?" Vicky offers. "Well, lucky-ish. Green doesn't really suit her."
"I don't think I'd like to get that lucky." Missy says, looking between her own lack of curves and the honestly rather excessive ones possessed by the frozen teen with a faintly disturbed look. Dinah seems rather transfixed by the huge rack before her, but makes a faint noise that is probably agreement. Taylor looks rather put out by the whole thing, and you get the feeling it's not due to butt envy.
There's nothing else of note in the room, so you concentrate on the play symbol, and are pleased to see it glow blue and vanish. A second later, Madison un-freezes, completing her turn and forcing a smile on to her face as the door opens. The feminine figure that prowls through moments later can only be described as a humanoid panther. Silky black fur covers a sleek body, thick enough to make it look modestly covered even though she's wearing nothing but a quiver across her back. The paws at the end of her long legs are soundless as she walks across the floor, and she seems more concerned with examining the crossbow in her paws than the other person in the room. Despite how unsuited they should be for the task, she's able to skilfully manipulate the mechanism of the weapon with her paws, the pointed ears atop her head twitching and long tail behind her swishing as she works. Something about it looks familiar, but it's not until Missy lets out a muttered "No way. Shadow Stalker?" that you realise where you've seen it before. The cat-person looks up from the crossbow a moment later, and though the face is covered by thin fur and distorted by the blending of nose and jaw into a whiskered feline muzzle, you can clearly see the features of Sophia Hess in it.
"Maddie! You're here. Good girl." It's shocking how unchanged Sophia's voice is when she speaks, given her appearance. She crosses the room in easy strides and sets her crossbow and quiver down next to a sofa before sprawling across it, headless of the stains covering its cushions. She twists bonelessly to look directly at Madison with her now golden eyes, and taps the part of the couch she's not occupying with a foot paw. "Have a seat. It's time we talked about your future, Maddie." You're pretty sure the girl in question would rather do anything else, but she sits as directed without complaint.
"I think it's time for you to commit a bit, Maddie. Don't get me wrong, having you here has definitely helped Emma out, but it's not enough, you need to be able to spend more time with her. She'd never forgive herself if she gave you that bitch Hellound's Infection while we were trying to fix what it's done to her, so we need to make sure you won't get it. Then you can focus on getting Emma better all the time, and I'll have more time to run things round here, maybe expand our territory a bit, without leaving Emma alone. Plus, some of the girls don't know you and they're getting a bit whiny about a Normie that's only been here a few days getting your perks. I can shut them up, of course, but it's a pain to keep doing it, especially when it's not only easy to fix the problem, but good for both of us as well." Sophia's not really paying attention to her audience as she talks, but she's shifted her legs so they're across Madison's, and her tail is curled lazily round the other girl's shoulders. It looks almost like the positioning of two close friends having a comfortable conversation, but the little traces of discomfort in Madison's body language and predatory satisfaction in Sophia's turn it into something far less wholesome.
"Because I get the feeling that you don't quite feel like you fit in here just yet, Maddie. And I'd hate for you to not be able to enjoy yourself fully, 'cause this should be a wonderful time for you, Maddie. You're not stuck in that cramped old complex anymore, forced to cower like prey and scrape by on scraps because no one else has the guts to even stick their heads out the door! No, you're with us now, and we're free! Free to go where we want, take what we want, and hunt who we want." Madison looks like she'd rather not have the "freedom" she's being offered. At what Sophia says next though, her face goes from faint distaste to horrified shock. "Of course, if part of why you're unhappy is you're missing your family, if you're worried about what's happening to them, maybe we could do something about that. I know you're close to them, and I am sorry we couldn't give you chance to say bye to them before we brought you here, so... The Shadow Pantha's don't do old folks or brats, but you are my friend, and if it would make you happy, we could bring them here. We'd need to Initiate them straight away, of course, most Normies aren't as tough as you and we can't have deadweight. But if that's what you need to by fully happy, I can make it happen."
"NO! Please leave-. I mean, no, you don't need to go to all the trouble." Madison's response is nearly a scream, before she visibly forces herself to speak more calmly. "I'm sure I'm just a little out of sorts because I have to be so careful with Emma. And maybe a little bit from some of the things a few people say when they think I can't hear."
"I'll want names off you later. Just 'cause we can hear better than a Normie is no reason to forget how well they can hear. It's sloppy." Sophia says, rolling off the sofa and on to her feet in a fluid motion that a human skeleton could never allow. "We don't need to worry about most of Initiation, you've already proven yourself to me before all this, but we do need to get you Infected. The claws are out, I don't want to hurt you, and it doesn't always take from them." Sophia flexes her hand-paws, causing wicked looking claws to appear to accompany her point, and Madison shakes her head rapidly, staring with great concern at them until they're sheathed again. "So either you take a turn in the Locker, or we try a way of passing it on I've not used before."
"Not the Locker. Please, God, not the Locker." Madison replies, almost instantly.
(You hear a mutter from Taylor that sounds something like "Funny, I said something like that and it didn't stop you, bitch." and when you look at her she's giving the girls in the recording a look that could not only kill but cremate the body afterwards.)
"You sure?" Sophia asks, sounding deeply amused. "Because the other option is we fuck until you sprout fur." Madison flinches at the blunt statement and is silent for a moment, visibly deciding between two distasteful options. Eventually, she chooses "fuck", and a hungry, even-more-predatory smile appears on Sophia's muzzle. "Alright then. Strip and let's get started." She orders. As Madison slowly stands and complies, the feline girl perches herself in an armchair, spreading her outstretched legs so wide the lips of her vagina are visible even through her fur before bending practically in half so she can lick at her own pussy with a long tongue while still watching Madison undress. She pauses for a second in her self-ministrations when Madison gets to the point of removing her stretched bra and says. "Look at those. I knew the Infection had given Little Maddie a growth spurt, but that really is a porn star's rack, huh?" Madison stills and flushes, but doesn't say anything, and when Sophia goes back to licking herself, the shorter girl's hands shakily move to pull down her skirt. The childish looking panties under it somehow manage to fit, if a touch too snugly, over her crotch, thin hips and massive ass cheeks, despite how out of proportion the latter are. "Shame the Infection fairy didn't bring you some proper hips, but maybe when mine's making you into a proper predator and getting rid of that wide load it'll leave a little of it behind there. Bet you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Madison nods weakly as she steps out of her underwear and puts it with the rest of her clothes. Squirming slightly at her friend's hungry gaze, she moves to stand in all her nude glory before Sophia.
"So, how does passing the Infection on through sex, err, work?" The human girl asks the cat girl in a nervous voice.
"From what I've seen when some poor bastard gets gang banged by Ferals and ends up joining the pack, anything that gets a lot of fluid into you should do it. So we'll start with the easy way and work up. Kneel down right in front of the chair." Sophia commands, then once the other girl has done so shifts in a way that makes your spine ache, managing without standing up or really unbending to move so that her legs are over Madison's shoulders, her head is positioned so her tongue nearly licks the hair over the brunette's ear as she speaks and the lips of her wet snatch are less than an inch from the lips of Madison's mouth. "Now, eat me out. And make sure you swallow as much as possible."
You can't not watch what's happening, the weird rules of this place meaning that even if you look away or move into a position where the furniture should block the view, you still see the "action" just as clearly, and closing or covering your eyes makes no difference. And talking to each other to have something else to focus on just pauses the "playback" until you stop. All you can watch in shared discomfort and feel glad you're not required to see things from close up. Still, no matter how minimal you try and make the amount of details you take in, it's clear that Madison is both unenthusiastic about and unskilled at what she's doing. She keeps her head buried between her friend's legs with a certain amount of determination, and her jaw moves enough that she's plainly trying to do as she's told, but even with your lack of in-person experience with things like this, you can tell that trying isn't doing much for Sophia.
"Enough." The transformed Ward orders several uncomfortable minutes later, accompanying it with a hard smack on Madison's wobbling ass. "It's plain you've got no taste for pussy. We'll have to do it the harder way. No, stay there, you've had your shot with your mouth." Sophia smoothly moves so she's standing behind the other girl, who looks very worried at the last part of what's said. For some reason, the black-furred girl starts stroking her crotch, some way above her vagina, while looking like she's concentrating on doing something unfamiliar. Then, before your (mildly horrified) eyes, a slit seems to open in the flesh of her groin, revealing a pouch, from which a bulging ballsack emerges, followed by what is clearly a dick. It's big even as it flops softly out, and grows even bigger as it rapidly hardens, until it's over a foot long and thick as a bottle. It's bared, glistening tip seems oddly shaped compared to the mostly human looking rest of it, and then you remember the nauseating in these circumstances fact that cats have barbs on their penises. At the sound of Sophia's pleased grunt as the massive member settles into place, Madison looks over her shoulder and goes white with a whimper. It's obvious she's terrified by the idea of having that oversized thing shoved inside her, and equally obvious she sees no way of avoiding having it happen.
"No idea if I can get you pregnant with this thing and I don't want to find out." Sophia says. "But I've wanted to bend you over and plough that ridiculous new buttslut's ass of yours 'till you pass out since I first saw it, so it works out." Those words are all the warning she gives before using her hand-paws to pull Madison's huge ass cheeks apart, lining the tip of her dick up to the girl's asshole, and thrusting forward.
It shouldn't be as easy as it is, the part of you that detachedly handles medical things notes while the rest of you cringes. "Stuff up butts" is a common enough issue at A that one of the female doctors at the hospital quietly took you aside shortly after you started volunteering there and made sure you had a full understanding of the practicalities and risks of anal sex, if only to get all as much of the awkwardness out of the way at once. But despite the ridiculous size of her dick and doing basically nothing to prepare the hole and not using any lube beyond what precum happens to be there, it only takes a few thrusts before Sophia's shaft is sliding smoothly and deeply into Madison's ass while the girl in question moans in pleasure, her eyes half rolled up into her head. Sophia manages to get so deep in her balls slap against the other girl's ass cheeks as she move her hips back and forth, and you half expect the tip of her dick to come out of the brunette's wide open mouth alongside her tongue and a growing puddle of drool. There's a puddle forming at the other end of the short girl's body soon too, as each orgasm the shakes her body makes her cunt drip more and longer, until it's practically a waterfall. The result mixes with the lesser but still steady trickle of fluid from Sophia's pussy until the "puddle" is more like a "pool".
You're pretty sure Sophia has come several times at this point, if nowhere near as much as Madison, but she shows no sign of stopping, and only slows down so she can land hard swats on Madison's ass between thrusts. The sounds and shivers doing so produces seem to drive her into a frenzy, and both the slaps and the thrusts grow steadily rougher, until it reaches the point where Madison's cheeks are bright red and tears are leaking from her eyes, her expression a twisted mix of pleasure and pain. Sophia has so far been silent except for various grunts and cat-like noises, but at this point she speaks.
"Oooh, this is goood. And you're loving it, aren't you Maddie? You've never had anything better than taking it up your slutty arse like this, have you? Well, I suppose you've never had it in your cunt to compare, but you can't say that my cock up your ass isn't an improvement over a football player's cock in your mouth, can you?" Sophia delivers all this in a mocking, degrading tone, without bothering to slow down in her spanking or fucking, never mind wait for any kind of response, but then an evil smile appears on her face and she actually stops dead. "Tell you what, let's play a little game. I'll pull all the way out, and then if you can say in the next sixty seconds you've had better, we'll stop here for the day and see if it's worked, otherwise I'm actually going to keep fucking you until you grow fur. Sound fun?" You seriously doubt the pitiful mewling sound Madison makes is intended as any sort of agreement, but it's easy to tell Sophia doesn't actually care what Madison's opinion of the idea is. The cat-featured girl pulls herself carelessly free of her friend's hole, splattering the vicinity with cum in the process, then watches with a smirk as the much shorter girl squirms and makes confused noises. Once the flow of cum from her victim's upraised ass has slowed to a trickle, Sophia gives said ass a hard smack.
"Ready? All you have to say is three words. Just say 'I've had better' and you win. Sixty seconds, and your time starts...NOW!"
To give Sophia very minimal credit, she plays "fair" - she does nothing to distract Madison, just makes a show of watching the second hand on the clock tick, one ear cocked to listen for any words. But Madison's in no state to understand words right now, never mind say them, and the minute passes without her producing anything but a few nonsense noises.
"TIME'S UP!" Sophia declares, punctuating it with yet another blow to the ass. "Now, I'm happy to keep going at your ass all day, but if you want to try it in your mouth, or even break in that virgin vagina of yours, all you have to do is say, Maddie. Got it?" There's no response and Sophia makes no pretence of waiting for one, instead moving right into position to resume fucking Madison's ass.
You've long ago grown sick of watching this whole scene, and feel more than a little dread about how much more could be left, but as Sophia brings her hips back for the first thrust of this new round, the scene suddenly blurs into nothingness. You somehow get the impression of passing time, and then the scene resolves again. You see Sophia standing over an unconscious Madison, one whose red arse is utterly covered with cum. She's watching with a satisfied smile as Madison's hair turns black and grows shorter, until the back of her head is covered in fur like that which covers the panther-girl's body.
"There we go. Fucked you 'till you grew fur, like I said. Can't say I don't keep my promises, can you Little Maddie? Oh? What's this?" Something Sophia sees prompts her to roll Madison over on to her back, giving you an excellent view as her vagina seems to close in on itself, leaving nothing but a tiny hole in a more-or-less featureless crotch. "Huh. Guess the Infection decided you took it up the ass so well you only needed the one fuck-hole down below. Probably means you're going to end up a Fuck Boi, though... Ah well, you were never as clever as you thought you were, or as much of a proper predator, so it's no great loss. And honestly, your main job was probably going to be fucking Emma anyway, so doing it with your own dick isn't much different." Sophia slaps her ass one last time, in an almost affectionate manner, then heads towards the door. As she reaches it, the room around you fades to blackness.
"Well, that was fuc-horrible." Vicky says after several moments where you all just stand there, feeling shocked. "Was Sophia always this bad and no one noticed? Or did this 'Infection' thing make her like this? I mean, she's a Ward, she can't have been this bad the whole time and no one did anything, right?
"It was never sexual before, but the general attitude? She's been this bad as long as I've known her." Taylor responds in a voice that's eerie in how flat and emotionless it is. "Other than with a few people, unless they either had enough authority they'd have to push back, or were already sucking up to her, I've never seen her have so much as a conversation without finding a way to make it clear she thought you were lesser than her. Even if you and she and everyone around already knew how she felt, she had to show it again and again."
"When you put it like that, I can see it." Missy says softly, a reflective look replacing the sick one she'd had for most of the recording. "As a teammate, she was always nasty enough to be a pain, but not mean enough to be worth officially complaining about. We all just put it down to wanting to make it clear she wasn't happy in the Wards without doing something that would actually get her punished, but if she was like that as a civilian as well..."
"I think she is worse than she was, if only because she's added sex into it and that makes this sort of behaviour much worse, but I suspect she knew other heroes wouldn't put up with it if she behaved how she'd have liked to, so she hid it. She once said to me I was a great hero, but I should go out and punch muggers more, because what's the point of being a hero if you don't get to hurt people who deserve it? I didn't think much of it at the time, since this was while I was putting her ribs back together and she was on enough drugs to make Lung loopy, but with what I know now, it seems like she was unintentionally honest about how she sees the world." You offer your thoughts on the matter while rubbing soothing circles on Dinah's back. You're not sure it actually helps, given the way this vision-like state has you disconnected from your bodies, but the only reason the younger girl isn't throwing up right now is that same disconnect means her stomach isn't here to throw up from, so anything that might help, you'll do.
You're aware of a quiet conversation continuing between Vicky, Missy and Taylor, but you ignore it in favour of focusing on Dinah. What you just saw was a brutal, horrible thing for a girl her age to be forced to watch, and nothing you can say or do can make it better for her, but assuring her that it was brutal and horrible and violence and degradation like that isn't part of how sex "should" go seems to give her some degree of comfort. By the time the young precog has recovered enough for you believe her when she says she's alright to keep going, the rest of your group has fallen silent. Vicky looks angry as hell, Missy similarly mad but also faintly guilty and Taylor creepily blank, in both expression and body language. She's the first of the three to notice you and Dinah are done talking, and concern softens the edges her mask-like face.
"The exit option still doesn't work. Dinah, are you okay to watch the second...video...now, or do you want to wait a little longer? From the name I'd hope it won't be as bad, but..."
"I...I'd rather get it over with." Dinah says in a brave little voice.
The second recording fortunately turns out to be nothing like the first. For starters, rather than you being in the middle of it, it's more like it's projected in front of you, as though you were in the front row at a movie theatre. On top of the distance the changed view provides from the recorded events, the events themselves are far less disturbing. The second "recording" is more like a collection of recordings, all of Madison narrating as she displays the various changes that occur to her body over time, apparently at Sophia's instruction, though why escapes you. It could almost be the work of any teenage vid-logger on the web, if it wasn't for the fact the actual content is the slow transformation of a human girl into a humanoid panther boy, in occasionally explicit detail. Which isn't to say bits of it aren't unpleasant to watch - Madison breaks down in tears in the recording where she reveals the small dick and balls that have apparently grown overnight, and not just because of the advance of her involuntary sex-change. From what she says in that and other recordings, there are two things that can happen when a girl gets Sophia's strain of the Infection, either from Sophia herself or from the "Locker" that keeps being mentioned. Either their genitals don't change, and they become a "Huntress", or they grow a dick early on and, unlike Sophia herself, are guaranteed to eventually lose their vagina as part of becoming a "Fuck Boi". Huntresses apparently keep their personalities and ability to think rationally once they're fully transformed, but Fuck Bois get steadily dumber, more biddable and more sex obsessed until they're basically sex-dolls capable of self care. (What would happen to a guy who got the strain isn't mentioned, and you think it might not have happened yet.)
There's no real indication how much time passes between each video, but if you can take the times she mentions waking up to find something has changed as meaning it's a new day, the recordings have been made over the course of about five days, with two to three recordings a day. The amount Madison changes in that time is shocking. The dick and balls she grew are relocated into a slit/pouch like the one Sophia had, the dick continuing to grow until it reaches a size that would be over the top in draw porn, never mind reality, The fur the replaced her hair spreads to cover her face, then in great chunks the rest of her body, contrasting sharply with the pale skin beneath and on those parts of her body not yet furry, up until the recording where Madison appears with jet black skin. Paws replace first one hand, then the other, long whiskers appear around her nose before all her teeth become a carnivore's fangs, and while she doesn't really grow in height, the slow shift of her body to a leaner, more feline shape makes her at least look a little taller. Her breasts also slowly reduce in size throughout the whole process, and you notice something odd (beyond the whole situation) as this happens - the top and bra that strained to contain her breasts when they where two porn star sized monstrosities continues to look as though they only just fit, even in the last recording, where Madison's breasts are less than a quarter of their starting size, barely a D-cup. In a similar vein, the panties that seemed on the verge of bursting somehow manage to contain not only her dick in the recordings before the pouch formed, but the appearance of a notable curve to her hips and her ass somehow managing to get bigger.
After the last video finishes, the menu appears again, and the exit line glows blue for a second before the blackness around begins to swirl dizzyingly with streaks of colour. You close your eyes as it gets too disorientating to stand, and when you open them again you're standing in the staff room, exactly where you where, still looking towards Taylor, who's in the same leaning, arm stretched out pose she was in when she caught the crystal that triggered the vision. She jolts and half stumbles as her mind catches up with being in a body that's slightly off balance rather than standing still, and a thump from behind you prompts both of you to turn and see Missy face down on the floor, having not been able to adjust in time to being mid-run again. As you move over to check her, you notice that the clock on the wall says it's at most a few minutes after the crystal was activated, despite how long the recordings you watched were. The crystal itself is nowhere to be seen, but all of somehow know how to make it appear again, if you for some god-forsaken reason wanted to see either of the recordings again. Just the memory of the first one is enough to make you all feel uncomfortable staying in the room any longer, and you quickly collect the boxes and resume your trek through the halls of Winslow High School, the knowledge that they're likely not as abandoned as you thought a worry, rather than a comfort.
New Usable Items:
High-quality Sleeping Bag - An extremely comfortable sleeping bag that is easy to transport and guaranties a good night's rest. Has an unknown Safe passive enhancement effect.
Military-grade Multi-Tool - A complicated but sturdily constructed tool with many uses. Provides 7 on many kinds of survival, mechanical or craft rolls.
4x Porn Magazine - Looking at one of these causes a brief trance as the reader experiences a sexual encounter based on the magazine's contents. The resulting orgasm is "safe", and will not trigger any orgasm linked effects, but after it the reader's LIB is reduced to their minimum, it is immediately increased by 2d10.
Huge Strap-On - A sturdy sex toy, nothing is too big to be fucked with this. Has an unknown Minor enhancement effect when worn/used.
Minor Whip - Intended for sex games, but it works as a proper weapon. Provides 5 to hit and damage rolls, and allows attacks with Reach. Has an unknown Moderate enhancement effect when used.
Memory Crystal - Shadow Stalker #1 - A strange crystal created by things that have the attribute of "Records" in certain circumstances. This one relates to the recent activities of Shadow Stalker at Winslow High.
New Potential Quests:
A Coded Cache - You've found a supply cache created by some sort of survivalist before F-Day. The stuff in it is pretty useful, maybe solving the code on the sheet you found will lead to more caches?
Pirates of the Pervy Main - You found an honest-to-god treasure map in a hidden box of pervy stuff from before F-Day. You kind of want to see if you can solve the piratical riddles on the back, even if you have no interest in actually hunting down the booty.
Embarrassing as it is, the Whip is a weapon, and given Winslow is apparently home to a pack of predatory panther people, most of you could probably use one. Does anyone equip the whip?:
[Whip]No
[Whip]Yes
-]Amy
-]Missy
-]Taylor
-]Dinah
QM: Vicky isn't an option due to not needing a weapon. She might equip future finds, but not, currently, something embarrassing like this.
Also, I'm going to be working on the next update while this vote is ongoing, since until you run into a fight it doesn't really impact things. Depending on how the rolls go, I may end up calling it at short notice, but it will be at least 24hrs.
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Last edited: Jun 27, 2020
Jun 18, 2020 ReportLike QuoteReply
ava2607, Prindew, Randomtrol and 158 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 1, Part 3 (Early Morning, Just)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
Spoiler: Rolls
Things are tense and silent as you travel through the corridors, the negative emotions raised by the recording of Sophia's actions you were forced to watch mixing with the possibility of a hostile encounter with the transformed people likely living on the third floor of the building to put you all on edge. Maybe you shouldn't assume an encounter will be hostile, even changed as they are the Shadow Pantha's (And is that really the best name Sophia could come up with?) are still people, not mindless monsters, but... Just from the details of their activities Madison mentioned in passing, they're a pack of bandits as bad as any of the gangs ever got. Worse, even, if the situation in the city is as bad as you're beginning to fear and they're still preying on the other people in it like that. You'd be very surprised if the reaction of any of them to seeing you in the halls was to calmly let you go on your way.
The tension only builds as you reach the main staircase, most of you half-hiding behind the doors, eyes fixed on the third floor landing you can just see above you, while Vicky floats swiftly and soundlessly down to check the route ahead. Your sister returning to report that there's another trash barricade blocking the hall on the other side of the stairs prompts the silence to be broken by hisses of annoyance, but you retreat some way away from the stairs before discussing what to do next. Heading down, though the main doors and round the building is quickly ruled out - from the glimpse Vicky got, the ground around the entire front of the building is littered with broken glass, shredded bits of metal and other things that would be both painful and noisy to step on. Going out through a window is also ruled out as too loud and potentially obvious, so in the end you decide to head for the other set of side stairs, on the west side of the building. Because Winslow's internal layout was apparently redesigned by a madman at some point, you can't go from the east to west sides of the building somewhere sensible, like near the main stairs, but instead have to go back the way you came and then walk round most of the outside edge of the building. It's irrational, but going back the way you came feels like you're heading away from danger, and the atmosphere of the group gets less heavy as you go.
"Hey, Taylor?" Vicky, perhaps inevitably, is the one to break the silence. "What's the story with that Madison girl and Sophia? 'Cause my first thought is like, 'OMG that poor girl, we have to help her get away from Sophia asap', but my second is that I get the impression they were friends before all this, and from what you've said, Sophia was wearing her raging bitch hat pretty proudly here at Winslow. And that wouldn't mean she deserves what's happened to her, no one does, but if she was every bit as nasty as Sophia, maybe we should get a better idea of what's going on in the city, then help her if we can, rather than getting her out first and worrying about the consequences later?"
"I... A big part of me wants to say that she's a horrible person and we should leave her to reap what she's sown, but... I want to be a better person than that." Taylor's answer is soft and halting. "She wasn't some innocent lead astray by Sophia's influence – she saw how Emma and Sophia behaved, to me and in general, decided that was how she wanted to spend her time in high school acting, and, so far as I've seen, never saw anything that happened to anyone else as a reason to regret her choice. And the thing is, for her it was a choice. Emma was my best friend growing up, and when Sophia became her new bestie they decided hurting me was their new hobby, but Madison didn't know any of us when we started at Winslow. If she hadn't decided to join in, no one would have made her. Maybe she wouldn't have been able to get as popular as easy, but she wouldn't have had to earn that popularity by proving she was the best at bullying me, either. But she did, and maybe it wasn't just bullying me they bonded over, but Sophia and Madison were friends before all this, good ones as far as I can tell. She wasn't as bad as Sophia, but that's because being nasty is her way of being popular in high school, not a lifestyle choice or whatever the hell it is for Sophia."
"If you don't want to say, it's fine, but what sort of things did they do to you?" You ask. You're not entirely sure why. It won't make Sophia any more in need of dealing with and it won't (shouldn't) make Madison any less deserving of help, but... Seeing how much it's effected Taylor, maybe it might. The girl in question hesitates before responding in a bitter voice.
"What didn't they? They never beat me up – Sophia preferred shoves and trips other stuff she could get in quickly when she felt like it, rather than having to plan not to be interrupted – but other than that, if a bully in a high school sitcom has ever done it, they at least tried it a few times to see if they liked it. Stealing assignments was a favourite and so was throwing things that would stain or leaving them on my chair. Spreading rumours not so much, they liked to say whatever nasty lines they came up with to my face, and if it started going round the school afterwards that was just a bonus. Sophia was the most physical one, Madison liked things where she could make out like I was the troublemaker and she was cute and innocent and Emma... Emma liked to make it personal."
"When you say Emma, that is probably the same person Sophia and Madison were talking about helping, isn't it? Who is she?" Dinah asks, fiddling with the handle of the whip she's carrying. She wanted it to defend herself with, and the rest of you agreed. She doesn't seem aware of the sexual implications of a whip with the rest of the stuff you found it with, and none of you intend on telling her.
"I can't imagine who else it could be. Her parents and mine were friends, and she was practically my sister until the summer before we started at Winslow. I got back from camp that year and it was like she not only hated me, but hated that she'd ever not hated me. I still have no idea why. I'm tempted to blame Sophia, since it was around then they met, but that just moves the 'why', since I only met Sophia at Winslow. Before that summer, Emma was the pretty popular girl who was nice to everyone, and didn't care that her best friend was a scrawny geeky loser. After, she was still pretty and popular, but she was aiming to be Queen Bitch of the school and her best friend was well, Sophia." Taylor's voice shakes slightly as she speaks of Emma, then she seems to focus for a second and it goes flat and emotionless, accompanied by her body language adopting the odd blankness you've seen a few times now. "Sophia said that that 'Hellhoud' had infected Emma. Do any of you know who that is?"
"She's a minor villain." Missy says after only a few seconds of thought, while you're still trying to remember if you've ever heard the name before. "Some kind of Master, probably. She's normally seen with one to three giant dog-like things that she commands. Drifted into Brockton Bay from somewhere a year or so back, I think. She was around for a bit before joining the Undersiders last fall, but she wasn't all that high profile about it. Violent, but in the willing to fight sense, not the likes hurting people sense - Browbeat lost to her and one of her teammates just before he joined the Wards, and he says they fought like the point was to run him off, rather than put him in the hospital." It takes you a minute to remember who Browbeat is - he's only been in the Wards a few weeks, and you've not actually met him yet. You've had Hellound's creatures described to you, and if Browbeat got taken down by them and didn't need you to fix any injuries before they put him on stage as a new Ward, she must not have been looking to do lasting damage to him.
"Thanks. Is it wrong of me to hope that whatever Sophia wants to fix about Emma involves the obvious animal and she's now half-Chihuahua or something?" Taylor seems to find the idea amusing enough that it breaks her out of her closed-off state, and you can't really blame her for it, given the history she's described.
"Tiny bit. This much, maybe." Vicky says, holding finger and thumb less than an inch apart. "One last question about them, I promise. When they were talking about ways to infect Madison, the second was 'The Locker'. Do you have any idea what that's about?"
The effect of the question is immediate. Taylor's face swirls with terror, anger and disgust and she hunches tightly in on herself, freezing mid-stride. She opens her mouth soundlessly, breathing heavily, and you're pretty sure she's about to have a panic attack. Then, like a switch is flipped, it all vanishes. She straightens up and continues walking at a measured pace, face and body language so empty of any emotion it's like there's a mannequin walking alongside you. Her voice is likewise so flat and calm that it could be being produced by a computer.
"I hope I don't have an idea. Because if I do, if Sophia's taken the idea of the worst thing they ever did to me and turned it into some kind of initiation ritual for her little gang... If she's decided that it was so much fun that she's filled a locker full of blood and filth and bugs and she's either grabbing people and throwing them in or getting them to do it to themselves and either way she gets to watch time and time and time again as she shuts them inside and no one lets them out no matter how much they beg or scream or cry or when it all goes quiet because you can't make noise any more and no one lets you out for so long you know you're going to die in there... If she gets to get that new cock of hers hard doing at again and again and she gets fucking minions out of it to, then no matter how hard it is to grasp with my powers, I'm going to grab everything in her body I can and RIP HER TO SHREADS WITH IT!!!"
By some twist of coincidence, you're passing a large bank of lockers as Taylor responds, and they begin to shake, first slightly as she passes, then with increasing violence in waves to the front of and behind her. By her final scream, they're jumping in place, doors flying open and swinging round with a great violence. The scream itself prompts several to twist in ways metal just shouldn't, depositing several items on the ground in front of themselves, before all the lockers slam shut and go still.
"Oh, that's what I was sensing." Taylor says in a vague voice, blinking owlishly at them. Then she turns her head, vomits, and lists to one side, before her eyes flutter and she drops like a puppet with its strings cut.
A few minutes later, having just managed to catch her before she hit the ground, you're sitting with Taylors head on your thighs, stroking her long hair softly with one hand and humming tunelessly. Given you're both still naked, it's something of an embarrassing position, but you refuse to just lay her out on the bare floor while she recovers. She's fine, her faint ended almost before she finished collapsing, but you insisted she stay lying down for a little while to recover. The faint itself was caused by a combination of stress, low blood sugar and mild dehydration, possibly plus a touch of overstraining her powers. To add a touch of surrealism to the whole situation, everything she threw up (which wasn't much given how little is in your stomachs) vanished at some point when no one was looking, leaving a stain like the other "just for appearances" ones
"Hey Amy, one of the things the lockers spat out was a big case of sports drinks, would one of those help?" Vicky says, flying over with said case hanging effortlessly from a pinkie. You glance at the label on the case and think for a moment before replying.
"No. Not on a completely empty stomach. If we can't find some water soon we should split one between the five of us, but I have no idea our bodies think it's been since we last ate or drank, so we really should start off with something blander if we can. Especially since the label is in Korean and I have no idea what any of the ingredients are." Vicky looks down at the case in surprise.
"Huh. Okay, fair enough Nurse Panacea."
Vicky salutes impudently and floats off, and you take a moment to pause in glaring at her for the not-exactly-a-nickname, the joke it's attached to having grown stale within the first six months after you got your powers, to appreciate the view provided. It's weird. Sneaking a glance at her pussy when she does something to give you a risk free chance to do so feels like taking advantage, but looking at her naked ass doesn't. Despite how much you're enjoying the view from behind, you do hope you find some pants or something that will fit Vicky soon. Mainly because of how much you're enjoying the view. She can't possibly miss how much you're checking out her bare butt much longer, and this is very much not the situation you want to have that conversation in. Not that any situation is one you want to have it in, but this would be one of the worst.
When Taylor first collapsed, Vicky and Missy went to the ends of the hall to watch and listen for anything attracted by the racket, but after a little bit of that, Missy just turned the hallway into some kind of möbius strip, apparently feeling that the sight-lines and echoes were too bad for keeping watch to do much good. Since then, she, Vicky and Dinah have been collecting the various items the lockers offered to placate Taylor, or whatever happened at the end there. In addition to the sports drinks Vicky just brought over, they've turned up an unopened eight-pack of store brand shower gel, which you're definitely glad to see, assuming you can find safe water to wash with, a large aerosol can of men's deodorant, which you less glad to see but might be necessary if you can't find safe water to wash in, a collection of notes between various high school gang members talking about what moves are being made in the area, which were confusingly in a pile all together despite the writers from different gangs and a single note, talking about where on the third floor the "Stash" has been moved to, having been on its own near the other end of the hall (it's not clear what's in the stash, despite the very clear instructions on how to find it, but almost certainly some kind of weapons are included, which might be helpful, given your current circumstances). Finally, there's a very expensive bottle of alcohol, which you're a little surprised Vicky hasn't talked about cracking open, despite knowing that she's more responsible about booze than her attitude towards partying would imply.
"Hey Ames, want a lollipop?" A brightly coloured bag with Chinese or Japanese characters on the front is suddenly thrust under your nose.
"Victoria Dallon, what did I just say about eating!?" You have a whole rant ready to go, but can't bring yourself to voice it the sight of Vicky's innocent young face as she looks up at you with big round eyes, sucking at a lollipop with childish joy. Even though she's in the air and you're sitting down, so she can't be looking up at you...
"Hand." You demand. "If sucking on that thing has somehow changed your aura so it makes everyone think you're a little girl instead of awesome, you'll get no sympathy from me."
Fortunately, that turns out not to be the case - the "innocent little girl" effect stopped the moment Vicky hurriedly tore the sweet out of her mouth and dropped it. And then it came back when it fell a foot, then reversed course to stick itself back in her mouth. You, her and Taylor, who'd been roused by the noise, all got the impression somehow that it couldn't be discarded until it was finished, and attempts by Vicky to disprove this eventually resulted in it becoming plain impossible for her (or anyone else) to remove it from her mouth. She can't seem to bite on it to break it and finish it faster, either, if the clenching of her jaw is any indication. You're able to examine the organism inside it via touching the stick, and between that and a hand on Vicky's shoulder, are able to tell that it's not doing anything to Vicky beyond boosting her body's energy levels and releasing some happy hormones. Confident her stupid stunt isn't going to have long term consequences, you tell her to enjoy her treat while it lasts (from the size of the other lollipops in the bag, it's going to last a while). She floats off in a huff, and you note as she does so that despite the view involved not having changed physically in the slightest, the idea of checking it out now seems even more repellent than the idea of deliberately ogling Missy and Dinah. Speaking of the two of them, you make sure to loudly tell them what's happened to Vicky, purely for cautionary reasons, of course. That they both find it highly amusing, to the point Missy nearly falls over laughing, is no fault of yours, just, you know, consequences, Vicky.
When the two younger girls come over (to laugh), they come bearing the last two items from the lockers. The first is a dainty looking parasol, black with lots of lace and a pattern of "cute" skulls and roses. If held in a hand (and only held, hooking it over an elbow or something doesn't work), whoever holds it finds the effects environment around them suddenly reduced to comfortable levels - the feel of early morning air against bare skin feels pleasantly cool instead of rather chilly (and body temperature changes accordingly), and the feel of bare feet against the tiles of the hall is muffled as though through thick socks or carpet, just from what you can easily test. Opening it causes the effect to spread, far enough that it's only by having the person holding it stand at one end of the corridor (once Missy lets it have ends again briefly) and the other walk almost to the far end that you find the edge of its range. But weird as it is, it's nothing compared to the second item. It looks at first glance to be a rather skimpy costume piece, a modest-ish bikini with a "chainmail" pattern, but when worn it reveals a number of rather odd properties. Firstly, it resizes to fit, though only once both parts are on. Watching the same piece of clothing comfortably fit Missy and Dinah would be odd, given their difference in builds. Seeing it then fit Vicky, Taylor and you, in that order, is outright bizarre. Secondly, it keeps the wearer's body at a comfortable temperature, as though they were fully clothed. And lastly, not only does the bikini itself become as protective as actual chainmail (you assume, it's strong regardless) when worn, it protects the whole body the same amount, from the top of the head to the soles of the feet. You have no idea how the organism in it does these things, or why, but plainly it is.
You feel a headache coming on.
New Usable Items:
'Chainmail' Bikini - This skimpy costume piece now somehow combines the protectiveness of chainmail with the comfort of a bikini (and the support of a bra). Provides 7 to defence, raised to 14 if the wearer has no other armour, and 21 if they're wearing no significant clothing. Has a Minor enhancement effect that keeps the wearer at a comfortable temperature unless the conditions are extreme.
Pack of Shower Gel - Generic shower gel, marketed to everyone. Not interesting, but it will get you clean. This multi-pack has enough to last the five of you for a while.
Men's Deodorant - Covers up stink with a manly smell. Reduces CHA penalties for not washing, supposedly make you irresistible to women.
Gothic Parasol - A dainty black parasol. Whoever holds it will be untroubled come rain or shine. It has a Moderate enhancement - Just holding it protects the one doing so from environmental effects and when opened this effect spreads to affect everyone in an area roughly the size of a large room. Unfortunately it's not strong enough to use as a weapon.
25x Sweet Lollipops - A bag containing a variety of sweet flavoured lollipops which provide a small boost to mood and energy when eaten. Has a Safe enhancement that makes anyone sucking on one radiate childishness and innocence, making it harder for others to act lewdly or violently towards them. Only get stuck in your mouth if you keep trying to throw them away unfinished.
New Potential Quests:
CeeZee's Stash - You've found a note from one of the "senior" gang members at Winslow talking about where he's moved the "Stash" to. It sounds like it includes some weapons, so maybe it's worth checking out if you still need some if/when you head up to the 3rd floor.
'Chainmail' Bikini - It's rather skimpy, but the Bikini the first piece of clothing the group has found, so even without it's protective qualities someone is going to wear it. The only question is who:
[Bikini] Amy
[Bikini] Vicky
[Bikini] Missy
[Bikini] Taylor
[Bikini] Dinah
Gothic Parasol - In addition to things like heat or rain, the Parasol protects against harm or hindrance from rough ground, thorns etc. It only risks infecting the one who carries it, regardless of if it's open or closed, and will still be brought along if no one is picked to carry it. Does anyone carry it?:
[Parasol] Yes
-]Amy
-] Vicky
-]Missy
-] Taylor
-] Dinah
[Parasol] No
Spoiler: Rolls
Deciding who gets to wear the first piece of clothing you've found sparks a vigorous discussion. As you all insist someone else should wear it. Unlike in a more normal group of people, none of you are objecting because it's too nerdy or too skimpy and being seen in it might be more embarrassing than being naked, or even because its weird properties freak you out. No, you all spend several minutes insisting that each other deserve to cover up and/or be protected more. You're quite impressed with how clearly Vicky manages to argue, given that she still has the lollipop stuck in her mouth, limiting her to various "mmph"-like noises. When the question is eventually settled, you've (slightly awkwardly) gathered up the various items you've found so far and Missy has put space back so the hallway has an actual exit again, you insist that the group looks for food before anything else. Winslow's cafeteria isn't on your much re-routed route to the changing rooms, but getting there involves heading the other way fairly late on, so heading their first isn't too much additional detour.
Nothing happens to interrupt your journey, and soon enough you're back on the first floor, walking through the overturned tables of the dining hall to the kitchen beyond. Which, frustratingly but not particularly surprisingly, proves rather bare of food. The very back of the pantry proves to contain a large sack of rice, a still sealed 5 gallon water bottle that needs Vicky to shift and a large drum with just enough of its label left to reveal it contains some kind of pre-cooked meat-like substance and has an expiry date in the 50's. Probably the 2050's. Searching all the cupboards, draws and fridges turns up nothing but half a pack of hardtack biscuits and a single bottle of cola. Hardly the most appetising selection, but at least boiled rice on its own is safe enough to start empty stomachs on.
Assuming you can find any way to boil it, of course. That the taps don't work and you'll need to open the bottle to get water is annoying but not surprising. That the microwaves work but none of the electric hobs do is irritating and a little surprising. That none of the gas hobs produce even a whiff of gas, yet the ovens roar into life when you approach that part of the room is enough of a shock you nearly leave a mess on the floor and more than a little infuriating. And then, of course, when you're looking for some kind of container you can fit in an oven and boil water in, you bump into the large soup tureen on the counter and it lets out a happy whistle before filling with hot chicken and vegetable soup.
A brief interlude of screaming "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON???" at the top of your lungs and assuring the others that you're not crazy, look, it's full of soup, do you think someone just left piping hot soup lying around and we didn't notice the first time we searched the room? later, with the aid of a ladle and a cleanish bowl, you confirm that it is indeed chicken and vegetable soup, it's safe to eat from a bacterial stand point and while it does have the organism in it, there's no more of it present than in the rest of the food you find. Also, it's delicious.
With that established, you find bowls and spoons for everyone and dig in.
It's a quiet meal, and not just because Vicky still hasn't finished the lollipop and can't talk (and watching her eat soup though one side of her mouth while the lollipop is rolled into the other is highly entertaining). Once you start, your stomachs all seem to wake up to how hungry they should probably be, and you all devote yourselves to eating as much soup as possible. The tureen is empty bar dregs when you've all had enough, and aside from a nagging sense that you didn't eat that much, given it was full more or less to the brim when you started, you're all feeling pretty happy and content, given what you know about the situation and the many things you don't.
Given that you lack even pockets, never mind some kind of luxury like an actual bag, carrying the various things you've found is getting a bit tricky, but with copious use of Vicky as a sexy blonde pack mule, you manage. It's mildly annoying that when she realises that the bottle of cola is going to be left behind she pops the cap off with a finger, then chugs the bottle, but (fighting the nagging urge to blame it on her being too young to know better), you decide just to let her have it as a reward for carrying stuff and follow Taylor back out into the halls of the main school building.
Spoiler: Rolls
Since you've come as far as the cafeteria, you all decide you might as well search the other big locker bank in the school, on the west side of the first floor, while you're nearby. Well, "you all" decide - Taylor pretty much insists, apparently registering several items of interest there now that she's got a bit more experience with how her power picks up on things and you've cleared several of the broader areas of interest in the main school building. You get the feeling she might also be insisting to "prove" she can handle going near lockers or something, but as long as she doesn't took to be about to do anything stupid, you don't see any value in calling attention to it.
"One second." Taylor says when you reach the long row of mostly shut lockers. Her brows furrow in concentration and she seems frustrated by something after a moment, then she reaches out to touch the nearest locker and makes a faint "aha" noise and a half dozen of the lockers swing open while the ones that were already open close. "Those should be the ones we want." She says in a slightly distant voice. "Can't figure out how they moved before, but I can get them to unlock at least." Your gently place a hand on her arm to check, but her system isn't showing any signs of additional stress.
The nearest open locker contains a very large rucksack made of sturdy fabric, with a tightly rolled but still bulky bundle of fabric you think is a bedroll of some kind strapped on the bottom. The only thing inside is a good sized blanket made of thick wool, but it's when you start putting things inside that you discover the secret of the rucksack. Vicky puts the drum of meat and the sack of rice in the main compartment for easier carrying, and you expect that and some of the small things in the pockets will be all that it holds, but your sister peers inside with a puzzled expression and, to the shocked stares of everyone else, puts the five gallon water bottle inside as well. It disappears without a trace, then Vicky reaches deep inside the bag and pulls it out again like a magician producing a rabbit from a hat. The bag fits everything you've found so far without trouble and looks to have room for many times more. It also seems to reduce the weight of what's inside, though not totally - it still weighs as much as a large rucksack filled with heavy things, which would be a bit much for most of you, but is of course not even worth a mention to Vicky. Missy seems particularly fascinated by the rucksack, examining what happens when you put something in every pocket and practically climbing inside the main section to look at it more closely. Given it's nearly big enough for her to stand up inside with the zip closed even without the weirdness of its internal space, you're a little surprised it's only practically, to be honest. The excited and experimental look on her face afterwards promises new and terrible things will soon be happening to unsuspecting space, as soon as she's got some time and a safe location to try out some new tricks.
The next locker contains a large pack of cigarettes, a pack of playing cards and a plain box with an extremely high-end vibrator in it. There's a base unit, wireless remote and various attachable pieces alongside the, ah, item itself and it seems to have about twenty different settings for things like size, intensity, texture, rhythm and much more. As you discover when you're getting things out of the box to figure out what's in there in the first place, it also runs despite being entirely without batteries or any other source of power. Since you're got plenty of carrying capacity now, it goes in the rucksack as well, for investigative purposes. Purely how it runs without power, of course. Not for any other sort of investigation about things like how some of those setting combinations would even work, never mind feel. Certainly not!
The locker after that contains only one item, a pair of glasses that you have to say are the geekiest pair you've ever seen, to the point you suspect (and hope) they're a theatre prop rather than someone's actual glasses. The lenses are absurdly thick, and frames are square-ish and made of black plastic that's far thicker than necessary and has a cheap-looking sheen to it. The sight of them makes Taylor raise a hand to her face and wave it in front of her eyes, a look of shock and wonder appearing as she does.
"How did I not notice earlier?" She mutters, just loud enough for you to overhear.
"Notice what?" You're pretty sure you know, but ask anyway.
"I'm not wearing my glasses. I should be half-blind without them, but I can see fine." Called it. But it has to be said that when you examined her after you all woke up, she didn't show any signs of needing glasses. Not that you'd known to look, but you checked her over in considerable detail and vision problems of the degree she implied are generally pretty easy to pick up on.
"Okay, obviously none of the rest of us had any reason to expect you to be wearing glasses, but we all woke up naked and it's just now occurring to you that you're not wearing glasses?" You can't help but be a little snarky, despite trying to minimise the amount of snark you direct at the group under the circumstances, especially the relatively brittle seeming Taylor and Dinah.
"Well, I... I could see fine, you know? Right from when I first woke up. Being able to see people across the room equals glasses and has for years. It just...I didn't think about it." She explains sheepishly. You sigh loudly, but also make sure to smile when you assure her it's fine. You're about to ask her if she has any other medical conditions that are mysteriously absent she's forgotten to mention, when an excited cry interrupts you.
"Oh wow! I can see you all through the walls!" Dinah emerges from one of the classrooms along the hall, the oversized glasses perched on her nose. On her, they still look unbearably geeky, but at least "adorably" is added to the description. "And the stuff in the other three lockers is highlighted too, and if I focus on something they can zoom in on it like binoculars. Missy, you have to try them!"
A playful scuffle breaks out as young brunette tries to slide the glasses over the ears of the young blonde, and you smile slightly as you head towards the next locker down. Discovering a bloodstained map and notebook inside makes the smile fade, and even a glance at their contents replaces it with a worried frown. Vicky's watching for trouble at the end of the hall that isn't blocked by a trash barricade, and you don't want to interrupt the younger girls when they're having fun any sooner than you have to, so you look over the map alone while Taylor skims through the notebook. There's a lot of blood on the map, enough that you can't see most of it, but it's also laminated, so it should be legible once cleaned. You're a little reluctant to do so - what you can see now is bad enough. It's a pretty standard, if large, map of Brockton Bay, with coloured overlays showing various divisions. You've seen pretty much the same size and style in the briefing packets the PRT sends New Wave occasionally. But unlike those maps, rather than having three big blobs for the ABB, Empire and Merchants, a few small areas and then most of the map clear, this one is almost all colour, with very little clear. There's enough different colours the legend has had to be placed on the back, rather than side of the map, and what you can see of it contains ominous details like "Feral Wasteland, Impassable", "Goblins, NF(?), Not safe to rest", "Giant Mindless, Caution needed when crossing", "Dog Amazons, NF, Hostile, esp. on borders" and "Boardwalk SC, Do not advertise allegiance, stay well clear of water".
"Probably don't eat people is not a good phrase." Taylor mutters aloud, still flipping through the notebook. "I think if you're going to go anywhere near someone, the amount of cannibalism they commit should be established first." Having gotten enough from the map for now, you poke her to get her attention and inquire pointedly why you've just heard cannibalism mentioned.
"Whoever wrote this was spying on Sophia and her 'Shadow Pantha's'." Taylor explains. "Most of it is pretty dry, just keeping track of their daily habits, what they bring back from the city and what goes on in the garden or something they've got up on the roof, but there are a few comments on events too. The bit I just came across says: 'Despite the nature of the offerings that the Boar Plants appear to require to grow properly, there is no sign the subjects engage directly in the consumption of other still-sentient Infected. Given their unusual ability to keep the bodies of their prey intact long after Dispersal should have occurred and their apparent habit of dragging all carcasses back to their territory for consumption rather than butchering in place at the kill site, I believe that absent an as-yet-unnoticed taboo, the former can be assumed with some confidence.'. I haven't found what the 'Boar Plants' are yet, but what the hell are they giving them that not seeing them drag the bodies back to eat implies they're not eating people, rather than it just being the something you can take as read?" None of them are things you want to think about too deeply having just eaten, so you go to update the others on what you've found.
Missy and Dinah have finished playing around while you were looking through your find, so you reach them just as they're pulling a bundle of fabric out of the second to last locker. It turns out to be a short-sleeved, knee-length sundress with a bright, rainbow coloured print of cute fox cubs doing cute things all over it. It's clearly sized for a teenager, even if it looks more suited for a little girl who hasn't learned about clashing colours yet, but like the bikini you found earlier, resizes itself when worn so that whoever is wearing it is modestly covered from shoulder to knee. With Missy's help, Vicky is only a step away, so you fill them all in on what the map implies about the state of the city at the same time. You also mention the notebook made by someone studying Sophia's group, but don't mention the passage Taylor read to you. That can wait until later, when Taylor's finished going through the whole thing.
"Wait, what? What the fuck!?"
Or right now, apparently. Taylor's cry of shock brings you all running. Taylor thrusts the notebook into your hands as soon as you arrive and tells you to read the current page. With more than a little worry about what you'll find, you begin to do so aloud.
"A stroke of good fortune today allowed me to confirm three useful bits of information at once. One of the uninitiated members was insufficiently cautious when tending to the Boar Plants this morning, and it turns out that not only will they take live prey, they are capable of easily grappling and holding an adult human male of above average musculature, and then consuming most of his flesh within ten minutes. Confirming that in addition to their impractically great need for the flesh and blood of Survivors to produce fully, the Boar Plants would also be a highly dangerous cultivar would have been enough on its own, but the events the incident triggered at dusk were of great value also. I can now confirm the blood-filled locker on the roof that the subjects use as a Font when they wish to rapidly Infect and transform new members is also a Keystone, despite it not being within the boundaries of the Lair proper. The Lair is still far too weak to have multiple Keystones, so determining how the subjects managed to arrange for their Keystone to be simply within their territorial range rather than the Lair proper could prove fruitful. I can also confirm that despite the relative weakness of the territory, it is capable of detecting who its inhabitants are on a more complicated standard than simply the presence of a specific Infection, for despite the previously observed fact that those Survivors captured alive and ritually sacrificed to feed the Boar Plants did not revive at what we now know is the Keystone at the usual (or indeed any) hour, the man consumed today did, if altered to the point man is no longer a particularly accurate descriptor in either sense of the word. They do not appear to have become a Feral, though, and if allowed to remain, it will be interesting to see if they now have the 'Shadow Pantha' Infection or not." Several times, you nearly stop reading in shock, but horrified fascination draws you onwards until you reach the least word on the page. Shocked stares and stunned silence greet you as you finish.
"Wat's... We guy wwiwing wat has gowt to be crawy, wight?" Vicky breaks the silence once more, the lollipop now apparently small enough that she merely sounds very silly talking round it, rather than unintelligible. "Were's no chawnce whis wing can bring bawck we deawd, wight?"
"Seventeen percent chance it can bring back the dead. Ow! That was a hard one."
"Wops, sowwy Dinawh. Okawy, wat's a liwtle high, wut-" Something seems to occur to Dinah after she answers the question and after a moment's thought she interrupts Vicky to ask another one.
"Chances people with the organism in our bodies in their bodies can come back after taking injuries that should kill them? Ow ow ow. Ninety n-ow! Ninety percent chance they, ow ow, can." She doubles over, clutching her head after she answers herself, and you quickly place a hand on her shoulder. (Un)Fortunately, there are no symptoms of anything wrong with her beyond those associated with Thinker headaches, which you can't do anything about. They start to clear very quickly though, and Dinah gives everyone a weak and shaky but clearly intended to be reassuring smile as she straightens and blinks tears from her eyes.
"Don't worry, my powers gave me headaches all the time before this. It is a little surprising I haven't gotten one before now, but it's going away very fast."
"Does anyone else have medical conditions that are suddenly not bothering them since we woke up they haven't mentioned?" You ask, exasperatedly, despite having looked at Vicky and Missy enough times to know they don't. Although, there is the fact Missy's scars were missing when you woke up... Maybe there's some kind of connection?
"What else is in the notebook, Taylor?" Missy asks once Dinah has mostly recovered. "I want to know all the bullshit first so I can freak out about everything at once."
"Give me a second to skim the rest of it." Taylor responds, taking the book off you and beginning to thumb rapidly through it. She starts talking again before she's done, not seeming to have any issues doing both at once. "Most of it is just observations of what Sophia and her lackeys do each day over a week and a bit, written half-way between an intelligence report and a nature documentary. Whoever was doing the writing definitely assumed anyone else who read it would know the terminology they used and the assumptions they were working from, so it says things like 'Given their unusual ability to keep the bodies of their prey intact long after Dispersal should have occurred' all the time without explanation of what's normal. I'm pretty sure they are intending for other people to read it, though, there are too many bits that only make sense if you assume they're reporting back to someone - and probably were sent specifically to investigate Winslow or Sophia's group. I think whoever it was started watching after Sophia got Emma from wherever she was, there are a couple of comments like 'no sign of the Infected that Shadow Stalker raided Hellhound's territory to acquire have been seen, but I have heard howls that could belong to it several times today' and they noticed when Madison showed up - they wonder where she came from and why she seems to have so much rank despite being 'mostly unaltered from human standard', and then later how she became 'Infected with their strain without use of the Font'. The other big weird bit is there's apparently some sort of jungle growing on the roof, with a pond fed by a waterfall from nowhere and a big thicket of the 'Boar Plants' that were mentioned. Which are apparently some kind of flesh-eating bush that grows whole wild boars, live ones, like fruit over a few days. Oh, and apparently the pasphrases they use to let their guards know they're coming up the stairs are variations of 'Taylor Hebert sucks cock', so fuck you very much too, Sophia."
"Seriously?" You can't help but ask.
"Seriously. Most of the time it's Sophia's cock too, so I'm really hoping this is a new attitude because of the transformation and the last year and a half of my life hasn't been ruined by some screwed up repressed sexual thing." It's probably a good sign she can make jokes about it, but...
"Not what I meant and you know it, you jerk!" You swat her gently on the shoulder a few times. "They seriously have a plant that grows live boars?"
"The writer talks about them often and consistently enough that I doubt they're the one bit that's actually them being crazy, so yep, big angry wild boar. They apparently disintegrate if you cut the vines too early, but if you leave it too long they pull themselves free and run around trying to gore everything in sight. Or screw it. Or both." Taylor finishes looking through the notebook, apparently finding nothing else of interest, as she finishes speaking.
"Suddenly, the self brewing soup pot seem rather normal." Missy mutters before the silence can drag on again. You nod numbly. "Right, show of hands that I bend space into a couple of pretzels so we have a five minute freak out that things are even madder than we thought without the screams carrying too far, then get on with our ridiculously long quest for some pants?" The ayes carry the motion of Councillor M.Biron unanimously.
If you were expecting some sort of a return to a world ruled by common sense and rationality when you all go to look in the last locker, you don't get it. Finding the full costume for Winslow High's sports team mascot would be mildly eyebrow raising on its own, given that "Winni the Wasp" is not only a giant, slightly anthropomorphised, vaguely feminine wasp, but Winslow's sport colours are apparently pink and light blue, and the costume is mostly a particularly eye-searing shade of the former, with bright bands and other accents of the latter. (Between this and the floor plan, the evidence someone in the school admin holds great hate in their hearts for the entire institution is mounting.) You never thought you'd see the day when you had to admit that the giant green and gold "armour" costume of the Arcadia Knight's mascot was actually relatively tasteful and sensible, yet here you are.
And of course, the bizarre appearance of the costume is only the start of it. You take the lower legs of the costume and put them on, intending to see if the slightly stilt-like pieces are comfortable enough to walk in, given your total lack of shoes, only for the rest of the costume to fling itself towards you the moment you have both legs on. You barely have time to realise what's going on before you find yourself clad in thick, fuzzy, pink fabric from head to toe. You startle in shock, misjudge your footing due to a combination of the stilts, the semi-transparent "compound eyes" now filling most of the sides of your vision, and the weight of the stuffed "abdomen" now hanging off your ass, start to slip, and find yourself suddenly hanging in mid-air. And not because Vicky caught you. No, you're in the air because the plastic wings on the back of the costume have started buzzing furiously, and that's somehow keeping you in the air. The impossible wings seem eager to throw you through the air at the slightest twitch/thought, but fortunately the padding of the costume protects you when you bounce off one wall, the ceiling, the floor, the other wall and the ceiling again in short order. Vicky stops laughing round her lollipop to fly up and help you move down more slowly at that point, but for some reason you end up hovering a couple of inches above the floor, just unable to stretch your legs far enough that the feet of the costume touch it. You concentrate furiously and are rewarded with the click of plastic touching tile, but when you open your eyes, the floor is actually further away and getting further! Luckily, your sudden growth spurt is slow enough the others can easily get out of the way, and stops when the antenna of the costume brush the ceiling. Unluckily, you can't figure out how to make the costume get smaller again at first, and when you do it overcompensates, leaving you doll-sized and scowling. By this point, Vicky is rolling in the air laughing, Dinah is muffling giggles, Missy is about to draw blood she's biting her lip so hard not to laugh and while Taylor seems to be the only one not amused by your plight her body language has taken on shades of the too-blank look that accompanies her doing whatever she does to not show emotions. To add insult to injury, once you finally get yourself right-sized and solidly on the ground, the arms of the costume aren't flexible enough to reach most of the zippers, and the gloves are too stiff and bulky to grab the ones you can reach. And, when Taylor helps you out by unzipping one of the arms, the second you take that arm off, whole thing, including the shoes you were standing in, falls off you, dropping you unceremoniously on your bikini-clad ass. Of course. Why wouldn't it?
After a few minutes for people (Vicky) to recover their composure and to make sure everything you've found so far is either in the rucksack, in hand or worn as appropriate, you're ready to leave this part of the school behind, a useful item, some slightly more dubious clothes and a great deal of less-than-comforting information richer.
As you make your way towards the changing rooms once more, the sudden trill of music causes you all to freeze and look around for the source. It seems to be coming from thin air, but after the simple, fanfare-like tune has played a couple of times, the door to some kind of closet just in front of the group flings itself dramatically open and a short but incredibly curvy woman in a skimpy blue outfit floats through. The wings of glowing light behind her flutter as she strikes a strange pose with such vigour her long grey hair flies around for several seconds, then she adjusts her glasses with two fingers and speaks.
"Welcome, young ladies, to Uber and L33t's Wandering Shop of Wonders, provider of a panoply of practical products for-OH MERDE IT'S GLORY GIRL! L33t, hit the bug out button!"
The woman (Uber?) tries to slam the door shut, but Vicky spits the stick of her just finished lollipop out and shoots forward, grabbing it and yanking it back open with one hand while the other closes around the woman's tie and yanks her forward.
"Hi! I'd like to buy some answers please?"
New Usable Items:
Large Camping Rucksack - A sturdy rucksack with considerable carrying capacity. Has a Safe Enhancement letting it carry several times its apparent volume without an increase in weight.
Bedroll - A fairly comfortable one-person bedroll. It's a little big to be truly called portable, but it's much easier to move around than an actual bed.
Wool Blanket - A thick woollen blanket, suitable for lying on or under. Big enough for two, three if they're willing to get very close.
Fancy Vibrator - A vibrator with a number of settings and options, it promises to be "Any Girl's Best Friend". Runs without batteries now. Enhances actions to reduce LIB.
Pack of Cards - An ordinary pack of playing cards. Can be used to play various games, allowing people to bond and reducing stress.
Geeky Glasses - A pair of thick glasses with chunky plastic frames that flatter no one. Anyone wearing them can see further and in more detail. Provides 10 PER. Has a Moderate enhancement that lets the wearer ignore vision-based penalties, and also provides a HUD highlighting things of interest through up to two walls.
Childish Sundress - A demur sundress with a colourful fox cub print that gives anyone who wears it an air of childish innocence. Has an unknown Minor enhancement when worn.
"Winni the Wasp" Mascot Costume - This rather clunky, comical and cartoonish looking wasp costume is for Winslow High's sports mascot, and so is a rather eye-searing bright pink and sky blue rather than the expected yellow and black. It must be worn as a set, all the pieces together cover everything but the wearer's lower face and it is very difficult to remove without help. It has a Major enhancement when worn that allows the wearer to fly, another that allows them to shrink or grow, plus unknown effects in a fight. The thick padding on the costume's hands modifies the wearer's STR by x0.8 for the purposes of unarmed damage, and their DEX by x0.75 if manual dexterity is required. The flight modifies the wearer's DEX by x1.5 when there is room to use it in, but the clumsy nature of the costume modifies it by x0.5 when there's not room to fly. Changing size trades x0.1 STR modifier for x0.1 DEX modifier when shrinking and the reverse when growing, up to a maximum of x1. It can be moved by up to x0.2 per round in combat.
New Major Information:
City Territory Map - A map of Brockton Bay, showing the territories claimed by the various Infected groups that now inhabit it. It looks to have been printed and laminated with the new divisions on, rather than being altered after creation. Needs cleaning before you can see everything that's on it.
Childish Sundress - Despite the print looking like it's intended for a toddler with poor colour vision, the sundress is a modest, comfortable piece of clothing, and you're short enough on those the someone should wear it. The only question is who:
[Sundress] Amy
[Sundress] Vicky
[Sundress] Missy
[Sundress] Taylor
[Sundress] Dinah
Winni the Wasp Mascot Costume - Very concealing, with some powerful abilities but a number of drawbacks, not the least of which is looking rather stupid. The costume is weird and awkward enough that even if it is clothing, someone may well think that nudity is preferable. Does anyone wear it?:
[Costume] Yes
-]Amy
-]Vicky
-]Missy
-]Taylor
-]Dinah
[Costume] No
Geeky Glasses - They might be phenomenally ugly, but these glasses do have some handy effects. Does anyone wear them?:
[Glasses] Yes
-]Amy
-]Vicky
-]Missy
-]Taylor
-]Dinah
[Glasses] No
QM: If the same person ends up winning the vote to wear the Bikini, Sundress or Costume, they'll wear whichever one has the most votes for them to wear, and the other item will go to whoever came second.
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Last edited: Aug 2, 2020
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ava2607, Randomtrol, polkio123 and 140 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 1, Part 3.5 (Early Morning)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: An actual short update!
Spoiler: Rolls
"It wasn't anything I did, I swear!" L33t cries from where he(?) dangles from Vicky's fist, next to Uber. If the two hadn't done a lot of terrified screaming each other's names while your sister chased them round the small shop floor-like area that's somehow replaced one of Winslow's closets, you'd never have recognised them. The curvy fairy woman who opened the door was indeed Uber, while L33t is now a brunette girl who you'd say was between you and Missy in age, except for her utterly ridiculous bustline. You have no idea how she(?) manages to walk without overbalancing, let alone run. And only the many belts across it can explain how sleeveless, open fronted red jacket "covering" those things stayed "decent" throughout the whole thing. Vicky caught them both in the end, though, and is currently giving them the full force of both her furious glare and her aura. She started out a little more restrained, but then they both made the mistake of openly ogling the view of her naked body they had from their position (in her fists), and things got cranked up to the point you're a little surprised no damp patches have appeared on L33t's brown short-shorts or Uber's blue and white mini-skirt.
"F-Day was as much of a surprise to us as the rest of the city, we promise!" Uber says next, in a desperate tone. Vicky regards the pair suspiciously, but lowers them to the ground, apparently satisfied that despite the rather videogame-like ways a good bit of what you've run into seems to work and the slightly suspiciously timed appearance of the their "shop" appearing the minor villains really aren't (knowingly) responsible for the mess you've found yourselves in.
"Fine. But you're going to answer our questions about what's going on, and if you try to run or mess with us, you're not going to like what happens next, got it?" Vicky makes a ball-crushing gesture that you're pretty sure is threatening a bit of anatomy neither of them have anymore, but it still works fine.
"Got It!/Got It!" The response comes in terrified stereo, and Vicky releases them fully, letting her aura fade. They scuttle back from her, but don't try to get away, and share back and forth looks before Uber speaks. "Okay, I have no idea who two of you are, but assuming that's Vista in the wasp costume, I know three of you were last seen on F-Day, and with how...normal...you all look, you've not been running around unnoticed since then?"
"You shouldn't, they're not capes. And I'm Vista, yes." Missy wasn't happy when you insisted the younger girls put on the clothes you found to get covered up with something, and even less happy to lose rock-paper-scissors to Dinah and end up in the mascot costume, but the head of the outfit actually covers more of her face than her usual costume, so it's rather convenient here. "And that's the second time you've said 'F-Day'. What is it?"
Uber's eyes widen slightly, and L33t gapes in shock, blurting out: "Wow, you really are out of the loop! Have you been locked up somewhere or something?"
"We woke up in a basement this morning. Get to the point where you explain what's going on." Vicky snaps.
"I...Okay, to know how much needs explaining, I need to ask, do any of you remember anything after April first? The day that weird fog covered the city?" You can't see any harm in answering Uber's question, so after a quick glance at the others to check, you confirm that's the last day you remember.
"Okay. Right. Okay. So, that's F-Day, these days. Fog Day, Fools Day, Fu-err, a few other words beginning with F-Day. The Fog rolled in, people started getting lost and horny, and then things got weirder. Leet and I missed a lot of what happened after the weekend, by that point we'd bunkered down behind everything we had and a few new things, but we could send the Snitch out to scout and we've talked to people since, so we can say how the next week or so went. Which was pretty badly - Between people getting lost walking ten feet, anyone who tried to leave the city getting really lost, the gangs going at it... Even without the Infection, it would have been a mess. With it, there were riots by Tuesday and most of the city was a warzone by Saturday night, and things got worse from there."
"How long has it been since, err, 'F-Day'? And if you bunkered down, why did you pop out of a closet in my- in a high school?" Taylor is the first to ask the obvious follow up questions.
"No idea!" Uber chirps, then holds up their hands in a warding gesture at the resulting dirty looks. "No, seriously, I'm not sure, and the reason why also explains the closet thing. Leet threw together a bunch of things to keep the Infection out, not that we knew what it was at the time, other than making a bunch of his scanners freak out, and they worked just fine for a week or so." From the pout on L33t's face, you suspect the words "blow up" are about to appear in the story. "And then there were a couple of days of frantic patching, then they blew up and next thing we knew, we're a couple of hot chicks, unmoored in time and space, doomed to be able to help valiant Survivors of Brockton Bay only through the services of our wandering little shop!" Uber pauses after finishing her dramatic recounting, and says in a more normal voice. "Not these hot chicks, though, we were Peach and Daisy at first, but we keep changing."
"We've run across a couple of references to 'The Infection', is it the same weird organism that was in the fog when it arrived and now seems to be in anything?" You ask.
"Hah, told you it wasn't nanomachines, son!" L33t crows, holding out a hand to Uber in the manner of one expecting to be paid for winning a bet. The other villain sighs and slaps a piece of paper with something illegible scrawled on it into the hand, and L33t continues. "Yeah, no one really knows what it is or how it works, but the name stuck, 'cause it's, well, infectious as all hell. It's in pretty much everything in the city at this point, and it does all sorts of weird shit. Like, I'm guessing from the way that rather flattering swimsuit you're wearing catches the light, you've found that stuff does things it shouldn't, but kind of makes sense, if you go by, like, thematic rather than physics?" You give L33t a glare at the unsubtle checking out of the sight of you in the bikini the others insisted you wear, as the healer, that accompanies the question, but nod. "So, that's about the least odd thing the Infection does. Even ignoring what it does to people, it can turn an apartment block into a cross between a bouncy castle and an actual castle, make trees grow a harvest of chocolate bars every twenty nine hours, turn a block into a desert and the one next to it into a swamp, summon up monsters, screw with space and probably time and probably more we haven't run into yet!"
"By 'what it does to people', you mean transforming them, right?" You're pretty sure already but confirmation is good.
"Kind of yes, kind of no." Uber says, after exchanging an uncomfortable look with L33t. "The physical changes are the most obvious bit, but if it were just them, things wouldn't be half as bad in the city as they are, you know? Some of the mental stuff goes along with people's bodies transforming, but we've had people who look like someone stuck an octopus, a motorcycle and a snowdrift in a blender come in and shop politely, and had people who look mostly normal beat themselves bloody trying to smash down the door, so Feral that just the whiff of us puts them in a frenzy. Some people come out with their personality mostly intact, a lot end up pretty much as mindless monsters - and it's definitely monsters, animals wouldn't be half so nasty - and most end up somewhere in between. Generally closer to the 'Monster' end of things than not." Uber trails off, and L33t picks up the thread of the conversation.
"There are three main groups people with the Infection fall in to, Survivors, Ferals and Near-Ferals. Survivors are the ones like us and you, pretty much capable of functioning like normal humans in a civilised society. Ferals are, at best, ruled by animal instinct - they want to fight, feed and fuck, and don't, probably can't care about much else. Near-Ferals are...harder to sum up. They're more rational than Ferals, and generally their tribes at least have the look of an actual society, but they're pretty savage to 'threats', which usually means anyone with a different kind of Infection they see. Oh, yeah. There are a bunch of variants of the Infection, and they seem to push their carriers to spread them to people with other variants. Ferals and Near-Ferals get that the worst, but some Survivors do to. They're just more subtle about it than the usual methods."
"The usual methods?" Vicky asks, while you're still deciding if you want to know.
"Beating someone halfway to death or raping them there." L33t responds, bluntly. "Or all the way there, sometimes."
"We...we found a notebook talking about something like that." Taylor says hesitantly after a moment. "Can people with the Infection really come back from the dead?"
"Two different ways, if you can believe it." Uber sounds like they kind of can't. "Well, one is more super-boosted healing from should be dead, rather than coming back from dead-dead. People with the Infection in their bodies heal better and faster, I mean, heal broken bones in days or hours fast, and it seems to be a feature that if blood loss or oxygen deprivation or something similarly low-trauma would kill you, you go into a sort of suspended animation while it fixes you. You look pretty dead, but you're not quite. That one I've seen work, it's freaky looking but harmless - you wake up a couple of hours later, sore, horny and hungry as hell, but otherwise fine. The other one, though... I've never seen it happen, but I've spoken to people who say they have, even a couple who claim it happened to them. Supposedly, in certain circumstances, sentient Infected can revive like Mindless and Feral ones do. It's apparently rough as hell, but better than staying dead. Oh, right, you wouldn't... If you do enough damage to a Feral or Mindless Infected, not necessarily enough to kill them, but enough it might, generally, they basically disintegrate and reform again a while later. It's part of why they're such a problem. Anyway, according to pretty solid rumour, it can happen with other levels of Infected. Well, for Near-Ferals it pretty much has to be true, otherwise the tribes in the Docks would have wiped each other out by now, so I'd be surprised if the same thing wasn't the case for Survivors, the differences between them and Near-Ferals are nowhere near as big as the ones between either and Ferals, no matter what people say. " Between the notebook and Dinah's power, you already had good reason to expect an answer along those lines, but actually hearing it still takes some processing.
"Do you know what the circumstances people can come back in are?" You ask eventually. "And, changing the subject a bit, do you two mind if I examine you? I want to try and get a better handle on how the organism behind the Infection works, but I need more samples, and if it's not in a person my power can't read it properly."
"Not really. I think you need somewhere to come back to, but what counts for that, I've no idea. And as long as you fill us in on what you find, I've got no objections. Leet?" The Tinker nods, so you move to stand between the two of them and place a hand on each of their shoulders. You can only examine one of them at once, but it's much easier to compare what you find if you don't have to keep moving. You focus your attention on the task at hand, vaguely aware from the snatches of conversation you hear that the others are continuing to talk.
"How bad is the situation in the city, now?"
"Pretty bad. The docks and the trainyard are the only outright warzones, but big bits of the city are basically abandoned to Ferals and Mindless, and with a few exceptions, even the 'safe' communities are only safe if you're the 'right' sort of Infected. Travelling is pretty risky, especially since the fog sometimes gets thick and then you can end up anywhere in the city."
"You've mentioned 'Mindless' a few times, what are they?"
"Wild Mobs, pretty much. ... HUFF ... Monsters that just show up in some places and attack. Newb."
"Do you have any idea how much of the city is still alive? Or sane?"
"Leet and I can't really go out and investigate ourselves, but we've got some repeat customers who do, and from what they say... Well, the best they've got so far is it's hard to tell. There's not a lot of communication between even the mixed Survivor communities, travel's too risky for most and phones and shit aren't reliable, if they work at all. There are some people who carry messages, but not many. Which means that, even though you can talk to people and work out things like 'Eighty five percent of the population does not know the location of at least one family member', that doesn't say much about what state the missing people are in - they could be dead, they could be Feral, they could be in a tribe, they could be fine but suck on the other side of the city. They're pretty sure more of the city is dead or Feral than not, just because of how empty things are outside of an established territory, but between the space weirdness and the fact Ferals apparently sleep a lot if their territory isn't that active, the ratio of dead to Feral could be pretty much anything."
"Any better idea on how many Survivors and Near-Ferals, at least compared to each other?"
"Ehh, fuzzier, if anything. I think I mentioned the line there isn't as sharp, and on top of that, a lot of groups tend to be 'Us people here are civilised Survivors, but those animals over there are Near-Feral Barbarians.' so, you'll get a lot of conflicting information. If I had to guess, I'd say there are more Survivors than Near-Ferals, but a lot of those Survivors are just politer about expanding their territory and ranks, rather than actually interested in peaceful coexistence."
Your examination goes very slowly at first, but after about fifteen minutes of banging you head against the metaphorical wall, you realise where you've made a mistake in trying to understand the strain of the Infection in Uber and L33t, and from there understanding comes thick and fast. There are a few things you don't still don't quite understand a quarter of an hour later, but you don't think you're going to be able to crack them today - you'll need to let your power mull over things a bit before they make sense. Not that you quite know how you know that, given it's not been something your power has had to do before, but you do. There are a couple of things you want to ask about, just to make sure they what you think they are, but you expect to be right.
"Okay, I've finished my examination." You announce, drawing everyone's attention as you walk away from the two villains. "So, basic stuff first, the two of you are as saturated with your strain of the Infection as you can get. You probably could catch other strains, but the one you've got is pretty strong, and it would likely squash anything that doesn't work with its 'goals'. It seems pretty unlikely to spread, as well. It's not totally incapable of it like the strain my powers came up with, but it's pretty close. I'd also say you're as changed as you're going to get, except it's got a weird trait where it apparently shifts the appearance it wants you to have every so often?"
"Yeah, every week or so, from our perspective, we wake up looking totally different. Always a chick from a video game, always with a hot bod, or a hotter one if the original was hot to begin with, and always the same series for both of us. Our clothes change too, but only when we put them on. Leet was Mai Shiranui before turning into loli-big boobs over there, and she spent the week wearing less than that bikini of yours." You glare at Uber, who accompanies her comment with an unsubtle leer. You head over to Vicky and get her to float lower, wanting to get something out of the rucksack to test with.
"And neither of you feel weird in your bodies, either when you change or just being female in general?" You ask while you rummage, and get two nods in response as both say they feel fine. "And do your powers seem to work a little differently?" Two more nods, but neither offers any details. "Okay, two more things to check, but they're a little more personal. I can have the others wait outside while we go over them, if you'd prefer?"
"Ha! I ain't ashamed of anything about this bod!" L33t declares, posing provocatively. Uber looks a little less certain, but doesn't say anything when you glance her way.
"Really? I'd think getting horny easier yet not being able to get off through masturbation would be a little more sensitive." L33t's face falls like a ton of bricks. You feel a little mean, but remind yourself that no matter how young and cute she currently looks, L33t is an adult criminal, who literally just asked for it.
"Dudette, you walked right into that one." Uber whistles. "What did you think she meant when she said personal? But yeah, you're spot on with that? Don't suppose you can do anything about it?"
"Not at the moment. Maybe when I've learned a bit more about the Infection, but for now I wouldn't know where to start. Now, one last thing to confirm. If you could both look at this and tell me what you think?" You produce the huge strap-on you found earlier from its shoe box with a flourish. The effect is imediate and dramatic. Uber's eyes fix on it and widen dramatically as she flushes, and L33t does the same, but also openly starts drooling.
"Merde. I want to ram that so far up my cunt it comes out my throat, then do the reverse." Uber whispers. L33t just makes grunting noises, and you put the sex toy back in its box before you succeed where your sister failed at creating a wet spot on her shorts. You ignore the faint "awww" that accompanies it and speak.
"That's a fairly conclusive 'Yes' on the phallic object fixation, then."
"I always forget when I haven't annoyed you for a while that you can be the meanest bitch." Uber says after swallowing heavily, sounding approving.
"When have I ever not been annoyed with you when we met? If you think I like patching dumbass Villains back together so their own stupid doesn't kill them before trial, I clearly need to work on my bedside manner." You snark.
"Sometimes we manage to go months without getting caught and blown up. It's enough to the memories of cruel reality to fade beneath your sparkling reputation." Uber shoots back
"CAPITALISM HO! Enough flirting with the customers Uber, it's time to sell them some shit!" L33t interrupts, and you gag a little at the realisation that, yes, you were just kind of flirting with Uber of all people. In front of Vicky!
"...no, really, my stuff is a lot more reliable now." L33t is saying when you finish freaking out "Well, this stuff, anyway. The things in the shop mostly do their thing via the Infection, rather than tinkertech. Guaranteed minimal maintenance and no more likely to break than an ordinary item of its kind."
L33t's claim is met by great scepticism, but a few discreet questions of Dinah's power confirm the odds of the things you buy breaking on you are minimal, so, with another great cry of "CAPITALISM HO!!" from L33t, a lever is pulled that apparently activates a machine that scans the customers in the shop and works out which items of stock they should be offered, and which items of their own are fair exchange. You'd think you could just say what you want, be told what they've got that matches and work out a price, but apparently that's not how it works. The machine spins a bit, and comes up offering the trade of the fancy vibrator you found for a novelty pen that turns into a "magic" staff that shoots pretty powerful blasts and can provide a "costume" that temporarily gives a big boost to defence and lets you fly; trade the huge strap-on for a massive spear made of bone that breaks down defences and can turn into a necklace; trade half the gems from the cache for a very sparkly tiara that makes you more charismatic and trade the expensive booze you found for a pair of tough boots that let you sneak and run better and faster.
L33t also looks at the parasol Missy is carrying, and declares she can make it in to something that will stand up to combat, and possibly provide some kind of boost there. It'll take her less than a day, from your perspective, and she can deliver it to you when it's done. She'll do it for free if you buy enough, otherwise she wants compensation, which gets quickly argued to nothing with two items, the deodorant and one item and the deodorant and all four porn mags with no purchases.
Uber and L33t's shop is special - rather than having a list of value prices to pick from, they trade specific items from their stock for specific items in the party's inventory. This time, they're offering the following trades:
Magical Girl Wand -
Spoiler: Description
Price: Fancy Vibrator
[Wand] Buy
-] And equip to:
[Wand] Don't Buy
Giant Bone Spear -
Spoiler: Description
Price: Huge Strap-on
[Spear] Buy
-] And equip to:
[Spear] Don't Buy
Pretty Princess Tiara -
Spoiler: Description
Price: 250 Gems
[Tiara] Buy
-] And equip to:
[Tiara] Don't Buy
Bootlegger's Boots -
Spoiler: Description
Price: 100 Expensive Bottle of Booze
[Boots] Buy
-] And equip to:
[Boots] Don't Buy
Additionally L33t has been struck by inspiration and believes he can turn the Gothic Parasol into something useable in combat. It will take him 2d10 hours to do so, and it will be delivered to you wherever you are when done. If you buy 2 items it's free, 1 he wants the Men's Deodorant as payment and 0 he wants all 4 Porn Mags as well.
Spoiler: Odds of Results
Do you give L33t the Gothic Parasol to work on (and any payment needed)?:
[Parasol] Yes
[Parasol] No
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Last edited: Aug 2, 2020
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ava2607, ZhaWarudo, Randomtrol and 145 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 1, Part 4 (Early Morning)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
Spoiler: Rolls
Two things strike you as you leave Uber and L33t's store, returning to the same rather ravaged looking hall you left. The first, most obvious one, is that at some point between Uber closing the door with a wave and Missy yanking it back open to reveal a perfectly ordinary supply closet, you start feeling noticeably horny. Not enough so that anyone looking at you could tell, not enough to be distracting, but...there, persistently on the edges of your thoughts, and oddly detached from any actual source. If, for example, it was due to the sight of Vicky's new bone necklace just brushing her breasts, that would be one thing. Or if it was due to the striking contrast between Taylor's dark hair and the shining tiara nestled in it, or even the images conjured up by L33t's crude, not quite muffled by Uber's hand in time, suggestion as to where the still naked girl could "store" the wand's pen-form. Then you could understand it, and maybe know what to think, or not think, about to cool off a little. But it's not, it's just there, lingering. You can't tell if the others are feeling anything similar (Vicky's exposed nipples look hard, you think, but you daren't look close enough to be sure), and you're caught between the warring urges to know, in case everyone's feeling it and it's some kind of environmental thing, and to not ask, because if you're the only one feeling this way (and probably even if you aren't) you'll just come off as a creeper. You get as far as opening your mouth to ask, think better of it, dither for several seconds, and decide instead to ask about the other oddity.
"It's not just me, right? The light through the windows is wrong - we were in there what, half an hour, three quarters? This early in the day the light should have changed a lot, but I don't think it's even moved?" Your question is mostly met with shrugging, you apparently being the only one in the group who's regularly up and awake enough to notice how the light changes between seven and eight in the morning, but checking the classrooms for working clocks confirms that it's around quarter to eight, rather than the close to half past eight you were expecting.
The discovery creates a certain amount of bemusement, but it's not even the first time today time hasn't passed right, so in the end you all just accept it and move on, the prospect of finally reaching the locker rooms of far more immediate interest. Unfortunately, when you round the corner to the hall they're on, you're greeted with the sight of another wall of junk, and it takes all your self control to avoid kicking it and/or expanding Dinah's vocabulary (Missy's being a lost cause). The rear doors of the school, when you backtrack to them, are held shut, by boards on the inside and something large and heavy that scrapes very loudly when Vicky pushes against them. Fortunately, there's one more route you can try before you have to either force your way out and attract who knows how much attention through the noise, or go all the way back to the front of the school and the sharp object littered ground there. The school's main basement, Taylor relays, has exits both inside and outside the building, and even if the outside exit is blocked too, it's further away from the concentrations of Infection on the third floor that she assumes are the areas the Pantha's spend most of their time in.
The inside entrance is just around the corner from the back doors, and the basement itself proves surprisingly orderly, with neat stacks of replacement furniture, boxes of stationary and other supplies, none of which are of much use to you. Or anyone, really, in the current situation. The largish bin near the foot of the stairs that apparently holds lost and found clothes, if the janitors don't just throw them away, is one of the few spots of disorder in the room, lying on its side at an angle, empty but for a single ratty sock and a handful of scraps of fabric. You peer around curiously during the short walk to the far door, but the room seems bare of anything of interest, at least until Taylor stops suddenly, peers at something through her thick glasses, then walks between two rows of stuff, grabs part of the wall at the end, and pulls it casually aside to reveal an alcove beyond.
"These things are pretty handy." She murmurs as the rest of you gape in shock before hurrying over to take a look. "I knew there was something down here, but I'd never have thought to look behind the 'walls' if they didn't highlight things."
The "wall" Taylor moved turns out to have in fact been a curtain, one that somehow becomes indistinguishable from the walls around it when closed. The alcove itself contains an odd trio of items - a fairly large, odd looking machine that's apparently a portable, solar-powered water purifier, according to the plaque on its side, a long pole with a flag on the end and a carrying harness, and an empty sack, the sort you've seen used to haul sports gear around in when the teams at Arcadia are being bussed somewhere. All three turn have the 'enhancement' type of Infection you're becoming familiar with. The sack, like the rucksack you found earlier, can carry more than it should, but unlike the rucksack seems to reduce the weight of anything in it to near-nothing, and also shrinks down to the size of a small pouch. What strange properties the water purifier might posses are unknown, but given it's right next to a "magic bag" that lets even Dinah carry it with you with no effort, you're definitely bringing a machine that makes water safe to drink with you. Finally, unlike the other items you've found so far, just touching the flag tells you what it is and what it does, like an instruction booklet you read with your hands instead if your eyes. It's a (the?) Standard of Valour, and simply being in sight of it when it's being carried inspires the holder and their allies, especially after they win a fight. In a fight, if whoever's carrying it stands firm while waving it and calling encouragement, the effect is increased. And, most unbelievably, it can apparently heal and reinvigorate the holder and their allies in an emergency. Somehow. Trying to figure out how it does any of that is enough to make your head ache and your eyebrow twitch, but if it does what it claims, it's potentially far too useful not to at least bring along until you can confirm if it works or not.
Taylor reports nothing else of interest hidden in the basement, so you continue on your way. The door proves blessedly free of locks, blockages, sleeping monsters, holes in the fabric of space or anything else that could stop you, and despite the fact you're stepping outside wearing nothing but a bikini, you breathe a sigh of relief when you do, glad nothing else has complicated what should have been a short journey. Everyone else seems to feel similar, even the still basically naked Vicky and Taylor, and Dinah goes as far to do a happy little dance, her big boots clunking as she does. Missy, who so far has mostly avoided using the abilities of the mascot costume, takes flight and shrinks down to scout, saying she'll be far less attention getting if there's anyone looking out of the windows of the school or the fog shrouded buildings surrounding the grounds. You study what little you can see without moving out of the stairwell while you wait for her to get back. The fog is nowhere near as thick as what you remember from that first day, merely turning things more than about a block away into vague shadows, instead of swallowing up everything much more than arms length away, and while the sky above is uniformly grey and the sun a pale ghost, you're pretty sure that's more ordinary April clouds than anything else. It's a little eerie, but that's it. The silence, on the other hand, blows right past eerie, through creepy and unnerving and into downright freaky. There's no sound from the city, no passing traffic or distant conversation or sounds of people moving around, which would be bad enough, but there are no sounds of nature either. No birdsong or dogs barking or insect noises, or even a breeze to stir the leaves in the trees.
It makes the sudden twangs that sound when Taylor waves a hand seem like gun shots, even though they're barely louder than someone flicking a rubber band. "There were a few traps." The long haired girl explains when the three of you spin to look at her, hearts racing. "Mostly just wire between posts, triplines, probably? But a couple of snares, and a few that might have pulled over something that would fall nosily if they worked right? With the glasses they were easy enough to pick out, and the Infection in them was easy to move, so making the wires unwind from here was better than trying to do it by hand. Ah, sorry about the unexpected noise. I think I somehow kept the wires tense after I unwound them, so when I stopped controlling them they went slack suddenly?" You glower a bit, but a bit of a jump is more than worth not having to deal with traps as you go, so once your pulse stops racing you let it go. Missy comes back to report the all clear not long after, and Taylor leads the way round the building to the gym, though which you will hopefully be able to finally reach the school changing rooms.
New Usable Items:
Equipment Sack - A large drawstring sack, that looks like it would normally be used to transport sports equipment around. It has a Safe enhancement letting it fit up to 25 items of any size inside and making it near-weightless regardless of what's inside. It can also shrink down to the size of a small pouch.
Standard of Valour - A large flag on a long pole with a carrying harness, presumably intended to be carried at the front of the marching band Winslow doesn't have. When held, the shape and appearance of the flag shift, becoming something to inspire the holder's allies in their current circumstances. Simply being within sight of the flag provides 5 to all combat and feat rolls, and restores 1d5 WP after a victorious combat encounter. It has a Safe enhancement that activates in combat - If the holder waves it and stands their ground while encouraging their allies, the bonus to their allies rolls increases to 10, and they may re-roll one result of 40 or less per round, keeping the highest. Additionally, once per combat the flag can be activated to restore 25% HP and WP to the holder and their allies, at the cost of the holder rolling for Infection when the combat ends, as though the flag was a Significant exposure.
Water Purifier - A bulky yet portable device, capable of purifying large quantities of water with little more effort than filling it up and letting it run. Despite the fact the Infection removes the need for maintenance or changing filters, it produces water that is basically free of the Infection. It has a unknown Safe enhancement that activates when it is run.
Spoiler: Rolls
The doors to the gym open easily, and the room itself is free of obstructions, the half-open doors of the locker rooms visible on the far side. Mostly for completeness's sake, you angle your path across the floor so you can check inside the store room on one side as you pass. What you find inside is a little odd. The room has clearly been ransacked at some point, with deflated balls, broken poles and similar bits of damaged sports equipment strewn around empty racks and overturned bins, but several items sit in plain view on a table by the door. Taylor reports no sign of any traps or something waiting in ambush, but even so Vicky slips the rucksack off her back before floating over, one hand ready to grab the bone necklace in case of surprises.
There are none, and she quickly ferries the small collection of items over to the rest of you. Most of it - three sets of white athletic trainers with different coloured accents, a set of black and green netball gloves that Vicky looks at a little nostalgically and a pair of very small, tight looking pink and black spandex shorts - have no Infection present. Well, they do, but it's in very low amounts, as well as inactive and disordered, compared to the items you've found that have gained unusual effects. Of the other two items, the small, unremarkable khaki backpack has another variation on the carrying enhancement you've found, one that seems a little more...active, is the best word you've got, than the other two. It ends up being stuffed into the sack, since you've not got enough stuff that's not being used to need it at the moment. And the final item, a bright and shiny pair of green latex pants that even unworn look to fit obscenely snugly, has some sort of "when worn" effect, though none of you decide to squeeze the things on to try and find out what, in the end. Which you're more than a little relived about, because there was a moment where it looked like Vicky was considering it, and the sight of her legs, hips and especially her excellent ass in those pants would make the distraction caused by her naked look mild, and you've banged your shoulder off enough walls and doorframes already today. All the clothes go in the top of the rucksack, to decide what to do with once you've searched the changing rooms too, and you give the room one last scan-!
"AHHHHH! RATS!!!!"
Dinah's scream has you all scrambling to get back out into the gym proper, and there you're greeted by the sight of the floor seething with rats the size of small dogs. They're all the same grey-brown colour and, you realise after a second, all identical, down to the last tattered ear and notched tail. There are dozens upon dozens already, and more are appearing all the time. Literally appearing, patches of foam bubbling up from the floor and solidifying into more rats. It's shocking enough that you all just stare in stunned horror for several seconds, and that's enough time for the rats to finish appearing, leaving every part of the floor, bar a two meter or so semicircle around where you're standing, carpeted in furry bodies. The swarm moves in eerie unison, hundreds of beady eyes fixing themselves on your party, each alight with the same vicious hunger, then hundreds of mouths open to release furious screeches, then claws skitter in sync against the hard floor as a tide of fur charges forward to swamp you under the sheer weight of their scurrying numbers, then...
Then Missy and Taylor throw their arms out at more or less the same second, and things go very wrong... For that rats.
Any rat that steps more than half-way into the clear space around you steps into a distortion in the air and finds itself charging headfirst into its fellows at a random point along the semicircle's edge, while great chunks of the swarm turn on themselves, leaping on each other to bite and scratch or simply ram their comrades with mutually bone breaking force.
With their charge in disarray and Taylor turning any clumps that try and mass to attempt something else, the rats are easily dealt with. Vicky takes out the most of them, the great size of her spear letting her smash huge swaths of rats to bubbling foam while flying out of reach of their jumps, but the rest of you help too. Missy flies around the edges of her warped space, crushing disoriented rats beneath the hard "heels" on the costume's feet (You think you see the "stinger" at the end of the stuffed abdomen spear some too, but you're not sure. It seems impossible, but...). Taylor seems mostly focused on using her powers to foul up the swarm's coordination, but the wand bought from L33t is expanded into its staff mode, and bolts of light sporadically fly from the winged heart atop it to vaporise clumps of rats. Even Dinah gets in on things, standing just outside the door to the store room, waving the standard and cheering enthusiastically, while cracking her whip at any rat that gets close enough. You probably do the least, lacking a weapon and not quite ready to test the protection effect of your bikini by wading into the mob to start hitting things, but you kick a few rats that the actions of the others leave vulnerable at the edges.
You also grab a number of rats to prod with your powers, with interesting results, the first of which is that they, or more likely the Infection in every cell of their bodies, are mildly resistant to your powers, with changes taking longer and seemingly trying to reverse themselves after a little while. The delay is barely seconds and the reversion slow enough to easily keep on top of, but the rats, while big for rats, are still pretty small in relative terms, so you're a little concerned about how hard using your powers on something bigger, such as one of the humanoid panthers living upstairs, will go in a fight. Not that you've got much experience using your powers in a fight, admittedly. Brockton Bay being what it is, you've had to turn the occasional mugger's lights out, but it's hardly something you've practiced, for a number of reasons. Anyway, that's a problem for the future. The second interesting thing about the rats is that, despite appearing to form from and return to nothing (or possibly the floor), they're fully living creatures while active, with fully functional skeletons, muscles and organs, no different from normal rats, other than their identical nature and the presence of the Infection. Which leads to the final interesting thing, which is that the rats all have the initial, "Basic" stain of the Infection, but unlike almost all the samples of it you've come across since waking up, it's "active" and therefore analysable with your powers. Retreating to stand near Dinah with a pair of thoroughly conked out rats in hand, you turn your attention to learning as much as you can about it.
Your efforts are successful, and you're left with a full picture of the bewildering organism in what appears to be its natural state, as much as something so unlike anything in nature and prone to change can be said to have a natural state. It's airborne, waterborne, bloodborne, surfaceborne, and basically any other possible vector of transmission-borne, and so ridiculously infectious that it needs get only the slightest traces past any barrier that does keep it out to potentially infect someone. The only negative trait it has, as far as spreading itself is concerned, is that it's relatively weak, to the point an ordinary immune system could potentially fight off small exposures. But it's also extremely mutable, and given what you learned from examining Uber and L33t, that can clearly make it much stronger though, from what you know of the variant strains so far, they lose a great deal of that ludicrous infectiousness and transmissiveness when that happens. You can't really tell what limits there might be on mutating away from the original strain, largely because as best you can determine there are none. The transformations caused by the Basic strain look like they normally happen slowly (to allow more time for mutation or exposing others?), but there are two conditions the happen faster in. The first, when the strain first infects a new host, makes sense and is the sort of thing that could happen naturally. The second, rather less so. Transformations potentially happening whenever the host orgasms is just...weird. Weird and vaguely pervy. That the initial transformations are apparently highly likely to make the host get aroused more easily, quickly and significantly makes the orgasm trigger more "sensible", but only if you rather abuse the word. More sinisterly, the Basic strain also potentially responds to orgasm by attacking the brain of the host, primarily targeting, you think, higher brain functions like reasoning, memory and self-restraint, with the likely end result being something that can barely even function as an animal, concerned with slaking its lusts to the near-exclusion of even eating, sleeping or self-preservation. The strain also seems to widen its victims sexual preferences, to the point they can't really be called "preferences" any more, since that would imply there are things they won't try and fuck. The final bizarre detail about the Basic strain is how it alters the sex of those it changes. That three quarters of those infected with it end up female, only five percent of them male and the remainder fully functional hermaphrodites, would be weird enough, but there's also no link between initial sex and final sex. A woman has the same odds of ending up as one of the handful of guys at the end as a man would! Even leaving aside the oddness of the ratio of outcome sexes, in terms of effort, having the outcome be completely disconnected from the initial conditions makes no sense!
The others have pretty much finished off the rest of the rats by the time you finish your examination, so you painlessly shut down the bodies of your subjects. The Infection fights it for several seconds, then seems to give up, and their forms dissolve into brownish foam, which quickly evaporates into nothingness. You give the others a summary of what you've learned about the Basic strain of the Infection, to a collection of shocked and disgusted noises, and Taylor provides her own disturbing report - not only did the rats have minds, or at least instincts of their own, the swarm as a whole had a guiding not-quite-intelligence, which kept re-focusing the rats on your group after she got them to start fighting each other or tried to make them leave. Together, the two reports bring the mood of the group down enough that not even the easy victory or the fact you are finally about to be able to search the locker rooms for clothes can quite lift the gloom.
New Usable Items:
Ordinary Backpack - A small backpack with nothing remarkable about it. Has a Major enhancement that reduces the size and weight of anything placed inside to 1/10th of normal.
Gym Shorts - A pair of very small, tight fitting pink and black spandex shorts. Considered more modest than walking around with your underwear on display, despite the fact panties are generally less revealing.
Netball Gloves - A pair of short, black and green gloves with a "grippy" surface one the inside. Intended for sports, but they'll keep your hands warm and relatively protected for other things too.
Latex Pants - A pair of pants made of bright green, shinny latex. Cover whoever wears them from waist to heel, but look like they're been painted on. Have an unknown Major enhancement.
3x Sports Trainers - Light and breathable yet sturdy trainers, with a decent grip. White with coloured accents, but fortunately easy to clean of mud.
Spoiler: Rolls
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls
There's no reason to feel that way, given there's no chance anyone will be using it, but you all still feel a little uncomfortable heading into the guys locker rooms, so you search the girl's side first. The benches are clear of clothing and most of the lockers stand open, but a few are closed, making you hope they have something inside. They spring open at Taylor's touch, but the first few are a disappointments, containing only a pair of thick socks (and rather hideous ones, seriously, yellow and purple zigzags?) with no special properties, a complete but likewise mundane set of floral sweatbands, and a large plastic flower that, on closer inspection, turns out to be a decorative air freshener. The next locker after that contains an odd, long, tube-like garment made of rubbery material, with faintly sparkly blue "scales" on the outside and thin, gauzy, pink things coming off it that it takes you all several moments of puzzled study to realise are intended to be fins. That's enough for Dinah to recognise it as a mermaid tail, not a costume piece, but something people actually wear for swimming, as some mix of extra exercise and entertainment. It's plainly impractical to walk in, but under the reasoning she'll just fly anyway, Vicky tries it on to see if it's too impractical to use to cover her lower body. Given that putting it on somehow forces her to move through the air in a "swimming" fashion rather than her usual free movement, and apparently also forces her legs together in a slightly uncomfortable manner, the answer is a resounding "Yes". It still goes in the pile though, on the grounds it might be useful if you have to deal with the water on the future, given it has the "special ability" kind of enhancement.
The last two lockers are side by side, and swing open together as you approach, without Taylor needing to do anything. Their contents more than makes up for the disappointing haul from the room so far - two cheerleader outfits, complete from dress to shoes to underwear. Both are baby pink with baby blue accents, suggesting they're Winslow High cheerleader costumes, but the front just has a small "SC" in stylised letter on one breast, while the backs say "Super Cheerleader!" and "Super Cheerleader in Training!". Reading that prompts you to take another look at the second outfit, and it turns out to have several notable differences from the other, all of which imply it's intended for a younger wearer than the other, despite them being the same size. The dress is long sleeved and the skirt looks like it would end below the knee, in comparison to the other dress being sleeveless and ending mid-thigh. It has full leggings and long gloves, as opposed to knee socks and ordinary gloves. The bra with the second costume turns out to be a training bra on closer inspection, the panties are bulky cotton and more modestly cut than the silky panties that go with the "older" outfit and even the trainers have a cuter, more "kiddy" look. All told, the second outfit will do an excellent job of making the wearer look like the kid sister of whoever's wearing the first one, even if Missy were wearing the first and Vicky the second. Both outfits turn out to be "All or Nothing", like the mascot costume, as well. Taylor putting the training bra on with a rather self-depreciating air prompts the whole of the younger costume to appear on her in a whirl of pink and blue, and when she tugs the panties down to swap with the exercise shorts, as soon as she neither foot is inside them, the whole outfit is suddenly in a pile next to her, except the panties still in her hand. Trying with the other set and the gym shorts already on results in the shorts on the bench next to her after the blur has passed, and Taylor wearing an expression that suggests the panties put themselves on a touch higher and more forcefully than needed. Both uniforms are also enhanced, and like the Standard, tell anyone who touches them what they do. Which is considerable. Both enable the wearer to take more damage and heal faster, both enhance the wearer's social and physical abilities, and both can improve those things over time. The older outfit enhances health, agility and charisma a bit more and can improve them a little more, but their abilities are otherwise identical.
With such useful effects and both of them otherwise lacking clothing, there's very little reason for Vicky and Taylor not to wear the outfits. Helpfully mentioning this results in a very amusing scene as the two of them look at the costumes, then at each other, then back to the costumes, and start trying to politeness judo each other using only facial expressions and twitches. It's clear to see that neither wants to end up in the kid's outfit, the likely result of letting the other have first pick, but both are equally reluctant to be "rude" by trying to claim the teenaged outfit without being offered chance to pick. After thirty seconds of this, you have to look away so as not to burst out laughing, and as you do you notice something shiny and pink in the bottom of the locker that had the younger uniform. Investigation reveals it to be a kids-sized rucksack, made of pleather and styled to look like an old-fashioned school satchel. It doesn't have the sort of size-bending enhancements the other methods of carrying things you've found so far, but it's various pockets and compartments produce a never ending supply of paper, crayons, felt-tip pens and other, slightly childish, portable art supplies. The all either disappear or return to the bag (it's hard to tell) if left out for too long, but only if put aside without intent to use them soon. Which is an interesting trick, but you and Dinah can only make each other giggle producing pens like a magician conjuring a stream of handkerchiefs for so long, so you go to put it in the camping rucksack for now. Which reveals it's other ability, as the notebook, various maps and all the other bits of things with information on you've found so far jump out and fly into it, appearing perfectly sorted in the main body of the satchel moments later.
"Oh gross, there's a huge hole to the other locker room here!" Missy's shout interrupts the ongoing polite off, and you follow it to find her inside one of the changing cubicles. She apparently shrunk down to the smallest size the costume allows to explore like that at some point, so the hole turns out to not quite be as big as you thought, but it's still big enough for the currently doll-sized girl to squeeze inside and fit comfortably, despite her bulky costume and no use of her powers. It's also positioned and angled that a guy of average height on the other side, with something to stand on, such as the mirror of the bench in this cubicle, could get a good look at a girl changing in here without her noticing. Taylor looks green about the implications, and you feel a little sick yourself.
"Hey, we're done searching in here, right?" Missy's question jolts you back to the here-and-now, and you join in the general agreement. "Right, I can totally get to the other locker room through this, want me to make it big enough for the rest of you?" You can think of few things you'd like less than going through an enlarged peephole to get into the guy's locker rooms, and say so. The others also decline, and Missy shrugs and crawls off through the hole with a cheery "Suit yourselves!"
"Ugh, do the janitors just not clean in here or something?" Her commentary on what she sees echoes back moments later, and you all look at each other with bemusement, especially when "What's with the guitar case?" and "EWW! Has that thing ever been washed?" follow soon after. The sudden high, terrified "AIEEEE!!!", however has you all running for the nearest door, skidding on the polished floor as you haul ass into the boys locker room.
Inside, you find the room massively expanded and Missy grown to the full twelve-foot size of the costume's maximum, beating on something human-sized and brightly coloured with a bench stretched longer than Vicky's spear. Vicky rockets past the Ward with a yell and slams full on into whatever it is, sending it tumbling down the extended length of the room to land in a heap. It springs up again moments later, and you have just enough time to come to the incredulous realisation it's another wasp mascot costume before Missy slams the bench into it again, and keeps doing so until it finally stops twitching.
"It jumped out of one of the lockers and tried to grab me." Missy explains, as she puts the bench down and the room back to normal while returning to normal size herself. "I was still tiny so it missed, but one of its hands brushed the tail of the costume and it felt like it was trying to stick, so I didn't want to risk touching it."
The crumpled costume is hollow and empty, with no sign there was anyone inside. Looked at more closely, there are also some significant differences from the costume Missy's wearing. It's still pink and blue and clearly meant to look like a wasp, but while hers is a bulky and cartoony thing that makes the wearer look a bit of a tit, the other is plainly meant to show off the wearer's tits. And legs and ass and possibly pussy. You hope this is something the Infection has done to a costume that previously matched the one you found earlier, because the other option is that at some point, someone said "You know what would be hot? A stripper version of Winslow High's mascot!" and not only kept the idea when sober, but found someone willing to make it a reality.
Stepping widely around the fallen costume, you quickly search the boys side of the changing rooms. The guitar case and utterly filthy sports jersey Missy saw earlier are quickly joined by a belt with an oversized buckle in the shape of a bear's head and a large rucksack. The rucksack proves to be the first item of its sort you've found with no unusual properties, while the guitar case does something that you can't figure out but presumably relates to if feeling like there's a guitar in it despite being empty. The belt likewise does something unknown, but helpfully gives the impression that it requires belt loops to work. Finally, the jersey has an effect when worn, but given it's so stained you can't tell what colour it is and smells like it's the self-floating clothing Taylor joked about when you first set off, no one volunteers to wear it and find out. Still, it's the first top you've found that isn't part of an outfit, so you carry it to the showers to see if a rinse helps.
Then you actually see the guys showers and swiftly decide to head back next door.
This is mildly complicated by the lewd costume suddenly springing back to life and lunging, presumably at Missy, when you all turn your backs on it, but Taylor reacts fast enough it nearly impales itself on the tip her extended staff instead, and moments later a column of light from said tip reduces its torso to ash. The rest of the costume breaks apart into motes of colour moments later, which cause considerable yelling by flying into Missy's costume and making it glow, but before anyone can do anything, the glow fades again. In its wake, it leaves a costume which has changed, but tastefully so. It's more sleekly shaped, with less padding overall except in a couple of key places where there's more to give the impression of curves, the "heels" on its feet are perhaps a touch higher, and while still rather cartoonish in appearance, it's a little more dignified in appearance. It proves no easier to get out of, but it is still possible to do so, so the whole transformation is nothing but positives, you all feel. And if Missy seems to preen slightly at looking like she's got curves, no one feels the need to mention it.
Back on the girls side, a quick rinse does little to help rescue the jersey's condition, but it does reveal the showers produce warm, clean water that has no more than traces of the Infection in (and also seems to produce steam with a faint jasmine scent), so you consider grabbing some of the shower gel you found earlier and seeing if it helps, while also having a wash yourself. You're just about to do so when Taylor suddenly charges past, staff in hand, and makes a sharp gesture towards the drainage grate at the end of the row. Thick and slimy looking blue-green liquid fountains out of it, rapidly taking the shape of an excessively curvy woman with a fluid ball in place of her legs, which her expansive ass rests upon like it's a shelf.
"Why were you hiding there?" Taylor demands. The slime woman doesn't respond, just stares blankly. Taylor repeats the question a couple of different ways as the others arrive, but gets no more of a response. It's only Vicky cautiously approaches to just outside arms length that anything happens.
"Boobies! Sucky-Sucky on Boobies!" The slime woman cries cheerfully, in a childish voice. She doesn't move, but given the cries of "Un! No Move! UN! No Move! UNNN!! Let MOVE!!" that follow, you're pretty confident this is Taylor's doing, rather than her own choice.
No questions you ask get a more complicated response than calls to "Sucky-Sucky" on "Boobies" or "Cunnies" mixed with cries to "Let Move!", so questioning is soon abandoned. With Taylor's assurance that the slime person can't move unless she lets her, something demonstrated with a wave that makes her mouth stop moving, you move close enough to touch the surface of her semi-solid body, and turn your power loose. Unfortunately, the Infection within it proves as hard to get a grip on as the substance itself, and you're able to confirm little more than the (obvious) fact that her state is the result of a strain of Infection, one that acts quickly but needs high concentrations of itself in the victim's body to progress past a certain point. Your study done, the question of what to do with the woman is all that's left. She might not have been able to do anything, thanks to Taylor's powers, but given where she was and what she said, it's likely she would have jumped out if you used the showers and sexually assaulted someone at the very least. And if you let her go, there's no reason to think she won't do something similar to someone without your advantages in the future. But you've no way of imprisoning her, and none of you can bring yourselves to execute someone who didn't do anything to you and is currently utterly helpless. Even if she might well come back if you kill her. Perhaps even especially then, because then killing her wouldn't even protect potential future victims. In the end, Taylor makes her slide her way out of the changing rooms and across the gym, intending to send her to the very edges of her range and release her.
You head back into the main portion of the changing room after that, not quite comfortable in the showers despite knowing there's nothing else there. The sight of the two cheerleader costumes, still unclaimed on a bench, gives you an idea how to get people think about something else before "What if?"s turn the mood sour.
"So, which of you gets to dress like you're in elementary school again?" Your puckish question makes Vicky and Taylor tense with nerves, then sigh in unison.
"Rock-Paper-Scissors for the teenage costume?"
"Sure. Ready?"
"ROCK! PAPER!! SCISSORS!!!"
Super Cheerleader Outfit - A full outfit for a Winslow High cheerleader, consisting of a sleeveless, mid-thigh length dress, a sports bra, panties, gloves, knee socks and trainers, all in baby pink and blue. The back of the dress declares the wearer a "Super Cheerleader!". All of it has to be worn at once. Has a Safe enhancement when worn, granting the wearer 40 HP, increasing their healing rate by x1.5, modifying their STR and STA by x1.2 and their DEX and CHA by x1.5 and has a 5% chance per hour (for each) of increasing STR and STA by 1, DEX and CHA by 2 and HP by 10.
Junior Cheerleader Outfit - A much more childish looking full cheerleader's outfit, consisting of a long sleeved, below-knee length dress, a training bra, kids panties, long gloves, leggings and cute trainers, all in Winslow's colours of baby pink and blue. The back of the dress declares the wearer a "Super Cheerleader in Training!". All of it has to be worn at once. Has a Major enhancement when worn, granting the wearer 20 HP, increasing their healing rate by x1.5, modifying their STR, DEX, STA and CHA by x1.2 and with a 5% chance per hour (for each) of increasing STR, DEX, STA and CHA by 1 and HP by 5.
Floral Sweatbands - A set of pink sweatbands with white flowers on them. One for the head and two each for arms and legs.
Filthy Jersey - A sports jersey of some description, in desperate need of a wash before wearing. Or touching, honestly. Has an unknown Safe enhancement when worn (and clean).
Mermaid Tail - Worn by some people for swimming, wearing this blue-scaled, pink-finned item locks your legs and feet together so they're as useless as a fish on dry land. Has an unknown Major enhancement that will activate in the water.
Big-Buckled Belt - This thick brown belt has an oversized buckle shaped like a bear's head. It has an unknown Safe enhancement when worn, but it only activates when paired with something that has belt loops.
Thick Socks - Thick and snugly socks that will keep your feet warm and comfortable, with soles so thick they're almost as good as shoes. Just ignore the yellow and purple zig-zags...
Guitar Case - A case wot you carry a guitar round in. Has a Safe enhancement allowing it transport any number of tools and non-worn pieces of equipment at no more weight than that of a guitar.
Big Rucksack - A good sized rucksack made of durable material, with a waterproof lining and many pockets.
School Backpack - A kids-sized, satchel-like backpack made of shiny pink pleather. Has a Safe enhancement allowing it to store, sort and retrieve infinite amounts of any sort of information, from maps to books to paperwork to DVDs. Also seems to contain a bottomless supply of paper, coloured pencils, felt-tip pens, crayons and similar, which pack themselves away if not used.
Flowery Air Freshener - A small plastic ornament the looks like a flower. Produces a floral scent for up to 12 hours at a time, masking other strong or unpleasant odours in a room and improving the ambiance.
With the group having finished exploring Winslow's lower floors, it's time to decide what to do next. First, though, you need to decide what to do with the last of the loot. You've got almost as many things to carry with as non-equipped things to put in them, so they're mostly getting stored for now, as are not currently usable things like the Mermaid Tail or the Filthy Jersey. To avoid overcomplicating things, non-enhanced clothes like the Thick Socks or Sports Trainers will just be taken by whoever needs them. And in the interests of not re-running votes that recently happened, people won't be swapping their equipment round until at least several updates into the next section, if not the end of it.
Who, if anyone, is going to carry the Standard of Valour (Reminder, it's Safe generally, but its heal risks infecting the carrier)?:
[Standard] Amy
[Standard] Taylor
[Standard] Dinah
[Standard] No one
Vicky and Taylor are last two members of your party in need of clothes, and the main question is who gets to wear the Super Cheerleader Outfit? And will the other wear the Junior Outfit, or go topless with just a pair of Gym Shorts or Latex Pants?:
[Super] Vicky
[Super] Taylor
[Junior] Vicky
[Junior] Taylor
[Junior] Neither
-] Gym Shorts
-] Latex Pants
Finally, what is the party's next course of action? The possibilities are as follows, and whichever wins there will be another vote to decide on details:
[Next] Full Frontal Assault
Just head straight upstairs and confront the Shadow Pantha's while they're all in one place and hopefully still waking up. You're not sure what you'll do with them once they're beaten, but you can't let them keep praying on the people of the city any longer! (Fight the Shadow Pantha's right now. They have around 30 members (about 2/3rds of which a main combatants) plus Sophia, Emma and Madison, and this route will see you facing them in at most three big groups, but will be over quickly.)
[Next] While The Cats Are Away
Thanks to the notebook, you know what time the Huntresses of the Shadow Pantha's head out to prowl the city in the morning and how long they're out there before coming back. Take advantage of their absence to get into the upper parts of the school while they're relatively undefended. (Infiltrate the upper floors, to gather information, prepare an ambush or just nick shit. Involves waiting an hour first.)
[Next] Hunt the Huntresses
The notebook also gives a fairly good idea of the locations and routes the Shadow Pantha Huntresses hunt in when they're out in the city. You can take advantage of that to try and catch small groups of them alone and defeat them piecemeal. (Go after the primary fighters of the Shadow Pantha's while they're split up. Very effective if you catch them, but that's not guaranteed.)
[Next] Pull Out
You don't know enough about what's going on in the city to make any sort of decision about what to do with the Shadow Pantha's, but leaving them to continue as they are indefinitely feels unpalatable. Leave the school but stay in the local area while you get a better handle on things. (Leave Winslow but stay close by, with the intent of coming back to deal with the Pantha's in a few days.)
[Next] Screw This Place
The Shadow Pantha's are dangerous and predatory, but it seems like there's a lot of that going around in the city at the moment, so do they really need to be dealt with right now? Head to another part of the city now, and maybe at some point in the future you'll be back to deal with them. (Leave Winslow and head to another part of the city entirely, with the Pantha's maybe being dealt with at some future point.)
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Last edited: Jun 27, 2020
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Threadmarks: Day 1, Part 5 (Morning)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: Strains info threadmark has been updated with a section for all the keywords you know and their effects.
Spoiler: Record of last vote options
Spoiler: Rolls
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls
Vicky takes her loss with good grace. She does eye the gym shorts and latex pants speculatively, but sighs and reaches for the cheerleader outfit before you can come up with a way to express that the childish uniform would be a far better option than going around topless in either that doesn't involve saying "Your ass in those would actually kill me". Vicky makes the whole ensemble look good, of course, but in a way that makes you feel slightly conflicted. The modest cut of the underwear and dress make her curves seem less generous than they actually are, not to the point that she's not still plainly the best endowed of your group, but enough that she could be a tall and early blooming thirteen, rather than seventeen. If you can see her face, it's fine, she's plainly a young woman, but otherwise, especially from behind, you keep feeling like you're perving on your younger sister. Which feels in some indefinable way worse than perving on your older sister, despite the whole "not-technically-incest" thing being the bit of the latter you normally feel worst about. Not helping is the fact that the item of clothing in the whole set that feel weirdest to Vicky is apparently the panties. Not only have you heard how weird the thick cotton feels against her ass and between her legs in far too much detail, but Vicky spent over a minute with her skirt up and her leggings down, twisting in the air as she tried to take a look at her ass in the single, cracked and warped, mirror in the room. Not only did this mean the rest of you got an eyeful of the way the childish panties hugged her rear from several angles, but you also overheard Dinah muttering to Missy that if she ever did anything like that with her dress or tights in front of people, her mother would have spanked her in front of them, and now you can't get the visions of taking your naughty, immodest little sister over your knee and spanking her oh-so-adult butt while the others watch out of your head. Or watching as Taylor does it. The teenage version of the costume makes her legs look spectacular, and the skirt is just long enough to be modest when sitting. Vicky bent and squirming over her legs would doubtless change that, and... You're wondering a little if the latex pants would really have been that bad.
Despite your best efforts, you find yourself persistently distracted as the five of you discus what to do next, though you're pretty sure you avoid giving away any hints as to why. It does mean you can't muster any strong arguments against Vicky, Missy and Taylor's insistence you should do something about Sophia and her "Shadow Pantha's" right away. You and Dinah had favoured getting more information about the state of the city first but, at least in your case, that was more because you weren't sure what you'd do with them after you'd beat them. On the other hand, even if there are no authorities to hand them over to anymore, which seems likely, when there were authorities, handing villains and gang members over to them didn't exactly keep them off the streets long term, so you can see why Vicky and Missy are fine with just stopping them from hurting anyone else now, and dealing with them again later if they don't get the message. Taylor, you think, is a mix of a slightly less jaded version of that sentiment and the desire to burn all Sophia's new fur off with her new laser beams. The notebook you found earlier, alongside some of what Madison mentioned as she journaled her transformation, give you enough information that you all agree the best options if you're going to strike at the Pantha's are to either ambush their "Huntresses" while they do their morning hunting/patrolling in the area around Winslow, or to take advantage of them being out to invade their base and cause problems there. The latter option wins out in the end, largely because there are less unknowns than fighting in the city. How you're going to get in is easily agreed - Vicky pushes strongly for just heading up the stairs and battering your way through any guards and defences, but the rest of you agree that using Missy's powers to get onto the roof and attacking "from behind", as it were, will be much simpler, safer and more effective. You're also unanimous in agreeing that if you're going to slip in, you should use the opportunity to gather information and that the best source of that will be finding Madison and convincing her that helping you is her best option.
When all that is decided, there's still an hour or so before the Huntresses will be reliably out for the morning, so when Vicky suggests you all take advantage of the time and mysteriously working showers to get clean, you agree absent-mindedly and dig one of the bottles of shower gel out of the rucksack. Shortly after, standing in the communal, entirely without any sort of dividers, girl's showers of Winslow High, you know you made a great mistake in agreeing without thinking, but you're less sure which way you mean "great" there. Being naked, wet and soapy in a relatively small room with four other girls, one of whom is the sister you love in a decidedly non-sisterly way and two of the others being pre-teens just old enough that nudity makes it clear they're children, but not children children, that would be somewhat embarrassing. That one of the twelve year-olds keeps sneaking glances at your sister despite being previously more inclined to do so towards said sister's boyfriend, the other is looking at everything with the air of someone who has discovered something new and wonderful and the last girl in the room is glancing between you and your sister with the expression of one having an uncomfortable personal revelation... Well, that you're included in last is a little flattering, but on the whole it's uncomfortable, given that you're fairly sure something you (unintentionally) did is the reason the room contains four (probably) lesbians and one straight girl, rather than four straight girls (probably) and a lesbian. Also, said lone straight girl is making everything worse because communal bathing apparently makes her stupid straight ass feel playful and she is utterly oblivious to the effect dancing around shaking her stupid, sexy, straight ass (and breasts and hips and...) and splashing people and flicking suds and... Bottom line, you have no idea how Vicky doesn't know by the time you finish showering that she's the only one in your party that doesn't (now) find other girls attractive. Is she so used to people staring because of her aura that it just doesn't register, or has she concentrated all of her "dumb blonde" potential into this one area of utter denseness? Normally, you would say that as perfection incarnate, the first one must be the answer, but what she does when you've shut off the showers and are sitting somewhat awkwardly in the changing cubicles while you wait to air dry enough to dress again makes you reluctantly consider the denseness possibility.
"Right, I'm going to be a while. You guys have fun without me!" This cheery statement, delivered as she floats to the far side of the room and into a toilet stall, prompts you to feel several things in quick succession. Confusion as to what she means gives way to a grossed out TMI feeling as you leap to the obvious conclusion about what she intends to do in a toilet that make take a while, only to fade into puzzled concern as you remember that the only thing in your systems is soup, eaten recently enough that it physically can't have reached the other end already. That shifts more to annoyance when recall your sister also added a dubious lollipop and a not-much-less dubious cola to the mix, and you're debating if you should go make sure she's not having issues now or let her suffer for ten minutes or so when the first moan fills the air. That first moan could have been discomfort. The ones that follow, not so much, including as they do a muffled but still understandable "Ohhhh Dean!".
"Is she...?" Taylor asks as you, she and Missy poke your heads out of your cubicles to exchange incredulous looks.
"Yeah." You sigh heavily. "She's not as...shameless...as this makes her look but... She's impulsive about doing what she feels like - in general, not just, ah, things like this - and she doesn't always think how it looks to other people."
"Is she always so loud when she's doing...stuff like this?" Missy looks like she can't believe she asked her question aloud, and trails off awkwardly. You give an equally awkward nod in return and an uncomfortable silence, broken by the sounds of pleasure coming from the toilets, falls over the group.
"Um, what is going on? Why is Vicky making noises like that?" Then Dinah pipes up, voice curious and slightly worried. Turning to look at her, you see nothing but oblivious innocence on her face, and your brain locks up, trying and falling to come up with a way to respond that doesn't lead to terminal mortification all round. Meeting Taylor's eyes, you see the other teen is in a similar state, paling and flushing at the same time.
"She's masturbating." Missy, on the other hand, shows no concern about answering with blunt directness.
"Oh. Is that what that sounds like? But I thought only bad girls did that?" Annoyance fills you at the last part of Dinah's quietly surprised reply. That's not a healthy thing to tell...anyone, really, but teenage and nearly teenage girls in particular.
"What!? No! Who told you that!?" Missy sounds downright outraged at the idea.
"Mother. And Grandmother, and Great Aunt." At least Dinah's tone of voice suggests she's open to hearing that they're wrong on the subject.
"Well, they were wrong. Did they tell you anything about sex? Or have you had any sex ed at school?" Missy says heatedly, after a moment where she clearly struggles not to say worse.
"Just that good girls do not think about it until they are grown up, or bad things happen to them. They weren't very clear on what bad things, though. And Mrs Ross at school just talked about 'Indecency' and 'Immorality' and 'Abstinence' without really explaining in detail." Dinah's relatives sound bad enough, but her teacher sounds worse than useless, and if her school lets a woman like that give sex ed talks, it doesn't say good things about its general approach to the subject.
"Of course she did. Why wouldn't they... Right, come with me and I'll give you that talk they should have." Dinah looks surprised as Missy grabs her hand, but doesn't resist as the slightly shorter girl drags her into the largest changing cubical and shuts the door. "Let me be clear to start with that none of this is wrong, no matter-." The Ward's voice fades into the distance as space around the cubical distorts until it seems tiny in the distance.
"Should I be worried that Missy has such strong views on the topic of sex at her age?" Taylor asks, after several moments of silence (except for Vicky's moans).
"No, it's fine. Director Piggot, the local head of the PRT, got really annoyed about a year back and arranged for her to be able to learn as much as she was comfortable with about it." At Taylor's inquisitive look, you elaborate. "Basically, the Youth Guard made the male Wards take a sex ed course that ran something like three days and covered basically everything from safe sex to being sure of consent to unhealthy relationships to how to navigate kink, while Missy, as the only girl, got a talk that took less than an hour and boiled down to 'You must be a pure and chaste maiden, who holds no sexual thoughts and never inspires them in others through anything you say or do'. They didn't say she should be locked in a chastity belt until she was eighteen, but they implied it real hard, apparently. Piggot was expecting all the Wards to be busy for several days, so she wasn't happy to find a request from Vista in the system hours later asking for anything to do that afternoon, since her course was done but the guy's isn't and won't be. And when she confirmed that yes, really, that's it, Vista has 'completed her course fully' and the Youth Guard 'Sees no reason for any follow ups while she's in the Wards program', she just about hit the roof. So she arranged for Missy to be able to discreetly talk to someone whenever and whatever about sex and relationships, and Missy took advantage. Maybe it was a little early, she was only just twelve then, but for all she gets worked up about proving it sometimes, Missy is honestly pretty mature for her age."
"Huh. Good for her, I suppose." Taylor responds, meditatively. After another moan echoes across the room, she winces. "How long does your sister, ah, go on for when she does this?"
"She...she can keep going for a quite a while, sometimes." You offer, flushing slightly at memories of laying in bed and listening closely for some time, biting your lip to avoid making any sounds of your own, sure that if you did anyone who heard would know that inspired them.
"Ah! So, yeah, just, ah, do what I'm doing and, ah, let your hands do what, ah, feels good." Missy's voice, breathy and shaking in a way you can't not recognise is pleasure, suddenly sounds from empty air right next to your ear. Taylor jumps at the same time you do, and you discover as Missy continues that moving makes her voice no less clear. "And if it's just, ah ah, just you than, ah, let yourself think about whatever you want and, ah, don't be ashamed about it. Ahhh!"
You have just enough time to realise with horrified fascination that you're listening to Missy explain to Dinah how best to masturbate, apparently while demonstrating on herself, then Dinah's voice suddenly fills the air, no more escapable than Missy's. What she's saying is less clear, but that's because she sounds almost entirely incoherent with pleasure, not due to any issues with the sound quality. It's plain she likes what she's seeing though, and given that the last thing Missy says clearly before descending into wild moaning of her own "Why is that hot, I'm straight, I'm straight!", the feeling appears mutual. As you and Taylor scramble to find somewhere their voices don't carry to, a small and hysterical part of you insists on noting that at least they only seem to be touching themselves, not each other. You briefly but intensely consider bashing you head against the wall until that part shuts up.
Sound proves to carry very well in the locker room, even once you get outside the area Missy's powers are providing surround sound to. Retreating to the very far end of the room at least makes it indistinct enough you can't tell who's making what noises, though not so much you can ignore that fact that three of your comrades are still enthusiastically masturbating. Your fourth comrade looks about how you feel - painfully turned on, just about dripping with arousal but massively uncomfortable with what brought you to that point.
"Missy's thirteen, right? I'd still feel skeevy but two years is better than three." Taylor pleads, more than a little desperately. You hate to disappoint her with your answer, but you also refuse to suffer alone.
"Only if we were out of it for well over a month. And if we were, I'd be sixteen, so I'm fuc-scre-I'm in shit either way. Also Dinah would still be twelve, regardless, so we're both going to a special hell anyway."
"I'm not sure we're not there already" Taylor mutters. "So, pretend like we heard nothing, we know nothing, and if we get wonky dreams we blame it on being hormonal teens and deny everything?"
"Sound like a plan." You agree. "Now to be blunter than Vicky for a sec, we both really need to get off before the others finish and ask questions we don't want to answer, and the rest of the room is a no-go zone, so I vote we sit on opposite ends of the bench and do our best to ignore each other for fifteen minutes. Work for you?"
Taylor somehow manages to get even redder, but manages a jerky nod and a stammered agreement. Unfortunately, ignoring each other proves easier said than done. The bench is long enough that you're nowhere near touching, but you still find yourself hyper-aware of Taylor's presence, to the point you can almost feel the heat coming off her skin on your back and every slight sound of her skin as she shifts seems loud as thunder. It gets worse as the dark haired girl begins to emit small whimpers of pleasure, and you can't help but visualise what's happening behind you as let your hands drift, finally allowing yourself to act on the need you've been feeling for over an hour, that recent events have made so much stronger. You try to keep your fantasies generic, knowing that letting yourself focus on anything you've recently seen will lead to you saying things that will be creepy at best if Taylor hears them, but in the end, the appeal of actresses you've never met and heroines you've seen in passing can't compete with the perfection of Vicky. Especially when a particularly long, loud moan echoes from the far end of the room, reminding you of what your sister is currently doing in a toilet stall not far away. Your half-lidded eyes catch sight of the junior cheerleader outfit, dropped carelessly on a bench when Vicky undressed to shower, and the glimpse of the thick, childish panties half-covered by the dress brings your nasty, perverted, wonderful fantasy from earlier rushing back, when you're far too close to the edge not to fall into it. Vicky really is such a naughty girl, flashing her panties around like that, then drawing so much attention, bouncing around while wet and soapy in the showers like that, acting so innocent of what it did to the rest of you before oh so lewdly going to get herself off while you could all hear. Such an immodest little girl definitely needs a good spanking...
Some time later, after the two have you have finished, crept cautiously past a quiet, back to normal space, changing cubical and a toilet stall soft noises still emerge from to wash your hands, retreated to the main locker room again, gotten dressed and settled in to waiting for the others in a surprisingly comfortable silence, Taylor seems to wrestle with something for several moments, then softly says.
"There's no way I could ever bring this up with someone I've just met normally, no matter how well we seem to get along, but it's too likely to be important not to, so I'm going to let my powers dump my embarrassment and get it over with." Her body language visibly changes as she speaks, tensing before suddenly going so lax you're surprised she stays sitting up and when she continues, her voice has a flat, empty tone to it. "I wasn't in or even thinking about a relationship before all this, but I knew what I liked in guys well enough to fantasise occasionally, and never felt the same urge to do so for girls. But even as worked up as I was earlier, I flat out couldn't get off thinking about a guy. I'm not, like, suddenly disgusted by the idea of dicks or anything, they just don't seem to do anything for me anymore. What did, though was girls, Mainly your sister, which I think is down to seeing a lot of her since waking up and not having looked at girls like that before we woke up. But also you, especially what...ah...what happened soon after we woke up and the, err, incident in the staff room. Which I wouldn't bring up but they're what makes me think it's not some weird effect of your sisters aura. It's not, right?"
You're too mortified by being reminded you've pretty much molested Taylor twice in barely more hours of knowing her to speak, but you manage to shake your head. Her aura certainly didn't help your half-hearted efforts to keep your love for Vicky sisterly, but you'd known you'd liked girls in general and her in particular well before she triggered. And while she's apparently the trigger for one or two girls a year in school realising they're not as straight as they thought, it's generally nothing to do with her aura and everything to do with how her ass looks in tight pants.
"And while her powers could have changed like mine did, it doesn't feel right as the cause. My powers have gone from controlling bugs, which were small and pretty much everywhere, to controlling the Infection, which is smaller and absolutely everywhere, now. It's not actually that big of a difference in function, even if the results are different. Glory Girl's aura wasn't a subtle thing, from what I heard, and it still seemed to have its normal effects on Uber and L33t, so adding a subtle effect to turn girls into lesbians doesn't fit." Taylor pauses, and mutters under her breath. "Especially since she still seems to be incredibly straight." At her previous volume, she continues; "So the most likely cause is the Infection, but everything we've learned so far suggests it wouldn't make me like girls instead of guys." She doesn't actually say "Unless it's something the strain you made did specifically." but you can hear it on the end of the sentence anyway.
"I swear I didn't do it on purpose." You say in a rush after several long moments. "I don't know if it's because the Infection had to have an effect on sexuality, no matter how my powers modified it, so my subconscious went with my sexuality as the target, or if it's because my brain was the only example of what normal human sexuality should look like my powers had to hand when they were working, so they made it the default, but I promise I didn't do it deliberately to advance my nefarious lesbian agenda or something!"
"I wasn't... Nefarious lesbian agenda's weren't something I was worried about." Taylor responds calmly after a blink to process your babbled explanation. "If we know it's something the Infection did, that's fine, whatever prompted the Infection to do it. I was just worried about it being caused by something we don't know about yet. Maybe if I'd woken up disgusted about having ever considered guys attractive or if I'd had a serious relationship, or a relationship at all, before this I'd be upset, but I can deal. You should probably tell the others, though. Well, Dinah and Missy, at least given..." She trails off, even her emotion suppression not letting her bring up the earlier events comfortably, then a faintly impish smile appears on her face. "If you want to get a little revenge on Vicky for thwarting your nefarious lesbian agenda by remaining stubbornly straight and wait for her to notice and ask... Well, you'd know better than me how she'd take it, but I won't spoil things if you do. Spanking her while you watch might be a bit of a give away though, so we should probably hold off on that for now." Your mouth drops open and you make a strangled noise at the breezy comment on your fantasy, but Taylor continues like nothing happened. "I'm going to go sit in one of the classrooms across the hall and try and map the third floor more clearly with my powers, come get me when it's time to move?"
She sweeps across before you can gather your wits, dress swishing merrily around her thighs, and the door swings shut on her quiet giggle as you finally manage a hissed "You jeeeerk!" in response to her teasing. You can't help but smile, though, despite feeling like your hair might catch on fire due to how hard you're blushing. Despite Taylor clearly having heard you get yourself off to a fantasy involving her and Vicky, and apparently enough to guess that it's your sister, not her, who was the focus, despite the fact you (accidently) made her gay, she doesn't think you're a disgusting pervert or a horrible villain in waiting. No, she might think you're weird, but it's the kind of weird you can gently rib your friends over, rather than the "avoid at all costs" kind. You're still smiling as you dig the school satchel out of the rucksack so you can take a look at the maps you found earlier while you wait, and even the combination of impenetrable code on one and awful "pirate" riddles on the other can't quite dislodge it
Fortunately for you going unteased, by the time a dressed, apparently utterly unaware of the performance she gave you all, Vicky sits down next to you, you've worked out that two of the riddles are for locations in Arcadia and Immaculata (and a third maybe Clarendon, but you don't know enough about it to be sure), and the implications of some kind of pervy pirate sex game being played between the staff has you mildly queasy. Or possibly that's just the riddles, which are liberally sprinkled with "Yharrr"'s and "Avast"'s and similar to make parsing their nautical near-nonsense even harder than the deliberately awful handwriting already does.
"How are you holding up, Ames?" You sister asks, laying a gentle hand on your shoulder.
"I'm... I'm more alright than I would have thought. Maybe it's just 'cause we've not seen much of what's happened, beyond that awful recording, but... I can keep it together until we've dealt with Sophia, for sure." You think you'll be fine even afterwards, as long as you can find a goal to focus on beyond survival.
"About that - I know you're not really a fighter, but there's nowhere you and Dinah can wait that's safe. Are you going to be...alright, with the fighting? It's likely to be messy and... I hope we don't, but if Sophia's gang are as bad as they seem, we might have to put some of them down hard." Vicky might never lack enthusiasm for a fight herself, but she knows that's not true for everyone.
"I know. I...I'd prefer if we didn't, but... Anyway, I'll probably be mostly standing back and waving the flag to cheer you on." You don't like hurting people personally (not that you've ever been encouraged to try), but you've never had a problem supporting those who do, so the Standard of Valour is a fortunate find in that respect.
"Alright. Hey, since you're going to be playing cheerleader anyway, are you sure you don't want to swap?" Vicky waves a hand between your bikini and her children's uniform, giving you pleading eyes that better fit someone the age of its intended wearer.
"Not a chance." You refuse her flatly, turning away from her begging expression before she can wear you down. Silence falls between you for a minute.
"Do you think Mum and Dad are okay?" Your sister asks quietly.
"I...I'm sure they are. Mum wouldn't let something like the Infection beat her." It's a baseless hope and you both know it, given the sad smile Vicky gives you before hugging you and floating off to talk to Dinah, who's just returned from cleaning the blood off the map that went with the notebook and looking down at it with worried fascination. (Missy has the notebook itself and is studying it with fierce concentration, making notes using a red pencil and sheet of paper from the satchel.)
You haven't really thought about your parents since waking up, and you don't really want to. Thinking about what could have happened to Mark, if his depression made him vulnerable to the Infection, makes dread pool in your stomach as nightmare scenarios flash through your head. The scenarios when you consider what might have happened to Carol, on the other hand... There's an uncomfortable lack of dread in most of them, and the part of you that thinks that makes you a bad daughter clashes fiercely with the part of you that's grown steadily louder since you triggered that insists if Carol didn't want a bad daughter, she shouldn't have been a bad mother. Neither part feels good to listen to, so you focus yourself on the maps again, hoping beating you head against the complex code on the first map will drown them out.
Spoiler: Rolls
Once you're sure the Huntresses are out for the morning and you've all dressed and armed (or "armed" in your case) yourselves again, getting on to Winslow's roof is simple as Missy flying up into the air to get a better view, and then the rest of you taking two steps. The first takes you up onto the roof of the gym, the second onto the roof of the main building. Probably. It's a bit hard to be sure, since the step also takes you into the middle of a jungle clearing, but the floor is tar and gravel, so despite the fact so many large, heavy, trees growing on should have collapsed the roof (and taken years), you're pretty sure it's the right place. You don't allow yourselves to stop and stare at the impossible sight for more than a few seconds, knowing that lingering on the roof is an invitation for someone to come up and spot you, but realising the clearing rings a pool of clear water so deep it should reach the second floor, never mind the third, is impossible not to boggle at, even before you Dinah spots the waterfall that feeds it, flowing from nowhere down the side of a strange metal shape that looks like someone half-melted a large metal air conditioning vent and tried to make it look like a rocky cliff.
The third floor itself is only a little less weird, with leafy branches sprouting from walls and inexplicable vines trailing from the ceilings. The rooms you pass as Taylor leads the way to where she thinks Madison is look strange indeed, the stains and damage you're familiar with from the lower floors warring with a more "jungle"-like appearance, causing things like a pile of damaged desks that's spouted leaves and flowers like a bush or a wall that should have the doors and windows of a classroom being overgrown with thick bark. The jungle looks don't come with jungle noises, however, and the halls of the third floor are as eerily silent as those of the lower floors. Knowing that the Shadow Pantha's are based here, you'd half expected the halls to be bustling, or at least full of signs of activity, but there's none of that. Because the Pantha's are less than forty people in a building meant for hundreds, and two thirds of them are out, so obliviously the halls are empty, they couldn't fill them if they tried. It's absolutely what you would expect to find, not signs of a trap. So if your brain could get the message on that and stop jumping at shadows, it'd be great, thanks.
"Right, in here for a second." Taylor says, waving you though the door to a classroom whose internal windows are completely covered by posters that seem to be turning into moss. "I'm pretty sure Madison should come by here shortly. There are two big clumps of the Infection on this floor, one fairly spread out near the front of the building, one centred on Principle Blackwell's office towards the back, that's much smaller but feels a lot...stronger, for lack of a better word. I can't track individual Infected moving, quite, but I can get a sense of where they move. Have moved. Both, possibly. Anyway, there's lots of movement happening around the front clump, but only one track that goes between the front and back clumps. It passes this room, and from what she said in her journal, it's probably Madison going back and forth to look after Emma. She seems to do so several times an hour, so waiting here should give us an opportunity to grab her. Not sure how long we'll be waiting, though." Taylor frowns apologetically at her final statement.
"That's easy to find out." Dinah pipes up cheerfully. "All you have to do is ask! Chances Madison will go past in the next thirty minutes? Eighty six percent. Chances Madison will go past in the next fifteen minutes? Eighty three and a half percent. Chances Madison will go past in the next five minutes? Seventy nine point nine percent. So there you go, quite likely in the next five minutes and my head doesn't hurt."
Dinah looks so proud to have contributed that you bite back your question about why she went past the first question if there was a chance it could make her head hurt, and just settle in to wait. Most of you find somewhere vaguely comfortable back from the door, where the covered windows mean no one going past is likely to spot you, but Vicky lies in wait above it, looking through a tiny warp Missy creates to act as a "periscope" into the hallway. True to Dinah's prediction, you've only been there a few minutes when your sister tenses then "swings" herself downwards and darts through the door, coming back through moments later with one hand clamped over the mouth of a smaller, furrier, form. Missy moves past the pair to shut the door as the rest of you stand, and you catch a brief glimpse of space twisting horribly as she ensures your privacy before she simply makes the door not be there anymore. Vicky's captive has already stopped struggling by the time Missy finishes, so she sets her down on her feet and removes then hand from her mouth, moving back slightly but remaining in easy grabbing range.
Given how distinctive the sight of a denim skirt straining to cover a massively outsized ass is, you're pretty confident it is indeed Madison Vicky grabbed, and you take the chance to study her while she's still getting her bearings. She's not changed much from the last recording in the journal, though her ears are now cat-like and atop her head and fur has spread down past her knees, leaving only her feet and the bottom half of her shins uncovered. The fur makes it a little hard to read her expression, but her body language is telling - she's nearly motionless, eyes darting around the room but making no attempt to flee or cry out. She looks...resigned, if anything, and thinking about it her movements when Vicky grabbed her looked more like surprised flailing than attempts to struggle free. Sharing a glance with Taylor, you see a similar realisation on her face, and the two of you take a step back, rather than closer, allowing Madison a less-pressured chance to get her bearings. When a minute goes by without anyone else touching her or any demands being made of her, the cat-featured girl relaxes slightly, looking around the room more slowly. Her eyes widen as she takes in the people arrayed around her, but it's not until her gaze passes over Taylor, then snaps back, jaw dropping, that she react beyond that.
"Hebert!?!? Why are you dressed like a cheerleader!?" She blurts out, then freezes, looking scared.
"Seriously? Glory Girl grabs you and drags you into a room containing Panacea in a bikini and Vista in a nearly neon mascot costume and it's what I'm wearing that you care about?" Taylor cries with exasperation.
"Well... I... Um... Well they're capes and you're you? You looking like that is...weird...er?" Madison trails off, probably due to Taylor's paint-stripping glare making it clear she's digging herself in deeper.
"Right." Taylor says with an explosive sigh. "We're here to do something about Sophia. Help us out and we'll help you out." You can see the question of what help you could give her forming, and cut her off before as she opens her mouth to ask.
"I can't get the Infection out of your system, but with a little time to study the strain in you I should be able to slow or reverse some of the changes. Not sure if I can change the end point, but I can certainly buy enough time to try." Wild, desperate hope flashes across Madison's face for a moment, then it falls.
"I... I want to say yes, but if I help you and Sophia finds out, it won't matter how much time you buy me, Sophia will just kill me until I come back with my brains leaking out my cock, and I'll be lucky if she uses her claws rather than her own cock to do it."
"No need to worry about that!" Vicky declares. "When we're done with her, Sophia won't be able to hurt you, or anyone else, ever again."
"You can't promise that!" Madison screams tearfully. "With her powers there's no way you can keep her locked up for good, and when she escapes she'll hunt me down wherever I go! She hates traitors!"
"Funny, given her best friend is one." Taylor mutters. Madison doesn't appear to notice as she continues.
"Even if you kill her, it won't work! She'll just come back like the others do!" She wails.
"Alright, if you don't think you can risk helping directly, that's fine." Missy says in a careful, reassuring voice. "Just answering some of our questions will be a big help, and there's no way Sophia would know about it. Do you think you can do that, Madison?"
"I...Okay. If it's just questions, I can do that." You think Madison might be agreeing more because she's afraid of what will happen if she says no than because she thinks you can help, but you'll take it.
"First question, then. Can I use my powers to examine you?" The fur-covered girl looks surprised you bothered to ask, and even more surprised that when she nods you just place a hand gently on her lower arm. Examining the Infection in one person takes less focus than two, so you're able to listen as the others gently interrogate her. Most of it is just confirming things you already knew from the notebook, or basic stuff about the layout of the bits of the floor in use or people's habits, to better handle or avoid the remaining Pantha's, but a few bits stick out. That the Shadow Pantha's not only mug any small groups of Survivors they come across for anything they have, right down to the clothes off their backs, but drag at least two people a week back alive, to be sacrificed to the Boar Plants and make them produce more and better meat, is an early and unpleasant one, but others soon follow.
"People come back in the area around the locker, but I'm not sure it has to be there?" Madison explains as Dinah grills her about the "back from the dead" effect, having already confirmed it doesn't matter where they are when they "die" and that it's not just lethal injuries that cause it, but anything maiming or more long-term incapacitating then being knocked out. "Sophia didn't really explain things even before she... But she said a few things that made it sound like they'd probably come back in Blackwell's office if the locker wasn't there? I don't know why, but she and Emma sleep in there and she was happy she wouldn't have to deal with anyone who screwed up showing up there? Um, how long does it take? I don't think there's a set amount of time - no one's died an hour before midnight or anything, but people who die in the morning don't come back 'till midnight, and people who die in the evening come back at the same time. Sophia's never killed me, so I don't know how it feels or anything, but...it makes whatever changes are already happening to you happen more, and even if you're already all changed on the outside it changes you inside your head. Not to the point you go Feral, but Julia still talks to me and she said when came back after a gryphon killed her she couldn't remember how she looked before she became a Huntress, or what her old address was, and that even though she knew she should, she didn't care." Well, that's disturbing, but you didn't really expect coming back to life to be cost free, and the effects are easily avoided by just avoiding dying in the first place.
"I don't think it can be?" Madison offers meekly a little later, when Taylor asks intently about destroying the locker. "A boar charged at it once and broke its neck hitting it even though it was much bigger and the Locker didn't have a scratch afterwards. It didn't move, either. There's nothing holding it in place, but only Sophia seems to be able to move it - no one else can even open the door, even from the outside. EEP!!" Madison shuts her mouth with a squeak, and the creepers hanging from the ceiling twitch wildly as Taylor spins away with a snarl to pace the room.
"I don't really know much about the rest of the city. My family were lucky, none of us got lost when the fog was bad and when we had to run away from the fighting we found an apartment complex that took people in and didn't get attacked. There was a mini-market nearby that food and stuff showed up in, and I went to help get things from there, but no one risked going further. And after Sophia grabbed me - She talks a lot about how the Pantha's go where they like, but they don't, not really. There's a few blocks around the school they mostly control, and they'll go outside that sometimes, but only really towards Downtown or Captain's Hill. They don't dare go near the Trainyard or the Docks, not even the edges where the groups fighting over them have spread out into the places that used to be where people lived. So they don't know much, and even if they hear anything, they don't bother telling me." Is the answer to a question about what's going on outside Winslow.
"Oh, what's happened to Emma is horrible!" Madison doesn't quite sound like she means it. Mostly, but there's a hint of vindictive satisfaction at getting to tell someone (Taylor) who doesn't like Emma what's happened to her. "She hasn't said how it happened, but she ended up getting grabbed by Hellhound and her pack of bitches and forced to join, but something went wrong. Hellhound's Tribe are all...they're like the Pantha's, but with different types of dogs instead of, well, panthers and they're all tall and curvy women with huge muscles. But for some reason Emma ended up a lot more 'dog' than 'woman' - she's huge and muscle-ly, but she looks like some kind of nasty werewolf from an old movie, and you couldn't tell she was female if she didn't have three big sets of breasts. Sophia wants to 'fix' her by making her a Pantha, but the locker doesn't work or she doesn't fit or something, and nothing else seems to make her catch Sophia's Infection either. She stays in Blackwell's office most of the time, partly 'cause she's too big to move around easily, partly because she's really suggestible now and Sophia's afraid someone will take advantage when she's not there, but mostly...mostly 'cause she's got some kind of condition where she gets dumber and dumber the longer she goes without sex." Madison's voice shakes slightly, and you get an uncomfortable idea about where this is going. "Sophia used to take care of it for her, but it meant she couldn't leave for as long as she liked, so... I'm pretty sure she grabbed me to have someone she could 'trust' on hand to fuck Emma anyway, but since she Infected me...even before I grew a dick, she decided I was nothing but her and Emma's fuck-toy." All of you, even Taylor, manage some combination of sympathetic and horrified noises, and Madison looks pathetically grateful for them. "I hate it and I hate what's happened to my best friends but most of all I hate that every day I hate it less. Sophia likes to start the day by ploughing me up the ass while Emma does what she likes with my cock these days, and this morning I woke up looking forward to it! I'm a good girl, I shouldn't spend half my time imagining what being fucked up the ass by everyone I see would be like, or wanting to lie down with my giant dick sticking out so anyone that passes can use it to get off on! Why is this happening to me!? What did I do to deserve this!?"
Taylor bites her lip hard enough to draw blood to stop herself from responding to Madison's wails, and while Vicky keeps her expression openly calm and non-judgemental, you know her well enough to tell she's making an effort not to be unkind when she speaks. "Nothing. No one deserves what Sophia's done to you, which is why we're going to stop her. Amy, how long will you need to do what you can to help Madison?"
"Quarter of an hour, maybe?" You say, waving you hand to signal it's a rough estimate.
"Will waiting an hour or so hurt? From what Madison's said, the best time to act if we're want to catch the Shadow Pantha's who are still here off guard - they're all in groups in the main area now, but people will start doing their own thing soon and we could end up hunting them down through most of the school after that." You're not sure if it's because you weren't giving the conversation your full attention or if it's just a lack of experience with fighting making you miss things, but you hadn't picked up on that at all.
"No, it won't. Five hours, maybe, but any time before then is fine. I was actually going to ask if Madison wouldn't mind waiting anyway - I've mostly got the strain figured out, but I could really do with checking it in someone else to confirm, there's a twist to it that could complicate things if my understanding is wrong." You and your sister look at Madison, who nods meekly.
"Great. Madison, will you be alright staying here? No one will come looking for you any time soon?" Another meek nod followed by a shaken head. "Right then! Let's go show these pussies who the real top cats are around here!"
Despite Vicky's bold declaration (and its awful puns), you don't go after the Pantha's right away. Instead, you head to another classroom, far enough to be out of earshot no matter how much Madison's new ears improve her hearing, even before Missy gets involved, and plan your approach in more detail. You fill the others in on what you've learned examining Madison at the same time, leading with a warning.
"Watch the claws when you're fighting them. Sophia, at least is super infectious through them, and I can't rule out it being the same for the others." You explain that what you saw in Madison makes you about ninety percent sure there are two "types" of the Infection strain spread from Sophia. Most of those who she infects get the second kind, which is less powerful and leaves them weaker and naturally more subservient then those who get the first kind. Which currently, only Sophia herself and Madison have. You think having the first version of the strain means Madison won't end up as bad as those who end up male because of the second version do, but you're not a hundred percent on that, and you really do want to take a look at some of the other Pantha's before you do anything to Madison, if at all possible. Other than that, there are no surprises. The Pantha's have enhanced senses and physical abilities, but only to the degree you'd "expect" of a human-big cat hybrid. On a more general note, part of the reason Madison's ass is so big is that whatever strain of Infection she had before Sophia grabbed her left her with some sort of permanent...not genetic...but innate in some Infection specific way...trait that makes her ass bigger and more sensitive. Something similar is why her breasts where huge to begin with and haven't shrunk totally. You get the impression that if someone picks up a trait like this, future Infections might override it, but possibly not. So one more thing to be careful of.
Your warning delivered, the rest of you settle down to listen as Missy runs through your options for the next phase of your plan here.
Thanks to what Madison's told you, you know how many members of the Panthas are still in their base (4 Huntresses, 7 Hangers-On, 5 Fuck Bois and Emma) and roughly where they'll be for the next half hour or so. Unlike Madison, Emma and the Hangers-On are all here willingly, and while the Huntresses and Fuck Bois might not have been originally, they've all embraced (or been consumed by) their new natures, so they'll need dealing with at some point, and from what you've learned this is the best time to do so. You'll almost certainly be able to handle them all without issue, but your approach will determine how quick and easy it is. Finding and questioning Madison took around 20 minutes, and you've got between a little over 2 hour to a little under 3 hours before the first group of Huntresses is likely to get back, with the others likely to follow soon after.
You know for certain that any member of the Shadow Pantha's that is "killed", either through directly lethal injuries, or survivable ones it would take them more than a few hours to recover from, will vanish and reform at the Locker around midnight. You'll be finished here well before then whatever your ultimate goal here ends up being so anyone "killed" will be removed as a concern for your purposes, while anyone who isn't will need guarding. Given how they're likely to fight, taking the Pantha's down without risking killing them will also be much slower, though not meaningfully harder. Thanks to Vicky's efforts, everyone is resolved to do whatever is necessary and no one will suffer penalties regardless of what path is chosen. How do you fight against the Pantha's? (This will also be the approach against the returning Huntresses later, if you engage them.) (Pick One):
[Approach] This Time, Everyone Lives
Avoid any possibility of killing anyone, no matter how they fight. Very Slow, lots of prisoners to deal with, will almost certainly take more than an hour.
[Approach] They Takes Their Chances
Try to subdue people or convince them to surrender, but put people who keep fighting down with as much force as needed. Slow, moderate numbers of prisoners.
[Approach] No Quarter
They get one chance to surrender, anyone who refuses goes down hard. Fast, few prisoners.
[Approach] "Kill" Them All
Take all of them out, hard and fast. Very Fast, no prisoners, will almost certainly take less than half an hour.
With your and their current positions, no particular order of taking down the Pantha's is more efficient than any other, but the fighting required to take down a group may be loud enough to alert the others, who may scatter, group up or otherwise make themselves harder to take down. Which order will you go after the groups? (Vote by Rank):
[Order] Guards
Starting alert level 40, will notice any raised alerts. 3 fights, guaranteed to raise 1 alert, 75% and 50% chance to raise a second and third
[Order] Hangers-On
Starting alert level 10, 25% chance not to notice raised alerts. 3 fights, all with a 60% chance of raising an alert.
[Order] Fuck Bois
Starting alert level 0, 50% chance not to notice raised alerts. 2 fights, both with a 40% chance of raising an alert.
[Order] Emma
Starting alert level 0, 80% chance not to notice raised alerts. Only one fight, but the hardest one. Chance of raising alert starts at 10% and rises if the fight drags on.
Finally, Dinah may use her power to answer questions about future actions. She now has enough information to be highly accurate about things relating to the Shadow Pantha's and the immediate area out to medium term, and provide some idea of things longer-term and in the wider city. Each question costs 2d10 WP, are any asked?:
[Dinah] Don't ask any questions
[Dinah] Ask one question
-] Write in what
[Dinah] Ask more than one question
-] Write in which
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Last edited: Aug 2, 2020
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Threadmarks: Day 1, Part 6 (Morning)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: This update brought to you by the thing where you roll nine combats, then realise you forgot an item grants a re-roll and have to go over them all again. Thankfully, the rolls were pretty good, so it didn't affect the outcome significantly. I also forgot the Standard's non-combat bonus last time, but luckily it wouldn't have added any DoS.
Spoiler: Rolls
"Okay, what are the chances we can take control of the locker somehow, like with Taylor's power? And would doing so help us deal with the Shadow Pantha's?" Vicky's question, asked after careful consideration and repeated assurances by Dinah she can handle it, is the last thing left to do before you begin tracking down and subduing those who remain it the Shadow Pantha's base, starting with the four Huntresses on guard.
"My powers don't seem to... Fifty percent. If we do that right thing it is certain to happen, if we do not it cannot happen. And it cannot happen before we have dealt with the Pantha's, at least in the short term." It's the first time you've seen Dinah not respond with a number immediately when asked a question that would trigger her powers, and she frowns fiercely in concentration before she does finally give one.
"Can you tell what that thing is?" Missy asks after a moment.
"Sophia...needs not to be in control of it. If we force her to have to revive from the locker, that will do it, but it is not the only way. Anything that either makes her unable to contest our attempts to usurp her control or that makes her abandon this location will work. Ow! No more questions for a bit, working that out hurt a lot." The pain is a Thinker headache again, and apparently a nasty one, though even as you check Dinah over it quickly lessens to the point she can move without wincing, though her face remains tight.
"Nothing that changes the plan then." Vicky declares. "Let's get down to business and let the Pantha's know they're not top of the food chain anymore."
Reaching the front of the school and the Pantha's "Guard Post" at the top of the main stairs is a matter of a few minutes' walk, and taking down the two Huntresses manning it proves the work of moments. The straight lines of the halls leading to it make it impossible to actually sneak up on them, but those same lines mean that Vicky and Missy, her costume's wings buzzing furiously, can build up considerable speed as they fly towards them. The guards hear the noise, of course, and turn to look for the source, but even as they release yowls of shock, a gesture from Missy warps space so that the charge is coming from what's now behind them, and neither have a chance to react to that before they're hit. Vicky's target arcs through the air to land in a heap, ending up practically at your feet where you're holding the Standard some way down the hall. Missy's target merely stagers several steps as the Ward lands a two-footed kick in the small of their back, but turning again to try and strike her attacker proves a mistake, as it means she's looking the wrong way to see the ball of light from Taylor's staff that slams into the same point on her body and bowls her over.
The Huntress at your feet is groaning and trying to rise, so you reach down and push a hand through their fur to touch their shoulder, squashing the nasty little voice suggesting that if you hadn't decided to put on a pair of trainers to protect your feet just in case, you could have just stood on them instead. You could, but there's no good reason to go out of your way to be demeaning like that when you're used to using your hands for your powers. She's surprisingly uninjured for how hard Vicky hit her, without even a single cracked bone, so you set right to ensuring she won't be trying to fight anytime soon. As you feared, the Infection resists and reverses your attempts to lock up limbs or make her fall asleep, though it's not actually significantly harder or slower than doing the same with the rats in the gym. Weirdly though, after you've tried about five different things, the Infection seems to...give up? You can't really describe it, there's just a sudden lack of resistance to your efforts, then the Huntress dissolves into a swirl of black smoke, which swiftly vanishes. Given that you were trying to force her claws to retract and stay that way at the time, it's an out of proportion response.
"Can the Infection tell when a host has lost, not just when they're too injured to continue?" You mutter, looking up to see what state the other guard is in. If the Infection can trigger the "die and revive" process off multiple triggers, trying to take as many of the Pantha's "alive" as possible might be-What on Earth?!
"Can anyone fill me in on why there's a cat-woman grovelling at Dinah's feet?" You inquire dryly. The cat-woman (who looked at more closely is young enough it should probably be cat-girl) in question is practically licking Dinah's boots, eyes turned worshipfully upwards in a way that makes you glad the preteen decided to wear the gym shorts under her sundress for "modesty". They might not be modest in any conventional sense, but compared to nothing...
"She was getting back up, so I hit her with the whip and she just started..." Dinah waves a hand at the whole scene, the leather-clad, lithely muscled Huntress at her feet showing no signs of caring she's being talked about, instead continuing to offer her rapturous devotion to a girl half her size.
A hissing war cry from one end of the three-way junction at the top of the stairs cuts off further discussion, as you all turn to see a third Huntress pounding down the corridor towards you, waving her crude, tusk-tipped spear wildly. You realise what Missy means by her "counting down" hand signal just as the girl reaches one, and join in the mass swing as the panther-girl finds herself suddenly running past you all. You're pretty sure everyone at least clips her, and Dinah certainly does, given that the first thing she does after landing from her sudden somersault is cry "Mistress!!!" and crawl forwards on her belly to join the other Huntress in grovelling at Dinah's feet.
"Are you two...just going to keep doing that?" Vicky asks, after several long moments where you all glance uncomfortably at each other over the Huntresses' heads. They don't respond, and show no sign of having even listened to the question. Your sister scowls and steps forward, aura intensifying slightly as she clenches a fist, but Dinah shakes her head.
"Let me try first? What are you two going to do now?" She asks gently.
"We will do whatever you wish, Mistress." One of the Huntresses responds, the other nodding.
"Does that include fighting your comrades?" Taylor inquires, and is also ignored.
"Well the first thing I wish is that you answer when someone other than me asks a question. Having to keep repeating things is just stupid." Dinah...orders? It's rather too softly voiced to be an order normally, and her irritated pout doesn't help the (lack of) sense of authority, but the Huntresses respond to it like a divine commandment, springing to their feet. Then they both wince and let out pained hisses.
"We would do so gladly, Mistress." The same Huntress as before says. "But alas the righteous punishment of you and your fellows was sufficiently great that we will be able to offer little aid in battle until we have recovered a bit."
"Is the effect of the whip making you talk like that, or...?" You ask, after a moment to parse the sentence.
"No. Mandy's just a drama queen." The other Huntress responds, earning a betrayed look from her fellow.
"Right, well if you two aren't going to give us any trouble, we should get moving." Taylor says. "I managed to tangle the other guard up before she could run for help, but she made some noise first, so we should go deal with her before someone comes to investigate."
"When did you catch the other guard, Taylor?" Missy asks, when reaching your target proves to involve walking some distance down the hall round the corner at the end of the third point of the junction. The efforts of the same girl mean "some distance" turns into "a few steps", but it's a fair question, given it's way out of line of sight of where you were.
"Oh, while the third guard was still in the air. These things are really handy." The tall girl elaborates, tapping the thick frames of her glasses when the rest of you stare at her in shock. It's not quite the explanation she thinks it is, but you arrive at the gagged, vine-wrapped and furiously struggling Huntress before anyone can press further.
"Don't suppose you'll be willing to just surrender, given we beat you without even looking at you, would you?" Vicky asks. Furious hissing and what's probably intended to be a crude gesture with a half free paw is the only response to her question, and your sister eyes the vines consideringly. "Those aren't going to hold long term. Ames, can you knock her out?"
"It may not be the best idea - I'm pretty sure the Infection self-destructed the guard you hit earlier when it decided trying to stop me from incapacitating her wasn't going to work."
"Well, that's disturbing. So, what do we do with the angry kitty here then?" Your sister responds after a brief pause to consider what you've said, pointing a thumb over her shoulder at your still struggling captive. The plan for anyone who refused to surrender boiled down to "Hit them a bit and see if they reconsider", but doing that to someone who's trussed up and can't fight back is a little distasteful, especially since they're plainly mad enough that the fight's not going to be knocked out of them easily.
"We could test what hitting them with the whip does?" Dinah offers when no one else has any suggestions. "One hundred percent chance the effects last less than a day." None of you can come up with anything that feels more ethical than a temporary Master effect that hopefully requires little or no actual harm to apply, so in the end Dinah cracks the whip at the bound Huntress.
The results are unexpected. Dinah never actually hits her with the whip, merely strikes the air near her head, but it only takes a few such strikes before the Huntress ceases to struggle against her bonds and instead simply hangs there, gazing at Dinah with adoring eyes. Using the whip to harm someone is clearly not required to apply its effect, but when Taylor releases the Huntress, she stumbles and her knees buckle, her movements speaking of great exhaustion. When you check her, you find her muscles showing signs of fatigue as though she'd just finished running a marathon, or a similar feat of physical exertion. Despite having taken far less in the way of direct harm than the other two Huntresses, you'd say her condition is about as bad. Which makes very little sense, even by the lax standards of the word when the Infection is involved, but there's no way to figure it out now, so you leave it be. Fighting the guards made enough noise that everyone wants to move on as soon as possible, in case it prompts the other Shadow Pantha's to do something, so after a quick discussion which decides that healing the three Huntresses back up to fighting fitness isn't worth it right now, you begin the short trip to the Pantha's "Living Quarters", looking for the rooms the non-initiated members are normally found in when they're not working.
Spoiler: Rolls
It's easy to tell when you enter the part of the building the majority of the Shadow Pantha's live in - the "Jungle" look dominates the "Abandoned School" one to the point only the regular shapes of the corridors and rooms make it look like you're in a building, rather than some giant maze of tree branches. The air is hot and humid in a way that Brockton Bay would normally only see for a few weeks each summer at most, and you find yourself glad for the first time that you're only wearing a bikini. Missy in particular is going to find things fairly uncomfortable if you're here for long. Fortunately, that's not the plan, especially since the Infection is slightly thicker in the air here, as though the various flowers blooming from walls and ceilings released it instead of pollen. It's not enough to be any kind of threat in the short-term, you're pretty sure, but it's another reason not to hang around.
Your first encounter with one of the Pantha's uninitiated "Hangers-On" comes soon after you enter the area, and is something of a surprise, Taylor hissing out a warning just before you round a corner to see what can only be called a plant-woman do the same at the far end of the hall. She's utterly uncovered beyond the fall of her vine-like hair and a short leaf "skirt" that grows from her waist and provides about as much coverage as a microskirt. Her skin is a mix of white and green, with some of both looking human in texture and the rest having a more plant-like appearance. Her breasts are notably large for her slender frame, and sway freely as she wanders down the hall, outsized nipples glinting as through wet. She's humming tunelessly to herself, and doesn't seem to be paying attention to her surroundings, not noticing as the five of you rush forward until you're right in front of her. Your appearance gets her to stop moving, and her face shows surprise, but she says nothing, just makes a puzzled little hum.
"We're here to deal with Shadow Stalker. As long as you don't cause any trouble, you won't be harmed." Missy announces. The plant-woman's expression doesn't change, though she shifts her posture to cross her arms under her breasts, thrusting them out in a slightly distracting manner. When she shows no other signs of reacting, Missy continues. "Um. Can you understand what I'm say- Gah!"
With no warning, a great torrent of greenish-yellow liquid suddenly fountains from the plant-woman's breasts. Being at the front, Vicky and Missy a hit by the most, but the spray goes wide and far enough to hit you and Dinah nearly a foot back from them. Caught off guard, you end up taking the spray full in the face, and the sticky, sweet-tasting substance briefly glues your eyes shut before it seems to sink into your skin with a pleasant tingling feeling. There's no significant traces of the Infection in it, but the tingling it causes leaves a slight but persistent sense of arousal behind when it fades. The others were apparently luckier than you about where they got hit by the sap, and by the time you stop reflexively trying to blink your eyes clear, the sounds of a brief struggle have already died down, and the first thing you see is the plant-woman bowed at Dinah's feet, humming in apologetic worship.
"Is that going to happen to everyone who's still intact after we fight them?" You wonder aloud.
"Zero percent chance it does." Dinah responds distractedly while trying to persuade the plant-woman to get off the floor and join her other whip-caused minions in following along behind you. It takes a couple of repetitions, but she seem to get the idea in the end and trails behind, humming happily, when you set off.
Your next destination is a larger classroom that was once a science lab, but now looks more like a tree house furnished by a slightly unhinged craftsman who could blow wood into shape like glass. Vick throws the door open and strides inside, shouting as she does. "We're here for Shadow Stalker! Surrender now and - Whoa!" A figure smashes through the door frame and part of the wall but, unusually around your sister, not because she hit them. Instead, the short but muscular white woman seems to have thrown herself at Vicky and missed, and from the way she shrieks and her muscles bulge unnaturally, she's not happy about it. She pays no heed to calls to surrender, even after Taylor blasts her halfway down the corridor and Dinah breaks her nose with the whip. In the end, she doesn't stop getting back up until Taylor switches her lasers from "Concussive" to "Burning" (Which you'd think would be the only option for lasers but freaking Tinkers) and puts a hole through her calf. Which is not anywhere close to a lethal injury, but still causes her body to come apart into black smoke, which lingers for a second before vanishing.
Inside you find an athletic Hispanic girl of around eighteen, standing in front of Vicky with one hand up while the other tentatively feels her ribs, looking resigned, and a tall and muscular black woman with a buzzcut lying stiffly on the ground, glaring furiously at Missy, who's hovering above her. Neither suddenly turn worshipful when Dinah enters the room, but Vicky confirms the girl has surrendered, so you check her over and confirm she's suffering nothing worse than some bruising. The woman is very much not surrendered, but the "Stinger" of Missy's costume can apparently produce a venom that leaves those stung with it thoroughly paralysed, to the point she can't even unclench her jaw to scream the obscenities you can see in her gaze, and checking with your powers confirms it's going to take some time to wear off, so Dinah asks two of the Huntresses to pick her up and bring her along, something they do with fawning gratitude.
You hear the last three Hangers-On well before you see them, off-colour jokes and comments echoing down the hall, and they're out in the open, slouched against bark-like walls while they talk shit to each other, half-heartedly looking around for trouble. They're all guys, late teens to early twenties, in decent shape and wearing worn, stained jeans and t-shirts. They're also all white, with the sort of tattoos you normally see on Empire members, so what they're doing working for literal black panthers is a bit of a puzzler. Their response to the call to surrender is fairly typical of their sort, denials mixed with crude sexual counter offers, but one of them goes further than most, actually whipping out his dick to wave in your direction. It proves to be more than just a provocative gesture when Vicky tears down the hall with a yell, as what can only be described as bullets of cum shoot from the tip of his erect member. Vicky makes a disgusted noise and manages to swerve aside at the last second, and the balls of cum strike a wall hard enough to knock splinters off it. You can't quite bring yourself to be annoyed that Vicky more-or-less runs him through with her spear when she closes in, given it spares the rest of you having to deal with his disgusting "attack". He's fortunately the only one of the trio with any sort of trick, and in short order one of the other two is paralysed by Missy's stinger and the other has joined Dinah's growing collection of obedient followers. He cheerfully helps the free Huntress carry his paralysed fellow, and soon you're heading out in search of the last targets in this area.
Spoiler: Rolls
The unfortunates known to the Shadow Pantha's as "Fuck Bois" have their own corner of the living space, one that smells strongly of sex. Two of them are leaving it as you arrive, and when you first see them you think at first you missed a pair of Huntresses Their build is on the feminine side of androgynous, with small but unmistakeable breasts visible on their fur-covered chests and their feline faces are similarly girly. The first clue they're not Huntresses is softness of their bodies, the sleek muscles of the other full Pantha's you've seen almost entirely absent. The second clue is the shape of their lower body - the Huntresses all have variously lithe hips and slender rears, but these two have less curve to their hips and far more curve to their butts, to the point you get a clear impression of the considerable size of said butts, despite the fact the pair are walking towards you. The third clue is that open spotting you, the pair make near-identical please mewls and rub their fury crotches with their paws, resulting in a pair of oversized dicks and two sets of heavy balls emerging from their pouches.
"We're not here to hurt you!" You call. "If you let us, we can try and help you!" The two Fuck Bois show no sign of having heard you, panting heavily with lust and thrusting their cocks forward with needy expressions. They don't make any sort of aggressive move though, so you advance cautiously down the hall towards them.
They track your approach with their eyes, but neither of them does anything more until Vicky steps carefully round one's dick to lay a hand on his shoulder. She opens her mouth to speak, but is cut off as he suddenly twists and hisses, swiping at her with his unsheathed claws and swinging his dick at her, though you're not sure if that's intentional or not. Either way, Vicky floats easily out of the way with an annoyed look on her face, then gives him a gentle looking shove that sends him skidding down the hall, right into the path of Dinah's whip. The other Fuck Boi lunges as his fellow turns violent, only to end up falling confusedly in the air as you flick the flag of the Standard of Valour in his face, then going down in a heap as Missy stings him from behind while he's trying to decide what to do upon finding the ominously humming end of Taylor's staff in his face.
The first Fuck Boi ends up just as adoring as anyone else still intact after going down to Dinah's whip, though she has to crack it several times to make him put his dick back in its pouch and stop standing far too close to her. The paralysed one, meanwhile is slung over the shoulder of the plant-woman with and ease that belies her thin build, and she seems unconcerned with the fact his rigid pose means that doing so results in his hard dick being stuck under her arm. Possibly because she's taking the opportunity to give his large, soft butt cheeks a good squeeze, but you quickly decide the less attention you pay to what's going on there, the happier you'll be.
The centre of the Fuck Bois' area is a large, windowless, room Taylor doesn't know the original purpose of, that now looks more like a large, mossy, cave than anything manmade. The three remaining Fuck Bois are lounging inside, and with one of the room's walls entirely missing, they clearly hear you coming, but other than popping their dicks out and making some impatient noises, they don't react. They show no more signs of caring about offers to surrender than the last two did, but likewise don't act aggressively until someone comes within arm's length of them. It's Vicky who does so once more, but this time she's expecting it, and two of the lunging Fuck Bois are avoided and sent on their way with contemptuous ease, to be struck by Missy's stinger and Dinah's whip respectively. The third finds his lunge turned into a stumble when Taylor causes the moss carpet of the cave to latch on to his foot-paws, and you head over to see if you can take that fight out of him without him dispersing.
Your efforts to do something lasting are unsuccessful, but you manage to recognise the point where the Infection is about to give up and "self destruct" before it actually does so, so he remains intact, and some combination of events and your work succeeds in stopping him from thinking with his dick for long enough to agree to surrender when you suggest it. He slinks meekly into place at the back of the group trailing you while Dinah's two newest minions pick up the last, paralysed, Fuck Boi, and it's not long before your party is on its way out of this section of the school, headed towards the back of the building and your final target before you have uncontested control of the floor.
Spoiler: Rolls
Your collection of prisoners needs little encouragement to hang back as you approach what was once the Principal's Office of Winslow High School, even the slavish devotion of Dinah's followers losing out to their fear of approaching it. Sophia apparently punishes anyone who troubles her there or tries to enter when she's out harshly, and that's after they come back from Emma's attentions, which generally prove fatal through some combination of broken bones, smothering and blood loss. The outer walls of the office can't seem to decide if they belong to a cave or a tree, and there's no longer a door, just a thick curtain of vines across an opening you could drive an SUV through. The vines sway slightly in the breeze of hot, fetid, air that seems to blow continually from inside the former office, carrying the Infection on it, thicker than you've ever felt it outside of someone's body.
"We should try and get finished here as soon as possible." You say. "The Infection must be very strong inside." Taylor mummers an agreement with your description, and everyone else nods resolutely.
Pushing through the vine curtain leads to a waiting area that now looks like a dimly lit jungle clearing, filling cabinets changed to rock formations, chairs to bushes and the secretaries desk to a long stone slab, which a bright beam of sunlight from nowhere falls on. The office proper is through another curtain of vines at the far end of the room, and proves to be a cavernous chamber that reeks of sex and blood. The walls and ceiling are thick with foliage, and the floor underfoot is carpeted by disturbingly squelchy moss. There's little light in the room, just faint traces of sunlight filtering down from overhead, but your eyes adjust quickly enough that you can see the hulking figure that stirs itself from a nest at the far end of the room as you enter.
The figure lumbers forwards, into a slightly better lit portion of the room, and you can't help but gasp at what you see. Emma (for it can be no one else) is over ten feet tall at her hunched shoulders, which are at least half that across. Her posture is stooped and lurching, the combination of a build only barely bipedal and the weight of six huge breasts taking up most of her torso, concealed only by a thin layer of reddish fur. The same rusty fur covers most of her body, notably shorter and coarser than the fur possessed by the Pantha's. Unlike them, she still has her normal hair, which hangs matted and tangled down her body, the thrust forward nature of her head meaning it falls in front of her shoulders rather than behind. Her head itself seems to have no traces of humanity left, but instead looks like it belongs to an oversized pug with a bulldog's jaws and jutting fangs, the cute and floppy ears atop it looking jarringly out of place compared to the squashed and wrinkled rest of it. Each of her thick, oddly jointed limbs ends in a huge paw, and her arms are long enough and legs short enough that the front ones nearly touch the ground as she walks. A short tail thrashes angrily above her ample rear, and the fur between her wide hips does nothing to cover her swollen, dripping pussy, which has either moved from between her legs to partway up her crotch, or is so large it just fills that much of her groin (You aren't sure which and don't want to look closely enough to find out). The dog-girl started growling as she stood, a low, inhuman sound, and as your group advances cautiously further into the lair, she barks sharply several times, but does not speak.
"Emma?" Taylor asks, voice heavy with enough emotions you can't pick any individual ones out. The beast-like girl chuffs at the sound of her name and seems to focus on Taylor, but doesn't speak. "We don't want to fight you, Emma. Panacea's with me. If you lie down she can look at you. Maybe she'll be able to help."
For several moments, it seems like Taylor's words fall on ears that can't understand them, then a vicious light appears in Emma's eyes and her face contorts into something that might once have been a smile. "Tay-lor. Tay-lor here. Tay-lor came to Emma. Tay-lor... Now Emma can fuck Tay-lor until she worse than Emma! Tay-lor goes down, Emma can go up! Like before!"
Taylor's eyes have barely finished widening at Emma's words before the dog-girl charges forwards like a freight train, too fast for the shocked girl to get out of the way. She doesn't have to. In a blur of pink, Vicky is simply there between them and her great bone spear stops Emma's rush like she hit the side of a mountain, the canine girl looking stunned while your sister looks like it was no more effort than scuffing a puppy. Moments later, she actually does scruff Emma, spinning her easily and hurling her back into the room. Space warps as she flies, lengthening her fall so that Missy can dart past several times before she hits the ground, the mandibles on her costume snapping angrily. The assault from the two Heroes gives you time to get your bearings, and you plant the Standard of Valour firmly, shouting encouragement. Dinah sprints past as you do, positioning herself to use Vicky as cover while she snaps and cracks her whip in Emma's direction.
"Well, I can't say I wasn't looking forwards to the chance to do this the hard way." Taylor mutters as she moves to stand a little way in front of you, earlier shock replaced by mask-like determination and an orb of light forming between the wings atop her staff. Moments later the orb busts into three beams of light, which curve through the air to hammer Emma from several directions at once.
The fighting from there on is fierce, but never looks to go any way but one. Your party lands blows on Emma more or less at will, while swipes with her claws are foiled by the sudden grasping of vines, her powerful rushes find themselves barrelling towards walls and the snapping of her powerful jaws is halted by Vicky with deliberate, provocative nonchalance. The only thing the dog-girl has going for her is the endurance to take the punishment being dealt out to her and keep on going, and ultimately that's not enough. Especially since after a few minutes of fighting, Taylor simply clicks the fingers of her free hand and Emma's whole body locks up.
"That's about enough of that." The dark-haired girl says quietly, walking calmly towards where Emma is sinking on to her haunches. "Bad Girl! Sit!" She calls in a louder voice, as Emma unwillingly does just that. "You've lost, Emma. If I let you go, will you behave yourself? Or will we have to put you down the hard way?"
"Tay-lor stop Emma?" The dog-girl asks after several moments when she does nothing but whine in confusion. "Tay-lor can't stop Emma! Tay-lor Weak! Emma Strong! Tay-lor has to be Weak! Or Emma can't be Strong!"
Taylor cuts off the animalistic girl's rant with a wave of her hand and turns to the rest of you. "What do we do with her?" She asks woodenly. "I can hold her for a while but not forever. Hurting her enough that she goes to the locker would be easy, but..."
"I could use my powers?" You offer. "If I study her for a bit first there are...good-ish...odds I could make her sleep for several hours without the Infection causing her to disperse."
"The whip should also work." Dinah says next. "We know it doesn't have to hit people to take effect."
"Or...well, Madison did say Emma was very suggestible. Someone could try and talk her round?" Vicky suggests, looking mildly apologetic as Taylor pulls a face. "Whichever option we choose, you should pick, Taylor. Emma hurt you a lot. Probably more than she's hurt anyone innocent since F-Day, given what she seems to have been doing since then. Taylor pulls even more of a face at this, but doesn't argue, instead closing her eyes to consider the options.
After a minute, she opens them again, and says simply; "I've decided."
Thanks to Taylor's powers, Emma is now effectively helpless and at your mercy. The question is, what do you do with the bestial dog-girl? (Pick one):
[Emma] Just finish her off
(No cost, Emma is automatically dispersed.)
[Emma] Have Amy examine her, then make her sleep
(Costs Taylor 2 WP and takes 15 minutes of her and Amy's time. 50% chance Emma is dispersed, she will not be available for further action either way. Examination roll for Emma's strain.)
[Emma] Have Dinah try to use the whip to make her obedient
(Costs Taylor 2 WP and takes 15 minutes of her and Dinah's time. 30% chance Emma is dispersed, if not she will be available for further actions. CHA roll for Dinah to see how helpful Emma will be.)
[Emma] Have Taylor try and talk her into working with you
(Costs Taylor 4 WP and 30 minutes of time. CHA roll for Taylor to talk to Emma, 99% chance of success, better result is more helpful and failure means Emma is dispersed.)
You've been in the Shadow Pantha's base just shy of an hour and are in unquestioned control of it. You've got about an hour where there's next to no chance of any on the Huntress parties returning, then half an hour or so where they might show up, then an hour period they'll all be back by the end of. There are a number of ways the Party can spend that time, the question is which is the best use of it? (Pick as many options by rank as you like for each character, anything left undone when the first Huntresses return will be abandoned. If anyone ends up with free time they will default to Lookout Duty or Guard Duty as needed.):
Spoiler: Options
[#[Amy]
[#[Vicky]
[#[Missy]
[#[Taylor]
[#[Dinah]
QM: Hourly rolls will happen at the start of the next update, after Taylor has paid the first 2 WP if you don't finish Emma immediately, but before any other WP expenditures.
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Last edited: Jul 8, 2020
Jul 7, 2020 ReportLike QuoteReply
ava2607, Randomtrol, polkio123 and 117 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 1, Part 7 (Late Morning to Noon)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: This felt a lot longer writing it than it turned out to be.
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls (Start of hour)
Spoiler: Amy rolls
Spoiler: Vicky rolls
Spoiler: Missy rolls
Spoiler: Taylor rolls
Spoiler: Dinah rolls
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls (End of 1st hour)
You leave the office turned jungle cave, Emma lurching behind you in the grip of Taylor's power, and collect the other "captives", who look generally shocked to see Emma following you, apparently calmly and willingly. There's a good sized meeting/presentation room a little down the hall and with its central table having vanished somewhere, it fits everyone comfortably enough, so you make it your base of operations for the moment. Taylor takes Emma to the far end of the room and sits her down before beginning to talk to her in a low voice. You're not sure if trying to bring Emma on to your side with words is the most efficient option, or if Taylor is the best person to do it, given how much the other girl has hurt her, but Vicky was right that it should be the dark haired girl's choice, and hopefully being able to confront her ex-friend like this will be good for her. Meanwhile, after a quick conversation, Vicky and Missy leave the room, while Dinah moves into the corner nearest the door, watching the prisoners with an expression that's best described as "adorably fierce", toying nervously with the handle of her whip. Missy returns less than a minute after leaving, but only stays long enough to drop off Madison and collect the currently pouch-sized sack of holding before vanishing again. It's mildly annoying not to know what the two blondes are up to, but it's your own fault - you started checking the surrendered Shadow Pantha's over more closely pretty much as soon as everyone was in the room, rather than involving yourself in the planning.
You're examining the captives in order to get a better look at the Infection in them, both for the sake of learning more about it and to make sure they recover from their injuries rather than spontaneously going poof if some trigger for dispersing back to the locker you don't understand is met. You start with the three Huntresses, since they've been hurt the longest and you want to confirm if what you learned when examining Madison holds true for people with the "lesser" version of Shadow Stalker's Infection strain. Healing them proves interesting - the Infection within them resists the sorts of things you usually do to heal people just as it resists "negative" changes to their bodies, but it's also hard at work healing them already, far faster and more efficiently than a human body (or any other complex animal) would normally recover, and it only takes you a little experimentation to find away to find a way to make it do so even faster for a short time. It will take some time to restore them to full health, but they'll be recovered enough for light activity in short order.
Studying the Infection within them itself (and quickly grabbing a Fuck Boi for comparison) proves your assumptions were pretty much spot on, with the main difference between the two strains being that the one the Pantha's have having a different spread of target sexes, making carriers female three quarters of the time, male most of the remaining quarter, and hermaphrodites in only a percent of cases, compared to the strain Madison has, which turns those with it into hermaphrodites half the time, females about a third of the time, and males around a sixth. The only other significant difference you can see is the Pantha's strain inclines it's carriers to be followers, rather than leaders, and you're guessing somewhat that Sophia's strain actually pushes its carriers towards a "Pack Leader" role.
It's clear that Madison got very unlucky with the course her Infection took - despite what Sophia said, you've found no sign that what happens when someone is Infected or their behaviour, sexually or otherwise, influences what the Infection does to them. Possibly not that unlucky, though, she seems to have thus far avoided any serious harm to her ability to think, even if how she thinks has started to shift. And you have to admit her bad luck has been good luck for your group. A Madison who remained female or became a hermaphrodite would no doubt have remained firmly loyal to Sophia, and being able to question her as easily as you did made taking the third floor of Winslow go much faster and smoother than it could have. It's probably a little cruel to think of what's happened to Madison as a valuable learning experience for her, but since you're fairly sure you know-.
"SOPHIA WAS WRONG, EMMA!!!" The sudden thunder of Taylor's voice draws every eye in the room, and though she continues more quietly, it's loud against the silence. "The person you became as Sophia's friend wasn't strong, she was just a bitch. The only thing you got through hurting anyone you couldn't have gotten without it was the chance to hurt people more and what's the point of that?"
"But...but Sophia said that the strong have to hurt the weak, or people won't know they strong." Emma whines, sounding mostly confused but also slightly contrite.
"Even if that wasn't complete bullshit, how does pushing someone around when everything's on your side and nothing's on theirs take being strong? I can't think of much that's easier than being on the winning side to begin with." A wordless whine answers Taylor's question, and you force yourself to stop listening as the conversation continues. What were you... Oh, right!
You take a couple of minutes to speed up the healing of all five of the Fuck Bois (though the paralysis the stinger on the costume causes seems to be unaffected by it), then you make your way over to where Madison is sitting, hunched up against the wall. She's about halfway down the room, having apparently tried to find a point as far from both Emma and the area where those under the effect of Dinah's whip have gathered to best be near her and gaze adoringly at her without crowding the young girl after she told them not to.
"I think I've found a solution to your problem, Madison." You inform the other girl quietly.
"Really!?" She looks up at you in awe, her voice the breathless whisper of someone who hardly dares hope. It's a response you're somewhat uncomfortably familiar with for the days after you first got your powers, when your reputation as a "Miracle Healer" hadn't spread, and patients being told what you could do by a doctor were often learning of an impossible chance to not just survive but recover fully. You've never really liked people looking at you like you were some kind of wondrous saviour (You're not, you're just not!), but as bad a person as it makes you, you can't deny that it's better than being looked at like some kind of on-demand miracle machine.
"Yes. I can't promise visible effects immediately, but I'm pretty sure I can change what sex the Infection is trying to make you. I can't guarantee it will change towards making you a girl again, but as long as the end state isn't a guy, you won't suffer from the mental degradation or sex-obsession of the Fuck Bois." You explain.
"Um...what options are there, other than being a girl or a guy?" A clearly baffled Madison asks after a moment.
"You could end up as a hermaphrodite - both, basically, like Sophia is." You wish you had another example to use, but you don't and Madison clearly doesn't understand what you mean without one. "It's the most likely outcome, actually. You have a different version of the Infection than the rest of the people Sophia infected, and it has a different spread of sexes it can make someone."
"I... Okay. I can live with having a dick if I don't end up thinking with it." Madison says after a moment's thought.
"Right. I'll get on with it then. I've no idea who this will feel, so let me know if you get any pain or weird sensations." You pull over a chair to sit on, then lay a hand on Madison's furry shoulder and concentrate. Making the Infection in her body change how you want is slow, painstaking work, but not actually all that hard, so you have attention to spare when the door opens and Vicky floats in, brushing her dress off with an annoyed expression. Seeing you looking, she heads your way.
"Amy! Check this fruit over, will you?" She says, slipping the rucksack off her back and producing a large gold and pink sphere from it. It looks vaguely like an oddly coloured watermelon, but you're pretty sure it's not. Touching it confirms that it's edible and no more Infected than anything else. Vicky beams when you tell her and produces four more, all different combinations of bright colour. "Great! I'd have hated to have dealt with those grabby plants and their fricking pollen for nothing." Her statement makes little sense at first, but with a few prods she explains that she went to poke around in the jungle on the roof and found a grove that had the fruit growing on vines in it, and taking them apparently prompted the vines to try and latch on to her while shaking their flowers so much pollen got everywhere.
"But before that, I went and hunted down that stash we found the note about." Vicky segues smoothly into her next tale, clearly reading the annoyed arch of your eyebrow and wanting to distract you from comments on the wisdom of going around poking strange plants in impossible jungles. "It was dead easy to find, actually, it was just in the ceiling at the end of a dead-end hallway not far from here. I'm suprised no one found it, honestly. Maybe not the staff, from what Taylor said they don't make much of an effort when it comes to the gangs ("They really don't." Madison mutters from next to you.) but I'd have expected one of the other gangs to find and nick it. Then again, I'm pretty sure it's a Merchant stash, or just some tiny rando gang's, so maybe they didn't think it was worth the effort to track down where they were hiding things. It's a pretty big stash for being in a school, though - two knives, a few bags of weed, a ton of booze, and an actual bulletproof vest. A proper military one, in good condition." Vicky pulls the last item out to wave around, and you're reluctantly impressed. Even the Empire doesn't have much in the way of ex-military protective gear (or at least doesn't break it out often). Which is probably just them caring more about arming their grunts than keeping them alive, but still. Checking the vest confirms it's got a "when worn" type enhancement, though you can't tell what, and the two knives likewise have unknown effects when used.
You have to admit Vicky's returned with a rather impressive haul, but it's not going to deter you from giving her an earful about the plant thing. You open your mouth to start, but a sudden commotion from the door end of the room distracts you, especially when Dinah's voice cries out "Keep your boobs out of my face!" and her whip cracks several times. You look that way to see the plant-woman being dragged away from the brunette by two of the Huntresses, hands cupped under her considerable breasts as though presenting them, a disappointed expression on her face.
"Having them all hanging round here is just asking for trouble." Vicky remarks. "I'm going to see if I can talk some of them into helping out with setting up some proper defences for when the rest of the Huntresses get back."
She heads off to do just that, but you're distracted from paying attention to how it goes by the Infection within Madison suddenly starting to change rapidly. You can't influence what it's doing in any way, but it's fascinating to watch, and in a very short time every trace of Infection in her body has shifted to point her development towards being a hermaphrodite. There's no immediate, obvious, physical changes in response, but you do see a small but noticeable shift in her brain chemistry, so hopefully some of the mental changes she's experienced have been undone.
"That should be it. I couldn't-" A loud cheer downs out your words, and you turn to see the Huntresses and the three mobile Fuck Bois racing out of the room, brushing up against a slightly surprised looking Vicky as they pass her.
"Can you get the others into fighting shape, Ames?" Your sister calls. "I'm gonna go make sure they don't hurt themselves putting defences up." She waves the three non-paralysed Hangers-On towards you and leaves the room before you can respond.
You sigh deeply, and finish informing Madison her transformations should now start moving her towards being a hermaphrodite, then leave her to process while you check your next patients over and speed up their healing. You sternly instruct them to wait a while to recover more before heading out to work, and despite looking like they want to charge after Vicky, they comply. Dinah leaves her post by the door to come talk to them while you check the paralysed prisoners, asking what they know about the state of the city. The girl doesn't know anything you haven't already heard, having spent most of the time since F-Day hiding with her family and stumbling upon Winslow more or less accidentally after they were separated by an attack, and the plant-woman just hums in response to the question (you're not sure she can still talk, honestly), but the teenaged E88-wannabe has some new information. You already knew Hellhound was leading a tribe in the Docks, but apparently the other three big tribes there are all lead an Empire Parahuman. Well, ex-Empire Parahumans might be more accurate - the tribes lead by Hookwolf, Stormtiger and Cricket apparently attack anyone who's not their tribe, including each other, despite all accounts having the latter two as fairly loyal subordinates of Hookwolf's before all this, so you doubt they're listening to Kaiser at this point. The ganger doesn't know for sure what their tribes are like, but he thinks they're at least mostly animal-people amazons like Hellound's tribe, with the animals in question unsurprisingly being wolves, tigers and some kind of bug.
You've finished confirming that the paralysed captives are in no danger of dying or regaining the ability to move any time soon, and are about to move on to giving the plant-woman a more thought examination when Taylor walks over and asks if you're free. You confirm you are, so she leads you towards the corner where Emma is still sitting, her body language now looser in a way that suggests Taylor is no longer controlling her muscles.
"Emma's agreed to join us, but I'm not sure how well it will stick." The taller girl explains quietly as you walk. "Not because I think she'll betray us or run to Sophia's side the moment she's called or anything, but I'm not sure she'll remember she's switched sides an hour from now. She's... I don't know how much is the 'needs regular sex to not be dumb' thing Madison mentioned, but she really is badly off. I'd be exaggerating if I said I'd met actual dogs that are smarter, but not by much. I don't know if there's anything you can do for her, it's not like with Madison where her brain will go in the future, it already has, but..."
"I'll see what I can do." You promise as the two of you reach Emma. The dog-girl leans happily into your touch, like a normal dog being petted, and you frown at what your powers tell you. "I'm not sure I'll be able to do anything. I can barely get a handle what her strain does, and a lot of it feels like it's...sunk in, become a permanent trait like Madison's ass. I'll keep looking, but I doubt I'll be able to do anything any time soon."
"I... Right, I'm going to go see if I can find the locker on the roof." The various plants sprouting from the walls rustle violently as Taylor speaks, and you look up to see her face has settled into mask-like blankness. "Might as well confront all my demons at once, and if I break it through dumping emotions in it, at least nothing worthwhile will be lost." She sweeps from the room before you can respond, the door throwing itself open as she approaches.
You glare at the animalistic girl sprawled at your feet, and struggle with the urge to do something nasty to her in revenge for being the source of so much pain for your new friend. That you can't think of anything nastier than her current state off the top of your head plays a larger part in you refraining from doing so than you're particularly comfortable with, and you throw yourself into trying to understand her Infection strain to distract yourself. Unfortunately, it proves a fruitless, frustrating endeavour, and in the end you throw your hands up and walk away, leaving the canine girl dozing in the corner. The only ones left in the room at this point are Madison, the plant woman and the quartet of paralysed Pantha's, and Madison approaches you when she sees you're finished.
"So, I have a, like, ethical question." The black furred girl says. "When she's not had sex recently, Emma will agree to pretty much anything if she gets sex out of it, but that's...sorta taking advantage? She can't really consent, 'cause it's like she's super drunk or something. But the only way to get into a state why she can make an, um, informed decision, would be to have sex with her. And, like, Sophia went about getting me involved in an awful way and took the worst option possible every time from there, but Emma's still one of my best friends, well, probably my only best friend at this point given the other was Sophia, but anyway, I do want to help Emma not be a dumb sex-beast, but the only way to do that is to fuck her, and she can't properly agree to that until after I've fucked her. So what's the, like, ethical option?"
You can do nothing but stand and gape for several long moments, mouth moving silently as you try and process the utterly out of the left field question you've just been asked. Eventually, you manage to respond. "Part of me wants to know what the hell the train of logic was that led to you thinking about this, given the situation and what your relationship was presumably like before this, but the rest of me has neither the sanity to spare or the fucks to give." You say in a dry voice. "And while I'd also like to know why you'd think I'm some kind of ethical authority, knowing which bit of the mythmaking around 'Panacea' is responsible would just make me wish I drank or something. So, on the understanding that none of us, especially Taylor, need to hear any further details, I'd say go ahead and get her to the point where you think you can discuss it meaningfully, have that discussion, and abide by its results, even if Emma asks you to never have sex with her again."
"Cooliio. I'll take Emma somewhere out of the way and get on that then. If the others haven't got back once we're done I'll get her to help out with the building or something. Laters!" Madison gives you a sharp toothed smile and a wave, then heads towards Emma, rousing her from her doze and getting her to follow out of the room in short order.
"I should probably care about that, but honestly I really don't give a damn about either of them." You mutter. Then you turn to the plant-woman, who's wandered towards you, smiling aimlessly. "Can I examine you more closely?" A hum that could honestly mean anything answers your question. "Okay, do you even understand the question? And can you nod or something if you do?" A nod, followed by an eager offering of breasts. You sigh. This could take a while.
In the end, you get the plant-woman to agree to saying still while you use your powers on her and to stop trying to get you to suck on her nipples. She's almost as disappointed by that was the fact your examination doesn't involve feeling her up, but she agrees to stop. Or at least gets bored of trying. Her strain of Infection proves far easier to examine than Emma's, and you learn a lot, from it and how it's changed her body. Which is pretty drastically. She's closer to a particularly mobile plant than an animal, complete with both the ability and need to photosynthesise. Despite that, her oversized breasts are active enough to make a dairy cow jealous, though they produce the sap she sprayed you with earlier rather than milk (and spraying it like that is apparently an intended use, like some sort of exceptionally odd natural weapon). Also, plant-woman may not be a strictly accurate description, as she turns out be in possession of a penis, though one that lacks a connection to any sort of testicles and apparently becomes little more than a nub above her vagina when not erect. Determining if the plant-woman considers this to affect how she should be described proves impossible, though. It's not, as half-thought might be the case, that she lacks any of the physical equipment for human speech. She just seems to have forgotten how, or possibly finds it too hard to be worth spending her sharply limited brainpower on. Because, to put it bluntly, her brains are mush. She comes across as closer to normal than Emma or the Fuck Bois, but you think that's down to lacking their exaggerated sex-drives or animalistic instincts, so she's calmer and better able to imitate human behaviour than they are, despite having a similar or worse capacity for complex thinking. In any case, she doesn't communicate beyond various hums and simple gestures, but she seems generally happy, if frustrated at the moment that none of you will nurse from her breasts.
You've no idea if the plant-woman actually grasps the way he situation has changed, but between the whip and Vicky's talk, she seems to have at least decided she's on your side. Something she eagerly proves when the African-American woman who was the first to be paralysed abruptly becomes un-paralysed and jumps up, intent on avenging what she sees as the "humiliation" of being beaten like that by a "little girl in a costume" by...well, her plan is unclear but it starts with an attempt to take you hostage, and goes wrong even before the bit where she grabs a powerful Striker with her bare hands, as the plant-woman intercepts her, and despite looking like she should be utterly out-muscled by the other woman, handles her with the ease of a parent dealing with an unruly toddler. An impression not lessened by the fact her next action is to drag the other woman to a chair, pull her over her knee and start spanking her. Not hard, and on to her clothes besides, but in a regular rhythm that she seems intent on carrying on for a while, her captive's struggles and angry yelling apparently meaningless to her.
"Am I going to regret it more if I get involved with whatever that's about, or if I ignore it until it goes away?" You ask the air. The air doesn't answer, but the other Hanger-On does once his paralysis wears off a minute or so later (after first assuring you he knows when he's beat and won't be trouble). The plant-woman apparently picked up from somewhere that spanking was how you dealt with troublemakers, and Sophia encouraged the idea because while she might not hit hard enough to do harm, she will keep going for hours if that's what it takes to make someone "sorry", and Sophia found the whole thing amusing and humiliating enough to make it an official punishment for lesser offences. It's yet another weird thing in a day full of them, but it looks like it will keep your only still belligerent captive from causing problems any time soon, so after the two Fuck Bois are able to move again and also prove not inclined to cause trouble, you leave the meeting room to go find the others.
The sounds of banging lead you to the main stairwell, where you find Vicky and Missy directing the majority of the defeated Pantha's in assembling barricades, while Dinah and a small number of them do something that involves ropes and heavy weights. (Tying to rig up some kind of swinging trap, it turns out.) Missy turns out to have spent most of the time since you saw her last poking around the third floor and roof. She found the same grove Vicky did at some point, but unlike your sister didn't get sprayed with pollen while picking fruit, and also collected a number of odd herbs, on the general principle of "Glowing Faintly=Interesting". Examining them with your powers reveals that they contain compounds that will react with the Infection to enhance someone's abilities for a short time, more-or-less safely as far as you can tell, so you keep the lecture on the wisdom of picking strange plants short.
Before she went to the jungle, however, Missy spent a while poking around in Shadow Stalker's den, finding a variety of things hidden away. The two large boxes of condoms make sense, given the panther-girl's new sexual equipment, and the high-end statuette of her as a Ward seems like the kind of thing she would have as a trophy, but the big drum of motor oil and the collection of scrap metal are somewhat baffling. Missy also found another crystal like the one the camera in the staff room produced, and the general oddity of those crystals is enhanced when, after she puts a hand on your shoulder and focuses briefly, the crystal not only appears in your mental "playback list", but you suddenly know the broad strokes of its contents. Unlike the first crystal, it's not from a fixed viewpoint, but instead follows Sophia from a number of cameras as she, fully transformed into her current state, escapes the PRT building, roams the city briefly, then comes to Winslow and begins "recruiting" the Shadow Pantha's, mainly by tracking down girls who we apparently part of her clique at Winslow, attacking them, and approaching them when the changes her Infection causes get them driven away from wherever they were sheltering before. It ends with her studying the locker, which apparently changed from a normal school locker to whatever it is now around the point she'd gathered her first half-dozen "Huntresses". You're not sure if most of what's in the crystal will be worth actually watching, but Missy does want to go through the first section with everyone once Sophia is dealt with, some of the details of the feline girl's escape apparently bothering her.
Searching the third floor for furniture that can be easily repurposed has also turned up a small collection of other objects, ranging from the ordinary, like the small pile of cash, the set of walkie talkies and the portable radio, to the more out of place finds like a large collection of board games, a thick white vest that might as well have "NERD" stencilled on the back and an egg-shaped pink object that turn out to be some sort of portable spa/beauty kit, to the rather disturbing, such as the collection of dresses and undergarments that might just be from "Little Girl" costumes from a party or a play or something, but have less wholesome implications when found in a heavily locked box behind a loose panel in a cupboard, especially since said box also contained a large, cow-print latex bra with holes in the cups positioned to expose the wearer's nipples. Of course, in the post-F-Day world you have to deal with, even the ordinary items aren't necessarily what they seem. The nerdy vest is yet another item of clothing that carries heavy enhancements, while the walkie talkies and the spa seem to power/supply themselves out of thin air, and the radio turns out to be very odd indeed. It doesn't pick up any normal radio stations, not even the PRT band Missy checked when you first woke up, but turning the dial switches it between channels that each play a different sort of music, covering every genre you've ever head of and even more you haven't. There are no hosts or DJs speaking, but occasionally a voice, so far different each time, will speak between tracks and declare "Rumour has it..." about some event or another, such as clashes between groups, trees fruiting in a particular location, or sightings of dangerous creatures. How accurate any of it is you've no idea, but you're at least sure that it would be far too much effort for the payoff to be something set up as a trap.
While you're going through all this, there's an odd noise best described as "Vworp, Vworp" and a long, slender box materialises in front of Missy. It floats there for a few seconds, then the lid fades away, revealing the parasol you let L33t work on within. It looks no different, but when Missy takes it out of the box (which promptly vanishes), it proves to be much sturdier, better balanced and to hit rather more solidly than its appearance would suggest. There's also a note from Uber attached to the handle, saying that from what L33t was shouting, when carried (open or not) it should provide the wielder and their allies with some protection from "Elemental Damage". Which he assumes means stuff like fire, ice and electricity, but could include other things instead. L33t's modifications do seem to have made the Infection in the parasol more active, but that seems a small price to pay for the degree of improvement.
Taylor arrives just as you've finished checking out the various items, looking much calmer than she was. Well, naturally calm, rather than emotionless. Her examination of the locker with her powers was apparently wildly successful, and she gathers the five of you together to explain what she's learned. Well, to summarise it. Her powers may possibly have been too effective at getting information, and she's apparently had the equivalent of several large instruction manuals shoved into her head (but oddly, no sort of pain or disorientation from this happening). She starts by saying that the locker is apparently both the Primary Keystone and a Font for the Lair created by Sophia at Winslow, and goes on to explain what all those terms mean. Lairs are apparently created whenever someone with the Infection spends a lot of time in an area with the intent to stay there long term. Any Infected who puts down roots will do so, but most Lairs are tiny and basically undetectable, only serving as a tether for their creators to be revived at if something causes their bodies to dissipate. But stronger Infected, especially those who gather other Infected under their leadership, find their Lairs growing larger and beginning to effect their surroundings. Taylor's not sure what the limits of this are, but Sophia's Lair is apparently on the low end for size and influence. Partly because she's not been set up in Winslow for that long, partly because the Shadow Pantha's don't represent a particularly large or strong collection of subordinates, and partly because the locker is in her Lair's territory, rather than within the Lair itself. (Possibly also partly because Sophia isn't that strong personally, but Taylor's less sure of the measure there.)
When Lairs develop past a certain point, they form a "Keystone", which is part amplifier, part control panel and part foundation for the Lair. The locker is that Keystone for Sophia's Lair and having it where it is apparently reduces its effectiveness. Only Sophia can do anything with the locker at the moment, but if her control over it is disrupted by defeat, Taylor will be able to use it to do all sorts of things to the Lair, such as altering how it influences the world around it, stealing some of its properties for her own use later (if/when she gets a Lair of her own), taking control of it from Sophia, or even destroying it entirely. Actually, anyone who defeats Sophia and can get to the Locker could do those things, but Taylor's pretty sure her powers will allow her to do so more effectively, especially when combined with the instruction manual in her head.
The final property of the locker, being a "Font", apparently means it's an item/area in a Lair's territory that causes and advances a particular kind of Infection if a person interacts with them in a certain way. What that way is for the locker, Taylor doesn't say, but from the way her face hardens, what she said during her brief breakdown on the second floor earlier and the way the Shadow Pantha's (the Huntresses most of all) flinch at the idea of "using" the locker, you've got enough of an idea to know you don't want more of one. Taylor also warns at this point that while Fonts will Infect you, they're not only places in a territory that can, and indeed, with enough exposure, anywhere in a territory could transmit an Infection.
With no sign of any of the Huntresses returning yet and Taylor's discoveries bouncing around in your head, you decide to go and take a look at what is presumably Sophia's Lair in the former Principal's office, grabbing one of the walkie talkies so you can be alerted when trouble shows up, and the size-changing sack in case you find anything interesting. You're mainly going to see if the Infection is a Lair is analysable in a way it's usually not in objects (and possibly anything that's not human, given that an impulsive check of the various growing things you pass reveals the Infection in them is folded up and inscrutable), but also to see if you can get any insight into Sophia's character that might help with dealing with her. And to have an excuse not to help with the construction efforts, given Taylor has taken charge of watching out for the returning Huntresses, and with her powers offering to help would just look like a transparent attempt to dodge doing manual labour.
Poking around the cave-like room proves unproductive at first, though you do discover a cubbyhole containing a considerable amount of jewellery and over a thousand dollars in cash fairly early on. You persevere however, and after testing almost everything in the room with your powers (and discovering a rather inexplicable pile of cut timber behind a curtain of vines), you finally "crack" the Infection in the room. It's nowhere near as easy to read as it is in someone's body, and you end up flitting from place to place as you "hunt" for items that show a particular part of Sophia's strain, but in the end, you manage to complete your understanding of the Strain, confirming the presence of a trait that pushes those with the strain to be more dominant (and also makes them generally stronger than those with the lesser strain), and also learning that it causes those Infected with it to transform slightly faster than the Shadow Pantha strain does.
It's a fascinating, engaging process, like building a jigsaw in your brain after finding the pieces via scavenger hunt, so much so that you lose track of time a little, and don't notice as the Infection from the room slowly builds up on your skin and inside your lungs. Honestly, you're not sure you would have noticed the actual build up happening unless you were specifically looking out for it happening, it happens in such tiny amounts at a time, but you were aware of the possibility, so you'd intended to limit how much time you spent in the Lair. Unfortunately, you only remember that after the amount of the new Infection in your body reaches what is apparently a critical amount (which is honestly not a high amount at all) and suddenly flairs into coordinated action. Something about it doing so seems to confuse your powers, leaving them unsure if it is part of your body or not, and you able to see in exact detail what it does to your body, but utterly unable to influence the process in any way. Fortunately, what it does is pretty minor compared to what it could be. Minor is an odd word for it perhaps, given that it alters practically every cell in your body, but those alterations don't do much. In fact, at least for now, they do nothing, and if you hadn't been spending so much time examining Sophia's strain and its variant today, you're not sure you'd recognise what they're intended to do. Which, much to your relief, is entirely positive. The Infection you've been exposed to has somehow given you the "Natural Predator" trait of the Pantha's, without you actually contracting that strain of Infection. Having said trait will slowly improve your speed, strength, endurance and senses, and is also the source of the Pantha's ability to keep the bodies of what they kill from dissipating immediately. Having your body improve itself steadily without risk is pretty much an unalloyed good, and if the "keeping bodies intact" thing stops the Infection from self-destructing people when you use your powers on them... Well, that could be very useful for investigating the Infection further.
Being more or less finished anyway, you leave Sophia's Lair shortly after your brush with Infection. You decide to avoid mentioning it to the others just yet, since while the Huntresses are apparently still yet to return, they can't be far away, and distracting them with something that isn't harmful and they can't do anything about seem like a bad idea. You do make a mental note to check Missy over once the fighting's done, thought. You're not sure how long she spent searching the Lair, but it wouldn't surprise you if it was a similar amount of time to yourself, and your own experience proves that it's possible that of sufficient exposure to Infection to have effect on your body might not be noticeable, even to the one effected. But that, also, is not something to bring up just before a fight, so when you get back to the others, you tell them your time in the Lair was fruitful, and settle in to wait for the Huntresses to finally show up and realise that all their base belongs to you now.
New usable items discovered:
Butcher's Knife - A new-looking long knife with a slight curve to its edge and no guard between the blade and the handle. Provides 10 damage and has an unknown Minor enhancement that activates when it does damage.
Hunting Knife - A large, straight, knife with serrations on part of its back, a proper hilt, and a leather sheath, grimy and worn from years of use and indifferent care. Provides 10 damage and has an unknown Moderate enhancement that activates on a hit.
Bulletproof Vest - A large bulletproof vest that looks to be military surplus, in surprisingly good condition given where it was found. Provides 10 defence, which is increased to 30 against ranged weapons. Has an unknown Safe enhancement when worn.
3x Walkie Talkie - A set of battered looking walkie talkies with a range of about 500 metres. Need to be charged from their base unit semi-regularly, but that unit no longer needs any short of obvious power source to work.
Collection of Board Games - A large and varied collection of board games, from Snakes and Ladders to Risk. Provides a large bonus to forming and maintaining friendly bonds during downtime.
Rumour Has It Radio - A sleek looking portable digital radio that somehow works despite its battery compartment being empty. Doesn't pick up any stations, but still has a channel playing any kind of music you can think of. Voices sometimes speak between songs, relaying rumours from around Brockton Bay. Provides a Rumour Mill each day, offering information, potential quests and sometimes Dinah FAV.
Nerdy Vest - A thick white cotton vest with a breast pocket, meant for keeping the torso of someone underweight and frail warm. Modifies INT by x 3.5, PER by x1.5 and STA by x0.5. Has a Safe enhancement when worn that activates every time the wearer passes an INT check if their INT is below 50, with a 50% chance of Increasing INT by 2, a 25% chance of increasing it by 3, a 20% chance of increasing it by 4 and a 5% chance of increasing it by 5.
Portable Spa - A large, egg shaped pink container that unfolds into a small "Spa", with a foot bath, vents which produce scented steam and a selection of care products such as massage oils, face masks, manicure tools and similar. It seems to produce the water it uses from nowhere, though it's too chemically treated to be drinkable. The supplies also slowly restock. Enhances stress reduction if the party has the time and inclination to use it during downtime.
Fetish Nursing Bra - Made mostly of cow-print latex, this bra leaves its wearer's nipples exposed for easy access. It's as supportive as an actual nursing bra, despite it clearly being intended for sexual purposes. Provides 5 CHA and increases LWD damage of attacks involving the breasts by 10. Has an unknown Minor enhancement when worn.
Collection of "Little Girl" Clothes - 5 sets of training bras, ruffled panties, thick cotton stockings and frilly dresses, all brightly colour coded and childish looking. They're pretty clearly intended to make an adult wearer look like a little girl, rather than being actual children's clothes, but that's not much better, really.
15x Doses of Stat Boosting Herbs - Boost 1d3 stats by 5 for 1d31 hours, no chance of Infection but 50% chance of increasing LIB, 25% chance of causing LIB to rise each hour until effects wear off. Multiple doses stack, but have an increasing chance of side effects.
Gothic Parasol returned! Now usable as a weapon, Enhancement upped to Major, provides 5 to hit, damage, and defence and halves "elemental" damage for the whole party.
Gothic Parasol - A dainty black parasol. Whoever holds it will be untroubled come rain or shine. It has a Major enhancement - Just holding it protects the one doing so completely from environmental effects of any strength and when opened this effect spreads to affect everyone in an area roughly the size of a large room. After being modified by L33t, it provides 5 to hit, damage, and defence for the wielder and halves "elemental" damage for the whole party.
Spoiler: Parasol conversion rolls:
With the delivery of the improved Gothic Parasol and the discovery of the knives, you have a number of weapon options to choose from, and Amy and Missy are unarmed. Which item, if any do they equip?:
[Amy] Gothic Parasol
[Amy] Butcher's Knife
[Amy] Hunting Knife
[Amy] Nothing
[Missy] Gothic Parasol
[Missy] Butcher's Knife
[Missy] Hunting Knife
[Missy] Nothing
Additionally, who equips the Bulletproof Vest?
[Bulletproof] Amy
[Bulletproof] Vicky
[Bulletproof] Missy
[Bulletproof] Taylor
[Bulletproof] Dinah
[Bulletproof] No one
Finally, does anyone equip the Nerdy Vest?
[Nerdy] Amy
[Nerdy] Vicky
[Nerdy] Missy
[Nerdy] Taylor
[Nerdy] Dinah
[Nerdy] No one
Spoiler: Huntress arrival rolls and effects of defences/traps
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Last edited: Sep 22, 2020
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Randomtrol, polkio123, Annatar and 121 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 1, Part 8 (Noon)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: Things I learned in writing this week: Utterly one-sided fights are hard to do well and don't make for long updates.
Spoiler: Rolls
Spoiler: Hourly rolls (after 1st fight)
Your sister and Missy have used the help of your captives and the time granted by the very late return of the Huntresses well, building sturdy barricades and turning the area immediately outside the main staircase into a hard to escape killbox, one that will see anyone who comes on to the third floor that way attacked from all sides and struggling to reach anyone in return, thanks to some carefully set up space warping from Missy. The first group of Huntresses to return, however, don't even make it all the way up the stairs to see those well prepared defences.
Dinah has also used the time and help well, and the stairwell practically bristles with traps, all of which Taylor can trigger on command with her powers. The great clattering when they're unleashed against the trio of feline girls makes you jump, but the results are devastatingly effective. Peering down the stairs reveals one dark-furred form pinned beneath a heavy net of vines on the second floor landing, one slumped against the wall on the same level, having been smashed by a swinging bundle of doors, and the last in a dissolving heap at the very bottom of the stairs, having had her feet taken out from under her mid-way up by a line whipping about as its tension suddenly releases.
All the traps are easily reset while the surviving pair of Huntresses are being hauled up to the third floor and stashed in a nearby classroom under the watchful eye of one of their whip-obedient fellows, and take a similar toll on the next group to return. The net makes another catch, and the swinging doors strike again too, this time hitting hard enough their victim is dispersing into smoke by the time you check on things. The last member of the group is technically still in fighting shape, but also hanging in midair thanks to a snare around one of her footpaws, and surrenders quickly when it's made clear the other option is being used as a piñata by Glory Girl.
There are four Huntresses in the next group, but all that means is that one of them makes it through the gauntlet of traps mostly intact and bursts onto the third floor in a hissing fury, only to wilt into compliance when she sees the defences and forces arrayed against her. One of her companions is nothing more than a cloud of disappearing smoke, and the other two are trapped by nets, one in the reliable one on the second floor, the other in a not previously used one on the third floor landing. Neither offer any resistance once untangled, and join the growing collection of bruised, dispirited panther-girls in the improvised classroom-jail.
Taylor reports five Huntresses in the next party, but only three make it out on to the third floor to offer the first challenge to your defences. It's not much of one, and you end up doing little more than waving the Standard of Valour and calling encouragement. Vicky and Missy lead your allied fighters in jabbing at them with a collection of long and variously pointy objects, keeping them from even bringing their own crude spears to bear against the barricades, while Taylor sends a barrage of glowing shots their way. But it's Dinah and the whip that decide things as she makes use of Missy's warps to crack it all about them, and in short order all three abandon resistance in favour of prostrating themselves before her. It takes a little doing to convince them to go and sit with the other captives, but by the time the traps are reset it's done.
The wait for the next group is tense - this is the last one, and Shadow Stalker will be with it. With how effective the traps have proven, the four remaining Huntresses are unlikely to be in a condition to put up much of a fight if they even make it up the stairs, but given her powers, Sophia's not going to be troubled by your crude traps, or easily contained by your defences. And while the opponents you've faced today were generally ordinary people before F-Day, with little experience fighting, Sophia has been a Ward in Brockton Bay for nearly six months, and was an active, fairly effective vigilante for over a year before that. She know how to handle herself in a fight and your sister and Missy might both have her outmatched in terms of skill and experience, but that's not true of the rest of you and Sophia's the sort to take ruthless advantage of that.
You can tell immediately when Shadow Stalker's group gets close enough for Taylor to spot them, for the dark-haired girl goes tense as a drawn bow, and the various plant life sprouting from the walls begins rustle agitatedly. Unlike with previous groups, she narrates their approach, so the sound of the first traps triggering isn't as much of a surprise. One Huntress suffers a "fatal" fall due to a tripwire, and another is caught up in the trusty net on the second floor, but two make it to the third with a furious Sophia, one unharmed and the other looking rather battered. The latter goes down as Taylor triggers one last trap, releasing a collection of debris from your group's construction efforts from where it was held on the ceiling just in outside the stairs in a crude sling made from a curtain, and the other Huntress takes a nasty knock from a hunk of wood, but Sophia simply turns to smoke and lets it all pass harmlessly through her. It's plain on her feline face as she reforms that she doesn't like the odds she's facing, but whatever she was planning on doing in response to them visibly flies out of the window when her eyes land on Taylor, standing casually with her wand in staff form and a taunting smirk on her face.
"Hebert! What the fuck are you doing here!?" The panther-girl snarls.
"Oh, you know. Woke up in a basement to find the Bay had gone even madder than usual, poked around a bit and found you'd taken your bitchcraft to new levels and decided to do something about it with my new friends." Taylor's tone is light, not quite mocking. "And since you'd done such a bad job of securing your 'territory' we decided to take it, and wouldn't you know it, you're such a bad leader people practically threw themselves at our feet when we said we were getting rid of you. It was so easy I even had time to reconnect with an old friend, and she told me all sorts of things about you, Miss 'Predator'." Horror begins to edge the rage off Sophia's face as Taylor speaks, and the next words shatter her control completely. "Emma? Come here and tell Sophia what we talked about saying, would you? That's a good girl."
The animalistic dog girl lumbers up behind Taylor, and a vindictively grinning Madison also comes forward to stand behind her other shoulder, in what's clearly a deliberate echo of the usual formation taken by high school queen bees and their follows in every movie they show up in.
"Ems, what are you doing?" Sophia asks, desperately. "Why are you listening to a weakling like Hebert? I don't kn-." A loud, deep growl from Emma drowns out the rest of her words.
"You pa-th-et-ic Sophia. You promised strong, but all you ever gave was more weak, just loud and pre-tend-ing. Taylor was my sister and I turn against her for you say and what it get me? I a freak, and you too dumb to fix me. Taylor work out why I not become Pantha in hour. How many weeks it take you to come up with 'Hurt Madison too, maybe that help'?" The words are stilted and clearly rehearsed, but they strike home against Sophia like a Shakespearian soliloquy.
"I...I got you away from that bitch Hellhound, didn't I Emma?" Sophia pleads in a desperate attempt to stop the words.
"Bitch not care she had Emma. Fuck Boi could have got Emma away from her. Fuck Boi be less nervous and brag less, too. Fuck Boi probably do better job of fixing Emma also." Comes the unimpressed growl in response, though from the way the dog-girl looks confused afterwards, coming up with it has made her lose her place in her speech.
"Face it Sophia, you talk tough, but if you're up against anyone with more spine than Blackwell or tougher to outwit than a strung out Merchant, you can't back it up." Madison steps in before Sophia has a chance to regain her mental footing. "And honestly, given how you treated me, who you'd been telling everyone had proven myself worthy of following you, are you really surprised the rest of the Pantha's decided to jump ship the second actual heroes showed up? And 'Shadow Pantha's' is a stupid name, by the way. What did you think if you spelled your gangs name weird like he did, it'd make you the next Lung?"
Sophia looks totally stunned for a moment, then focuses on Taylor again with a roar, pointing her crossbow towards her in paws that tremble with anger. "Hebert!!! This...You're doing this somehow!!!! Did you finally Trigger and you're a scummy Master, Hebert!?"
"If I thought that was anything other than you being in denial about how shit you are, I'd be impressed that you almost got it right." Taylor says condescendingly. "Actually, no I wouldn't, given that I used my powers against you when you came after my on F-Day, but I can see how you might block getting beaten by bugs out of your mind, given how pathetic a 'predator' you'd have to be to lose to Winslow's roaches. Though, given how easily the PRT scooped you up afterwards and the fact you couldn't get yourself out, just sat in your cage like a good little kitty until luck opened the door for you, I've got serious doubts as to your 'predator' credentials. And what have you done since then? Sulk around Infecting schoolgirls, but only if you can catch them well away from help? 'Take over' an abandoned high school and a couple of blocks no one else wants? I think you're a scavenger, not a 'predator', Sophia and a bad one at that. Those plants you've been feeding on the roof are probably more dangerous." Taylor lets out an obviously fake gasp of realisation as Sophia splutters incoherently in rage. "Oh, I should have put it together sooner, that's why there's so many plants growing around here! Secretly, you know you're not even a herbivore, you're a plant-! Whoops, missed me!"
Sophia's control finally snaps under Taylor's taunts, and she drops her crossbow to lunge at her, snarling like a rabid animal. Taylor dodges the wild rush with ease, and begins to retreat slowly down the corridor, always just out of reach of furious claws, keeping Sophia's attention on her with an equal mix of insults and low powered shots from her staff. As the pair move out of sight, the rest of you don't pursue, but instead follow the plan Taylor laid out by slowly shaping the moss on the wall behind Sophia into words while she was distracting her. The final Huntress on Sophia's side shouts something angrily as you follow the first arrow to the ambush point her maddened leader is being lead towards, but it's abruptly cut off by a bark from Emma, followed by a rather grisly crunching noise, and you decide not to look back and see what's become of her.
In the end, Sophia goes down with almost anticlimactic ease. Taylor leads her past the place where the rest of you are waiting, and she's so intent on the chase that she doesn't notice anything before you've cut the tendons of one leg with the hunting knife you kept from the cache Vicky tracked down. Dinah's whip smacks her across the muzzle moments later, and then your sister smashes her up into the air with her spear, to be hammered back down into the floor by a twelve-foot tall Missy moments later. She's probably in no shape to put up any more fight after that, but the Ward makes sure of it by jabbing her former colleague hard with her costume's stinger. Without shrinking down any first. Shadow Stalker's growls of pain and confusion cut off as all her muscles lock up, and your sister slings her board-stiff form carelessly over one shoulder as a slightly winded Taylor rejoins you.
With Sophia defeated, the Keystone of her Lair is now vulnerable, and your ambush point is even close to the roof access stairs. Taylor leads the way through the Jungle to a small clearing on the other side of the roof from where you arrived a few hours ago, and in that clearing stands a stepped pedestal of rough, circular stone, upon which rests a slightly battered but otherwise ordinary looking locker, only the traces of blood seeping out of the bottom of it hinting that it's more than it seems. It swings open as you approach, revealing a swirling pool of blood that stays inside despite the expectations of physics, and looks far deeper than could fit inside.
"Please tell me whoever takes control of it to begin with isn't going to have to climb inside that?" You ask Taylor, knowing from what she's said of her discoveries that it would be best if either you or her did so.
"No, just touching the outside will do." Taylor answers cheerfully. "We could throw Sophia in, but that's only necessary if we want to seal her up. Or remodel her into a Fuck Boi. Or make me feel better."
"Bad Taylor. We only torment defeated enemies if there's a point to it beyond our own satisfaction." Your snarky comment gets more of a laugh from the tall girl than it probably deserves, but it also serves to bleed the tension that appeared in her shoulders at the sight of the Locker off, so you're happy with it despite Vicky's stink-eye.
"So, what are we actually going to do with this thing?" Vicky asks. "For that matter, what can we do with it?"
"Oh, all sorts of things." Taylor says with some satisfaction. "We've got...oh, at least three different ways to make sure Sophia never hurts anyone again, but that's just scratching the surface." She proceeds to concisely lay out the variety of options her powers have revealed to her, and after that, the debate about which your group will take starts in earnest.
Dropped Item: Shadow Stalker's Crossbow - A well made crossbow formerly owned by Ward turned would-be-Warlord Shadow Stalker, it has retained some of her shadow powers since being won from her. Allows Ranged attacks and provides 10 HIT, 25 DMG. Has a Safe enhancement allowing its bolts to ignore half its targets defence from armour, and to do lethal or subdual damage at will.
You've defeated Shadow Stalker and her Shadow Pantha's completely, and may now seize the Primary Keystone of their Lair and do as you wish with it and them.
As a location, Winslow High School has the following tags: Large, Moderately Defensible, Confusing Layout and Non-Residential.
The Lair is Size 4, Strength 2.
Its Major Themes are: Felines: Panthers, Jungle. Its Minor Themes are: Plants, Shadows.
It has the following Attributes: Water Source (Great), Fertile Land (Medium)
The first question, having seized the Lair's Keystone, is what will you do with it? (Pick One):
[Keystone] Destroy It - Shatter the Keystone and the Lair with it. Creates a token containing all the Lair's traits which can be used to empower another Lair. Greatly increases loot drop for "Dungeon" completion. No one will be able to form a Lair at Winslow for 7 days if this option is chosen.
[Keystone] Salvage It - Rip away a portion of the Lair's power, weakening it and creating a token containing a portion of its traits (there will be another vote to pick which) that may be used to empower another Lair. Increases loot drop for "Dungeon" completion. No member of the party will be able to form a Lair at Winslow for 3 days if this option is chosen.
[Keystone] Subordinate It - Subjugate the Lair, controlling it but not owning it. A separate vote will follow to decide what, if any changes are made to it. Slightly decreases loot drop for "Dungeon" completion. Party members who are chosen to control the Lair will not cause it to grow if they remain at Winslow, anyone just designated as an ally will form/grow a Lair as normal.
[Keystone] Claim it - Take full ownership of the Lair. A separate vote will follow to decide what, if any changes are made to it. Greatly decreases loot drop for "Dungeon" completion. Party members will form/grow Lairs at Winslow as normal if this option is chosen and they remain in the area.
If Subordinating or Claiming the Lair, any one of the party can be made owner long term, but Lairs are most malleable when first taken from their previous owners. Amy and Taylor's powers allow them to do the initial takeover and any modifications more easily. Who will do the initial work? (Pick One):
[Controller] Amy - More options to change the appearance and Themes of the Lair, and to modify both its Infection strains and the Pantha's if desired. 25% chance of earning FAV for Amy.
[Controller] Taylor - More options to alter the location of the Lair's centre, the location and appearance of its Keystones and Fonts, and to influence the behaviour of the Pantha's if desired. 35% chance of earning FAV for Taylor.
[Controller] Both - Full options from both lists available and easier to do, but there is a chance of Amy and Taylor experiencing some temporary (until sleep) mental effects if more than minimal changes are made. (5% chance of bodyswap, 5% chance of shared bodies, 10% chance of knowledge redistribution, 15% chance of memory mixup, 15% chance of relationship scramble, 25% chance of weird but trivial, 25% chance of nothing, number of rolls dependant on amount and severity of changes.) 50% chance of earning FAV for Amy and Taylor.
Next, what do you do with your captives? (Pick One for each task)
Imprison - Seal them within the Keystone (or a token created from it). This prevents them from reforming until you choose to release them, and with a little study it may be possible to set conditions on their release, or alter them considerably while they are in a suspended state. Greatly increases loot drop from "dungeon" completion.
Banish - Expel them from Winslow and its surrounding area. They will be compelled to put some distance between them and it, and will not be able to return to try and reclaim it, or attack you if they encounter you elsewhere for 7 days. Increases loot drop from "dungeon" completion.
Alteration - Recall them to the Keystone, allowing significant, directed changes to be made to them while they are vulnerable after their Lair has been sized. A separate vote will follow about what alterations will be made, the fewer targets the greater the precision and potential scope. May slightly increase or decrease loot drop from "dungeon" completion depending on changes.
Obedience - Force them to swear allegiance to you, forbidding them from attacking you and requiring them to obey your orders. A separate vote will follow to specify how tightly they are bound. Slightly decreases loot drop from "dungeon" completion.
Leave Be - Don't do anything to them. Depending on what changes you make to the Lair, things may ripple down to them if they stay, but they're free to do whatever they wish, other than being unable to attack you for 3 days. Greatly decreases loot drop from "dungeon" completion.
[Sophia]
[Emma]
[Madison]
[Full Pantha's]
[Hangers-On]
Finally, Dinah may use her power to answer questions about future actions. She now has enough information to be highly accurate about things relating to the Shadow Pantha's and the immediate area out to long term, and provide some idea of things the wider city in the short term. Each question costs 2d10 WP, are any asked?:
[Dinah] Don't ask any questions
[Dinah] Ask one question
-] Write in what
[Dinah] Ask more than one question
-] Write in which
QM: You'll be getting more loot (and XP) regardless of choices, but how much and what kind depends on what you do with the Pantha's and their Lair. There will also be a vote to decide what happens next and a chance to shuffle gear around, but after things with the Lair are decided.
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Last edited: Jul 25, 2020
Jul 25, 2020 ReportLike QuoteReply
ava2607, Randomtrol, polkio123 and 122 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 1, Part 9 (Lunchtime/Early Afternoon)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
Spoiler: Previous vote for reference
Spoiler: Rolls
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls
Once the decisions about what to do with the Lair have been made, you and Taylor move to stand on either side of the locker and place your hands on its sides. It responds almost eagerly to your touch, offering up a menu of options, one that swiftly gains new entries as your and Taylor's powers get to work on it. There's a slight issue at first with the Keystone not seeming to know which of you to respond to and the pair of you not quite being able to give it commands in sync, but then something clicks between you and it's as if you're working with one mind, able to manipulate the Keystone smoothly without even needing to talk to each other. The first order of business is to change the appearance of the Keystone to something that doesn't make half of you tremble with rage and fear. The image of a large glass casket springs into your mind, and while you can't say where the image comes from, you like it, and soon a shining coffin lays upon a neat stone bier, with steps at its base to allow someone to climb in (or out) easily.
That done, your attention turns to the rest of the Lair, and a single solid push is all it takes to change the wild jungle around you into something more manageable, a beautiful, neatly laid out garden. Wild tangles of bushes become orderly rows, looming trees are neatly trimmed, and barely there dirt tracks become wide and paved. Another small push associates the Lair with the concept of medicine, which doesn't seem to change anything physical, but makes a calm, healing air fall over the new garden. With the trees no longer obstructing your vision, it's easy to see that the area of garden on the roof noticeably larger than should actually fit there, and even unstretched the roof was a fairly sizable area to begin with. You'll need some kind of help to tend to it all, but you're pretty sure the now-former Shadow Pantha's will be willing to do so, given the bounty it offers. The Meat Trees are far less dangerous and demanding than the Boar Plants they've replaced, and will offer a greater variety of flavours once they all start producing. The small plots of Medley Vegetables may be less popular, given the pot-luck nature of a plant that may decide it's going to be a mix of a cabbage, a potato and a cucumber or similar odd combinations, but they should make for healthy (and unique) meals. The rows of vines that will sprout Juicy Fruits similar to the ones Missy and Vicky found earlier and the rows of bushes already producing their first small, candy-like Sweet Berries should be reasonably easy to tend to, which is good since there's a lot of them.
Moving on from the food producing plants, the garden has two sets of bushes of a more medical nature, already budding with berries containing a mild painkiller and what's essentially toothpaste, respectively (and fortunately very different in appearance). The trees whose leaves will grow to become large sheets of silk should prove useful, as should the odd plant that will quickly grow into a plywood board, though it will look rather odd to see ranks upon ranks of them sticking out of the ground as they mature. The very weird looking trees that are already beginning to fill their fluid reservoirs with latex might prove something of a nuisance though, given that they will apparently start squirting it around themselves semi-regularly fairly soon, but at least it's just the one grove in its own little corner. Similarly likely to be a nuisance is the tangle of shifting, grasping vines on the edge of the garden above the cafeteria. They'll need fairly regular effort to keep under control, and an incautious gardener will be lucky if it's just their belly that gets pumped full of sap. Most of the rest of the plants in the garden will just boom continually with beautiful flowers, but one last type of tree, present only as strategically placed saplings at the moment, should prove very helpful once it's grown. At their full size, the Sentinel Trees should be tough enough to give anyone short of Hookwolf trouble, and their swinging boughs will be supported with the ability to launch their spikes hard and fast enough to act as a fairly respectable anti-air battery.
With the garden established and changes rippling through the third floor, you move on to addressing the Infections within the Lair. A simple thought is all it takes to ensure the five of you will not be at risk of contracting any of the strains already present, and barely more of an effort is needed to embed the strain your powers created into the Lair and use it to supplant Shadow Stalker's strain as the primary one, which should vastly reduce the chances of anyone else getting Infected here, a very useful thing if you plan to make it your base and bring people here. Or even if you don't, given that the former Pantha's at least will be staying here. You also make sure that your strain is the one the Font will spread, and tweak the activation of the Font so that those seeking to use it just have to lie within the Glass Casket with the lid in place for a short while, no locks, blood or screaming required. Then you turn your attention to the four strains already present - Shadow Stalker's, the Shadow Pantha's, the Sapling strain the plant-woman has and one more that your powers label "Flower Girl". You leave the last alone, since you have no idea of its properties, so messing around with it could do anything, but the others alter to hopefully make more bearable for those Infected with them. The others were a bit confused by the need to do so when you were planning, given you're reducing the odds of anyone getting them as much as possible, but "as much as possible" isn't "to zero". Also, doing so should change the versions of the strains in anyone staying in the Lair, although you're not sure how quickly. Not instantly, that much is clear, and almost certainly within a month, but where between those two extremes is impossible to determine.
You start with Shadow Stalker's strain, and find improving it is not as easy as you'd hoped. You can't remove properties from it, only alter them, and of the set of "Keywords" that denote its main themes and effects, only small number of your limited selection of options can be switched for any given one. You make do as best you can, swapping in various traits form your strain. The trait which weakens male carriers is replaced by one that enables all carriers to improve themselves more rapidly, the dominance driving "Queen of the Jungle" keyword with one that protects against loosing your identity to the changes of the Infection, the highly Infectious claws for the part which makes your strain nearly impossible to spread and, after a great deal of internal debate, you slot the part of your strain which causes lesbianism in to replace the one that makes female or hermaphrodite carriers so dominant and sexually aggressive. For the lesser strain, you overwrite the equivalent trait with the lesbian-causing one as well, and also the one that makes male carriers Fuck Bois. You're not sure if that and switching "Boys Drool" for "Rapid Development" will help the current Fuck Bois, but it can't hurt, at least. And if it doesn't, you can always try and point their Infection towards making them female and see if that kicks something into action. For the Sapling strain, swapping the keyword that makes victims stronger but dumber is an easy decision, and swapping the trait that makes them plant people, strengthening their bodies at the cost of their minds in the process, with the same "Natural Predator" trait you picked up earlier is also fairly obvious. What to do with the last brain-draining trait is less obvious, and in the end you have to hope that replacing it with Uber and L33t's "act like the character's we resemble" trait won't lead to anything too weird.
The strains addressed, your planned changes to the lair itself are done, and there's just the inhabitants left to be dealt with. What the best thing to do with them all is was hard to decide, but actually doing most of it is as easy as breathing. The various hangers-on who don't have the Pantha's strains are left alone, to stay or go as they choose, but everyone else will be made to stay and listen to you, at least until you're happy they've learned better than Sophia's bad habits. Madison and the Fuck Bois you bind only lightly preventing them from harming you but merely inclining them to listen, while the Huntresses get a slightly shorter leash that pushes them more strongly to follow your instructions. That leaves only Emma and Sophia herself, and Sophia will be quicker, so your start with her.
"Put Sophia in the Casket, Vicky. It's time for Miss Naughty Kitty to go into time out." You tell your sister, and she does as asked, looking from side to side to give you an odd look as she does so. Missy's venom prevents the would-be warlord from struggling or shouting, but you can see the blazing hate in her eyes as you slide the lid in place above her. You cheerfully wave two hands at her, while the other two remain on the Casket. Willing it to seal her away causes darkness to fill it briefly, and when it fades, no trace of her remains and an "icon" of a cell has been added to the Keystone's menu. You do nothing with it, simply admire it with triumph and satisfaction for a few moments.
Then, you move on to the last and most difficult to handle person bound to the Lair. Emma. You called her to come while you were working, and now she and a curious Madison are standing nearby.
"Come lie in the Casket, Emma. You'll sleep for a while, and when you wake up tonight you'll be better. Not fixed totally, we can't do that yet, but much better than your are now." Madison gives you an odd look when you speak as well, but Emma bounds cheerfully forward, and you're please to see the Casket accommodate her size comfortably, even if looking at it edge on induces the sort of watering eyes that normally result from Missy taking a bad mood out on innocent space. She vanishes in the same darkness as swallowed Sophia, but somehow gentler, and you set to work.
Not having a good idea of what sort of permanent Traits her Infection has left in her body, but knowing there's at least one you definitely want to be rid of, you opt to purge them all from her, leaving her a normal human, at least from that perspective. You consider forcing the Dog Amazon Infection within her back to its baseline, without the mutations that have left her how she is now, but in the end you don't know enough about its effects and elect to replace it instead. Your options for doing so are limited, and in the end you decide to use your own strain once more. It won't cause her appearance to change, since it lacks the standard mechanism of the Infection to do so, but by the same token it will ensure her situation doesn't get worse. And possibly, if it's the only strain in her body when you do so, if you use your powers to shift what transformations she manifests, it will shift them back towards her original appearance. Or their won't be any transformations to alter and she'll look as she does now for the rest of her life if she doesn't catch a different Infection. You'll have to see after she reforms. As the final touches, you bind her to the same light degree of obedience as Madison, and lean lightly on her personality, pushing her to regain some of the optimism of the girl from your childhood, in the hope it will mend some of the deep marks trauma and Sophia have left on her. Your final task done, you take all your hands of the Casket, step back and-.
And blink in surprise as you're suddenly Amy again rather than in the state of being AmyTaylor that you'd spent the last several minutes in without noticing. It takes a moment to adjust to having only one set of eyes and limbs, and only thinking in one brain and you notice as you do that your two minds aren't quite fully untangled. What the issue is is hard to describe, but it seems like a sort of displacement, something from your brain currently staying in Taylor's and vice-versa. It's accompanied by a sort of "Oops" feeling from somewhere beyond you, along with a frantic "We can fix this" sort of assurance and urgings not to panic. You decide to listen to the last, assuming this proves as temporary as is being promised. By whatever is doing the promising. A look at Taylor says she feels the same way, and you're still in sync enough to agree with a couple of glances not to worry the others by mentioning this little issue. That you're not sure what, exactly, the issue is might complicate that, but you can still remember how to speak and walk and who all the others are and things like, so it's probably nothing serious.
"Well, that was mildly weird." Taylor says lightly as you rejoin the others.
"Mostly in not being weird until we finished." You agree. You can see questions about what just happened on everyone else's faces, and you quickly head them off by explaining that manipulating the Keystone at the same time made you and Taylor really in sync. You're not sure it's enough of an explanation for everyone, but a collective rumbling of stomachs sees the issue put aside in favour of finding lunch. You send Madison to tell the former members of the Pantha's (who you should probably come up with a better name for at some point if you're sticking around) that you're done and ask them to come see you in the conference room you set up in earlier in fifteen minutes or so.
There's a distinct lack of cutlery available without sending someone down to the cafeteria to fetch it, so you decide to just slice up some of the fruit Vicky and Missy found earlier with the butcher's knife. They prove juicy and filling, though oddly flavoured - one tastes like a chicken caesar salad, another like a bacon and sausage sandwich, and none like actual fruit. The combination of tastes and textures is odd, but not unpleasant, and by the time you've split five between you you're all full and content.
You've just finished (and wiped faces and hands clean on handy leaves) when the first people arrive, and it's the five hangers-on who didn't have the Shadow Pantha Infection. The woman who tried to grab you earlier looks far less belligerent, and you note with some satisfaction that she's walking a touch uncomfortably and being very careful of her backside. Surprisingly, though, when you tell them they're all free to do whatever they like, she happily says she'll stay. The only one who doesn't, in fact, is the older of the two (Ex-?)Empire gangers. He was only staying because he didn't think Sophia would let him leave after the three of them stumbled upon Winslow, relatively soon after she set up there, and now that she's gone, he wants to try and reach his family's home, in the relatively safe central residential district. Before he goes, however, he passes along a piece of information that makes your heart rise and sink at the same time.
"You two New Wave girls are probably wondering what's become of your folks, right? It's...probably not good. Last I heard for sure about them, they were trying to keep order as the Enclave of the rich folks up on Captain's Hill started to fall apart. They've not been seen since, far as I know, but a rumour started goin' round a week or so after it sprung up about Brandish having gone in to the Manor and not come out again. Fought her way in, some say. Got dragged in by the Servant-Bimbos, others. Some even say she just walked in the door, no trouble and a smile on her face. Now, it's just rumours, and God knows we're not in the loop here, but...thought you should at least know what direction to look." You force yourself to thank him as sincerely as you can, and then he leaves, clapping his younger comrade on the shoulder in farewell as he goes.
Not wanting to think about things just yet, you focus on the other former hanger's on and learn their names at last. Well, Leafy probably isn't the plant-woman's actual name, but it's the only one she answers to these days, the rest say. The Hispanic teenager is Jenny, the teenaged ganger Bert, and the African-American woman is Tiffany and gives everyone a look that dares them to comment on it. Unlike the other two, she's not a native to Brockton Bay, and in fact, wasn't in town on F-Day. Instead, she arrived about two weeks after, as part of a National Guard detachment sent in to "restore" order. By who and why the National Guard rather than the PRT, wasn't made clear to the grunts like her but things went wrong for them fairly quickly. Tiffany was helping set up their camp when the fog got thick all of a sudden and she found herself somewhere else when it cleared. She thinks she was only wandering around for half a day or so before a party of Huntresses found her and decided to bring her back to Winslow rather than killing her, but she's only been at the school a few days and it's definitely more than three weeks since F-Day, though no one's quite sure how long it actually has been.
In any case, the four of them are happy to help out around the school in exchange for a place to stay, especially when told the rooftop jungle is now a rooftop garden, and should be far less likely to try and bite the gardeners. They were basically doing that already, and your group seems a lot nicer than Sophia. Which could be considered damning with faint praise, but you get what they mean. They all head out to look around the third floor and roof to take in the changes, and soon after the first of the full Pantha's arrives. They all cheerfully affirm their willingness to listen to you and help out, and they prove it by bringing you a rather bizarre collection of items that have apparently been revealed by things changing.
About half of it is clothing, you think. You can't seem to remember what counts as "proper" clothing, but you're pretty sure that the average-looking strap-on wouldn't, even if you do wear it. You're also not sure why most of it makes the others pull faces as you examine it to see what your powers can pick up about it. It all looks fine to you, and you're kind of curious about some of it, like how it would feel sitting in those very thick rubber panties. Different from normal ones, certainly. Maybe you'll try them later if no one else wants them for whatever reason? In any case, you're quickly able to detriment some of their functions, and that all of them have the more active sort of enhancement Infection. The soft furry pants with the hooves and tail have the weakest sort, the rubber panties and the nice smelling pink labcoat the middle kind, and everything else the most active. Everything else being the strap-on, a set of colourful butterfly wings on a harness, a cute headband with sheep's ears and horns on it, a sunhat with living flowers blooming happily from its hatband, a pair of outfits that have cat and dog tails and ears, and a pink t-shirt with glittery writing on it. The last one is another that gets a particularly puzzling reaction - given how powerful its effect to make people not attack the wearer is, why does everyone but Taylor care so much about what's written on the back? It just says "Mama's Big Stinker"? Taylor thinks it looks fine, if a bit sparkly, but she can't wear it at the same time as her current outfit for some reason, so it gets left to one side with the other items for now.
You get distracted before you check over the other items. Someone turned the radio that was found earlier on at some point, and it's been quietly playing the sort of peppy music Vicky likes in the background while you were working, but now the music stops, and a young, high voice speaks, sounding like a child imitating a news anchor.
" Rumour has it that Triumph, who's positively glowing now, has been seen for the first time since the Captain's Hill Enclave fell, working with Gallant and Aegis to blunt a massive surge of Feral Fat Cats, Spoiled Brats, Trophy Wives, Upper Class Twits and Political Operatives heading down the hill towards the Flame District. The hotheads didn't give the heroes a warm welcome after their victory, but the three seemed in good spirits as they headed off together." The voice changes totally without missing a beat, becoming the tittering tones of a gossipy housewife. "Rumour also has it that Gallant's been staying at the girlfriend's house recently, and guess who Rumour has it has making a hard-hitting re-entry to the Bay scene this morning? Could a reunion for Brockton Bay's top celebrity couple be in the offing? What will Glory Girl think of her knight in shining armour's new look? Maybe Rumour will have the answers soon." Everyone stares in shock at the radio as the music resumes playing.
"I have many, many questions." Missy says, the first to reclaim her voice. "The first of which is how they know that we're up to. Dinah...?"
"Go ahead."
"Thanks. What are the odds of finding someone spying on us if we look today?"
"Seven and a half percent. Which could be that we won't find them if we look but it feels more like there's no one to find." The young brunette answers after a moment of concentration.
"It could be someone was spying and now isn't." Taylor points out. "But if they were spying on Winslow in general, why would they stop now? And if they knew something worth spying on was going to happen here and nothing else will today, then they know more about our plans than we do, and we're the ones with the super-precog. No one else is allowed one." Her joke gets a giggle from the two younger girls, and the deadpan delivery even startles a snort out of the shell-shocked looking Vicky.
"I'm surprised you're not already out the window and flying for home." You say quietly to your sister, who pulls a face.
"I'm not that impulsive. Don't get me wrong, if there's even a chance of finding Dean I want to take it, but that's a little to convenient a 'Rumour' to believe it blindly." She responds after a moment.
"True. On the other hand, there's good reasons beyond that to try and get to our house some time soon. Seeing if there's any trace of Mark and Carol to confirm what that guy heard. Seeing if Aunt Sarah left a note there for us or anything. Finding out if any of our stuff is still there. All sorts of things." Is your own response to her, and she gives you a slightly weak smile and a nod for it.
While the others continue to debate about the radio's message, you get back to examining the other items the Pantha's found. The set of egg vibrators and the average-looking dildo get enough of check to confirm they're enhanced with the "inactive" kind of Infection before being put as far to one side as possible, and the huge book titled "The Complete Illustrated Guide to Kink" follows suit once you confirm it has a similar triggerable power to the porn mags you found this morning, though one that feels reusable. The pair of old looking handheld gaming consoles prove to have the inactive form of enhancement as well, while the camping tent has nothing. The pack of pills promising to cure "Any and All Sexually Transmitted Diseases" gets a longer study, but you can't work out how they work from examining them through the packet, and you don't want to potentially waste one by removing it. The final item, an extremely comprehensive set of gardening gear brought by a merrily humming Leafy rather than an ex-Pantha, proves enhanced to make caring for plants much easier, and once you confirm it should be safe to use, she rushes off with it, apparently to make use of it in the new garden.
That done, you interrupt the discussion between the others about what to do next by announcing that you're going to give everyone a check over to see if they've picked up any Infections or anything else to be concerned about before they go anywhere, starting with Missy. The young Ward grumbles slightly at being singled out, but comes willingly when you leave the room to find somewhere to do the checkups in private.
New usable items discovered:
Gardener's Toolkit - A complete set of trowels, rakes, shears and other tools used to care for plants. Adds 20 to rolls to look after plants. Has a Safe enhancement when used that means only one roll is needed to care for a single contiguous garden and has an additional unknown effect.
25x STD Cure - A package of pills that are a one shot, universal cure for any sexually transmitted disease. Has a Safe enhancement when consumed that has a 50% chance of purging a sexually contracted Infection strain that has been in the body for less than 24 hours.
Egg Vibes with Remote - A set of seven variously sized, shaped and textured egg vibrators and a remote that can control them in any combination, no longer requiring battery power. As long as someone else uses the remote, using them to reduce LIB is much more effective (or LIB can be increased much faster). All have a Safe enchantment that prevents them from being removed or displaced by anyone but the person who inserts them, allowing them to be used as an unorthodox defence against forcible use of a hole.
Pink Labcoat - A long pink labcoat that always smells faintly of perfume. Increases INT by 20 and has a Moderate enhancement that allows the re-roll of the first 5 failed INT tests the wearer makes in a day.
Special Rubber Panties - An incredibly thick and bulky pair of white rubber panties with a frilly pink cover. Give the wearer a significant waddle due to how far apart they force the legs, and though they have no locks or chains, anyone who puts them any finds them unremovable - someone else must take them off the wearer at their request. Increase WP by 15, max LIB by 20, and INT, PER and CHA 25. Have an unknown Moderate enhancement when worn. Can be worn under any clothes, even ones that normally occupy the underwear slot.
Butterfly Wings - A large pair of colourful wings attached to a harness that leave a trail of glitter that disappears after a few seconds behind them. Increase DEX and PER by 30 and HUM by 15 when worn and has a Major enhancement allowing the wearer to fly with great speed and precision, which allows them to calculate DEF with DEX instead of STA when they have room to fly in.
Sheep Headpiece - A headband with two fluffy sheep's ears and a pair of curly horns. Increases WP by 25 when worn and has an unknown Major enhancement that activates when the wearer is in danger.
Standard Strap-on - A strap on of normal size and shape. Increases all LWD damage by 10 when worn and has an unknown Major enhancement that activates upon bringing someone to maximum LIB with it.
Camping Tent - A sturdy, portable tent that can be set up securely on any large enough flat space and provides excellent protection against the elements for those inside. Will fit three comfortably, up to six if they squish together.
Pair of Handheld Gaming Consoles - Don't look like any known console, but have a wide range of games loaded on them, all of which have some form of co-op. Recharged by sunlight. May be used to enhance reducing stress and improving mood for two people at once, and also improve the bond between the users. Have a Safe enhancement that allows text, voice and video chat between them at any distance, though the latter two are battery hogs.
Unremarkable Dildo - An average-sized dildo with nothing unusual about it. Enhances actions to reduce LIB. Has an unknown Safe enhancement when used.
Pony Pants - A set of skin-tight brown "fur" pants that end attached shoes shaped like a horse's hooves and have a horse tail attached above the butt. Increases STA by 25 and decreases DEX by 5, has an unknown Minor enhancement when worn.
Baby Girl Tee - A long and loose t-shirt, bright pink with the words "Baby Girl" on the front and "Mama's Big Stinker" on the back, both in very eye-catching glitter. Has a Major enhancement when warn that makes it much harder for others to initiate violence or lewdness towards the wearer, but also inclines them to treat them babyishly.
Illustrated Guide to Kink - Two or more people may read this book to experiences a shared fantasy based on any kink imaginable (randomly selected if all participants do not have a shared kink in mind when reading), which causes a "Safe" orgasm and reduces their LIB to its minimum. Participants experience an increased interest in the subject kink for 24 hours, and using the guide again within that time will always be the same kink and will add another 24 hours to the duration. The increased interest can become permanent if the duration of the effect is ever raised past 72 hours. Using the Guide together significantly strengthens bonds.
Blooming Sunhat - A wide-brimmed white sunhat with unwilting flowers tucked into its hatband. Increases PER and CHA by 15, and has a Major enhancement when worn that has a 25% chance of increasing both stats by 2 if the wearer passes a check in either.
Cat-girl Outfit - A full outfit consisting of a cat-ear headband, "paw" boots and gloves, a fur-pattern tank top and skirt and a pair of panties with a long cat tail sown on them. Has a Major enhancement when worn that increases DEX and CHA by 30 and if worn for two hours, increases both by 2, maximum 50.
Dog-girl Outfit - A full outfit consisting of a dog-ear headband, "paw" boots and gloves, a fur-pattern tank top and skirt and a pair of panties with a long, fluffy dog tail sown on them. Has a Major enhancement when worn that increases STA and CHA by 30 and if worn for two hours, increases both by 2, maximum 50.
Radio Rumour Mill: Rumour has it that Triumph, who's positively glowing now, has been seen for the first time since the Captain's Hill Enclave fell, working with Gallant and Aegis to blunt a massive surge of Feral Fat Cats, Spoiled Brats, Trophy Wives, Upper Class Twits and Political Operatives heading down the hill towards the Flame District. The hotheads didn't give the heroes a warm welcome after their victory, but the three seemed in good spirits as they headed off together. Rumour also has it that Gallant's been staying at the girlfriend's house recently, and guess who Rumour has it has making a hard-hitting re-entry to the Bay scene this morning? Could a reunion for Brockton Bay's top celebrity couple be in the offing? What will Glory Girl think of her knight in shining armour's new look? Maybe Rumour will have the answers soon.
Quest gained: Happy Reunions? - If you can you trust the voices on the radio, Triumph, Aegis and Gallant can be found at or near the Dallon household for at least the next few days. There's no major groups between there and Winslow, so heading there should be reasonably safe, if not quick. Vicky, Dinah and Missy all think it's worth the time to make the trip, for various reasons. (Odds of finding them if the Dallon household is reached currently 100%, will start to drop after 3 days, 0% in 7 days time)
Information Gained: Brandish and Flashbang were last seen trying to restore order during the riots that brought down the Captain's Hill Enclave. Neither had obvious Infections at the time, but there has been no sign of them since, save unconfirmed reports of Brandish attacking the Manor. Or being dragged in by the Servant-Bimbos. Or entering willingly.
What do you change the name of the Shadow Pantha's to? Just the less wince inducing Shadow Panthers, or something else? (Pick One):
[Name] Shadow Panthers
[Name] Other
-] Write In
Amy cannot currently modify traits, but Vicky and Taylor have transformations that can be re-rolled. Do either of them request she do so after the check reveals them? And if so, does she apply any weighting on the roll?(Pick One Each):
[Vicky Transformations] Yes
-] No weighting
-] Weighted towards
[Vicky Transformations] No
[Taylor Transformations] Yes
-] No weighting
-] Weighted towards
[Taylor Transformations] No
See the threadmark in the Index marked Current Situation *TEMP* for information that may be helpful with the below decisions. Also see the one in Extra marked Equipment by slot and exposure strength (BFldyq) for a clearer equipment reference.
With Winslow cleared, what does the party do next? Other than the Remain at Winslow option, it will be possible to take other options after the selected one if complete, but keep in mind there will be time taken while there as well as when travelling (Pick One):
[Next] Remain at Winslow until tomorrow (Will trigger another vote for how people spend their time)
[Next] Travel to and search Missy's house (Random rolls for what you find)
-] Travel normally (Takes ~1 hour, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 10 WP, INTPER roll, TN 100)
[Next] Travel to and search Taylor's house (Random rolls for what you find)
-] Travel normally (Takes ~1 hour, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 10 WP, INTPER roll, TN 110)
[Next] Travel to and search Dinah's house (Random rolls for what you find, 80% chance of getting into a fight on top of the result)
-] Travel normally (Takes ~2 hours, 75% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 10 WP, INTPER roll, TN 150)
[Next] Travel to and search the Dallon house (Random rolls for what you find, also advances Happy Reunions? Quest)
-] Travel normally (Takes ~4 hours, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 10 WP, INTPER roll, TN 125)
[Next] Travel to Clockblocker's location (95% chance of a friendly welcome)
-] Travel normally (Takes ~2.5 hours, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 10 WP, INTPER roll, TN 120)
[Next] Travel to the Boardwalk (100% chance of a friendly welcome)
-] Travel normally and safely (Takes ~5 hours, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Travel normally via risky route (Takes ~3 hours, 55% chance of random encounter per 15 min, hostile encounters much more likely)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 10 WP, INTPER roll, TN 90 (reduced by SS Memory Crystal #2))
[Next] Travel to the Dockworker's compound (100% chance of a friendly welcome due to Taylor being recognisable and having high CHA)
-] Travel normally and safely (Takes ~6.5 hours, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min, goes through Boardwalk)
-] Travel normally via risky route (Takes ~3.5 hours, 75% chance of random encounter per 15 min, hostile encounters much more likely)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 10 WP, INTPER roll, TN 200)
[Next] Travel to the University Campus (100% chance of a friendly welcome)
-] Travel normally and safely (Takes ~8 hours, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Travel normally via risky route (Takes ~5.5 hours, 50% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Travel normally via very risky route (Takes ~3 hours, 80% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 10 WP, INTPER roll, TN 150)
[Next] Travel somewhere else
-] Write In where and how
You have the chance to change who is equipping what items before you do whatever you set out to do next. Choose the equipment for each character. In addition to clothes, weapons and protections, make sure to specify which carrying equipment it being brought and by who. Anything not equipped or a potentially useful item such as valuables, a food supply or easily portable tools will be left behind (securely) at Winslow.
[Amy Equipment]
-] Write In
[Vicky Equipment]
-] Write In
[Missy Equipment]
-] Write In
[Taylor Equipment]
-] Write In
[Dinah Equipment]
-] Write In
Finally, Dinah may use her power to answer questions about future actions. She now has enough information to be highly accurate about things relating to the Shadow Pantha's and the immediate area out to long term, and provide some idea of things the wider city in the short term. Each question costs 2d10 WP, are any asked?:
[Dinah] Don't ask any questions
[Dinah] Ask one question
-] Write in what
[Dinah] Ask more than one question
-] Write in which
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Last edited: Aug 1, 2020
Jul 28, 2020 ReportLike QuoteReply
ava2607, Randomtrol, polkio123 and 110 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 1, Part 10 (Early Afternoon)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
Spoiler: Rolls
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls
"Hey, Ames, wait up a second!" Vicky's voice stops you a few metres down the hall, and you turn to see her poking her head out of the meeting room. "I want to get out of these kiddy clothes, you and Missy should see if there's anything in the pile you want to wear instead too!"
"Oh, yes please! I'm more than ready to be out of this thing." Missy says eagerly, the wings on her costume buzzing as she shoots back down the hall. You follow more sedately, not intending to change since your current outfit is fine, but needing to wait for her to be done.
Vicky shoos the pair of Huntresses, from what you all decided over lunch will now be known as the "Camp Cats", that had been hanging around looking for a chance to be helpful out of the room as you enter, telling them to make sure no one comes in until you're finished, then a three person frenzy of activity ensures before the bemused gazes of you and Taylor. Vicky apparently already had a change of clothes in mind, for she's got the junior cheerleader outfit off and the dog-girl costume on practically as soon as the door is closed, while Missy's out of the mascot costume as quickly as Dinah can get the zips open for her, apparently preferring browsing the clothing selection naked to wearing it even a minute longer. Dinah herself soon decides to swap the childish sundress she's wearing for Vicky's discarded cheerleader outfit, putting the bulletproof vest back on over the top and also sliding the fuzzy sheep-eared headband into her brown hair. She also picks up the Standard of Valour from where you'd left it leaning against the wall, and waves it with an adorably determined look on her face. You're not sure if she wants to start carrying it around full time, but you're fine if she does. It would give her a reason to hang back from fighting, and you a reason not to.
"Hey, Amy?" Missy says, approaching you with an uncharacteristically nervous expression. "Could you...Would you be alright with letting me have the bikini you're wearing? I'm not keen on any of the other options and it looks...kinda cool."
"Sure." You respond, seeing no reason not to.
Quickly removing the chainmail-patterned bikini and handing it over, you find yourself wondering what to replace it with. You grab the bright pink t-shirt on the basis of it being the first thing that catches your eye, and after a brief struggle before you realise you're trying to put your head through a sleeve, pull it on. For your lower half, you spot the rubber panties, and remembering your earlier curiosity about how they'd feel, grab them and the pair of latex pants they're sitting next to, because why not? Once on, the panties prove to feel odd, being much thicker and less yielding than cloth, with a weird, slightly too smooth texture. But they're not all that uncomfortable, even after they adjust to fit you exactly, the waistband and leg holes hugging your skin without the slightest gap and the thickness of the rubber between your thighs adjusting to the point where you have to take a wide stance, but are in no danger of losing your balance, even during the rather tricky task of pulling the latex pants on over them. Honestly, the way the pants cling all along your legs is probably more off-putting than the embrace of the panties around your nether regions, even with the slight gap between rubber and skin in a few places due to their solid, rounded shape and the unaccustomed weight between your legs. The cloth cover even prevents any squeaking from the latex of the pants rubbing against them as you move.
"What? I wanted to see how they felt." You say, honestly puzzled when you look around after dressing to see various levels of confusion and incredulousness on everyone else's faces.
"You, ah, sure that's what you want to go with, Ames?" Your sister asks, after several moments of opening and closing her mouth without saying anything.
"Why not? They're not that hard to move in, and I was going to grab the Butterfly Wings so I could try out flying anyway, so if it gets too annoying I'll just do like you do and float everywhere." You respond, having used the pause to try out walking, finding the necessary wider stride to move quickly and comfortably easy enough to pull off, if requiring a minor effort to remember to employ, something that will surely change with a little practice.
"I...Okay, sure, if that's...what you want?" Vicky says, after several more moments that you use to collect and put on not only the butterfly wings but the pink labcoat, having grabbed the latter on a whim to see if its effects help when using your powers to examine the others.
"Yep! Missy, you ready to go?" The younger girl, who's put the thick white nerd vest on over the bikini and is also wearing the whip and boots Dinah's no longer using, at her waist (somehow hooked into the bikini?) and on her feet respectively, nods, picking up the parasol she's been carrying around since L33t returned it and resting it on a shoulder, then looking indecisive for a moment and putting the flowery sunhat on her head before she heads to the door. "Great! Everyone else, stay nearby, I am going to check everyone over before we leave and I don't want to have to chase anyone down." You give everyone a bright smile that promises embarrassing consequences to anyone you do have to hunt down, then follow Missy out of the room.
You find small room of unclear purpose a few doors down that contains, amongst other things, two battered but comfortable armchairs, and decide to set up there. There's also a mirror, and you take a look at your reflection in it on impulse. It's bright pink on top and bright green on the bottom, thanks to the shirt and the pants, which is very...bright, you suppose? You're not really sure why you looked, to be honest, it's not like how your clothes look on you matters. Though the way the labcoat bulges out at the back, the rubber panties making your butt look even bigger than Vicky-sized does give you a little thrill of happiness. As you're taking the wings off so they won't get squashed when you sit down, a thought strikes you. "Hey, Missy? Would you mind if I borrowed the vest, just while I'm doing these checkups? I'm curious if it will do anything when I use my powers."
"You're in a curious mood at the moment." The Ward says, in a tone you can't quite decipher, but shrugs the vest off and hands it over, settling into one of the armchairs in an oddly self-conscious manner while you struggle with getting the vest on over your lab coat.
Once it's on you sit as well, the rubber panties meaning there's several inches between you rear and the cushions, which feels, like most things with them seem to, odd but not unpleasant. After a few moments of shifting to be positioned most comfortably to reach towards the other chair, you take one of Missy's hands between your own, concentrate slightly and have to keep a frown off your face at what you immediately pick up on, not wanting to worry her until you know what's going on. Fortunately, the nerdy vest and labcoat combination proves to work very well with your powers, allowing you to make a all sorts of jumps and connections in your analysis of the new strain you've detected, despite its profile being muddled by the way it's formed some kind of hybrid strain with the one your powers created. The good news is, becoming a hybrid has made it transform its carriers much slower, the bad news is Missy's going to hate those transformations, and the worse news is that it's already given her a permanent trait, one you have no idea how to remove or alter.
"The reason I wanted to check on you first, Missy, was because you spent time in the Lair proper before we took over." You begin once you're mostly done studying the strain, trying to keep your voice even and not give any cause for alarm. "You spent about as long as I did in there, and that was long enough for the Infection to have an effect on me I wouldn't have noticed without my powers. I got what I'm pretty sure was lucky and it didn't give me a new Infection, just tweaked things a bit, but you...didn't I'm afraid. " Horror appears on the preteen's face, and you quickly continue. "It's not Sophia's strain or the Cat's version, or the strain Leafy has. It's a fourth one, and it's honestly not that strong, but I suspect you're not going to like the effects even though they're pretty minor compared to the others we've seen."
"Not knowing what they are until they happen won't let me ignore this, will it?" Missy asks, in the tone of one who knows the answer but is still holding on to the desperate hope someone will give them a different one. You shake your head, and she groans, then says. "Alright, what does it do?" In a resigned voice.
"Well, first off there's no mental effects at all." Your answer gets a relived sigh. "And the physical effects are quite minor, they're just...my powers seem to have labelled the strain 'Flower Girl', and it's pretty fitting in two different ways. The first is that it won't make you younger, but it will make your face look cuter, more girly and probably more youthful, plus change your build slightly in the same sort of ways." Missy, who's utterly sick of being seen as the cute young girl Ward, pulls a face but doesn't interrupt, and you continue to explain the stranger effect. "The second way is that it's going to make the flower part kind of literal, though not making you part plant like Leafy. It'll make you smell nice, give your skin a soft and petal-like texture, plus maybe colour in places, make your hair spout buds and bloom and also...make all your bodily fluids more nectar-like, make them thicker, stickier, sweeter and maybe even a slightly different colour. All of them - sweat, blood, tears, the works." Missy looks like she has no idea how to take the second effect, so after a pause where she doesn't say anything, you finish your explanation. "The good news is, it's formed some kind of hybrid strain with the one my powers created, and one effect of that is the strain is going to change you very slowly. The bad news is that the change it made when it first Infected you was to pass the trait that causes the flower effects into your body, and I'm not sure if that will change you quicker or not. Also, at the moment, I can't do anything for embedded traits like that. I'm hoping that when my powers get a better handle on the Infection that will change, but I don't know how long that will take and..."
"By that point I might look like a walking bouquet." Missy finishes bitterly after you trail off. "There's nothing you can do at the moment, is there?" You shake your head again. "Right. Okay. Just...have to deal, I suppose. Hey, at least I'll match the hat!" She waves a hand at the flowers sprouting from her headwear and lets out a rather sarcastic little laugh. "Are you finished?" You nod, releasing her hand, and she stands. "I'll send the next one in and go think for a bit. See you later, Amy." You do your best to look encouraging as she leaves, but don't say anything, not being able to think of anything beyond trite platitudes.
She's barely out of the room a minute before Dinah arrives, and you wave her into the other seat, explaining quickly what you're going to do before reaching out to her, having to lean over and touch her face since the junior cheerleader outfit she's now wearing covers the rest of her body quite effectively. You have to suppress a frown again as you encounter another new strain hybridised with "your" strain, this one seeming to favour the new stain much more, though you can't be sure, since even with the vest helping you can't fully extract the original version. It's relatively slow acting, but strong, and while you can't tell how much of the body they'll change, the effects are...Well, Missy would throw a fit, but you're not sure how the slightly younger Dinah will take it.
"What have I got?" Dinah asks softly when you're about halfway through your examination and you give her a surprised look. "I asked after you left. One hundred percent chance you were going to tell me I had a new Infection."
"My powers have called it 'Little Girl', and that's what it's going to turn you into, given your age." You say, deciding after a moments that Dinah will prefer bluntness over trying to soften the blow. "It needs to pass a trait on to you before it starts making you physically younger, but it's already given you two, one as some kind of double dose, so I'm not sure you can count on it being long before that happens."
"What will the traits it's already passed on do? And you said physically younger, will it make me mentally younger before then?" Dinah asks, more calmly than you think you could in her position.
"Mentally...I don't think it will cause any degree of actual regression, especially not with the strain my powers created protecting your mind. It might make you act more childishly, but it would be things like enjoying playing with kids toys as well as more grown up ones, not...throwing tantrums like a toddler when you don't get your way or something." Dinah nods, her face accepting, so you move on to the traits. "The new strain you're Infected with formed a hybrid with the one my powers created, and the first trait is from that strain, the one that makes it form hybrids so easily, and it will probably mean that any Infection strain you pick up will be more likely to form a hybrid. The other trait is a bit of a weird one, but what it seems to do is let you resist and recover more quickly from things that would force you to be horny, and when your body is younger than thirteen or so, people are discouraged from seeing you as a target for sexual things. Given the sorts of effects the Infection seems to have on what people consider valid targets for sex, that's probably a very good thing." Dinah nods again, a disturbed look on her face, and after a short talk where she assures you that, while she'd rather not end up a little kid again, the idea doesn't horrify her or anything, she thanks you for your time and leaves.
Taylor enters right away afterwards, having apparently been waiting for you to finish. "Before we get started, you got the same feeling I did off the latex trees, right? If you get the stuff they squirt on your skin, or fur, it'll be indestructible at first but in a few days you'll be able to cut it and peel it off, right?" You nod, wondering what on earth could have prompted the question, and she turns and sticks her head out of the door to yell to someone down the hall. "Yeah, it's fine, Amy confirmed it works how I thought. Unless they're compete idiots and mess round with the latex trees again, it should come off in three days or so." There's a shouted response you can't make out, then Taylor comes back inside and sits down before filling you in. "A bunch of the Huntresses are really enjoying the garden. The jungle was apparently too nasty to explore, but what's up on the roof now is much better. Not, as five of them found out, totally safe, but the worst they got from poking the latex trees was the one whose paws are stuck together in front of them, so no long term harm done."
You thank her for telling you, then place a hand on her arm, just above her gloves, and once again discover a new strain hybridised with yours. It takes some time, but you're able to extract the whole of the original strain this time, thanks to a timely moment of inspiration just as you were hitting a wall. While you're working, Taylor speaks up.
"So, I've found out which bit of my brain is currently in your head. Fortunately, only Missy saw me realise I couldn't read the signs in the hall, and she agreed not to mention it, since illiteracy, even temporary illiteracy, might worry people more than you misplacing your sense of how to dress into my head. She says I'm not missing much by forgetting everything I ever learned in English class for a bit, anyway." With Taylor's words prompting you as to what to think about, you're able to tell that you do, in fact, have much expanded amount of education and opinion on various classic novels in a corner of your head. The other part, though...
"Why would people think there was something wrong from how I'm dressed? It's perfectly comfy once you get used to it." You ask, utterly confused. "Is Vicky jealous because my butt looks better than hers for once or something?"
"I won't go into detail, since from what Missy and I tried it won't stick anymore than me re-learning long words did, but if nothing else, people wouldn't normally wear those shades of pink and green together and most people wouldn't wear underwear like that for half an hour just because they were curious how they felt to wear. I think there's something about the writing on the shirt, as well, but obviously I couldn't tell you what." She pauses, blushing slightly. "Also, while your butt may look bigger than Vicky's, it's...well, let's just say the shape's wrong to look bigger in a better way." You pout slightly, not seeing what the problem is, but decide not to argue the point. Instead, you ask Taylor to take off one of her shoes and the sock under it.
She looks puzzled by the request but does so, and gasps slightly at what doing so reveals. Her foot looks, in a cosmetic sense at least, perfect. Smooth, flawless pale skin from ankle to heel to toe, toenails that are clean, shiny and perfectly shaped, no sign of calluses, hair or dry skin anywhere. They look better than yours have ever done, even after a professional pedicurist has literally just finished with them those times Vicky has dragged you to a salon or spa for "Girls Day".
"So, like Dinah and Missy, you've picked up an Infection which has hybridised with the one you had already." You explain. "Unlike them, I suspect you'll be pretty happy with what it's going to do, which is basically turn you into a perfect pretty princess version of yourself physically. Not sure quite how drastically you'll change, or how it defines a 'perfect pretty princess', but it's not going to mess with your age or give you fur and the worst it should do to your brain is make you act a bit posh, so compared to the other Infections we've come across, it's pretty unambiguously positive. I could make the change to your feet be something else, but unless you really dislike having nice toenails or something, there doesn't seem much point."
"No, not really." Taylor half laughs, putting her sock and trainer back on. "Given what Missy told me about what her Infection is going to do, I feel kind of bad that my main thoughts on this are 'At least I should end up with proper breasts out of this.' but I can't think of anything negative about it, unless 'perfect pretty princess' turns out to mean 'useless, brainless bit of blonde fluff' and that doesn't seem likely from how you're talking."
"No, it's almost certainly going to leave you still recognisable as you, or at least looking like your impossibly pretty cousin or something. I'd be surprised if it did much with your hair except, like, make it never tangle or something, given how nice it is already, for example." You say, making Taylor pink slightly and stroke said hair, which is honestly surprisingly tangle-free already, given how the first half of the day has gone.
You finish getting what information you can from Taylor's strain not long after that, and Vicky arrives soon after she leaves, having apparently been signalled by waving flowers that you'd be ready for her soon. Touching your sister's skin above one of the "paw" gloves her new outfit sports, you pick up yet another new strain, and can't keep yourself from gasping at what you discover when you check for physical changes,
"Ames? What's wrong?" Vicky asks, looking worried.
"You...I...um...ah...So, you know earlier when you wanted me to make sure you weren't going to grow a dick? Well, apparently something took it as a taunt, because the Infection you've picked up has made you grow one. It's absolutely tiny and the moment, no balls and it seems to, err, retract into your vagina completely when not aroused, but it's definitely, err, there." You babble, unable to stop yourself or respond more calmly, then find yourself watching with horrified fascination as your sister sticks a hand under her skirt and presumably into her panties to feel around, given the way her arm moves and the way she squeals soon after, face twisting with disgust.
"EW EW EW!!! AMY! Get rid of it!" She screams.
"I...I'm not sure I can. Or if it's a good idea." You protest, wanting the dick removed from your sister's prefect body almost as much as she does, but not sure it's a good idea.
"Why not!? You could mess around with what sex Madison's Infection was making her, couldn't you!?" She shouts, looking more afraid than annoyed.
"I had a good idea what hers was doing, and what sexes it could aim for, I don't know any of that for this one yet!" You shout back, and after a little more back and forth Vicky calms down enough for you to start analysing the strain.
Unfortunately, even with your abilities enhanced by the vest and the labcoat, you end up hitting a wall far sooner than you'd like. You sit back, sighing in defeat. "I can't do it. You've got by far the most complex strain I've seen. It started with something about as complicated as Shadow Stalker's, then it mutated, and then that mutant hybridised with the strain my powers created. I know what bits came from the hybrid, and I think I know everything the mutations do, but I can barely pick out any of what the original strain does. If I try and target it towards making you fully female again, I could just end up making it worse, telling it to turn you completely into a guy or something." Vicky looks like she might be willing to take those odds, but you continue before she can open her mouth to say so. "Plus, what if it's like Shadow Stalker's strain and it has some kind of sex linked thing? What if telling it to make you female also tells it to make you fall into a hypnotic trance every time you hear 'Go Team!', or make you wet the bed every night, or forget everything you've learned since Kindergarten?" Vicky half forms several arguments, but in the end subsides without voicing any of them, though she does give you a very odd look before asking what you know the strain will do.
"My best guess? It's going to turn you into someone that cheerleader outfit you were wearing earlier would be age-appropriate on." You say, resignedly.
"Oh. Oh God. I like them, but I'd really rather not end up back in junior high with Missy and- Dinah! She put it on when I took it off! Should we get her to take it off!?" An unhappy look appears on your sisters face, replaced by panic as she launches into the air when a new worry strikes her mid-sentence.
"Given the Infection she's got already, I don't think it will make things worse for her. Might even help a bit. Besides, given what I've found so far, I don't think we can be sure any of the clothing we've found won't give her an Infection. Or the food, the water, the air..." You trail off, doing your best to convey with a shrug that you're pretty sure there are no safe options at the moment.
"Oh. Well, this sucks, but let's be honest, we've been finding out since we woke up the life in the Bay is just various degrees of suck right now. I want you to check me again as soon as you think you can learn something new, and get this dick out of me as soon as it's safe, and I reserve the right to have a screaming tantrum away from the breakables if I wake up one morning on the wrong side of puberty, but for now, let's get you out of those clothes and get going." Vicky's face harden's with resolve, and you barely have time to grab the butterfly wings from next to your chair before she's dragging you out of the room and down the corridor to the meeting room.
"What's wrong with these clothes? They're fine, they're perfectly comfy." You protest, knowing from experience with these moods that you're going where Vicky wants you to physically, but you might be able to steer the mental destination.
"Out of sensitivity for your current mental impairments - and you're in big trouble for not mentioning those by the way - I won't give you the sort of rant I'd normally give someone who said a bright pink shirt and shiny, bright green latex pants together is 'fine', but I refuse to be seen in public with my sister wearing them, so since you can't be trusted to dress yourself at the moment, I'm going to pick you out replacements. The underpants...well, if you like them, it's your choice I suppose but, as a good sister, I'm not going to let you wear them in public, especially with a shirt that says things like that, until you can tell me, with fashion sense intact, that you know how they look to others and you're fine with them making that sort of assumption about you." You really have no idea what assumption Vicky is talking about, but recognising that arguing is futile, you start undressing once the door is closed.
"Huh, that's weird." You say, having with some difficulty removed everything but the rubber panties, which aren't budging in the slightest when you pull at them. "They won't come off."
"What? Are you messing with me?" Vicky says, coming over and pulling hard on them, to no more effect than your own efforts. "Amy, I feel the need to inform you that if you've managed to get yourself stuck in some sort of kinky rubber diaper or whatever these are, it is my sisterly duty to laugh very hard before helping, and to bring it up at the most embarrassing times once we've solved the issue."
"No, they're not stuck." You say, suddenly knowing what the issue is. "We were just missing a step. Vicky, please can you take these off me?" Your sister looks oddly at you again, but tugs on the panties, and this time they slide smoothly down your legs.
"I...okay, sure, that almost makes sense. Now, can you dress yourself in this, or will you need help?" Vicky holds up the various pieces of the cat-girl outfit.
"I thought I couldn't be trusted to dress myself at the moment." You snark, and immediately regret it when Vicky demonstrates that super-strength makes it trivially easy to dress her fifteen year-old sister as though she was a sulky toddler. Also, fuelling your new theory that the Infection makes things happen as embarrassingly as possible, rather than the outfit flying on with the first piece, she puts almost every piece, from the furry tailed panties to the paw shaped shoes on by hand, with only the cat-eared headband putting itself on.
"Good. Cat ears look cute on you. Now, pick out a weapon and lets go." Vicky says, turning to rummage in one of the bags while you consider your options. In the end, you take the crossbow Sophia dropped, having seen her work it with paws far more awkward than your gloves and not really liked using the hunting knife. Turning with it, you recoil in shock when a large, purple, egg-shaped object is thrust in your face.
"One last thing. I need you to stick this in my pussy." Vicky demands, and your brain shuts down.
"You...wha? Pussy...me...wha?" You manage.
"If it's in there, the dick can't come out, but I can't see to put it in properly without taking the skirt off, and if I do that the whole outfit will fall off and I can't be bothered with that right now." Vicky says, explaining nothing and pressing the vibrator into your hand before pulling her panties down around her knees.
When your brain reboots some minutes later, you and your sister are walking down the hall, and you're both glad and annoyed that, if you're touching someone's skin, you can apparently get enough information that, even with a brain that's completely bluescreened at the merest glimpse of long fantasised territory, you can comfortably insert a fairly large object into someone on autopilot or some shit, therefore making them happy while retaining no knowledge whatsoever of what the process looked like. It's good for you not spending the rest of the day walking distractedly into things, you suppose, but it's also incredibly frustrating, and you're still trying not to fume obviously when you meet the others at the front doors of the school, where a couple of the Huntresses have produced brooms from somewhere and are clearing away the various sharp debris that was apparently scattered there deliberately to dissuade less agile people from approaching. The look Taylor gives you as she adjusts the small backpack she's now wearing suggests that you're not fooling her, though you're pretty sure that even with her powers she doesn't know what you're annoyed about. Dinah's report that she and Missy found some kind medical room off the former office that's the centre of the Lair proper does give you something else to focus on while Missy put the vest you pass over to her on and starts "warming up" with her powers, at least.
"Where did we settle on going in the end?" You ask, the discussion having still been ongoing when you started doing checkups.
"We're heading for the Boardwalk." Taylor answers. "Hopefully Kid Win and Parian will be helpful in finding out more about what's happened, and even if they're not, seeing an actual stable community should tell us what's worth doing, these days."
Spoiler: Rolls
Travelling by what the Wards refer to as the "Vista Express" is an interesting experience, and one that makes it clear that Missy not only one of the strongest Wards on the east coast, but one of the most skilled with her powers. Judging doing it a few long hops too risky, she consults the map one last time, then leads your group on feels like a short walk in a straight line with frequent pauses but, to judge from the scenery you pass, actually takes you in great zigzags across multiple miles. What you end up next to when Missy stops to make her next warp is just empty buildings, abandoned looking and occasionally bearing signs of violence, but nothing out of the ordinary for Brockton Bay besides their number and being located on streets you can recognise as having been in use and thriving the last time you passed along them. More distant from where you stop however, just barely visible through the ever present fog, stranger sights loom. A cluster of houses that look like they're made of gingerbread, snow falling gently on them from nowhere. A tower block that's lower two thirds look like a giant anthill, man-sized, multi-limbed shapes swarming out of it, industriously building. A great patch of semi-solid darkness, just hanging in mid-air, seeming to ignore the lights being shone on it from a nearby building. And, always in the very far distance, the sounds of fighting, of beasts roaring and things breaking.
It's testament to Missy's skill that despite all that, you finish your trip without being troubled by anything and in less than ten minutes. You end up in large parking lot strewn with abandoned cars, the bay to your right, utterly blanketed by fog, and after a moment you recognise your surroundings as the far end of the main parking area for the Boardwalk, located to its south. To the north, you can see the vague shape of some sort large object, and after a moment for everyone to get their bearings and for Taylor to check for threats, you set off towards it.
"From what I saw in the second memory crystal, they're pretty careful about their defences, and from the map they've got good reason. I didn't want to just drop us in front of the gates - or past them - in case someone panicked." Missy explains as you walk, and everyone agrees it sounds sensible.
The entrance to the Boardwalk is barely recognisable once you get close enough to see it. The wrought iron, mostly ornamental gates are gone, replaced by a pair of high, solid gates of redish metal you don't recognise, that fill the whole of the space between the metal-clad building on the left and the new wall on the right that extends all the way down the sand and into the bay. Despite how new it must be, the metal is pitted and scratched all over with the marks of what can be nothing but violent attempts to get past it. The long cloth banners that stream down from the tops of the gates and periodically along the walls seem at odds with their study and plainly utilitarian construction, as do the cogwheels scattered all over the structure at random, but looking closer you see that both types of object sprout seamlessly from the metal around them, so they're presumably Infection caused alterations, like the plants at Winslow.
There's no sign of any guards on the gates or walls, but as your group gets within shouting distance, you hear a device you vaguely recognise starting up behind the walls, and moments later a familiar hoverboard appears over the wall and drops down to your level, a red-and-gold armoured figure on its back.
"Vista! You're alive!" The board's rider barely waits for it to reach the ground before jumping off and running towards you with an excited cry, stopping just out of arms reach and looking like they're restraining themselves from hugging Missy with great difficulty.
"Kid Win?" Missy asks uncertainly, and you can understand why. Despite the distinctive equipment, the new arrival is slightly but noticeably shorter and slighter that the Kid Win you knew, and their voice is higher, with an oddly metallic quality to it. You also think at first they're wearing a full, slightly feminine looking, metal mask under their visor, but then their mouth twitches into an even wider smile, and you realise that the skin on their face has become some kind of brassy, flexible metal.
"In the...well, not much flesh, these days. but all present and accounted for. Where have you been, Vista?" Kid Win replies, arms twitching and prompting Missy to take pity on him, stepping forward and giving him a brief hug.
"It's a long story, and we're still not sure of some of it. Can we come in? I'd rather not tell it out in the open like this. " Missy explains, and Kid Win glances over your group.
"Vista, Glory Girl and Panacea come in? I don't know, sounds like a rough bunch to let into our little com-Tee hee heee." Kid Win fights valiantly to keep a straight face, but it quickly turn out that even it being made of metal can't give him a poker face, and he breaks down into fairly girlish giggles. "Oh, I can't even finish that nonsense, sure, come on in. But do you mind using your powers to hop over the wall? No sense risking opening the gates if we don't have to."
Missy, of course, has no trouble making space beg to let her, Taylor and Dinah get past the wall in a single step, but you decide to try out the butterfly wings for the first time, and follow (relatively) smoothly behind Vicky as your sister floats up and over the wall next to Kid Win, who looks surprised to see you rise into the air on glittering, slowly flapping wings, but only mildly so.
"Not sure I'll ever get used to all the stuff the Infection can do." Kid Win says after you land in a fenced off square on the other side of the gate, conspicuously empty except for a few watchful eyed people holding rifles that look like his work. The much larger guns in the towers at corners are definitely his work. There are guards on the far side of the fence where it meets the much busier Boardwalk proper, but they just open it and let you though at a cheerful request from Kid Win, who turns back to you and says; "Come on, we can talk at Parian's place. I think she's free at the moment, but even if she's not it's the best place for a private meeting."
The Boardwalk is much changed from how it was when you were last here. The large wall running along its length, cutting off all but a tiny fraction of the bay is the most obvious difference, but it's far from the only one. Many of the shops along the front have their windows covered with cloth, and look to have been converted into makeshift housing, while most of those that remain have handmade signs over their original ones, and instead of the various expensive fripperies they sold before, are stocked with things like groceries, toiletries and simple, sturdy clothes. The buildings themselves also seem taller and more solid, and between that and the wall, the Boardwalk has a distinctively claustrophobic feel to it now, something the sheer mass of people walking along it or sat on a great variety of improvised furniture around it doesn't help with.
The vast majority of those people could be mistaken for ordinary people at first glance, but a second one reveals that rather than flesh and blood, they're all made of some kind of normally non-living substance. Within the first few minutes of walking, you see moving marble statues, human sized wooden puppets ambling easily along, metal people with transparent chests that reveal turning gears within, squeaking, inflated rubber dolls that look like beautiful women, and more besides. Here and there in the crowd are people with animal features, or plant ones, or normal human ones exaggerated to comical proportions, or weirder things like being wrapped in their own personal storm cloud, or all sorts of mixes. But even after you've walked half the length of the Boardwalk, the number of people you see who could even be mistaken for an ordinary person is low enough to count on your fingers. Despite that, though, the general atmosphere is fairly upbeat. Not carefree, there are unfishable undercurrents of tension in the air, but people respond cheerfully when Kid Win calls out to them, reporting various successes or mild issues in ongoing projects. Your group gets some looks, first for being with Kid Win and for looking "normal", then a few more as people recognise your sister, but the general attitude towards you seems to be fairly relaxed (mostly because Kid Win's with you, from what you overhear) and no one offers much more focused attention than calls hawking their wares. The only interruption to your journey comes from Kid Win, in fact, who sees someone in the crowd and stops, calling out to them.
"Oh! Hey, Tats! I didn't know you were in the area. What's the fox say this time around?"
"Foxy lady says Winny should get a new joke." A high, rather vapid sounding voice calls back, faux-grumpily, and a young blonde woman around Vicky's age pushes her way through the crowd. She's mostly human looking, asides from the red-furred fox ears atop her head, the golden shade of her eyes and a certain vulpine cast to her face, plus the huge, fluffy fox tail behind her, but her figure is...well, she's mostly slender and toned, but her breasts are bigger than what Madison had before Sophia infected her, while her ass is comparable in size to what Madison has now, and unlike her she has wide, wide hips to match. This is all very apparent, as she's wearing a skintight lavender and black bodysuit that leaves very little to the imagination. When she gets close enough to see you, her eyes widen and she lets out an ear-piercing squeal.
"Winny found Pan-Pan!? Ta-Ta has been looking all round the Bay for Pan Pan!" She pauses after her excited shout, and mutters to herself in a voice that somehow combines airheaded happiness and snarky bitterness. "Pan-Pan? The Infection is a poopie head and hates Ta-Ta's dig-nit-y."
"Yeah, they just showed up at the south gate. We're going to Parian's to catch up, you should come with. They've been out of the loop and no one knows what's the buzz in the Bay better than everyone's favourite fox." Kid Win replies, apparently unconcerned by the frankly childish way the young woman is talking.
"Ta-Ta has a thingy she needs to do soon, but Ta-Ta can totes make time for this." The hugely curved young woman, who hopefully has a name that's not "Ta-Ta" says, moving to stand at the front the group with Kid Win and bouncing impatiently, which does...very distracting things to her anatomy.
"Don't worry, I've not cracked." Kid Win says as he set off again and the rest of you follow. "Tattletale's a really strong Thinker and her brains are all still intact. The Infection just makes anything she does to communicate come across like she's every blonde joke ever made squished into one body." Perhaps sensing your collective incredulousness at this statement, he continues. "Hand on heart, it's true. I have seen her, with my own eyes, type 'K-I-D_W-I-N' on a mechanical typewriter and it get printed on the page as 'Winny'."
"Tattletale? I've heard that name before, I think?" Missy says, giving the other blonde a considering look that quickly results in her blushing and looking away, due to the considerable...sway...as she walks.
"Figures you'd have paid enough attention to Armsmaster's briefings to remember." Kid Win answers, with a rather giggly laugh. "Yeah, full disclosure, she was a really minor Villain before F-Day BUT" He says loudly, as Vicky draws breath to yell. "She's done a massive amount to help people since. Just from the people I know she's helped get to safety by bringing them here, she's probably saved more people in the past...however many weeks it's been...than I have in my entire time as a Ward. Probably more than all of us have, if we don't include you, Vista."
"Winny will make Ta-Ta blush." The foxy woman mutters. "Ta-Ta might be a Villain, but Ta-Ta wanted the fun and the shinies. Ta-Ta can't just leave people to the Ferals if she finds them when looking for other thingies."
"Given the Wards had Shadow Stalker, and we know what she was like, I don't see any reason not to work with someone who's decided to be helpful after F-Day, instead of trying to make her own fucked up fox people cult of personality." Taylor says, and while a very loud voice inside you (that sounds exactly like Carol) is screaming about never work with Villains it's the first step on the path to becoming a Villain yourself and you, especially can't... Anyway, neuroses aside, you can't see any good reason to dismiss her out of hand. You'll just have to watch her closely and make sure she's on the up and up. It's not like watching her closely will be any kind of great hardship, anyway.
In any case, it's not long after that before you arrive at Parian's place, a large, round building in a in a circle of grass on the semicircular square that's dead centre of the Boardwalk and has a third paved road leading off it to the west with more shops along it. You're pretty sure the building in question used to be a kiosk of some kind (and nowhere near as large), but now it looks like a carousel and a helter-skelter had a baby made of multiple types of fabric, and someone turned the ground floor into a cross between an artist's studio and a high end clothing store. Entering, you feel the air is thick with Infection, but Tattletale speaks up before you can.
"Upstairs, upstairs! Ta-Ta keeps telling Winny and Pari-Pari, Infection too thick for guests downstairs. Pari-Pari's free, we all go to her office."
Heading up the stairs at the back of them room, you're relived to find the Infection levels dropping as you climb, and while you wouldn't want to spend the rest of the day in the paper strewn room Kid Win leads you into, after a tired voice calls for you to enter, it's definitely safe enough for any reasonable conversation. The room has a number of chairs scattered about it, and presumably tables under all the paper, but the most impressive feature is a large desk with a short, doll-like Middle-Eastern woman behind it. Given the way floating threads are sorting the drifts of paper on the desk into some sort of order, this is presumably Parian, which is somewhat surprising given her look when in costume, but then, for most Capes, the point of a costume is not to be recognised out if it, so it makes a certain amount of sense. Especially in a city that contains the E88. When she comes out from behind the desk to great you, you see that your earlier thoughts of her being "doll-like" were more literal than you knew, for the legs that appear from under her dress are clearly made of soft brown cloth, and have an odd, slightly squishy look to them that implies there's no regular muscle and bone inside.
After a round of introductions where your host introduces herself as "Sabah, but I can't actually get anyone on the Boardwalk not to call me Parian all the time, so whichever you like, I guess." chairs are pulled into a circle for your group to begin your tale. Before it starts, you ask the three locals if they mind you using your powers to examine the Infection within them while you talk, since you're trying to learn as much about it as possible. Sabah, after a long moments thought, declines, with an expression that says she can't quite bring herself to trust there are no strings on the request but doesn't want to actually say that. More surprisingly, Kid Win also says no, and you're not quite sure why, but don't push. Tattletale, on the other hand, bounds into a chair next to you and flops her fluffy tail into your lap.
"Ta-Ta's Powers say Pan-Pan's learned lots already. Ta-Ta wants to know what Pan-Pan can say about her." With those words as encouragement, you push your hand into her soft fur, and quickly lose yourself in studying the strongest, most complicated strain you've ever encountered, one that on its own is more work than even the mutated, hybridised mess Vicky has to understand. You provide the occasional distracted confirmation as the other relay what's happened since you woke up, but most of your attention is on the fascinating puzzle before you. There is, in fact a part of the strain that's causing Tattletale sound like she has to focus every morning to remember how to pull her pants on, despite her having no actual impairments to her intellect, and you will have its secrets!
What questions does the party ask Parian, Kid Win and Tattletale?
Parian's knowledge of what's happened post F-Day is mainly limited to the Boardwalk and the areas bordering it, but she has excellent knowledge of the Boardwalk's situation, the potential resources near it, and the various perils that threaten it.
Kid Win's knowledge is similar, but also includes some knowledge of what was happening in the PRT and other official organisations up until the fall of the PRT building, which they only saw the aftermath of.
Tattletale can provide at least some information on pretty much anything except things like exact locations of people, but will only answer four or so questions now as she has a limited amount of time before she has to leave to take care of something.
Write in as many questions as desired, more questions means conversation takes longer. asking the right sort of questions may trigger Quests and/or earn Dinah FAV.
[Questions]
-] Write in question
-] Write in question
-] Write in question
Tattletale is currently busy with a project of some kind, but has offered to come by Winslow in a few days time and answer any questions the party has in exchange of a few days room and board. Invite her to Winslow? (Dinah: 9% chance offer is a trick of some kind):
[Tattletale] Yes
[Tattletale] No
What does the party do once their conversation has finished? (Pick as many as you like, anything with more than 2/3rds of the winning option's votes will be done, unless Nothing wins):
[Boardwalk] Browse the Boardwalk's shops for something
-] What for? (e.g. Female Nightwear, Unenhanced Casual Clothes, Strange Seeds, Beds and bedding, etc.) (Takes 15 minutes per type of item, max 4. What's in stock is variable, everything in Valuables tab of inventory can be spent at face value.)
[Boardwalk] Help Parian and Kid Win with various tasks your powers can simplify (Takes 1 hour, various Easy to Moderate checks. Improves relationship with Parian and Kid Win, improves reputation with Boardwalk, other random results.)
[Boardwalk] Wander the Boardwalk aimlessly (Takes 30 minutes, reduces Stress, 0-3 random encounters with a 5% chance of violence.)
[Boardwalk] Nothing (Just move on straightaway)
More options may be unlocked on future visits by raising reputation at the Boardwalk and establishing relationships.
Where do you go after you're finished at the Boardwalk? (Pick one):
[Next] Dockworker's Compound
-] On foot (Takes ~1.5 hours, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min.)
-] Fast travel (Costs Missy 10 WP, INTPER roll, TN 200.)
[Next] Return to Winslow
-] On foot via safe route (Takes ~5 hours, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min.)
-] On foot via risky route (Takes ~3 hours, 55% chance of random encounter per 15 min, hostile encounters much more likely.)
-] Fast travel (Costs Missy 5 WP.)
[Next] Go elsewhere (Specify where and how.)
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Last edited: Apr 22, 2023
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ava2607, Randomtrol, bearblue and 132 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 1, Part 11 (Afternoon)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
Spoiler: Rolls
"That's...very useful information, thank you." Sabah says after Taylor finishes providing a summary of the information she extracted from the Keystone at Winslow about Lairs. "Tattletale, did you know all this? Why didn't you mention it?"
"Ta-Ta did, but Ta-Ta only learned it after poopie head Infection made Ta-Ta sound like dummy-dumb, so when Ta-Ta said "Special Sleepy Place" and "Cool Control Thingy", you heard Special Sleepy... Infection is giant poopie head! Ta-Ta can't even say name right now!?" The fox featured girl snarls angrily and slumps in her chair, a pout on her face and her arms crossed under her ample bust. You can definitely sympathise with her frustration. If something as simple as a one word name can get that mangled, it's a miracle she manages to say anything intelligible at all.
"I understand." Sabah responds in a kind voice after a moment. "Well, you've certainly told us quite a bit. " She continues, turning to look between the members of your group. "Was there anything you wanted to ask us?"
"All sorts of things." Missy says following a round of shared glances. "From what you've said you don't know much about the wider city but...Kid, what happened with the PRT? Why are the Wards all split up?"
"I don't actually know what happened at the PRT building." The other Ward says with a sigh. "They had so many people in quarantine cells they'd stopped letting the Wards come in and were just giving instructions by phone and email and junk. Then one morning a bit more than two weeks after F-Day I woke and all the lines but the emergency status radio were dead. I couldn't even get near the PRT building to find out what was going on, the whole area was full of Harpies attacking anyone who was out in the streets, and I couldn't reach anyone on the Rig, either. No even Armsmaster, and I'd been speaking to him the night before. I tried flying out there to have a look, but distance over the bay is all wrong - I must have been over the water for at least an hour and the Rig never got closer. It might have been, towards the end, but a bunch of shark-women showed up and tried to take a bite out of my board, so I had to turn back. The normal phone lines had stopped working reliably before then, so without the PRT...there wasn't any way for me and the others to try and meet up. I've been trying to create some kind of reliable long range communication system that doesn't rely on a specific Infected items talking to each other, but it's not going well. Something about the Fog, or just the Infection in general messes with things like radio waves, I think." Kid Win pauses, sighs heavily again and runs his hands through his shaggy hair, producing a metallic tinkling. "I've seen Browbeat a couple of times since, but he just passes through, doesn't seem interested in settling down or working with anyone. Aegis showed up to lead us to the Boardwalk when the folks on my block had to evacuate before fighting between Hookwolf and Stormtiger levelled it completely, but he didn't stick around either, just rushed off to the next crisis. As for the Protectorate and Gallant...your guess is as good as mine, I've not seen them or heard anything but vague rumours in weeks."
"Funny you should mention rumours." Vicky breaks in. "If when can trust the ones we heard on the radio, Gallant, Aegis and Triumph are at our house at the moment. But, well, mysterious voices on a radio we found lying around and doesn't get in normal channels don't exactly scream 'Trustworthy'."
"Sounds to Ta-Ta like Glory-Glory found a rumour talky-box. Ta-Ta's never had one trick her, but Winny or Pari-Pari should say more first or Ta-Ta's stupid words will just be dizzy."
"The Rumour Stations are...well, not that odd by post F-Day standards, but rather mysterious." Sabah says, the part cloth woman picking up the part fox one's explanation. "No one knows who's behind them, where they're broadcast from, of if those two questions have answers. They started playing about a week after the normal radio stations all went dead, so around three weeks after F-Day, at least here on the Boardwalk. I don't pay much attention to them myself, we've only got a couple of radios that pick them up and I'm too busy to spend much time in the common areas they're set up in, but from what I've heard, all the rumours about this area have been accurate." Kid Win nods in agreement, and then Tattletale speaks again.
"Ta-Ta's deffy-sure the rumours are always truthy, and not trying to be nasty trickies, but every people hear them, even meany pants people. Most meany pants people are too busy being meanies to each other to try and trap people chase-y chasing rumours, but meany pants people need goodies too."
"Speaking of, ah, 'meany pants', we found this map with a notebook that suggests the people who made it weren't exactly paragons of virtue. Any idea who they might be?" Missy says, passing the map she'd used to help navigate across for Tattletale to have a look at.
"Deffy meany pants." The blonde says after skimming over both sides. "If they don't want peoples here to know who they are and are afraid of Laserdreamy, they're totes baddies. But Brocky Bay has lots of baddies. Could be Baldur-baddies, could be Iron-baddies, could be Snake-baddies, or Orc-baddies, or... Ta-Ta thinks you get the thinky. If Ta-Ta saw noteybook, she might knows more." Tattletale looks at the clock on Sabah's wall and frowns. "Ta-Ta has to go, her thingy will go missing soon, but maybe Ta-Ta can come see you at Winnyslow? Ta-Ta will speak much more then if she can sleepover for a while."
"Sure, why not?" Taylor says, after another round of shared glances reveals no one has any objections and sees Dinah hold up no fingers, then nine fingers.
"Great! Ta-Ta will see you in a few days, any other Q's before Ta-Ta goes?"
"Our Mum, Brandish. One of the people at Winslow said she'd gone into somewhere called 'The Manor' and not come out again. Do you know anything about that?" Vicky says, in a tone that suggests the rumour the ex-ganger passed along has been weighing on her.
"Brandi... Ta-Ta knows Brandi went to big bimbo house looky-looking for a thingy. Ta-Ta doesn't know if Brandi's not come out 'cause Brandi never finded it, or 'cause Brandi did. But it's been two weekies since Brandi went in, and big bimbo house is super-dummy-dum place. Brandi is either totes safe or dummier than Ta-Ta sounds by now. Ta-Ta...would not betty on safe." Vicky doesn't look happy about the answer, but the sincere regret Tattletale manages to put into her airheaded voice keeps her from shooting the messenger, who bids everyone goodbye and leaves shortly after.
"What do you know about the Dockworker's Union compound, further along the bay?" You hear Taylor ask, quietly, while you're falling to come up with anything to say to comfort Vicky. "My dad would have been there when things started getting weird on F-Day, and it's a lot more defensible than our house, so I'm hoping he'll either be there or they'll know where he is."
"You said your surname was Hebert, right? And I'm assuming that would make Danny Hebert your father?" Taylor nods in response to Sabah's questions. "I've got good news in that case, he's definitely at the compound, and since I've heard his name mentioned as someone in charge, I'd assume he's still pretty together, mentally."
"Yeah, the Dockworkers that come here are creepy and closed off, but they're good people. No way they're being run by Infection-heads like the tribes in the rest of the docks." Kid Win chimes in.
"I'll want to get back to the rest of the docks in a minute, but first off, did you say the Dockworkers come here? Regularly, or...?" Taylor says, ears metaphorically perking up.
"A small party, once or twice a week, maybe? There might be one here today, actually, they're about due. Kid, do you know if...?" Sabah answers, looking over that the Ward.
"They definitely showed up a couple of hours ago, but I'm not sure if they've left yet or not. The e-logs at the gates are translating everything into Welsh when they transmit wirelessly again." He responds, looking apologetic.
"If you ever figure it out, I really want to know why Welsh with that glitch." Sabah mutters, before giving Kid Win an encouraging look and continuing more loudly. "They might still be around then, depending on how much they brought and what they were looking for. They generally bring fish and other seafood to trade for non-seafood, but they've wanted to swap metals for different types or do other things like commission clothes a few times as well. They're our only regular trading partner, to be honest, and when it comes to the fish at least, they're pretty generous, given how hard hauling it here must be. The path between the north of the Boardwalk and their compound isn't anyone's territory, and it's not the scene of much fighting, but it's not safe by any stretch. Kid Win and I could probably make it there if we wanted, but I shudder at the thought of taking a trading party that way."
"I've only actually seen them fight once, but given how quick they thrashed the Wolf-Heads at three to one odds, I'd say the Dockworkers are pretty heavyweight these days. Or at least, they've got enough heavyweights to spare a dozen for a trading run regularly, which... We must have ten times their numbers and I'm not sure we've got a dozen serious fighters, at least not on their own, on the move, rather than firing from the walls with the gear I've built. Maybe if I made some power armour..." Kid Win contributes, before trailing off and wandering over to Sabah's desk to rummage around for a pencil and a blank sheet of paper, a distracted look on his face.
"Just use the back of the Merchant's Association reports Kid! It'll give me an excuse not to read them!" Sabah calls after him, getting in indistinct thanks in response. "Well, we've lost them for a while. I don't suppose you need paper for anything, do you? We've got a building that makes far too much of it and if I could trade some of it away, people might stop using it to write me reports every day." After a moment of surprise at the unexpected question, you shake your head. "Pity. You said you wanted to know about the Docks tribes, Taylor?"
Taylor nods. "Please. At the moment, all we know is that they're there, some of them are big, and they're all violent."
"Right. So, there are four big tribes that are pretty well established, plus a bunch of smaller ones that seem to be changing all the time. The biggest is Bitch's Hellhounds - or Hellhound's Bitches if you really want to piss them off - then Hookwolf's Wolf-Heads, then Cricket's Crew and lastly Stormtiger's Pride. I'm not sure how many followers Bitch has, but it wouldn't surprise me if she's got more than a thousand. She's got enough to hold the biggest portion of the Docks against all comers, and I know Hookwolf at least was bragging about having six hundred followers when she tried to intimidate us into surrendering a few weeks ago, and she's surely 'recruited' more since then."
"Wait, 'she'? Hookwolf?" Missy asks just before you do.
"Yep. All the big four tribes, and most of the small ones, are some kind of Anthro Amazons. Some of them have male equipment as well, but Hookwolf's definitely lacking in the balls department these days, and she's only got a dick if it's grown back. Not sure what she was using beforehand, but her followers have definitively been using female pronouns for her since we sent them packing." Sabah explains.
"Grown back?" You say, not sure you want to know but unable to stop yourself.
"Let's just say Hookwolf underestimated my powers and I made my objections to her proposed takeover explicitly clear." Sabah replies, with a small, satisfied smile.
"What animals do the big tribes look like?" Dinah asks curiously, apparently missing the implication that makes the rest of you wince.
"The Wolf-Heads are wolves, obviously. The Hellhounds are domestic dogs, and they're a pretty varied bunch. Cricket's Crew are some kind of bug, I think mantises? And the Pride are tigers - no idea if the name's wrong on purpose or if Stormtiger just went with the first word she could remember for a group of cats." Is the lightly delivered answer.
"Is it just the Wolf-Heads you attack you, or are the other tribes problems too?" Missy asks.
"In terms of hitting the walls? We get more trouble from the water than by land, honestly, but the Wolf-Heads are the only organised group that tries to knock them down regularly. The Crew and the Pride would have to cross someone else's territory to get to us, and the Hellhounds are dangerous if they run into a salvage party or something, but they don't seem to think getting past the walls is worth the hassle." Sabah responds, more seriously.
"Do you send things like salvage parties out often?" Is the next question, from Taylor.
"Not really. We've got the schedule for nearby stuff well enough we can generally get away with a quick run to grab that when it appears, but going further than about half an hour out is too risky these days. Which doesn't do our supply situation much good, but we have enough to get by without gambling on fifty-fifty chances people won't make it back." Sabah sounds determined, but looks sad, and you get the feeling there's an unhappy story or two behind her position.
"Is there anything you know about further out that you'd like, but can't get to?" Taylor says, looking like she's had an idea. "We're a pretty tough group, and thanks to Missy we're pretty mobile. We could try and grab some stuff for you."
"Oh, I couldn't possibly ask you to-." A shocked looking Sabah says after a moment's pause.
"We're going to be going poking around and looking for stuff for ourselves anyway, hitting up somewhere we already know has stuff to find and bringing what we don't need here is no trouble." Taylor responds, with a firm smile. "For that matter, what does the community here need in general, not just what you know is available locally? We can keep an eye out. And for that matter the garden at Winslow is going to produce way more than we need once it gets going. If Missy doesn't mind we can get the extra here pretty easily." Missy nods firmly, and you can see the desire not to make demands of the kindness of strangers warring with the knowledge of how much it could help her people in Sabah's face.
"I... In that case, more food is always welcome, and we'd definitely have use for the plywood. It would be nice to have the silk as well, we've got a lot of fabric but most of it fairly crude types. But the silk would definitely be a trade in kind, for other fabrics or finished clothes. We can do a lot with it, but it's a want, not a need like the food. We can use pretty much anything you find, to be honest, but metal, wood or other construction materials would be great, we're pretty packed in here so anything that lets us expand the living space a bit would be a godsend. There's a big hardware store about six blocks west that was great for stuff like that before some kind of giant feral lizard moved in to the parking lot. And the supermarket a few blocks over from that produced a lot of food, but the Hellhounds and the Wolf-Heads are always fighting over it now. Oh! You can probably get up on the roof of the Glaxo Building without having to fight through the slime inside, there's a grove of trees up there that purify sea water into something drinkable, we've got a number on the beach but they don't seem to produce seeds away from the grove, if you could grab some of those they'd be a big help. And I've no idea why, but the things that appear in the toy shop down the road from there make excellent parts for Kid's Tinkertech. And...you know what, let me write you a list. And draw a map." Sabah gets more excited as she goes, eventually waving a hand to cause a draw to fly open in her desk and several pens and two sheets of paper to fly out, the pens already writing as the collection arrives in front of her.
"Ah...thank you?" Taylor says, a few minutes later when a hand drawn map and a double-sided list are passed over to her a moment later, clearly (to you at least) trying not to show confusion as she looks down at the list. "We'll, uh, keep all this in mind when we go looking for, uh, stuff."
"No, thank you all. Even a bit of it would be a great help and I'd be very grateful." Sabah says, smiling prettily at you all, Vicky in particular.
"Speaking of help." Your sister says, as the hint whooshes over her head. "We're going to head on to the Dockworker's Compound, but is there anything quick we can help out with before we do? Heavy stuff needs moving, stuff stuck in awkward places, medical issues Ames can help with, things like that?"
"No medical issues I'm aware of, that's one of the Infection's few upsides, but there are a few thing you and Vista could definitely help with."
New Quest: Dockside Supply Run - Sabah has given you a map of locations in a rough crescent west of the Boardwalk that were known to regularly produce useful items before the area got too dangerous to travel to regularly. For your part, there shouldn't be more trouble than you can handle, and with Missy along the whole selection should be searchable in half a day or so. In addition to finding things for your own use, there are a number of things that can be turned in at the Boardwalk for increased Reputation, improved Relationships and other rewards, such as fabric or metal goods of various sorts.
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls (Before helping)
Spoiler: Rolls
It ends up being mainly Missy who ends up helping around the Boardwalk, in the end. Oh, there are heavy things for to Vicky move, but almost all of them get moved through doors or passageways Missy has made temporarily wider. Taylor probably does more to help than your sister, actually, though to people who don't know about her powers or those of her thick glasses, the frequent conversations between her and the Ward before the latter twists space to her will probably don't mean much other than the two seeming to get along well. Which it has to be said they do, much like with yourself, Missy and the dark-haired girl seem to have clicked, but they're pretty much all business at the moment, efficiently resolving issue after issue while the rest of you trail along and, at least in Vicky and Dinah's cases, look pretty/cute.
Other than Vicky lifting a couch and having a cascade of small change fall out and bounce off her force field around her head, the first half an hour or so of your time spent helping out is fairly uneventful, which makes it all the more shocking when you emerge from an alleyway into a small square to find yourselves in the midst of an orgy. Or something. The noises the nude, mostly female-looking mechanical figures kneeling in rows across the square are making certainly sound sexual, but the only actual contact between them seems to be turning variously sized keys emerging from the metal of each other's backs.
"Sorry, sorry! They normally wind each other up first thing in the morning, I've no idea why they're doing it now." A flustered Sabah says, leading you around their ranks as much as possible, given your next stop is apparently in one of the buildings on the square.
Inside, the sounds of mechanical moaning are muffled but still present, and by the time Missy has finished helping Sabah get inside narrow crawlspaces so she can patch up rips on the fabric walls, everyone bar Dinah is looking somewhat worked up. Vicky in particular is bright red when you leave, and can't seem to stop herself stealing glances at a particular trio of shiny metal men who have shown up while you were inside and are sitting in a very close triangle, turning each other's keys with rapturous expressions and particularly loud, brassy, groans of pleasure. She floats after the group in a rather distracted manner as you head for the next job, digging in the pockets of the rucksack for something, but you get distracted yourself when you go to ask what she's doing. By the person walking past who looks to have been blended with some sort of giant stuffed squid. Not the realisation that one of Taylor's legs has changed somehow, the glimpse of pale skin between her skirt and socks having become utterly without flaw, turning it into a vision of silky-smooth perfection. Obviously.
You're further distracted from bringing it up when you arrive at the warehouse that's the next stop, firstly by the swarm of children who run up to you, chattering excitedly at Sabah. Aged between eight and twelve or so, and all at least outwardly girls, made out of a wide variety of materials that would normally be non-living and rather doll-like in their appearance and builds, they all seem to be genuinely happy, with their lives and to see Sabah. A little disappointed she's too busy to put on a show for them, but fine otherwise. Once Sabah has disappeared inside the warehouse with Vicky, Missy and Taylor, they quickly return to the energetic game they were playing on the beach before you arrive, and even manage to convince Dinah to join in. Which leads to the second thing that distracts you, noticing that Dinah's running with an odd gait, like something's wrong with one of her feet. She doesn't seem to be in pain, and you're reluctant to interrupt her having fun, but you can't help but worry about it. At least until a red-faced Missy appears in front of you in a warp in space, followed by an equally red Taylor.
"Is your sister so obliviously strait she doesn't even grasp that other girls can get turned on by things she does, denser than bedrock or just utterly inconsiderate?" Taylor asks in what you can only describe as aroused perplexity, staring down at what you recognise after a moment as the remote for the egg vibes and jabbing one of the buttons forcefully a single time.
"Mostly the first?" You offer, aware it sounds more like a question than an answer and not sure if you want to know what prompted the initial question.
"I'm pretty sure it's the second." Missy grouses. "If nothing else, she clearly has no idea how loud she is, or she'd have moved further away. At least Parian was on the other side of the warehouse talking to those puppet girls." She pauses, then continues in a "to be fair" sort of tone. "Probably didn't help that you set it to "turbo" rather than "low" at first, but the controls are weird even if you can read the labels."
"She deserved it for just handing me the thing and telling me to turn it up once she's out of sight, then flying off before I could respond." Taylor grumbles mutinously. "Think it's been long enough for her to stop yet?"
"You, ah, haven't actually turned it off yet." Missy says after a glance at the remote. "That's the button to switch one of the other ones on." She reaches over to fiddle with the remote for a second. "That should do it." Space warps again a moment later and the two vanish, though not before you hear one of them mutter "Unless she had the other one rammed up her ass or something."
It's a very good thing Dinah hit it off with the kids, you think weakly as you stagger over to the low wall separating the beach from the boardwalk here and sit down heavily on it. Explaining why your face could be used to fry an egg to her would be...less than fun. And from what Sabah's said, jumping in the narrow strip of water between the beach and the walls to cool off would be a bad idea unless it was step one of a plan to live the rest of your life hiding at the bottom of the bay as a mermaid. Fortunately, the others are in the warehouse for a while longer after that, and when the time comes to move on, you've managed to shove the new Vicky-fantasies into the daytime ignore box with the others, and are able to speak coherently when you approach Dinah as you walk.
"Is there something wrong with your right foot, Dinah?" You ask, trying not to sound accusing.
"Oh, it turned into a hoof earlier." The younger girl responds, so blasé that it you do a double take when what she said actually registers. "The shoe changed shape a bit to fit it and the sole of the other one got thicker, so it's no harder to walk, but I think it bends differently, so it probably looks odd." Her right trainer has changed, you see when you look at it closely, into a round, high ankle form that...not the point, Amy!
"Dinah. Why didn't you mention it when it happened? I could have done something while we were waiting for the others." You say, as patiently and non-demandingly as you can.
"Seven percent chance I cause any trouble by tripping or something due to it before tonight." Is the non-answer, and some of your scepticism must show on your face, for Dinah hurriedly continues. "And I don't mind it, it's weird but kind of fun, and it is not a big enough thing to bother you with before you did checkups again. It's just a foot. The kids at the warehouse had have their whole bodies change on them, and they do not have you to adjust things for them. Most of them were boys before they got Infected, I can put up with a hoof for a few hours, and-."
"Dinah." You cut her off as she starts to ramble uncharacteristically. "Unless I'm in the middle of seeing someone else as a patient, you can always come to me. About anything, but especially about your body changing. Understand?" Dinah blushes and mumbles an affirmative to your firmly spoken words. You're not entirely sure she actually take advantage of the offer, but all you can do is make it and try to convince her you mean it.
Nothing else of note happens until you're nearly finished with Sabah's list of jobs, but the unexpected twist this time is an entirely welcome one, and takes the form of a woman's voice calling out Taylor's name in disbelief. Taylor spins to face its source, and judging by the way she calls out a name (Lacey), runs to meet the speaker and only stops herself from hugging her at the very last second, she recognises them. Presumably, you think as the woman laughs and pulls Taylor into a bear hug, she didn't look quite like she does now the last time Taylor saw her, but by the standards of most Infected you've seen so far, she's...well, not normal looking, she's unnaturally pale, dressed as a pirate and appears to be wearing an octopus on her head under the huge hat, but at least still clearly recognisable compared to how she looked before. The group she in runs the gamut from two piratical looking women with similar pale skin tones, to a quartet of figures that smell strongly of saltwater and seaweed and have completely concealed their appearance beneath heavy coats, low hats and big boots, to a trio of bipedal shark-people wearing nothing but pirate hats, open vests and boots to what can be best described as a pair of crab-zombie centaur women, strapped into a the harness of a large wagon made mainly of sheet metal. All of them seem to be more-or-less in possession of their wits, and they all seem to recognise Taylor as "Danny's daughter", though generally in a "Really? She was just a tiny little thing last time I saw her" sort of way. Certainly, when Taylor gives them a (very) quick summary of how she came to be in the Boardwalk and says that you were planning on heading to the Dockworker's Union compound next, they're enthusiastic in inviting her (and the rest of you) along.
"You might as well go with them now, if they're ready to leave?" Sabah, who'd been politely pretending not to listen, says once the chorus of "Ahrrrs!" dies down. "Most of the stuff left Kid Win should really be here for and they were last seen heading for their workshop, so they're not going to be free anytime soon."
The Dockworkers are, in fact, ready to leave, and Sabah walks with you and them the short distance to the north gate, thanking you all (Missy especially) for your help and inviting you to come back whenever you want, though she does ask Missy to please not bypass the gates until someone knows you're here, as the guards can be twitchy. She's no objections to Missy bending space to let your whole group walk out without opening the gates once you're past the internal checkpoint, though, and the sight of her, waving and smiling, is the last sight you see of the Boardwalk before Missy dismisses the warp, leaving only the huge gates at the far end of the road you're on.
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls (Before leaving)
Spoiler: Rolls
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls (On arrival)
Outside the walls of the Boardwalk, the group of Dockworkers are wary but not tense, talking more quietly and with one eye on the surroundings, but still talking. Mostly to tell Taylor about what they've been up to since F-Day, which starts with defending the compound against variously feral attackers while trying, mostly successfully, to find people's families in the chaos, moves into turning the compound into a literal fort to work out of, and currently mainly involves fishing and fighting in the bay out of a collection of repurposed boats. The bay is very different since F-Day, apparently, far bigger than it was and full of both swarms of sea monsters and tribes more humanoid Infected, neither of which are particularly friendly. Worryingly, one of the strongest of said sea monsters appears to have been Dauntless, or at least is using equipment with similar powers to his and a vague resemblance to it. Possibly-Dauntless is, at least, not particularly inclined to attack the land, preferring to stay near the bizarre structure of coral and metal at one end of the bay that was probably the tanker before F-Day and blocks, as far as the Dockworkers can tell, any attempts to get from the bay and into the wider ocean.
"There's something you're not saying." Taylor says abruptly, after the latest story, involving an improbably large catfish, finishes. "Two somethings. You keep stumbling when you're talking about Dad, like you want to describe him one way then stop yourselves. And you're really talking around something else. Or someone else."
"Should have known we couldn't get anything past you, kid." Lacey says with a sigh. After a round of looks from the others which convey quite effectively she's on her own, even from the ones whose faces are completely shadowed by their collars and hats, she sighs again and continues. "The second thing, we keep it quiet for a good reason and Danny really should be the one to tell you, specifically, about it. And as for Danny himself...his mind's still the same, pretty much, but his body... Well, it's not his body anymore, and we use "he" and "Danny" outside the compound to throw people off but it's "she" and "Danni" these days inside it. And she looks pretty different even outside the woman thing. You'll probably recognise the face, once you get over the lack of glasses, but the rest...yeah, it's a big difference."
"Oh." Taylor says quietly, and then, after a long pause in which the Dockworkers start to look worried. "Thank you for telling me?" Her voice has the odd, emotionless tone that means she's dumping her emotions again, and her face is distracted, but she keeps walking without issue, and a quick look reveals no one else has any idea what to say to her so you leave her to process.
The journey is quiet after that for nearly twenty minutes, just the sounds of waves on the shore and footsteps on rubble, until one of the shark-people hisses a warning, and you look up to see an odd, shimmering bank of fog descending from the perpetual haze above.
"Shit!" Lacey says after seeing the cloud. "Okay, good news is this next bit is a straight line and that will settle below the end of it. Bad news, we're going to have to run and the end is uphill. There's no way we're going to avoid getting caught in that, but the less time in it, the better."
Whatever end she's referring to is so far off its invisible through the normal fog, and the shimmering one comes down unnaturally quick, filling the road between abandoned warehouses and factories you're on completely less than a minute after being spotted, giving the air with an odd glow and causing a strange, sharp taste on your tongue with every heaving breath. Even running like mad and with Missy crunching space for all she's worth, it's several minutes before you emerge into more normal fog, and while you don't notice any effects, there's a flush to Lacey's corpse-like pallor that you quickly realise has nothing to do with exertion, one shared by several of her colleagues, and also Missy and Taylor. Much grumbling about freaky fog ensues when the group starts walking again, and you're rather disturbed to learn that a) Fog that makes you horny is one of the least weird and/or potentially dangerous ones and b) That was apparently quite a small patch of it.
Your group makes it nearly another twenty minutes, most of the way to the compound thanks to the shortcuts the Dockworkers know, before running into further trouble, in the form of an intersection full of jiggling, giggling Slimegirls of various colours. Lacey makes frantic silence and back up hand guestures the second they come into sight, but the Dockworker's wagon isn't quiet, and the slimes clearly hear it, for they charge down the road towards your group, over fifty gooey throats releasing cries of "Sucky-Sucky!" as they do.
"Yeah, no. Not in the mood." Vicky mutters next to you as the rest of you scramble to be ready for the fight. Between one blink and the next, she's several metres down the road, and you feel a rush of familiar awe from the backwash as her Aura flares. "Going to make this dead simple for you, goo brains. GET LOST!!!" The Slimegirls were already slowing their rush under the effects of her Aura, and at her roared command, the mob almost literally disintegrates, some of its members pulling apart disturbingly as they try and flee in multiple directions at once. By the time the echoes die away, there's not a single slimy body to be seen, and the Dockworkers let out a mass impressed whistle before you continue on.
Your destination, when you arrive shortly after the rout of the Slimegirls, is another location that's much changed from how it was before F-Day. You've never actually seen the compound before, admittedly, but you're pretty sure you'd have heard if it was large replica of a colonial era fort made largely out of repurposed metal, its walls manned by people who variously blend pirates, sea creatures and the undead. The sturdy gates swing open to admit you at a single shout from Lacey, and once you're all inside, her fellows on the trading party wave her off to take you all (mainly Taylor) to see Danni as soon as possible. The buildings you can see inside the compound are mostly modern-looking, but reinforced with various defensive constructions made of metal, stone, wood and even what looks like coral in a couple of cases. In the far distance, towards the water, what looks like the mast of a sailing ship looms, casting long shadows through the fog. Lacey leads you all a short way through the grounds, to a large building that was apparently the main admin centre before F-Day and is still something of a command hub, and leaves in search of Danni, who is apparently "around", according to the eel-like woman she asks.
"Right, I'm not meeting my Dad on the verge of creaming my panties." Taylor says, moments after your guide leaves, taking her rucksack off and pulling the hefty Illustrated Guide to Kink out of it. "I'm...just going to take this and nip into the toilets for a minute...and it only works with two people, doesn't it?" While you're not feeling anywhere near as worked up yourself, you can totally understand her feelings about meeting her dad horny, and are about to volunteer to help her use the book when Missy beats you to it.
"I'll take a look at it with you. I'm...pretty worked up as well after that fog and...earlier...and I'm kind of curious how that book works, too." Looking to relieved to be able to get some relief to even think about Missy's age, Taylor quickly accepts, and the pair disappear round the corner. (A traitorous part of your mind notes as they go that Taylors legs match again, the uncovered skin between the knee socks and the hem of the dress utterly flawless on both sides.)
"My other foot is a hoof now too, Amy." Dinah says suddenly, jolting you out of wondering what's about to happen in that bathroom. "It happened while we were walking from the gates to here. The bottom of my legs feel funny, too." Pulling off one of Dinah's reshaped trainers reveals that the opaque tights of her uniform still include "feet", now ending in some kind of thick pad beneath her hooves, so you can't easily see any of the changes, but after seeing the slightly lumpy way the tights budge up to mid-shin and feeling them gently, and given the animal the headband Dinah is wearing is based on, you're pretty sure her legs are covered by a coat of wool, now.
"Wait, since when does Dinah have hooves?" Vicky asks, long, fluffy, blonde tail wagging curiously behind her.
"Since two hours ago and just now, like I said." Dinah replies, pulling her trainer back on while you're trying to figure out what's bothering you.
"You seem...very calm about that." Your sister says, the blonde furred ears atop her head flopping as she tilts her head slightly.
"Something like it was going to happen. And I like sheep." Dinah says, assertively.
"On that subject..." You say nervously as the penny finally drops that when she put it on, the dog costume had brown ears and a tail, which were smaller, less fluffy and, importantly, didn't move on their own. "How do you feel about dogs, Vicky? Golden Retrievers specifically, from the look of it."
"Dogs? They're cute, I guess. But what do you mean 'from the look of it'...?" She trails off as something seems to dawn on her, one hand going to the tail which has abruptly ceased wagging behind her and pulling gently on it, prompting a wince and for the other hand to reach up and tweak one of her second set of ears slightly.
"Oh. Oh. That's what you mean." She says, quietly. "Well, this is... This is fine! Totally fine! I'd rather be cute and furry than, like, a sex doll or something. It's fine." The utter fakeness of the smile she plasters on, plus the downcast look of her new appendages make it clear it's not fine, but when you tentatively suggest it's okay for it not to be fine, she just repeats that it's "Totally Fine!!!" until the return of Missy and Taylor makes you give up.
"Hey guys, how long were we gone?" Missy asks as she rounds the corner. She's holding one of Taylor's hands, leading the older girl along as she totters somewhat tentatively along behind her, head down.
"Less than five minutes?" You answer. It's hard to tell with her hair falling in front of her face, but you're about eighty percent sure Taylor's sucking the thumb of her free hand.
"Huh. Felt way longer. So, fair warning about that book, the illusion or whatever is super realistic and you will find yourself doing things you normally wouldn't and not think they're weird until it finishes. Plus side, even if it's not directly sex stuff, you come out of it nice and calm and without making a mess. Minus side, it lasts long enough on the inside that not being in...in the things you were in the illusion...feels weird when you come out." Missy says, sounding thoughtful but generally happy, and idly bending space to let her gently tug the much taller Taylor's other arm down to her side (resulting in a faint pop and an unhappy noise before Taylor seems to catch herself) while the two walk the rest of the way to rejoin you.
Taylor's body language swiftly returns to normal in the minute or so after they get back, but she doesn't actually release her trusting grip on Missy's hand until she suddenly tenses and turns to face the door to the lobby, moments before it opens and a maternal voice cries "TAYLOR!"
"DAD!" She cries, running to embrace the tall figure in the doorway. You assume her powers have somehow let her recognise them, because no part of them looks like someone's dad. Well, post F-Day, many people's dads may walk around on eight purple-black octopus-like tentacles instead of legs, you suppose, but the human upper half of their body is distinctly maternal rather than paternal in appearance. Looking like a woman somewhere in her forties with a blue-purple cast to her hair and skin, her face face mature but beautiful, with only slight wrinkles at the corner of her eyes. She also has a considerable bust and a slight belly under a modest blouse, and even a suggestion of wide hips at the top of her fishy half, making the woman Taylor is hugging look every inch the Mother you'd like to Fu- You bludgeon that thought to death before it can finish, and keep bludgeoning after a quick round of introductions while Danni Hebert leads you through the compound to another building, meaning you get an excellent view of the fact being half-octopus doesn't stop her from looking like she possesses a spectacular ass under her cephalopod "skirt".
A few minutes' walk brings you to what could almost be a normal, if large, cottage, except for the ring of cannons emerging from the roof and the way front garden is occupied by what looks like a half sunken ship, golden coins and other treasures spilling out of it. Danni pauses in front of the door, and looks at Taylor with an unreadable expression. "There's absolutely no way for me to make what's about to happen less of a shock - believe me, I've been trying to think of a way for weeks - so I'm just going to say that no matter how unbelievable it is, it's real."
That said, she opens the door, calling out that she's home to someone inside and beckoning a worried looking Taylor to follow. The other teen makes it as far as the first doorway down the corridor inside and stops with a gasp, staring at someone within the room. Past her, you can just make out a tall, pale woman in slightly archaic looking clothes, with red eyes and dark, curly hair much like Taylor's. Her whole body, from what you can see, looks a lot like a decade or so older, slightly curvier Taylor, and so it's only a mild surprise when Taylor chokes out a "M-mum!?" after several moments of stunned gaping.
"It's me, Little Owl. I'm so, so, sorry it's been so long for you." As Taylor throws herself forward, sobbing, you look desperately around for a distraction, and, spotting Danni beckoning from down the hall, quickly head that way, tugging on elbows to get everyone to follow.
"I know I only met her today, but I'm pretty damn sure Taylor said her mother was dead." Missy hisses suspiciously at Danni shortly after you're all sat round a table in the kitchen, the sounds of the reunion in the living room muffled into unintelligibility.
"I can't explain it." The motherly looking octopus-woman says with a shrug. "She just, showed up at the compound one night about two and a half weeks after F-Day, still naked and still dripping sea water from having woken up a little way down the shore, alive and well. Well, 'alive' and well, she seems to be a vampire or something, but she wasn't even the first undead we had at the compound, thanks to the Infection. Her memories get less clear the closer they get to the last years of her life, but she remembers everything up until Taylor was ten or so perfectly clearly, including things no one else could have known without outright mind reading, and about more than just me and Taylor. If it's not her...I honestly have no idea how you'd tell or how someone could fake it."
"There are Strangers who could pull off what you're describing." Vicky responds after a moment's thought, sounding grim. "None active in the US spring to mind at the moment admittedly, but it's got to be more likely than someone several years dead coming back to life, right?"
"Maybe not." Dinah says into the silence that follows. "Remember the question you asked after we found the notebook? Seventeen percent chance the Infection can bring back the dead." While that reminder drops on you all like an unexploded bomb, the brunette frowns, lips moving as she part forms questions. "Chance the person Taylor's speaking to right now is not her moth- No, is not Annette Hebert as far as that person knows or has ever known?" She flinches and grasps her temples the moment she asks, but after a string of pained noises, gasps out "Zero point zero two one."
Silence fills the table again after that. Dinah's power is as close to Thinker: Yes as it gets, the odds of a Stranger capable of fooling it just happening to show up in Brockton Bay around F-Day are pretty slim, the odds of them then using to set themselves up as the back-from-the-dead wife of one of the people running a group as laid back seeming as the Dockworker's Union are even slimmer. Even Danni revealing under quiet questioning that Annette is also one of the post-F-Day groups leaders doesn't really change that. The Dockworker's biggest ambition at the moment is to finish building a boat. True, that boat will be a big age of sail galleon or something, and they plan on using it to go and be pirates at the Infected in the bay, but they also want it to fish more and more safely, and from everything you've heard, the Infected in the bay started attacking the land dwelling parts of the population first. It's not the sort of ambitions a super-Stranger would generally have, is your point. Danni proves quite passionate about the boat, and listening to her expound on it and what it will be like when it's finished (plus a slight tangent into your group possibly helping them get the wood to complete the next stage of construction and what the Dockworker's could offer in return), keeps you all occupied until Annette and a still sniffling, almost as red-eyed as her mother, Taylor enter the room, Taylor giving her mother one more tight squeeze before sitting down next to Missy, who hugs her too, eying Annette warily while Taylor stares at the fanged woman like she's afraid she'll wake up any second.
"Taylor tells me you all plan on exploring the city further once you're done here." Annette says, in a voice so similar to Taylor's you have to look at her to check her lips aren't moving. "And while the part of me that last remembers her as a little girl is freaking out about letting her out of my sight with the city like it is, the rest of me can see she's grown up and that there are few better groups she could be exploring it with. There are a lot of secrets in Bay at the moment, and I have a hunch you'll do very well at turning them up." Her eyes turn distant, focusing on something unseen for several seconds as her voice grows heavy, then she shakes her head, smiles, and says more brightly. "And, of course, if even half of what I remember about young Vista's powers is right, there's no one better for allowing those of us who would prefer the Bay not to be something right out of a Mad Max movie to actually coordinate towards doing something about that."
"I'm pretty sure none of them, Taylor included, will know what Mad Max is, dear. It's a bit before their time." Danni says teasingly, earning a "Bah!" and a swatting gesture in her direction, while the five of you are, indeed, wondering what Mad Max is.
"Anyway." Annette says after a brief back and forth of lightly flirtatious teasing. "Go forth and do whatever you want in the city, and know you'll all always be welcome here. I'm sure Danni's already bent the rest of your ears about the only thing we really need help with at the moment, but I do have a request? Favour? No, request, definitely. I've quite missed having my little girl around, and Danni's rather feeling the urge to mother a little girl too thanks to the Infection. And Taylor's not a little girl any more but...that doesn't mean she can't be mothered a bit on occasion. So, cutting to the chase before I ramble any further, what I'd like is for Taylor, and any of you who want to join her, to have a...'sleepover' here at the compound and just...let me and Danni take care of you while you enjoy not having to worry about your responsibilities for a night. You don't have to of course, but it would be...nice."
As you're considering the rather odd request, it occurs to you that it's been very carefully framed as a group thing, rather than a request of Taylor specifically, despite her clearly being the one it's really about. Probably because Annette is fully aware that at the moment she could ask Taylor to let them turn her into some sort of baby vampire-octopus-woman hybrid and she'd agree before they even finished explaining in order to keep seeing her resurrected mother. Who is, as far as you can tell, entirely sincere about being willing to let Taylor leave and do as she pleases in the city, and content to simply provide a place for her to return to, without even demanding she do so. It's not something you can even imagine Carol doing, but it does remind you of the relationship between Aunt Sarah and Crystal after the later started collage, and you have to bite down the urge to ask if attending the "sleepover" means the Mrs Heberts (no, that really doesn't sound right, just stick with their first names unless they say otherwise) will be your mums too. Even the possibility of it makes the sleepover seem far more attractive, you have to admit...
New Quest: We Need a Bigger Boat, Part 1 - The Dockworkers have various small boats they use to fish and give the Infected of the bay something to think about other than raiding the land, but none of them are intended for the work. A larger, purpose built ship is under construction, but they need materials for it. Chiefly, at the moment, about 1500 of good wood. If the party can find it elsewhere, that's great, if not, they know where it can be found for sure, and with Missy's help, raiding the Merchant's groves with axes becomes much easier. Completion increases Dockworker fraction Reputation and Relationships, and earns twice the wood's value in goods and services from them.
Annette and Danni are overjoyed to see Taylor and meet her new friends. You're all welcome at the compound regardless, but the two of them really want a chance to mother Taylor a bit, and making them happy would make the rest of the Dockworkers happy. What Annette proposes is that Taylor (and any of you who want to) has a "sleepover" at the compound, one where she plays the part of their little girl again, just for the night. Does Taylor (and the rest of you) accept?
[Sleepover] Accept - Dockworker reputation starts at 40, Annette relationship starts at 55, Danni relationship starts at 45. Attendees will be fed and housed in a safe, trivial exposure location for the night. Anyone attending has a 33% chance of increasing their interest in some form of Ageplay, and downtime actions may result in other changes.
-] And start the sleepover now - Go straight to downtime vote, everyone in party will take part, ~4 hours of downtime spare tonight accounting for activities and bedtime. 10 Annette relationship, 5 Danni relationship and Dockworker reputation.
-] And come back tonight for the sleepover - Fast travel back to the compound when you finish for the day. -5 WP for Missy, choose who attends, ~1 hour of downtime spare tonight for attendees accounting for activities and bedtime.
-] And come back another night within 5 days for the sleepover - Fast travel back to the compound when you finish for the day another time. -5 WP for Missy, choose who attends, ~1 hour of downtime spare that night for attendees accounting for activities and bedtime. Voted for each subsequent night, will be locked in on night 5 if not voted for before then.
[Sleepover] Decline - Dockworker reputation starts at 10, Annette relationship starts at 15, Danni relationship starts at 20.
(A reputation of 30 is required before the Dockworkers will allow Amy to examine their strains, and a relationship of 40 is required before Annette and Danni will. Current reputation does not unlock any special actions at the compound, raising it through the sleepover or completing the We Need a Bigger Boat, Part 1 quest will.)
It's now 17:30. If the Party doesn't spend the rest of the day at the compound, where do they go next?:
[Next] Return to Winslow for Amy to do checkups and TF rerolls (Costs Missy 5 WP, takes 45 minutes)
-] Write in which TF's to reroll
[Next] Travel to and search Missy's house (Random rolls for what you find)
-] Return to Winslow, then walk (Costs Missy 5 WP, takes ~1 hour, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 10 WP, INTPER roll, TN 100)
[Next] Travel to and search Taylor's house (Random rolls for what you find)
-] Return to Winslow, then walk (Costs Missy 5 WP, takes ~1 hour, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 10 WP, INTPER roll, TN 110)
[Next] Travel to and search Dinah's house (Random rolls for what you find, 80% chance of getting into a fight on top of the result)
-] Return to Winslow, then walk (Costs Missy 5 WP, takes ~2 hours, 75% chance of random encounter per 15 min, will arrive at sunset)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 10 WP, INTPER roll, TN 150)
[Next] Travel to and search the Dallon house (Random rolls for what you find, also advances Happy Reunions? Quest)
-] Return to Winslow, then walk (Costs Missy 5 WP, takes ~4 hours, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min, will arrive after around 2 hours after sunset)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 10 WP, INTPER roll, TN 125)
[Next] Travel to Clockblocker's location (95% chance of a friendly welcome)
-] Return to Winslow, then walk (Costs Missy 5 WP, takes ~2.5 hours, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min, will arrive around 30 minutes after sunset)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 10 WP, INTPER roll, TN 120)
[Next] Travel to the University Campus (100% chance of a friendly welcome)
-] Return to Winslow, then travel via very risky route (Costs Missy 5 WP, takes ~3 hours, 80% chance of random encounter per 15 min, will arrive around 1 hour after sunset)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 10 WP, INTPER roll, TN 150)
[Next] Travel somewhere else
-] Write In where and how
QM: One thing I know people are interested in but couldn't work into the update, despite it being something Taylor would ask before leaving, is that the Dockworkers did make it to the Hebert house at one point, but they only took some supplies, and never found Taylor's armour. Which doesn't necessarily mean it's there still, this was some weeks back, but at least you know it's not in Annette's closet.
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Last edited: Jan 15, 2021
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ava2607, Randomtrol, bearblue and 116 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 1, Part 12 (Evening)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: Sorry about how short this is for how long it took, last week didn't work out well for writing.
Spoiler: Rolls
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls
You had tentative plans to go and check out someone's house after you were done at the Dockworker's Compound, but given you've been on the go pretty much continually for around twelve hours at this point, you don't feel particularly bad about deciding to call it a day now and stay overnight with the Heberts. Vicky and Missy have a few concerns, but after being assured they won't be expected to act like little kids and that they're be free to do as they like after joining the Heberts for dinner, they're happy with the idea of the sleepover too. With that decided, Annette and Danni set to making said dinner, bustling happily around the kitchen while Taylor watches, her eyes rarely straying from her resurrected mother. After checking one last time that the older girl is fine and passing you the nerdy vest, which you'd asked to borrow again, Missy leaves through the back door of the cottage and vanishes into an eye-twisting warp in space, headed to Winslow to let the Camp Cats know you won't be back this evening, and to pick up a few things that might be fun to have for the sleepover, like the board games and the portable spa.
Since dinner will be a little while, you decide to fill the time by checking Vicky and Dinah over, starting with the younger girl. The living room is private enough with the doors closed, through the layout means you end up perched on one arm of a large armchair Dinah is sitting in to get a position where we can comfortably put a hand on her face. You'd indented to check out the strain that had turned her feet into hooves, but while checking the strain she had before to see if it had formed a hybrid with it (it hadn't), you got distracted by the hybrid it had formed, with the strain from the junior cheerleader outfit, and the many, many traits that strain had embedded in her since your last check. You're able to extract both the remaining details of the original Little Girl strain and the un-mutated Super Cheerleader strain fairly straight forwardly, and after telling Dinah about her new Infection and confirming that the main changes it will make to the effects of the one she had already will be making her cuter, more athletic and more energetic, you spend the next several minutes filling her in on what to expect from all the new traits.
Two of them are unambiguously beneficial, the ones your power labels as "Super Athlete" and "Not Just A Pretty Face", the former causing her physical abilities to slowly improve over time and the latter preventing her intelligence from being reduced below her social ability (how that works and how your power can tell you have no idea). The others, however, are more of a mixed bag, especially in combination. The trait "Eyes on Me", which will increase her ability to attract attention, be charming and inflame lusts but is also likely to cause her to develop an exhibitionist streak would be mildly problematic on its own, but combined with "Cheer-full Innocence" one, making her much less likely to notice sexual implications of things, well, you spend several minutes trying to explain why exhibitionism could be a bad thing without success and you're a little worried how the "encouragement" ability of the "Go Team!" trait is going to manifest. You're also concerned about Dinah's reaction to learning about the "Young at Heart" trait that will stop her from aging past thirteen - you're not sure at all how much of her easy acceptance is natural, and how much is due to the effects of the last trait she's gained on her mindset. The trait of your strain that protects against mental alterations is, you're pretty sure, stopping the "Neverland for Life" trait, as your power has labelled it, from having any drastic impact on her mindset and as far as you can tell, given how little time you've known her for, her personality is unchanged, but your power is still certain something is different about her brain. In the end though, she's not worried about what the strain is doing or might do in the future, and trying to force her to be seems cruel, so you resolve to keep an eye on her (and make sure the others do the same), and ask her to send Vicky in when she goes back to the kitchen, remembering only after she leaves that you'd meant to check the sheep strain as well.
Vicky enters the room before you can call Dinah back and you sigh, resolving to check on the younger girl again after dinner. Waving your sister into the chair you're still perched on, you have to make an effort not to stroke one of second set of fuzzy ears atop her head when you reach out to touch her, and end fighting a blush when you end up diverting your hand at the last moment to rest on the smooth skin of her face.
"So, two bits of good news." You say shortly after in a relived voice, having been quickly able to unpick the way Vicky's existing strain has hybridised with the one that's given her the new ears and the tail poking out of her skirt. "Firstly, you're not going to get many more dog traits, your feet are the only big thing the Infection you've got might change. Second, I now know enough to change the target sex for it to female and I can be sure there won't be any side effects of doing so."
"Ames, that's great! Can you do it now!?" Vicky says, beaming widely and accompanied by a loud thumping noise as her wagging tail beats against the chair.
"Sure, it will just take a few minutes. The Infection should get rid of the dick on its own at some point, or I can get rid of it now, but if I do that it will cause some other transformation and I can't control what." You respond, knowing that your sister isn't going to want to wait to lose the dick, but still hoping she'll take the less risky option of doing so.
"Just get rid of it, please. I can deal with whatever else happens instead." Vicky says firmly, and you give a small sigh before doing as she asks.
Changing the target sex of her Infection to fully female proves harder than you'd expected, but with focus and a little more time than you'd expected, you manage to shift it. Making the dick go away is much simpler, but what happens in response is...well, in absolute terms it's pretty minor, but given her earlier reaction, you're worried how she'll take her hair changing from platinum blonde to a darker, more golden colour that's just the wrong shade to be a natural human hair colour, but matches the fur on her tail and upper ears exactly. It also seems to change texture and thickness slightly, becoming more fur-like, and you have to squash the inappropriate urge to stroke it. Vicky laughs it off, when you tell her and she looks in the mirror in the hall to see it, but there's a brittle note to it, and she rapidly changes the subject when you try and ask if she's sure it's alright and if she wants you to try and get rid of any of it or any of the other canine features she's picked up.
You expected her to change the subject when you tried to talk about the dog transformations, and weren't planning on letting her get away with it, but she manages to pick a very distracting topic - the egg vibe still in place in her pussy. She tried to remove it while you were checking over Dinah, but since you put it there, she can't take it out herself, you need to do it. You do your best not to sound eager or blush when you say that of course you'll do it, and are at least successful enough that Vicky doesn't seem to notice anything odd before she pulls you into the small downstairs toilet off the hall. Unfortunately for your half-formed fantasies (and fortunately for keeping your crush hidden), taking the vibe out proves simpler than putting it in, and Vicky's even already got the pull line outside her panties, so all you have to do is kneel down in front of her while she sits on the closed toilet and give it a couple of gentle tugs before it slides out, forming an odd looking bulge in the front of the paw-print patented underwear. Admittedly, kneeling between your sister's spread legs is how a great many of your fantasies start, but in most of them she wouldn't be wearing panties while you were doing so, and you certainly wouldn't be getting shooed out of the door by a slightly awkwardly moving but thankful Vicky after less than a minute.
Deciding (reluctantly) you should wash your hands after that you head back to the kitchen, which is full of the smell of cooking food (mostly fish). Taylor is chopping vegetables alongside her mothers, looking like she's finally starting to believe what she's seeing is actually happening, while Dinah has one of the handheld game consoles you found earlier open in front of her and looks to be typing on the touch screen. As you make your way over to the sink, you hear Missy's slightly voice say "Testing, testing" from the console's speakers, and by the time you've washed your hands and come to look over Dinah's shoulder, she and Missy are just finishing up a test video call, and you briefly see Madison's feline face as the console is handed over to her before Dinah disconnects the call.
"Missy though we could use these to keep in touch with the Camp Cats, at least for tonight." Dinah says, frowning slightly at something on the display of the device in her hands. "We should probably only use the text chat, though. The voice and video ones used over a percent of battery each, and we only tested them both for a minute."
"It's a good idea." You assure the younger girl, impulsively patting her on the head, which gets a slightly confused but mostly happy expression.
Looking towards the cooking trio, about to ask if there's anything you can help with, you notice Taylor's foot shift in a way the just seems slightly...off, not quite right to be a normal change in position, but before you can ask, everyone's attention is drawn by Missy returning with the size changing sack in one hand and the gothic parasol in the other. Which means everyone sees when she pauses mid-step and shivers slightly as though cold before starting to walk again, and everyone sees the wave of colour flow down her hair. in the few seconds it takes for her to go from the door to the table, the whole thing is re-coloured, going from dark blonde to a rich, deep, purple colour, one that despite its unusual hue looks entirely natural, with none of the flatness of dye, but looks slightly odd paired with her still blonde eyebrows and eyelashes. The wave of colour also seems to lengthen her hair slightly, growing it from a couple of inches above her shoulders to an inch or so below them, and this causes one of her bangs to come loose from behind her ears, falling in front of her face and drawing her attention to the change before anyone has a chance to say anything.
"Why's my hair purple?" The young Ward asks, sounding more surprised than anything, but you're distracted from hearing any replies by the Infection in your body suddenly becoming active, receiving a torrent of information from what you quickly realise is the cat-girl outfit and the butterfly wings you'd put back on without thinking about it after putting the vest on.
Much as in the Lair earlier, your power is able to see exactly what's happening, but completely unable to effect it, so you can do nothing but "watch" helplessly as two new strains of Infection enter your body. The one from the wings (which gets designated "Pixie Power" by whatever part of your power is naming these things) seems to act slightly quicker, possibly due to being stronger, forming a hybrid with the strain your powers created and bolstering its strength further, before pretty much consuming the cat-girl strain to bolster its levels in your body, technically forming a hybrid but keeping only one trait from the other strain. Luckily, rather than keeping just the trait which would turn you into a cat, or the one that would make you prettier but probably dumber, it keeps what you'd probably say is the "better" of the two animal transformation modifying traits, the one which will limit the changes to just things like growing a tail or an extra set of ears, with no chance of giving you paws, like the other one might still do to Vicky. The pixie strain itself has an interesting set of effects, and you have just enough time to be glad you've dodged activating the trait that would shrink you up to a foot and a half with the initial Infection before it begins to transform you.
A vaguely pleasant shiver passes through you as the Infection gets to work, and you feel a sense of what you can only call compression before the kitchen seems to grow around you. Your power helpfully informs you that not only have you lost five inches in height when it finishes, but the rest of your body has shrunk proportionately, leaving you decidedly on the petite side. It could be worse, your actual build is unchanged, so you still look clearly like a teenager, and you're pretty sure you won't shrink further (unless you get the trait you dodged earlier when the level of Infection in your body increases), but it's still jarring and rather annoying to suddenly have Missy's eyes level with yours, and to actually have to look up slightly to meet Dinah's eyes. The Infection isn't done however, and you feel a trait settle into your body before warmth grows along your back, reaching almost burning hot before something seems to burst out and it settles down to two faint lines of heat running the length of your back, centred over your shoulder blades and leaving you with the feeling of two "phantom" appendages. It's dark enough outside now the kitchen windows make a serviceable mirror, and in them you can see the top half of your new wings, outlining the costume ones in a faint, sparkling glow. Aware everyone is staring at you now, but not quite wanting to deal with it just yet, you fumble with the harness for the artificial wings and set them aside before considering your reflection again. Annoyingly, you're now not quite tall enough to see your whole torso clearly over the counters, but a moment of concentration lets you activate the beneficial part of your new trait, smoothly floating a foot or so into the air so you can see the full spread of the wings. They're shaped more or less like butterfly wings, with the tops a little above your shoulders and the bottoms a little below your hips, and when your spread them as wide as they can go they reach about half a foot either side of your body. They seem to be made of soft, pastel-coloured light and glitter, forming ever-shifting patterns, and there's no solidarity to them at all. When you experimentally wave a hand through one you feel nothing but a faint heat, though your hand is left covered in sparkling dust, which disappears after a few seconds. They're also not connected to your floating at all, just decorative, and you can even furl them up completely so that they're almost invisible without impacting your movements (though keeping them like that is uncomfortable, like holding a stretch). They're a little bright and eye-catching for your taste, but not bad, as such. Certainly, you can put up with them, and they're less annoying the being shrunk. The other change, the trait that lets you float it...well, the floating is cool, if not very strong, but you're a little worried about the other effect. You don't think the mental effects are too drastic, especially combined with the Identity Resilience trait from your strain, but you're not sure if you'll actually be able to notice the changes or not, and that thought is a little unnerving. You'll have to warn the other what to look out for, thought what you'll do if they notice anything and you don't-.
"Ames? You okay?" Vicky's voice interrupts your musing, and you turn gently in the air to see your sister hovering behind you.
"I...pretty much? Could have done without the shrinking, but I don't think it will happen again, so I can deal." You say after a moment's thought, landing and prompting her to do the same. Your reduction in height has put your sister's breasts exactly at eye level, and you have just enough time to time to notice this before she pulls you into a hug, saying something encouraging you're too distracted by finding your head buried in her cleavage to pay attention too. Most of you wants to enjoy this surprising benefit to your new height as long as possible., but the traitorous brain cells in charge of breathing hijack an arm to smack Vicky on the shoulder until she lets you go.
"Oops, sorry sis, didn't realise quite how titchy you'd gotten." She says shortly after, somehow managing to combine genuine apology and sisterly teasing in one sentence, apparently assuming you're red-faced and panting solely due to lack of oxygen. You scowl slightly and decide not to correct her.
"Taylor told me you all only woke up this morning, but I have to admit I hadn't quite twigged that that meant you looked like you do because you hadn't changed, not because you got lucky in how you did." Annette says, giving a large pot one final stir before placing a lid on it and turning up the heat. "Dinner will be about fifteen minutes, do you want to change first? Not that the clothes you've got on aren't fine if you like them, but you might want to put on something else to relax in?"
"We've...not really got anything else to change into, Mrs Hebert." Vicky says after a moment where she clearly takes inventory in her head. "We've technically got some stuff we could wear, but spending the evening in colour-coded fetish outfits probably wouldn't be that relaxing, even if they are little girl themed rather than anything more exotic."
"Please dear, call me Annette, and while with the right attitude and company, even very weird outfits can be relaxing, I take your meaning. We've got some clothes upstairs you can borrow in that case. The Dockworker's find a lot of salvage, and Danni and I have been a touch pack rat-ish about collecting stuff no one else wants. Most of it someone finds a use for sooner or later, but we've got a fair amount of un-enhanced clothes." Annette says with a smile, and after you all accept her offer, leads you upstairs to a small room full of long trunks. "Right-hand side is girls clothes. You can use either room to the side of this to change, they're just storage, or the bathroom is down the hall." She says, waving you in and heading back downstairs.
The trunks are absolutely packed with clothes, apparently sorted by age, though other than size you're not sure what prompted Vicky to say so before she and Missy started digging through the fifth trunk in, lifting various things out to look more closely at them. Dinah is happily digging through the third trunk while Taylor, after several moments of indecision, goes to the fourth trunk, and you decide to join her.
"Are you sure you want this trunk, Amy? The stuff in here is a lot more...kiddie looking...than the stuff in the fifth trunk." The girl who is now nearly a foot taller than you says.
"Well, I don't really care what I wear, but I assume you're at this one for a reason. Maybe because you'd have been wearing clothes like this last time your mum remembers seeing you, or what she said about having her little girl back for the night?" Taylor nods, pinking slightly, in response to your suggestions. "Then I want you to pick me out something in the same sort of age range as what you decide on. It won't bother me, and it might make it less...embarrassing? For you?" Taylor protests half-heartedly, but agrees in the end and digs out clothes for you both, consisting of two t-shirts that each have a different pastel coloured pony on them, two pairs of denim shortalls with little flowers sown on the legs and matching cotton bra and panty sets featuring the symbols of famous Protectorate heroes.
"Something like this was my favourite outfit when I was ten or so." Taylor mutters, slightly defensively, to no one in particular, and you smile and assure her it's fine as you leave the room to change.
Getting changed takes you a while, and you find yourself feeling a little chilly in just the overalls and shirt, so you add the nerdy vest back on top. When you emerge into the hallway everyone else is already there and dressed in their clothes for tonight. Vicky's wearing a pink hoody a pair of tracksuit bottoms, her favourite sort of lounging around clothes, while Missy's wearing jeans and a band t-shirt you don't recognise and Dinah's dressed in a rather adorable lion onesie. Taylor, of course, is in the twin of your outfit, and you suppose it does make her look a little younger, especially since her hair has been pulled into pigtails on either side of her head (you're not sure of the tiara still nestled in her dark hair makes her look older or younger, but it certainly looks nice, if a bit odd combined with pigtails).
"Ames! You look...well, honestly, between the outfit and the shrinking you look about ten, but at least a very cute ten. Do you want me to put your hair in pigtails to match Taylor's?" Vicky calls when she sees you, hardly waiting for you to say yes before coming over and rearranging your hair with the aid of a couple of bobbles. The end result doesn't look as nice as Taylor's pigtails, since your hair is shorter and much frizzier, but they're cute enough, you guess.
The Hebert adults make various approving comments about your outfits when your return to the kitchen, and Danni actually tears up slightly at the sight of Taylor, her clothes apparently bringing back good memories, but you also notice them treating you slightly differently. Or at least you, Taylor and Dinah, there doesn't seem to be any difference in how they act towards your sister or Missy. Annette's behaviour changes most obviously, but you can't put your finger on what it means until she's chivvying the three of you to wash your hands before dinner and it finally clicks that her behaviour towards Dinah is closer to that of someone dealing with a six year old than a twelve year old. It's not clear how much of it is the younger girl's natural personality and how much is the effects of her Infection, but she takes the childish treatment happily, and even seems to be playing along at some points. Annette's attitude towards you and Taylor is less drastically different, but you can spot how it's changed once you know what you're looking for. You're pretty sure that she'd stop treating you like a ten year old if you asked, but you have to admit you don't actually mind it. Her attitude is caring and slightly maternal without being pushy. Nothing like Carol ever acted, even towards Vicky, but it reminds you of how Aunt Sarah acted when you got to stay over at your cousin's house when you were younger, and you have to admit it's rather nice. Enough so that if you had an idea of how to act ten, or at least slightly younger but not childish, you'd probably play along like Dinah is. Taylor seems not quite sure how to react to her parent's behaviour, but a whispered conversation in the hall confirms that she doesn't mind it, she's just not sure how to behave in response either.
Danni asks Taylor to set the table for dinner before the two of you can decide what to do, and you go along to help, setting your and Taylor's places with slightly childish crockery for reasons that are part impish impulse, part necessity. The Hebert's collection of plates and such is rather mismatched, and they only seem to have six porcelain plates, someone was going to end up eating off a colourfully patterned plastic plate regardless, so the two of you might as well keep matching. There are enough regular knives and forks that you don't have to set your places with the adult-sized but childishly decorated ones you spot in the back of the cutlery draw, but you do it anyway, just to match the plates.
Dinner is some kind of fish stew with rice, and Danni apologises for having nothing but water to drink with it. Not that they don't have other drinks, but they're all alcoholic, and apparently mostly brewed in various stills on the compound. The stew is excellent, and conversation over the meal quickly turns in to you all taking turns to tell the story of your day, each of you telling a little bit at a time before going back to eating. Other than a few slight winces from Danni every time Taylor fighting is mentioned, the older Heberts are a eager and impressed audience, and your tale lasts a little longer than the stew does, even with everyone taking extra portions.
After the table is cleared, Annette waves off assistance doing the washing up and sends you to the living room to decide what to do next, Danni coming along briefly to offer to take anyone who's interested on a tour of the compound or to the converted warehouse that serves as the social club for the Dockworkers and those of their families that have made it to the compound, then returns to the kitchen to insist on helping with the washing up. She's gone for about two minutes, just long enough for you to start tossing ideas of what to do with the evening around before returning, shuffling in place on all eight tentacles, with what looks like nervousness, or possibly embarrassment.
"So, girls, I have a...slightly odd offer." The octopus woman says, not quite meeting anyone's eyes. "Part of what the Infection has done to me means I always lactate, and the milk has unusual but beneficial properties, generally making people a little stronger, or more perceptive, or things like that."
"Dad, I can hear you not wanting to say something out loud. What's the catch?" Taylor interjects, fixing her transformed father with a look.
"Ah, well, two things. First, the beneficial changes are permanent, but there can be some side effects. About half the time maybe? One of them is people sometimes transform more in the ways they already were, which I suppose isn't temporary, but the other two are. People sometimes get younger, physically or in their heads, after drinking it. Not for long, a day at most, and almost always far less than that. How much younger seems a bit random, though."
"And the second thing?" Taylor says, cutting off Danni as she starts to ramble slightly.
"Yes. That. Well, um, you need to... The milk has to be... It, ah, only has unusual effects if drunk directly from, ah, my breasts. So, ah, does anyone want some?" Danni ask, nervously, but with a slight hopeful tinge underneath. "I'll just have to pump it and dump it, otherwise. Annette says it's no good for baking or anything."
The silence that follows is so absolute you half expect to hear crickets start chirping, or for a tumbleweed to blow across the centre of the living room. After several long moments where you join in the general shocked staring, you manage to gather your wits enough to give your answer.
Drinking Danni's milk has a 30% chance of causing a minor permanent stat increase, a 40% chance of causing a moderate permanent stat increase, a 20% of causing a major permanent stat increase and a 10% chance of causing a positive trait to develop. There is also a 50% chance of one of the following side effects: 25% chance of temporary (3-12hrs) mental regression by up to 12 years (min age 2), 35% chance of temporary (6-24hrs) physical regression by up to 12 years (min age 2), 35% chance of existing Infection advancing, 5% chance of developing trait with childish or infantile effects. Does anyone drink some? (Pick 2):
[Milk] Amy
[Milk] Vicky
[Milk] Missy
[Milk] Taylor
[Milk] Dinah
[Milk] No one 1
[Milk] No one 2
QM: No side effect results will directly alter stats or prevent the drinker from doing any action tonight, though it may change the odds of certain results.
In addition to achieving goals, such as restoring HUM, increasing Bonds or gaining information, actions during evening downtime impact Mood and Stress the next day, from a baseline of neutral Mood and low Stress. Due to the circumstances they party is spending the night in, they will have a to Mood and a - to Stress to start with. Due to the values they are finishing the day on, they will have an additional two 's to Mood and -'s to Stress. (Basline for everyone Mood and --Stress)
This vote is only for the first part of the downtime, there will be at least three more actions possible for everyone after this before people go to sleep, with different actions available. (Pick two per character, multiple characters may take the same action):
Infection Analysis - Check people's Infections and re-roll transformations if desired. Will examine Missy, Taylor, Dinah, Annette and Danni. Amy only, cannot be combined with Compound Tour or Dockworker Socialisation, -Mood/Stress.
Compound Tour - Danni has offered to show people who are interested around the compound so they can see how things are for the Dockworker's these days, but it will have to happen either now or in the morning. Not because it'll get too dark or anything, but because the nightshift will be starting soon-ish, and things will get too busy for a tour in many parts of the compound. Gain information about Dockworkers, -Mood/Stress, this vote only.
Dockworker Socialisation - The Dockworker's have converted a warehouse into a combination bar/social club, spending sometime there might be a good way to relax and get a better idea of what they're like and up to. Gain information about Dockworkers, possibly other information, variable but likely positive effect on Mood and Stress, chance of shenanigans based on how old takers are dressed, this vote or the next one only.
Question Annette - Question Annette further about her miraculous return to life. Gain information, no Mood/Stress effects but 80% chance of questioners increasing their interest in Ageplay and for Amy and Taylor only, 40% chance they will be convinced to change into a younger-looking outfit and act more childishly for the evening.
Question Danni - Question Danni about what's happened since F-Day and what the Dockworkers are up to. Gain information, --Mood/Stress
Washing Time - Work with Annette to wash your various clothes in a large tub. It will be hard work, but you'll have clean clothes at the end of it, including the Filthy Jersey. --Mood/Stress, except Taylor, who will gain Mood/-Stress but has a 55% chance of increasing her interest in Ageplay and a 15% chance of adopting a more childish persona for the evening.
Study Map - Examine one of the maps you've found. Treasure Maps provide locations to advance their quests, Territory Map provides Dinah FAV and improves knowledge of the city. -Mood/Stress, Taylor may not take.
Playroom Search - The older Hebert's slightly compulsive collection of things since F-Day means the playroom of their cottage is absolutely full of toys and neither of them are entirely sure what's in there anymore. It might be fun to have a poke around and see what there is to find. Mood/-Stress, random finds of toys with various effects, chance of shenanigans.
Playtime - Play with the easily accessible toys in the playroom, mostly dolls and action figures. Mood/--Stress, 25% chance of increased interest in Ageplay for everyone bar Dinah, 85% chance of small HUM increase for both if two people take option.
[Amy]
[Vicky]
[Missy]
[Taylor]
[Dinah]
QM: Things like the board games and the spa will be available in a later vote for group activities.
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Last edited: Dec 7, 2020
Aug 26, 2020 ReportLike QuoteReply
ava2607, bearblue, Annatar and 96 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 1, Part 13 (Evening)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
Spoiler: Rolls
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls
"Is it alright if I use my powers to examine you while we do this?" You ask, more to stall then because you don't know the answer. Whatever you were expecting to happen when you and Taylor accepted Danni's offer, for the octopus-woman to simply move further into the room, lower herself down on her tentacles, open her shirt and bra to bare her big, blue-tinged breasts and beckon the two of you over wasn't it.
"Of course it is dear." Danni responds maternally, with an encouraging smile.
She doesn't say or do anything to rush you, but Taylor, who practically darted over when asked and is now seated on one of her father's stretched out tentacles, gives you a look that pleads for you not to leave her alone in doing this. Which given you said yes in large part to nudge her into doing so when you realised she wanted to but wasn't, for whatever reason, is fair enough, so you force yourself to stop stalling and take a seat of your own on another tentacle. It's rather embarrassing that it's apparently going to happen in front of the others, but Danni looks so serene about things you can't bring yourself to suggest moving. It's not like the others wouldn't know what was happening if you left the room and it's her house, so if she wants to breastfeed in the living room in front of guests, objecting feels...impolite. Even if you are one of the ones being nursed.
Once you're seated, Danni places a gentle hand on your back, then slowly adjusts her tentacles and shifts your position until your mouth is inches away from one of her nipples, the breast it's attached to filling most of your vision. You'd expected the act of drinking Danni's milk to be awkward, forced and uncomfortable, but now that you're actually in position to do so, leaning forward, closing your lips around the offered nipple and sucking gently is almost instinctive. You're aware of Taylor doing the same next to you, and the thought of how the scene must look, two teenage girls sucking on a woman's breasts like oversized babies, brings a heated flush of shame to your cheeks, and you almost pull away, but then the first drops of milk hit your tongue. It's warm and wonderful, with a rich taste you can't place, but makes you think of a mother's love, of understanding and compassion and gentle hugs. It's wonderful, and you find all your worries and embarrassment fading away as you drink hungrily, relaxing into a state of contented bliss where nothing matters but the tasty milk filling your mouth and belly and the warm, comforting presence providing it.
You're shifted around slightly a couple of times as you drink, and you hear the sounds of quiet conversation going on, but ignoring both in favour of enjoying this simple, comforting experience is easy. The flow of information you power generates due to the skin contact between you and Danni can't be dismissed so easily, but it's less insistent and intrusive than it could be, facts about the motherly woman's Infection slowly and steadily assembling themselves in your head. It's a mutated strain, which seems to push its Infected to the role of a leader/mother figure in addition to turning them into a magical octopus woman as the base strain does. In addition to Traits that make them better able to lead and boss other Sea Witches around, and the Trait that lets Danni make the yummy milk you're drinking, there's a bunch that have to do with getting pregnant and having babies quicker and more easily, and even one weird one that lets her suck adults into her womb and slowly turn them into babies while stealing their skills and strength and knowledge and stuff. And there's the Trait which makes Danni look all pretty and mummy looking, and the one that lets her teach kids better and have them understand how good a mummy she is.
Basically Mrs Danni's Infection makes her a really good mummy, and she's clearly a nice mummy as well, since she's willing to share being a mummy to Taylor. You're not sure if you mean sharing being a mummy by mummying you as well as Taylor or sharing Taylor with you while being a mummy to her instead of hiding her away, but either way it's nice and you're glad she's doing it, and glad Mrs Annette seems to want to do the same thing. It's a little sad Mrs Annette isn't likely to do it by giving you more yummy milk, but only a little. Between the din-dins they made for you and the milk you've had now, you're pretty full, and Mrs Danni will have more milk by bed time if you're hungry again by then.
You haven't missed what the Infection in the milk has been doing to you while you drank it, your powers could see it happening and it's been making you think younger, not think stupid, but it didn't worry you more than sucking on Mrs Danni's boobie and getting milk made you feel good when it was happening and now it's almost done you know you were totally clever not to worry. It's made your willpower much betterer for good and put a bunch of your big girl brain away until morning, so you're five in your head now rather than fifteen. It's a super good swap, since you haven't forgotten-forgotten anything, you just don't know now. So you won't think about a bunch of boring and nasty stuff tonight, and the sleepover will be a lot more fun. 'specially since your hand ended up touching Taylor's and you can tell the milk did the same thing to her, so the two of you can just have fun with her mummies and the others and not worry about looking silly or whatever made the two of you too worried to have fun properly earlier.
You could keep happily drinking Mrs Danni's milk for ages and ages, but soon after your head finishes changing there's no more coming, and even sucking harder doesn't help, or making unhappy noises, so you open your eyes and make a sad face up at Mrs Danni. She smiles nicely back, but that doesn't make there be any more milk.
"All done sweetheart?" She asks warmly, and you pull your head off her boobie to nod grumpily and pout.
"Don't wanna be. You milk's super nice." You say, and it's funny-weird to hear your voice still be a big girl's 'cause your head expects it to be little, even through you know your body didn't change.
"Unfortunately that's all the milk I've got for now." Danni responds, patting you softly on the back. "Other than that, how do you feel? Your body's not changed, but has anything happened in your head?"
"Yep! My will's lots and lots stronger and for the next nine hours I is this many years old." You smile brightly and hold up a hand with all the fingers and thumb sticking out. You could just say, but this is more fun. "Taylor too! My powers can tell." You pretend to whisper the last part, like it's a secret, then giggle.
"Well, I hope she's as happy about it as you are." Mrs Danni says, looking down at her daughter, who's still sucking happily on her other boobie.
You feel jealous for a second that Taylor's still got milk to drink, but then you're distracted by Mrs Danni helping you get off her tentacle. You wobble a bit at first when you stand, 'cause you head says you body should be much smaller than it is, even with the Infection having shrunk you, but Mrs Danni's tentacles stop you from falling over before you get it right, and then you turn and hug her.
"Thank you for the milk, Mrs Danni. You is the nicest mummy-daddy and I is glad you're Taylor's." You say, and Mrs Danni says thank you and makes a funny face, but then Taylor makes an unhappy noise, and pulls away from her boobie with a pop, so you move back so Taylor can have her mummy-daddy's attention to herself.
"Ames? Are you sure you're alright?" Your big sister's voice asks, and you turn to see her looking worried, her doggy ears all droopy, and Missy looking worried behind her, while behind her Dinah looks curious.
"I is great! Can I have hugs, Vicky?" You answer, smiling big to show her you mean it.
"Uh...sure?" She says, in a funny voice.
"Yay!" You run over and wrap yourself around her, your bestist sister's super strength meaning that she can easily hold you up like a proper five year old even though you is big girl sized.
"Love you, Vicky. You is the best big sister." You sigh happily after a minute. This is really nice - you can just enjoy cuddles and knowing you sister loves without sticky big girl feelings making you feel icky.
"Aww. Love you too, Amy. Err, this will wear off, right?" Your beautiful big sister says, sounding happy, then worried, and looking over at Mrs Danni.
"I already said." You pout. "I be back to having a big girl head by the morning."
"Just making sure. Having you back to being my baby sister for the night is fine, but longer would be messy. Err, speaking of, shouldn't we be getting you into a diaper? Before there are any accidents?"
"Vicky!" You scowl and smack her shoulder gently. "I is five, not a baby. I can make it to the potty like a big girl."
"Sorry, sorry. I don't know how potty trained five year olds usually are." Vicky doesn't sound all that sorry, and her waggy tail says she's probably not, but after scowling for a bit longer you forgive her anyway and cuddle in close again.
"What do you want to do next, Taylor?" Mrs Danni says after you've been cuddling for a minute or so, more loudly than she'd been talking before. You twist in Vicky's arms to see she's standing up, Taylor standing next to her sucking her thumb and looking really happy. "I'm taking Vicky to see the compound, and Missy's going to the social club, do you want to come with? Or stay here with Mommy and Dinah?"
"Stay wi' Mummy." Taylor mumbles round her thumb.
"I thought you might. What about you, Amy? Do you want to stay in the cottage or go somewhere else?" Mrs Danni smiles over at you as she asks.
You think about Mrs Danni's question for a minute. You want to spend time with Vicky, but walking round the compound sounds boring, and going with Missy means people you don't know who'd expect you to be a big girl and that wouldn't be fun either. But if you stay here you can look at Mrs Annette's Infection, and Dinah's, and that will be fun, 'cause Infections are cool and looking at new ones makes your power give you fun happy feelings. And you, Taylor and Dinah will have lots of fun playing, 'cause you all don't care about acting big, so you can just have fun.
"I stay here too." You say, wriggling to tell Vicky you want to be let down, but she doesn't seem to notice no matter how much you wiggle, just shifts her grip, but luckily she, and Mrs Danni and Missy start getting ready to leave soon after and she puts you down then.
"Um, Missy?" Taylor asks nervously as they get ready, actually stopping sucking her thumb to do so. "When you come back, can you be my big sister again for a bit? Like you were in the dream book? You don't have to if you don't wana, but you were, um, really good at it in the book."
"I... Sure, when I come back I'll be your big sister for the whole evening if you want, Taylor."
Missy looks really surprised by the question at first, then smiles really big and answers, making Taylor smile back and step forward to hug her. It looks a bit funny 'cause Taylor's so much taller than Missy, but you're glad she's got a big sister like you've got Vicky, and you're sure Missy will be a really good one.
"Aw, why does no one want me to be their big sister?" Dinah asks, with a frown you can tell is totally fake even before she starts giggling and puts her arms round your and Taylor's shoulders with a big grin. Well, your shoulders. Taylor's are way too high for her to reach, so she just puts an arm around her waist. "Have fun exploring, you two. I'm fine being the biggest kid in the little si-kids club for tonight."
"Be good for your Mummy, okay Taylor? I'll be back in an hour or so." Mrs Danni says as she puts a big, heavy looking coat on and passes coats to Vicky and Missy.
"I will Daddy. Love you." Taylor says round her thumb, then darts in for one last hug off her mummy-daddy, and you hug Vicky, and both of you hug Missy, who makes a funny squeaky surprised noise, and then the two of you and Dinah stand in the door and wave as the others head off into the dark night outside.
Once they're gone and Dinah's shut the door, Taylor announces she's going to find her mummy, and you follow since you want to see Mrs Annette's Infection with your powers. Mrs Annette's still in the kitchen doing something with the cupboards but looks smiles widely, showing off her four extra sharp teeth, when she hears the three of you come in.
"Mummy! I little again!" Taylor calls, running over for a hug.
"I heard! It's a good thing I'm as strong as I am now, because my Little Owl back and she's so big!" Mrs Annette turns the hug into easily lifting Taylor even though she's big girl sized, then tosses her air and catches her, making her giggle.
"What do you want to do now, Little Owl? Mummy has some chores to do, but we've got lots of toys in the playroom for you to play with." Mrs Annette says after several tosses as she puts Taylor down.
"I help Mummy wi' chores." Taylor answers firmly, sucking her thumb again now that she doesn't need both hands to hug her mummy.
"Are you sure? Mummy has to wash clothes and it will be hard work, since she doesn't have a washing machine." Mrs Annette asks, in a nice voice.
"I sure. Missed Mummy. Wanna spend time wi' Mummy again." Taylor says, nodding firmly.
"Okay Taylor." Mrs Annette says, looking a little sad before smiling again. "In that case, since I've got a helper, I'll wash all the clothes you and your friends found today now as well. You can help me get them in a minute, but let me get Amy and Dinah sorted in the playroom first."
"Actually Mrs Hebert, can I stay in the kitchen for a bit?" Dinah asks shyly. "I want finish looking over one of the maps we found before I play, and the table would be a good place for it. Plus there are less distractions here."
"Oh? What's so interesting about this map?" Mrs Annette asks lightly, smiling nicely to show she doesn't mind Dinah's question.
"It shows the city and what groups control which territory. I think it will help my power make predictions about the how control of the city will change and if places will be safe to visit. If I look at it now, I will not be wondering about it while I am playing." Dinah replies, going over to where your group's bags are still at the side of the kitchen to get the map out and show it to Mrs Annette.
"Well, far be it for me to encourage someone not to do their homework before playing." Mrs Annette says, now with a really nice smile. "Of course you can, dear. And you, Amy? Do you want to go to the playroom now, or is there something else you'd rather do?"
"Wanna look at Infection's with my powers." You answer quickly. The playroom sounds fun, but you don't want to go there alone. "You and Dinah's and maybe Taylor's just to make sure it still the same."
"Well, in that case, why don't you stay here in the kitchen and look at Dinah's while Taylor and I get all the washing, then you can look at ours while we do the washing?" Mrs Annette suggest, and you nod, so she takes Taylor's hand and leaves the room while Dinah sits on one of the chairs round the table and spreads the map out.
Dinah's lion onesie has cute paws over her hands and hooves and zips right up at the front so it's really hard to find a way to touch her skin without getting in her way while she looks at the map, until she pulls the hood down and tells you to put your hand on the back of her neck. You use your new floaty trick to sit in the air next to her, even though you're still just tall enough to reach, 'cause floating is more fun than stretching.
Your power tells you lots about Dinah's sheepie Infection, and you tell Dinah the interesting bits while she studies the map. Like that it's got a bit that will turn bits of her body into a sheepies body, but also two bits that means it's only going to change her body from hips down, except maybe to give her horns and cute sheepie ears. It's a got a bit that will make her hair grow fast, and any wool she gets too, and a bit that will let her ram things with her horns when she gets them, and a bit to turn her wool into a big fluffy ball to keep her safe, which are all nice and fun. There are also bits to make her shyer and more of a follower, which aren't so fun, but Dinah doesn't seem to mind them much. You guess she's already kind of a shy follower, so she doesn't care much.
You're just finished with Dinah's sheepie Infection and saying thank you when her little cheerleader one suddenly starts doing things. You powers can't do anything to stop it, but you get a really good look at what it does. First it makes one of her arms more in shape. Not like, big muscles or anything, but about what Missy's arms are like, when before it was the arm of someone who doesn't do a lot of sport or train a lot. Then it dumps a whole bunch more Traits on to her. The one she has already that makes people not be icky-sexy to her while she's little gets stronger, and the one that will make her a super athlete gets loads stronger, and you think both of those are as strong as they can get now. And she gets two new Traits as well. One will make her cuter and charminger over time, and could have made her younger, or even a little older, but doesn't, and the other one is the one that could have made her end up lots younger, but it won't, it'll just make her ten. Her Infection gets started on that right away, and your hand ends up in her hair 'cause she shrinks so fast when it makes her whole body like it was when she was just eleven again. She must have grown a lot in that year, 'cause when the two of you check afterwards, she's gone from taller than you to a bit shorter than you. She makes a frowny face about being the shortest of you all now, but says she doesn't care not about getting younger other than that, 'specially since you tell her she'll only get ten at youngest.
You're done with Dinah's Infections now, and she's happy to go back to the map after you help her move her chair a bit closer, so you go into the room past the kitchen where Mrs Annette and Taylor went earlier. It's really warm and it's got a stone floor and a big wooden tub full of soapy water and clothes in the middle of it, and Mrs Annette and Taylor are standing next to it, Taylor holding a big shirt up while her mummy runs her hands down it and makes all the water fall off it and back into the tub.
"Hi Mrs Annette! I done with looking at Dinah's Infection, can I look at yours now?" You ask as you run over to them.
"If you'd like dear. I need both my hands free though, will that be a problem?" Mrs Annette answers, waving a hand at the tub and making the water spin round and round.
"Nu-huh. I float and touch your neck like with Dinah." You say, lifting a bit off the ground to show what you mean.
"Then feel free."
You have to float up a lot, 'cause Mrs Annette is tall and standing, but it's not hard, so you do it and put your hand on the side of her neck. But you have ask another question before you start.
"Why you got a binky, Taylor?" You friend's got a big pink binky with a pretty crown on in her mouth which she's sucking on, but you didn't see it until just now.
Taylor goes a little pink and says something, but you can't tell what it is 'cause of the binky. Mrs Annette speaks before you can ask her again though.
"Things kept slipping because she was trying to hold them and suck her thumb at the same time and she couldn't stop doing it no matter how hard she tried, so I gave her that to occupy her mouth while we worked. Of course, she seems to like it enough that I wouldn't be surprised if she keeps it after we're done."
"Don't worry Taylor, it fine if you like the binky." You say as she gets pinker, wanting her to feel better. "You and I have little girl heads tonight, so it okay if we be little." You can't tell what she says back, but she smiles big behind the binky, so you smile back before starting to look at Mrs Annette's Infection.
Mrs Annette has a mutant leader Infection like Mrs Danni, but hers is for vampire pirates, not sea witches. It makes her be a vampire and a pirate, obviously, but hers is better than the normal one 'cause she can still eat normal people food, and she doesn't have small fishy bits like the normal ones do. You ask and being a vampire doesn't stop her doing stuff during the day, but Mrs Annette's not sure if that's just 'cause it's always so foggy now. The stuff Mrs Annette is doing with the water something anyone with the Trait that lets you learn magic stuff could do, but her kind of Infection does have a bit that makes water stuff stronger. She's also really good at leading, and at getting people to do things, and you're glad she's nice, 'cause she could be really scary if she wasn't .
You check Taylor when you're done with Mrs Annette, and it's good you did, 'cause she's got a new Infection added to the one she had before, and it's a super cool one, 'cause now she's going to be a Magical Girl Pretty Princess! The new Infection's got bits that will make her even prettier, and make her mind tougher, and be a defender of love and justice, and would let her grow faster and user her powers better if she didn't have that already. It's also got the same bit Mrs Annette and Mrs Danni's Infections have that lets them learn to do magic stuff, which will be really fun when she gets it, and an even more fun one that will let Taylor change between having bits of different Infections active when she gets it and has more than one Infection, which your power feels really excited to see happen. It's also got a much less fun bit that would make really bad things happen if Taylor lost a fight, but as long as she's with you all that won't matter, 'cause you've got Vicky so you won't lose any fights.
Taylor's Infection has also changed her body more, so now one of her hands and arms have smooth skin and nice looks all the time, and her legs are even more pretty then they were, and even longer, which you hadn't noticed 'cause you were floating and she was already loads taller than you even before you shrunk, but now she's even taller than Vicky. She's also got three Traits now, one of them the one that will make her want to fight for love and justice, one that will make her look prettier and more princessy faster and keep her looking like that even without the Infection she's got, and the last one means if she dresses like a princess or a magical girl, the stuff the Infection puts in clothes to make them make you stronger and stuff will work even better for her. It'll also make her more uncomfortable if she's outside and nakey, but Taylor wouldn't want to do that anyway. The Infection's also done a funny thing, where the new Infection wants to give Taylor a wee-wee, but it can't, 'cause the old one says what gets changed and it says no changing Taylor's private parts. You tell Taylor about the Traits and most of what the new Infection does, but not about the wee-wee bit, 'cause it'd be embarrassing in front of her mummy and it won't do anything, so it can wait until the morning when you both have big girl heads again for her to say if she wants it changing or not.
While you're looking at their Infections and they're washing clothes, Mrs Annette and Taylor talk lots, Mrs Annette hearing what Taylor says fine even through the binky. You guess. Mrs Annette could be saying things just 'cause, not 'cause Taylor of what Taylor says, since you can't tell, but you don't think so. You try not to listen to most of it, 'cause it's mummy-daughter talk and getting upset since Taylor's got a nice mummy and you've got a Carol would be silly. Most of the rest is about people you don't know in the Dockworkers and you don't really listen to that either, 'cause it's kind of boring when you don't know who they're talking about. The only bit you do pay attention to is when Taylor asks how Mrs Annette came back even though she went away a long time before F-Day, 'cause you really want to know too (If she came back, maybe your first mummy did too?), but it turns out Mrs Annette doesn't know at all. She has ideas, but she says they're not ideas for little girls to worry about, so she'll write them down and Taylor can read them when she has a big girl head again.
Mrs Annette and Taylor get a bunch of clothes clean by the time you finish, including the really smelly top you found in the locker room, which turns out to be blue with pink bits under the muck and say Winslow on the back, and now that it's clean you can tell it has a boosting power, but one that boosts random things each day. Taylor gets splashed a lot with water doing it, even though you and Mrs Annette stay dry, so her clothes are soaked by the end of it, with a really big, dark patch on the front of her shortalls that Mrs Annette teases her a bunch about when she notices, until Taylor actually takes her binky out to insist she's not had an accident, and then they both laugh a lot.
The washing's mostly done by the time you're done, so Mrs Annette picks Taylor up and holds her on her hip like she's baby-sized instead of big girl-sized and says they're going to go upstairs and play dress up with all the clothes there, so you and Dinah can either come with or go to the playroom. The playroom sounds more fun than dress up, so you say you'll go there, and Dinah's done with her map, so she says she'll go with you. The front door opens as you're going to the playroom, and Missy comes in with a bit of a frowny face, so you stop while Mrs Annette talks to her.
"You're back early dear. Did something happen?"
"No, just... Me being there was making people uncomfortable. No one was rude or anything, but I could tell, so I left. Bit of a shame, Lacey was there and the group with her were telling me some really funny stories, but half the room was trying to look like they weren't side-eying me, so I decided not to push it." Missy replies as she takes her borrowed coat and boots off.
"Well, that's a shame. We don't get many guests, but I'd hoped people would be more welcoming than that. Still, you being back now is handy. I'm going to take Taylor upstairs for a bit, she needs to change and I thought it might be fun to turn it in to dress up time, but Amy and Dinah aren't interested. But you being back means you can keep any eye on them in the playroom and Taylor and I can have mother-daughter time without me worrying about the other little ones." Mrs Annette says, with a pretty smile at Missy.
Missy makes a funny face and looks between you, Taylor and Dinah for a bit, but says she'd "Be glad to", so you head on to the playroom, which is a big room with a really soft carpet with pretty patterns on and pretty wallpaper with cute animals. It's got bookshelves and cushions and beanbag chairs and two whole walls are have chests which are full of dolls and other toys, plus there's a door which Mrs Annette says leads to a closet with even more toys, so many she says she's not sure what's in there. Once Mrs Annette's told Missy where things are, she leaves with Taylor, making sure she the baby gate the playroom has in place of a door is shut when she does.
Dinah starts look through the chests and the toys there right away, but you want to see what's in the closet first. Mrs Annette said little girls shouldn't go in there alone 'cause it could be dangerous, so you ask Missy to take you, since she's a big girl and good at keeping people safe. Missy smiles a whole lot when you say that for some reason, and keeps doing it as she holds your hand and leads the way into the closet.
The closet's super big inside, and full of boxes and boxes of things all stacked up. You can't get at a lot of things because there are too many things on top of each other to get at easy, even with Missy's powers, and most of what you can get at is just more of the same sort of toys that are in the playroom's chests, but you do find a few cool things as you wander around, like the really nice dollhouse that's taller than you and Missy and has loads and loads and loads of rooms, so it's huge. So huge you and Missy can't move it at all, and Missy says you'll probably need to ask your sister to get it out, 'cause even a bunch of people would have a hard time moving it.
The next cool thing is a big box with no top, full of all sorts of stuffed toys that says "Good Night Stuffies" on the side. When you take one out and hug it you find that it's really soft and huggable, and that it's got some kind of Infection power. There's a note from Mrs Annette stuck to the side of the box that says they make you fall asleep more easily and make sure you sleep a long time with good dreams, so you put the one you've got back quickly, since you don't want to go to bed before you've even had time to play. You do ask Missy if you can take this box out in to the playroom so it's easy to get to later, 'cause having one of them to snuggle when it's bedtime sounds really nice. She looks funny at something on Mrs Annette's note, but says yes, and the two of you carry it out through the windy paths of boxes together.
You get out into the playroom just as Vicky floats over the gate and into the room, so you run over to hug her, ask what she saw and to come move the big dollhouse. What she saw was kind of boring, the Dockworkers doing boat things, and preparing fish and making metal bits for their walls or their cannons, but apparently they've got some really weird statues people make as jokes, of fishy people or giant lizards or strange things with tentacles all around the compound. They had to stop the tour early 'cause Mrs Danni had to go and break up an argument the other Sea Witches were having and it wasn't safe for Vicky to come with, but you're pretty sure your sister didn't mind. She and Missy have a dull grownup conversation as she carries the dollhouse out, which you don't really listen to but is basically the two of them talking a lot to say they both don't think the Dockworkers are hiding anything.
You kind of wanted Vicky to come search the closet with you after the dollhouse is out and in a corner where there's room to play with it but it's not in the way, but she ends up busy looking at all the rooms and saying how cute they look, and you can tell Dinah wants to someone to play dolls with, so you smile at Dinah and pull Missy's hand to go back to the closet. You go a different way inside than before and find a little plastic table with stars and moons and stuff on and a toy crystal ball stuck to the top that lights up when you touch it and you can tell has a cool Infection power that can let you get better at doing things if you use if smart, but it's not quick and works better if there are more people using it, so Missy carries it outside for later.
You go back into the closet again and Missy says she thinks you've looked almost everywhere, but there's one last path through the boxes to try. You follow it for a bit, and you find a huge playpen, with bars taller than you and Missy and maybe taller than Taylor blocking the way. You can easily float up and over them, and Missy grabs the top and does this cool flippy thing to go over them and get inside, so you think it's not really in the way, but then when you get to the other side, Missy can't do her flippy thing to get out again, and after you float down to see if she's okay when she fell, when you try and float over the top of the bars again, you can't, you stop like you've hit a squishy ceiling when your head's just higher than them.
You touch one of the bars and find the playpen's got an active Infection power, which you guess keeps anyone inside from getting out. It might do other things as well, but it's not doing them now, so you can't tell. You can Missy shout as loud as you can, but no one seems to hear you and come get you out, and after a bit your throat starts hurting so you stop. Just sitting inside the playpen and waiting for help seems extra boring for some reason, and there are a bunch of toys inside but they're all baby toys, so you don't really want to play with them. You're about to anyway, 'cause you're that bored already, but then you remember you wanted to look at Missy's Infection, so you ask her if you can do that and she says yes.
She's got a new Infection too, but it's mixed with the one she had and stayed really slow, so it's not done anything to her yet besides make her hair it's new pretty purple colour. The new Infection's not got many bits, but Missy's not happy about two of them when you tell her, since one will make her body look even cuter and more girly and the other will do the same to her clothes. She's also not that happy about the one that will make her age slower, 'cause she's worried it will mean she gets stuck looking like a kid for ages, but she doesn't mind the one that will make her look all gothy at least and she's happy there's a chance she'll get the "learn magic powers" Trait, even if it's a small one.
A funny thing happens as you're finishing looking, though. The Infection in your vest makes you smarter again, even though it stopped doing that when you looked at Mrs Danni, and you feel a little tickle on Infection from the one in the playpen, which makes you a tiny bit more smart and also makes you have a Trait, but one you can tell will wear off after a day. You wouldn't mind to much if it didn't, though, 'cause it's a nice one that makes you get better at everything for a bit if you get food by drinking from someone's boobies rather than eating big kid food, and makes any nice things that milk does more likely to happen.
You start to tell Missy what just happened, but she shushes you, focused on a big plastic box in her hands. You guess she must have got bored of shouting while you were looking at her Infection and grabbed it with her powers for something to play with. You watch as she pushes hard on a star shape and that side of the box goes shimmery and you feel a little rush of Infection make her a tiny bit stronger. Another side of the box flashes and Missy turns it round to look at that side, and you can see what it is now - it's a puzzle box but the puzzles are baby stuff like putting shapes in the right holes. Missy seems to find them really hard though for some reason, and as you watch she makes a bunch of mistakes and then the box makes a loud "Wrong!" buzzing noise and seems to jump out of her hands and pull all its bits back inside so it's just a smooth box. You feel Infection move in Missy as it does, big waves from the box making her body toddler-bad at doing physical things 'till morning and you think doing the same to her brain, and one from the playpen giving her a Trait for a day that'll let her do a special attack by crying but make her cry more as well.
"No! I don't want that! I'm not a cry baby!" Missy shouts, looking like she's about to cry, before you can say anything.
"Missy? You know what Trait you just got?" You ask without thinking, feeling very puzzled.
"Huh? Oh, guess I do. How's that work?" Missy seems surprised, but thinking about it seems make her stop being upset for a second, then she looks sad again. "But that means... Hey, Amy, can you tell if the box really made me all weak and uncoordinated and junk for eleven hours?"
"Um, yes?" You say, knowing she won't be happy to hear it but that lying would be stupid.
Missy looks really sad again, then goes scowly and starts trying to stand up. It doesn't go well. She ends up having to crawl over to the bars and use them to pull herself up, and she's so wobbly she falls down the first few times she lets go of them. You try not to laugh, 'cause it's mean, but the sight of Missy having such a hard time walking is so funny you can't not, 'specially since it's 'cause she got beaten by a baby puzzle box.
"It's not that funny." Missy grumps as she wobbles back over to you. "Besides, I bet you can't do any better with the box."
"Bet I can." You snap back. "But I shouldn't 'cause-"
"Bet you can't." Missy interrupts.
"Can too!" You shout, grabbing the box off the floor.
There's a bunch of spiny wheels on one side of the box, and you turn them a bit before starting. You turn the one that says "3" at the moment so it says "1" instead, 'cause you know that means you'll only have to do three puzzles to be done, which is enough to beat Missy and not have to do loads and loads of puzzles. You put two of the wheels with pictures on back to how Missy had them, so you'll have a puzzle that needs you to be strong, and a puzzle that is about doing things for a long time, but you change the other one so it's about speaking rather than being fast. The you press start, and the box flashes as the first puzzle appears.
You manage to solve all three puzzles and the box opens to reveal a plastic crystal, which flashes and adds a little more to the boosts solving the puzzles gave you, but the puzzles were much harder than you were expecting.
"Amy sowwy Missy." You say, then stop, 'cause your apology came out sounding like your body was a little kid's as well as your head. You look down and you've still got your boobies, so you know you've not got littler, but-
"You only set it to do three. That's easy mode. Bet you can't do it again with more." Missy interrupts your thinking, with a big pout on her face.
"Can too!" You say, frowning at Missy and grabbing the box. The wheels to chose the kinds of puzzles move on their own when you do, and you turn the other wheel to "2", so you can show her!
You solve a puzzle where you have to hit flashing spots quickly, and then one where you have to find the right shapes in the right colours, but then the next side has math puzzles and you get your adding up all wrong and the box makes it buzzer noise again and jumps out of your hands. You feel Infection from the box move in you, doing some things in your body to make it act more toddler-like for a while, but mostly doing things in your head. When you drank Mrs Danni's milk and it made your head little, you could still reach big girl things and do them, but it seemed too hard to bother with, so you didn't, but the box doesn't do that, it puts a wall round things in your head, so you know they're there but can't use them. Stuff like counting and writing and drawing go away, and numbers and letters get hard to remember, but funnily you still know things like long words and could say them if you really wanted. 'cept you can't for words 'cause both times you played with the box the playpen gave you a Trait, and now you can only talk like a toddler for two whole days.
"Haha, Amy messed up adding two and three!" Missy laughs, and you pout at her. "You must be all baby-brained now, can you even count to five anymore?"
"Amy say Missy no do better." You say instead of trying to count, 'cause you're afraid you'll mess it up and make Missy laugh more.
"Bet I can." Missy says back in a singsong voice.
"Can't." You stick your tongue out too to taunt Missy even more. Getting Missy to play with the box again means she'll get a trait from the playpen again, so it's a bit mean, but she got you to play with the box first and she laughed at you, so she deserves it.
Missy grabs the box in response, and even sets it to "3" to "Show you how a big girl does it". The she gets a numbers puzzle as her first one, and messes it up so quick you almost don't touch her in time to see the box work even though you started moving when she first picked up the box.
"No! No! Me a big girl, big girl! No wanna need diapies! WAHHH!" Missy cries as she knows that's going to happen, already not able to talk right.
You can't not smirk a bit. If it was just the Trait, Missy would just have to be careful about making it to the potty in time for a day, but 'cause she messed up with the box so much she can barely do more than a baby can, so she's totally going to end up having to wear a diaper until the box wears off and probably would even if she got a different Trait.
You were going to be nice and try and help Missy feel better and not call her a baby even though she was the meany who started it, but before you can her crying gets super loud and suddenly Vicky and Mrs Annette run in and things are busy and confusing but you end up sitting outside the playpen next to Taylor while the grownups try and calm Missy down and Dinah switches between looking at the two of you and at Missy. Taylor's wearing a dress with poofy sleeves and lots poofy see-through skirts and pretty patterns on it in lace and shoes with buckles and bright white tights and you kind of wish you could remember fashion things 'cause you want to tell her she looks nice but you don't know what she's meant to look like so what if you say the wrong thing?
"I is a Pirate Princess." Taylor pulls out her binky to say. "And Mummy says the dress doesn't look right without the diaper." You're not sure why the second bit is as important as she made it sound, but looking again her tights do look kinda big there.
"Okay. You is very pretty in you dress, Taylor." You say back. The sound of Missy's crying gets you to add. "Sorry. Missy can't be you big sissy tonight. She messed up the box lots and now she cry baby 'till morning."
"Wh' box?" Taylor asks round her binky, so you start telling her what's happened since Mrs Annette took her upstairs. By the time you get to the playpen, Missy's stopped crying and everyone's listening, but you're a good girl and admit you meant to get Missy to use the box again 'cause she was mean to you.
"That wasn't very nice of you Amy, but being stuck in that playpen makes it hard to be responsible and you confessed even though you didn't have to, so you're forgiven as long as you're nice to Missy for the rest of the night." Mrs Annette says, in a stern but nice voice. "It's odd you got stuck in the first place, though. The playpen should have been full of boxes to stop just that sort of thing. It's quite useful if used carefully, but the side effects are a bit much, so it got put away. Same for the puzzle box. I'm sure that was on the other side of the room, in fact..." Mrs Annette looks confused and a bit worried, then claps the hand not holding Missy loudly against her leg and smiles. "Anyway, what's done is done. What do you girls want to do next?"
Found Toys
Toddler Puzzle Box - A large box made of colourful plastic in several layers, each of which requires the solving of three simple, toddler-level "puzzle", such as putting shapes into the right holes, to open. It may be used by selecting 3 non-pool stats (STA, DEX, STA, INT, PER or CHA) and 1, 2 or 3 layers using wheels on its outer layer, then activating it, causing it to reveal a puzzle requiring one of the chosen stats. Checks for all puzzles are made treating the relevant stat as though it has a value of -10. The first puzzle has a TN of 9, the TN increases by 9 each puzzle and the stat required rotates for each puzzle. Each puzzle solved increases the tested stat by 1, and every 3 puzzle solved increases all selected stats by 1. If the user solves all the puzzles, there are no further effects, but if they fail to solve a puzzle, for the next 3 hours, plus 1 hour for each unsolved puzzle, all the stats they chose are treated as -10 for all checks and their skills/capabilities in them are reduced to a toddler level, with each unsolved puzzle making the reduction greater (0 unsolved puzzles equalling a 5 year old and 3 equalling a 2 year old). Each stat can only be used with the box once per day and it can only increase stats up to 10x the number of puzzles to be solved.
Large Ornate Dollhouse - "Playtime" actions at the Hebert cottage provide an additional Mood/-Stress, the chance of HUM increase becomes 95% and the chance of Ageplay interest increase becomes 30%.
Powerup Playpen - When within this large playpen, people find themselves behaving increasingly childishly, and anything beyond the capabilities of a toddler grows more and more difficult as time passes, topping out at feats that could be achieved by a preschooler requiring very hard checks after 2 hours. Once inside the playpen, external aid is needed to get out again. The childish behaviour persists after leaving for as long as was spent inside and the difficulty increase effect lasts 4x as long as was spent inside. Time spent in the playpen is also very relaxing, applying Mood/-Stress for every 15 minutes spent inside, and if multiple people spend an hour inside playing together they all gain 5 HUM, up to twice a day. Additionally the maximum stat limits on stat-increasing items are removed, effects which trigger on a percentage chance are 25% more likely to happen, timed increases happen 4x as fast and any stat growth is increased by 1, but each use/activation of a stat increasing item will also cause the gain of an infantile Trait for 24 hours, with the duration stacking if the same Trait is gained multiple times. If the duration of Trait ever gets greater than 120 hours, it has a 12% chance each day until it fades of becoming permanent, in which case the duration immediately expires. The level of a stackable Trait only increases by 1 each time it becomes permanent no matter how many temporary copies are stacked.
-Contains toys that if played with for 30 minutes inside it, increase three chosen non-pool stats (STA, DEX, STA, INT, PER or CHA) by 1 (1 from the playpen's effect), up to 4 times a day per person. (For people without the Rapid Development trait, it takes 2 hours instead.)
Good Night Stuffies - A collection of soft and cuddly stuffed toys. Holding one while attempting to fall asleep guaranties you will do so quickly. Anyone holding one while sleeping will get at least 8 hours of peaceful, uninterrupted rest with no nightmares, greatly improving Mood and energy on awakening and greatly reducing Stress. Sleepers will only awake early if the stuffie is removed from their arms, and will otherwise sleep through any disturbance. If awoken early, sleepers may be grumpy, disorientated and bratty for a short time afterwards.
Crystal Ball of Stats - By placing a hand on this plastic "crystal ball" and focusing on a single non-variable stat (STA, DEX, STA, INT, PER or CHA), points in that stat may be stored in chunks of 5 (min 0) in a pool in the ball. Stored points are not counted for checks, but count for the purposes of stat caps. Multiple people can transfer stat points into the pool, but they must all come from the same stat. The size of the pool increases by 1/10 every hour, and points can only be retrieved after the pool has increased by at least 15 points. Points from the increased pool can be taken from the ball, but only 5 additional points per person per day can be taken and a person must have contributed points to retrieve them. The pool will stop increasing in size after any points are retrieved and the pool must be completely emptied (partial points not counting) before more points can be stored. When retrieving stats, if two or more people touch the ball at once, one can allow the others to retrieve 5, 10 or 15 points of "their" stats each (this must be completely voluntary), permanently decreasing their stats and increasing the receiver's.
New Quest: That is Not Dead - Annette Hebert doesn't know how it is that she's (more-or-less) alive again, and the Dockworkers haven't found anything to explain it either, but they're fairly limited in where than can look for answers. There are two things that a more widely travelled group could do to investigate the matter. The first is ask around to see if anyone else who died pre-F-Day has come back. The second is visit Annette's grave and see if her body is still there. Her gravesite is in Brockton Bay's largest cemetery, which is now next to/part of the Coffin District, the undead inhabited part of the central residential area.
Do any of the others use the Toddler Puzzle Box?
[Box] Yes, inside the Powerup Playpen (Will be inside ~2 minutes per 3 puzzles)
-] Who, which Stats and 1, 2 or 3 puzzles per stat?
-] Use the Nerdy Vest and/or Blooming Sunhat for INT, PER or CHA puzzles?
[Box] Yes, but outside the Powerup Playpen
-] Who, which Stats and 1, 2 or 3 puzzles per stat?
-] Use the Nerdy Vest and/or Blooming Sunhat for INT, PER or CHA puzzles?
[Box] No
Does the group make use of the Crystal Ball of Stats tonight?:
[Ball] Yes
-] Which Stat?
-] Who and how many point will they store?
[Ball] No
QM: Next activities will be chosen after this since the effects of the toys could impact what's possible. Current time is around 19:50, so worse case results for the puzzle box will wear off before 08:30 tomorrow.
I need to give more detail about the Dockworkers and the Merchants at some point, but it's not relevant immediately and I can't think of the best way to put it, so it will be a little bit.
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Last edited: Oct 29, 2020
Oct 18, 2020 ReportLike QuoteReply
Annatar, Ralyx, SilentStriker and 77 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 1, Part 14 (Evening to Late Evening)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: This too way too long to be happy with, but I finally am.
If the last update wasn't to your taste, this one probably won't be either. Sorry about that.
Spoiler: Toddler Puzzle Box rolls
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls
Spoiler: Rolls
"Um, can we play board games maybe?" Dinah asks shyly. "We found that big collection of them earlier and I have not been allo-had the opportunity to play them with friends before."
Everyone agrees it sounds like fun so you head out into the playroom and Vicky goes to get them from the kitchen. Mrs Annette whispers something Missy while you're waiting for her to get back, which makes her look really unhappy but nod.
"I still big girl. I walk." Missy says when it looks like Mrs Annette is going to pick her up, and she manages to toddle out of the room with Mrs Annette fairly quickly without falling over, even she has to hold hard on her hand a couple of times
"Vicky? Could you go and get the sunhat with the flowers and the pink lab coat from upstairs please?" Dinah asks once your sister returns with the sack the games are in. "Since we are safe here for the night, I think we should all use the puzzle box to get a boost. If we do two puzzles for each challenge type, the side effects will have worn off by the time we wake up in the morning, so there is no real downside even if we do badly."
"Except the whole 'Skills of a toddler' thing." Vicky responds, looking dubious.
"Well, that is not that bad, is it? Just for the night? It would make playing the board games more fair if nothing else. And if we only did two rounds it would not be as bad as Missy got." Vicky still looks unsure, so Dinah turns to Taylor. "What do you think, Taylor?"
"I happy to use box." Taylor says round her binky. "I already being little girl for mummies tonight, I not mind being a bit littler."
"I...no, not for me, thanks." Vicky says with a shudder. "I'll get the clothes for you, but one of us should avoid getting impaired. What if there's some kind of danger in the night?"
"Two point three three percent chance of any sort of threat overnight." Dinah answers. "But if you really do not want to that is fine. I just thought it would be helpful."
Vicky goes to get the clothes after saying no again, and while she's doing that Taylor and Dinah both try and do the box with it set to the three body things and two layers. The first puzzle Taylor gets is pushing hard on shapes and she can't do it, but she doesn't seem to mind, even though she ends up falling on her butt 'cause her body getting weak surprises her. Dinah gets the same first puzzle, but manages to do it, and the one after, but then she messes up on a doing things fast one. She pouts a bit, but not much, even when she remembers she wanted the boosty vest you're wearing for the mind puzzles as well, and finds taking it off you really hard even with you and Taylor helping. Vicky gives you all a funny look when she comes back with the boosty hat and labcoat to find you all laughing, and more of one when Taylor needs a little help putting all three things on.
Taylor does better on the mind puzzles, doing a full set of three before getting the fourth one wrong, and seems pretty happy as she gives Dinah the boosty clothes. Dinah manages to do a counting puzzle, but not the sounds one that comes after it, which makes her pout again.
"Aww. I wanted do more." She whines a bit, but then smiles and looks really happy. "Cool! I not remember all the stupid grown up talking lessons Mummy and Daddy made me take now! Tonight be much more fun!"
"Well I'm glad you're happy about it dear." Mrs Annette says suddenly for the door of the playroom. "But for the sake of my floors and laundry, I need to check, do you still know how to use the potty like a big girl?
"Um, I still know how to go potty right. But, um, if you don't wanna risk it, I wear a diaper if you say I hafta." Dinah says, going slightly pink and shuffly but not looking away from Mrs Annette.
"No need to go that far." Mrs Annette replies with a little laugh. "Training panties, at most. They'd save me worrying about accidents, and you too. But only if you don't mind. I understand if you'd rather not."
"I...guess I don't mind? Is Dinah's quiet answer, which gets a big smile back from Mrs Annette.
"Amy? How about you, dear?" Mrs Annette asks, making you squeak in surprise. You didn't know she meant you too!
You have to think hard about the right answer to the sudden question. You're still big girl enough not to need training panties and Carol always said big girls shouldn't do little girl things they didn't need, but Mrs Annette is sort of your Mummy for the night and you know from Carol that Mummy asking isn't really asking. You're really not sure what the right answer is, and even though Mrs Annette seems a much nicer Mummy than Carol you don't want to upset her by getting it wrong. You look around for some idea what the right answer is and see Missy slowly walking to reach Taylor without falling over and remember Mrs Annette said you had to be nice to her for the rest of the night. You can't tell by looking what's under her jeans but if Mrs Annette wants you to wear training panties Missy's got to be wearing them or a diaper, right? So staying in big girl panties would kind of be showing off that you did better with the puzzle box and that wouldn't be nice, right? It kinda makes sense and Mrs Annette's looking at you in a funny sort of worried way, so you quickly say you'll wear them too.
Once you say yes Mrs Annette takes you and Dinah out into the hallway to change underwear, and then it gets a little embarrassing. 'cause Dinah can get her sheepie covered training panties on with only a little help to pull the zipper on her onesie down and up again, but between what the box did and you and Taylor getting mixed up working on the Lair earlier, you can't work out how to get out of your shortalls at all and Mrs Annette ends up having to take them off put the pair of fairy print training panties on you herself. You expected them to feel all weird, but they don't, just a little more padded than the panties you were wearing, by the time you're back inside the playroom you only really notice the difference if you think about it.
Back inside, you and Dinah go over to where Missy and Taylor are sitting looking at a bunch of game boxes, while Mrs Annette talks quietly with your sister. When you found the collection of board games earlier they were all fairly hard looking big kid games, and you'd kinda wondered after Dinah asked to play them how well it would go with most of you having very little kid skills at the moment. But the Infection must have thought of that, 'cause the games in the pile look totally different. The boxes are all bright colours and the pictures are of kiddy games, which you think look much more fun they were before. You worry that the others might not think so, but Dinah seems really happy to see them while Vicky smiles and says she bets playing them with you will be a lot of fun when you ask. Missy doesn't seem as happy, but Taylor says something you can't hear through her binky that makes the now purple-haired girl blush a bit, smile and agree to give them a try. Mrs Annette says sadly that she can't play them with 'cause she has work to do, and gives Taylor a hug and a kiss before telling her to be good for Vicky and leaving.
Taylor looks a bit sad about her mummy, leaving, but cheers up quickly when Vicky says Dinah should pick out the first game to play and you and her start telling the brown haired girl about the games in the pile you know. Dinah thinks for a bit, then chooses the pop up pirate game, since all of you can play it at once and it's nice and easy since all you have to do is slide swords into the holes in the barrel. You're not sure what the trick to knowing which hole will make the pirate jump out is, but Vicky laughs and says not to worry when you ask, so you just kinda pick at random. You guess it works, 'cause the game ends up with just you and Missy left, and even though you end up being the one to make the pirate pop up on the last round, it's 'cause there's only one hole left to put a sword in on your turn. Missy got really into the game as it went on, and winning makes her cheer and do a victory dance with an also cheering Taylor. They fall over pretty quickly, but both just laugh about it, so that's fine.
Missy picks the hungry hippo game as the next one, and it's only for four people, but Vicky says she's fine not playing, 'cause super strength doesn't mix well with games like this, and also 'cause she's the only one who can count the marbles quickly to know who won, so it's fairer if she's not playing. All the rest of you boo at that, 'cause you can too count, but Vicky just says you'll see after the first round. It's a lot of fun hitting the button to make your hippo swallow the marbles, but less fun when you try and count how many you got afterwards and it's really hard to keep track of where you are in the row and which number is next at the same time. After you've been trying for a bit Vicky tells you there are thirteen and you're so glad to stop trying you're not even grumpy about her being right. Dinah managed to count hers without help, but she only got seven so she's a bit grumpy anyway, you're not sure if Taylor even tried to count her fifteen, and it's not clear if it's only getting six or thinking six is higher than seven for a second that upsets Missy more, but she actually cries a bit. She doesn't seem really upset, and blames her Cry Baby Trait for crying, but Taylor still gives her a big hug anyway, which makes her really happy.
You play the hippo game a few more times, and then play Candyland, which is a lot of fun, as is the game where you match bits of colourful snakes together. The next game is using nets catch butterflies blown out of an elephant's trunk, which is fun but hard, 'specially since you and Vicky have to remember not to cheat by floating, and so is the game where you have to take the sore tooth out of a crocodiles mouth without making it bite. After a few more different games, Vicky picks a Dr Seuss one. The box has foam fish and cards of challenges in, and all of you 'cept Vicky spend most of the game falling over trying to do silly things like dance while holding a foam fish between your knees. It's all very silly but funny, until trying to do a pose makes Missy's jeans fall down, which means everyone sees the diaper with flowers on that's under them.
Even that could have been funny, but as soon as she realises what's happened Missy starts crying so hard she falls over. Through the tears she keeps saying things like she's "Gotta be a Big Girl" and "Can't be say she baby", and it's really not nice, and even a big Taylor hug and Vicky pulling her jeans back up and saying nice things doesn't help her fell better. You're getting worried that Mrs Annette will need to come and calm her down, but Vicky manages to say the right thing before that happens.
"...it being safest for you to wear a diaper for the night doesn't make you a baby, Missy. It's like...putting bandages over a big cut. It's just the best thing to do in the situation, it's not about you personally. And like bandages, once you've recovered, you can just take it off, throw it away and forget about it."
"Me keep crying and wear stupid diapee. Really no think me big baby?" Missy asks with watery eyes, and you all quickly and loudly agree when Vicky says yes, and that's enough to stop her crying.
Taylor and Missy cuddle for a bit and Dinah starts putting the bits of the Dr Seuss game away, 'cause playing it more won't be fun, and you give Vicky a big smile and hug for calming Missy down before things got bad. Vicky hugs you back and ruffles you hair, and things feel really nice and you're really proud Vicky's your sister for a little while.
"Feel better now Missy?" Vicky asks, and the other girl nods. "Good. And hey, it could have been worse." Everyone else looks at your sister like they're not sure how, but you know the look on her face and that it means she's about to say something she thinks is smart but is actually really dumb, and you can't get your hands free of the hug fast enough to cover her mouth. "I mean, at least your diaper was clean, right?"
Luckily, your huge dumb-dumb of a sister's idea of...comfort? A joke? You don't know, but whatever it is, it doesn't make Missy cry again. Just bend space up a lot so she doesn't have to move to smack Vicky with two of the foam fish until she says sorry.
There a still a few games you haven't played yet, but no one's really interested in playing any of them. Vicky checks in the sack but doesn't find any others. Instead, she finds the big pink spa egg, which makes her grin a lot, her tail wagging hard behind her.
"Hey, since we're pretty done with board games, why don't I give everyone a bit of a makeover and some pampering with this thing?" The look on your sister's face makes you worry how "a bit" is going to go, but you've liked it when she's done spa stuff to you before and the others look interested, so you say it sounds good.
It doesn't take long for your sister to set up a small spa area on top of a big cloth in one corner of the playroom, with a big comfy chair, a table to put things on, and a nice smell coming from the egg, which is opened up and has a small pool of bubbly water in the middle. There's only one Vicky, so she says she'll do you one at a time, starting with Missy, who looks surprised to get to go first but happily toddles over and sits in the chair. The first thing Vicky does is roll the other girl's jeans up high and put the spa in front of her to put her feet in, then your sister starts showing Missy bottles and things while the two talk quietly.
You watch for a bit longer, but it's not very fun, you look for something else to do. Taylor's crawling around looking in the toy boxes, while Dinah's sitting at a red plastic table in a corner. You float over to look and she's got paper and crayons from the pink bag and is making a picture, you think of sheepies in a field? The one she's done is yellow, but it's a bumpy cloud with legs and curly horns, so you're pretty sure it's a sheepie.
"Can Amy colour too Dinah?" You ask, 'cause now that you're seen her doing it you think it will be really fun.
"Sure! The more the funer!" Dinah says, pulling a piece of paper out for you and putting the crayons more in the middle of the table.
There's a funny thing when you sit down, the chairs and table being big enough you seem really little sized and your feet swing way off the ground, even though they weren't big looking at them, and you don't think you got smaller. You're also kinda glad Mrs Annette said you should wear training panties, 'cause even through them and your shortalls the chair feels a bit hard, so it would be worse in normal panties. You move around a bit to get comfy, then look down at the paper, grab a crayon and start drawing.
You start by doing Vicky, 'cause you like doing Vicky, but even being really careful to do the lines nice, colour it in neat and adding her new ears and tail, it doesn't take you as long as it has before, and there's still lots of room on the page, so you start doing the rest of your new friends. You and Dinah don't talk to each other much, but it's fun to sit and draw with her, 'specially when one of you finishes a picture, 'cause you share them then, so you get to see Dinah's drawings of everyone as sheepies, and fairies and puppies and flowers and princesses and show her yours of everyone flying or fighting Sophia's bad kitties or playing the elephant game. Dinah's lines aren't quite as good as yours and she can't colour as neatly, but she's still really good, and she looks really happy when you tell her that. She says your drawings are really nice too, and she has the really good idea of putting you names on the drawing so people know who did them. You have to think a bit to be sure you've got your name right, and it's hard making the letter all the same size, but you manage.
You've just put your name on the last drawing you finished when you hear Vicky calling for Taylor, and look up to see Taylor crawling over to your sister's corner. She's got a dolly, and cuddles it happily once she gets lifted into the chair, smiling so big you can see it behind her binky. Even when Vicky has to take her tights off so her feet and go in the spa and it means everyone can see her diaper, she still just looks happy, and even giggles at whatever Vicky is saying to her. It's nice to see her having so much fun, given how bad the morning was for her.
You don't know where Missy's gone after her time at the spa at first, but then you see she's crawling slow across the floor towards you and Dinah. Worried, 'cause Missy's been trying hard to walk everywhere even after what happened with the box, you quickly float over to check she's alright.
"Missy okay? Why no walk?" You ask, and Missy looks at you with a blushy face and a scowly pout. The skin on her face looks nice and clean and smooth and soft, the nails on her hands and feet are done pretty with black polish that sparkles a bit and she smells of something nice.
"Vicky spa good, but too good. Rub she do at end too too good. Me feel too sleepy to stand and me think me... No mind." Missy keeps crawling as she talks, and when she's done you're at the table. "What Amy and Dinah do?"
"We drawing! You want to draw too?" Dinah answers cheerfully
Missy looks not sure for a bit before she says yes, and needs a bit of help sitting in one of the chairs, but soon the three of you are drawing together. Missy can't draw as well as you and Dinah, but she works hard at it, tongue sticking out as she tries a bunch of times to get what she wants to draw right.
Taylor isn't in the Spa as long as Missy, and Vicky asks for Dinah next. You're getting a bit bored with drawing by then, so you and Missy put the crayons away and your drawings in a pile and go to see what Taylor's looking at in one of the toy boxes, Missy able to stand and walk over by then, no more wobbly than before.
"Why Taylor spa so fast?" You ask when you get there.
"Vicky say I not need much." Taylor answers quietly, a little muffled by her binky. "Infection do lots of spa things to my hands and feet. It not done one, but just as Vicky going to do it Infection do it first, and make both hands even more princessy. But she do nice things to my face and paint my nails pretty and give nice rubs, so it still fun."
She shows you and Missy her hands, which are a little smaller now, but look really nice and make you think of a pretty princess just seeing them. The nails are long and neat and pretty too, with sparkly pink polish and little pictures you can tell Vicky did, 'cause she's done ones like them on your nails when you let her. Her arms are thinner and longer and princess looking as well, you think, so they match her legs and her feet, which have pretty nails like her hands you can see 'cause she's not put her tights back on. Taylor's getting really pretty looking from her Infection, even the skin on her arms and legs is nice and smooth and princess pretty now. It makes you happy, and she looks really happy as well.
"What Taylor look for?" Missy asks, after Taylor's done showing you her hands and goes back to looking through the toy box.
"I look for other dollies that go with dolly I found before spa. She a magical girl and princess like me." Taylor says, pointing to the dolly, which is sitting next to the toy box. It's small and stuffed, and looks like a girl with short hair the same colour is Missy's is now, wearing a smart white and purple outfit with a short skirt.
You and Missy help her look, and soon you find nine more dollies, with differently coloured hair and clothes. You also get a bunch of play sets out looking for them, which gives you the idea of playing adventure with them. Taylor thinks it's a really great idea, and Missy tries to hide it but you can tell she's excited too. It's been a long time since you could play adventure, but 'cause your head's been made little again it doesn't feel as long, so it's easy to remember how it goes, and you have a blast, the three of you crawling around a big city fighting monsters with the magical girl dollies. You're a little sad to stop when you hear Vicky calling you name, but you want to have a Vicky spa too, so you stop playing and head over to her.
"Thanks Vicky. My skin feels really nice, and my wool and hooves too." Dinah is saying when you get there, looking down at the black sheepie hooves she has instead of feet and the white wool that goes about halfway to her knees, both of which look clean and shiny and neat. You've not seen them before, but you can now, 'cause Dinah's not wearing her onesie and is nakie except for her training panties, not that she seems to mind, and you guess since she got younger she doesn't really have boobies to cover any more so it makes sense.
"No problem, I'm not sure why the spa kit had hoof care instructions, but they were pretty easy to follow. Do you need help putting your onesie back on? Annette would be annoyed if I let you catch a chill." Vicky says, looking really smiley and calm and happy, her doggy ears perky and her tail waving slowly.
From the way she blushes, you think Dinah may have been trying to sneak out of getting dressed again, but she lets Vicky help her back into the lion-themed suit without complaining, and while that's happening you float over and get comfy in the chair. The back's bigger than other chairs you've sat on since getting your wings, so they end up half inside it instead of going through, which feels a little weird but doesn't hurt or anything, so you don't mind once you're used to it. Since you're wearing shortalls, you don't need to do anything so they don't get wet in the spa, so you just sit back and wait for Vicky once you're comfy.
"Right then Ames. What I've been doing is everyone's feet, hands, face and nails, then finishing off with a bit of a massage. Does that sound good to you?" Your sister says after Dinah's gone to join Missy and Taylor playing. You say yes, and she continues. "Great! Do you want to pick out the nail polish and type of facial and stuff, or will you let me surprise you this time?"
"Vicky pick. Amy trust big sister." You answer. You've been was really picky about things like what colour nail polish Vicky could use when she did stuff like this before, but you don't remember why right now and you know she likes it when you let her surprise you.
Vicky's really happy about your answer, and chatters excitedly has she put your feet in the spa, picks out things from the supplies and puts the facial stuff on you. You've got to have your eyes closed for the facial, and the spa water is warm and gentle on your feet and really nice smelling, and when Vicky starts on your hands her movements are soft and relaxing, so you don't fall asleep, but you do end up really calm and kind of dozing and not paying attention to much.
Vicky doesn't say much to you as she works, but after a bit you hear her talking to Mrs Danni, then it's quiet 'cept for the sounds of the others playing adventure, then you hear Mrs Danni again, joining the adventure game, and Mrs Annette talking to Vicky, so quiet you can't hear it even though they're right near you. It sounds like Mrs Danni is a lot of fun to play with, and you hope she'll still be there once your spa is done. You try and listen to what happens in the game, but you feel so nice and calm it's hard to think and you know you miss a bunch of stuff. You think they might stop playing so Mrs Danni can tell a story, 'cause you hear her talking a lot, the others cheering, Missy and Taylor really loudly, and Mrs Annette laughing, but you're not sure. It's still nice to hear, but you get distracted soon when Vicky says it's time to do the massage. She asks you something you sleepily say yes to, then she picks you up and takes your shirt and shortalls off before lying you down on a soft mat. The rubbing of her hands on your skin feels really nice, but you think Missy was right when she said it was too good, 'cause not long into it, you feel so calm you fall asleep.
When you open your eyes again, there are warm arms around you and you're cuddled up against something really soft. Looking up, you can just see Vicky's face, so you guess slightly sleepily that you're sat in her lap and the pillowy things your head's on must be her boobies. It's really nice, but something doesn't feel quite right, and it takes you a kinda embarrassing amount of time to realise you're nakie, 'cept for your bra and training panties.
"Why Amy nakie?" You ask, your voice sleepy and muffled. "Why Amy have binky?" You ask right after, blushing a bit at not properly noticing it in your mouth until you tried to speak. Once you're aware of it, it feels kinda weird, and you're not sure why Taylor likes hers so much. You can't take it out though, 'cause your big sister's hug is keeping your arms to you side, and spitting it out would be rude.
"Oh, you're awake! Did you have a nice nap?" Vicky says brightly, ears flopping forwards as she smiles down at you. "The pacifier's 'cause you kept trying to suck your thumb in your sleep, and that wouldn't have been good with the nail polish. I didn't put your clothes back on at first since you looked so relaxed and I didn't want to disturb you, and after you slept through me giving Annette and Danni the spa treatment was well... Well, I was going to, but you just looked so cute, I couldn't resist the temptation to snuggle with my adorable and newly fun-sized sister a bit."
Well, this feels really nice, so you can't blame her, even if you get the fuzzy feeling you might if you had a big girl brain at the moment. But you don't want to be mostly nakie in front of people now you're awake, so you wiggle to be let go. Vicky doesn't get what wiggling means again though, so in the end you ask.
"Let Amy go please big sissy? Amy no want be nakie any more."
Vicky stops hugging you then and you stand up, but your legs are still sleepy, so you have to float not to fall over when you try and go get your pony t-shirt. Getting it on is hard, but you mostly do it without help. When you pick up the shortalls, Vicky shakes her head.
"Maybe leave them off for now, sis? Annette and Danni took the others for a bathroom break and I said I'd take you when you woke up. No sense messing around with them if I'll be taking them off you again in a minute."
You blush a bit then, 'cause you only notice then that no one else is in the room when Vicky says that, but you get distracted from thinking about it much, 'cause her mentioning it also makes you realise you really need to go potty. You don't want to go round with no pants on even if your tee is just long enough to hide your undies, but you don't want to have an accident even more, so you agree to what Vicky says quickly. Before she takes you to the potty though, she takes you over to the crystal ball you and Missy found earlier and tells you to put your hand on it and think about putting a little bit of your toughness in. She says some stuff about why toughness and why a little bit and why now, but you don't really listen, just do it as fast as you can, then try not to squirm or whine while she does the same.
After that, you hold Vicky's hand and the two of you float over the playroom gate and towards the downstairs bathroom, which is fun and means you don't have to think about walking. Mrs Danni and Dinah are coming the other down the hall, and they both look at you a little funny when you reach them, which makes you realise that floating means your shirt doesn't go low enough, so it looks like you don't mind you're bottomless and flashing your training panties everywhere. You blush lots at that, and try and tug your tee down, but not for long, 'cause you're really bursting to go, so you have to use both hands to tug on Vicky so she doesn't stand there talking to Mrs Danni until you wet yourself.
When you finally get to the bathroom, Vicky pulls your undies down, holds you on the big girl potty while you go, makes sure you're all wiped clean afterwards and wash your hands properly, then puts your training panties and shortalls back on. You don't really need her help with most of it, but it makes you feel really nice that she does, and that she's been so happy to do big sister things like you're as little as your are in your head, even if your body is still a big girl's. Vicky uses the potty after you're done and you look away 'cause watching would be rude, which is when you see yourself in the mirror and finally notice that you never actually took the binky out after your arms were free. It's white with pretty fairies on, but you take it out right away, blushing. You guess it's not a weird feeling as you thought when you woke up, but you still don't want it. You may be having fun being little tonight, but you don't want to be a baby.
Mrs Annette's not back with Taylor and Missy when you and Vicky return to the playroom, and Mrs Danni says she has an idea about what you do next, so while you wait for her you look at what Vicky did to your nails while you were dozing in the spa. Your fingernails are all short, which Vicky complains about sometimes when you let her do them, but she's made them neat and pretty looking and not put longer bits on them, and they're painted all nice, each one a different bright, sparkly colour. Your toenails are the same, so you've got more than two rainbows of pretty colours, which you really like, even though a big girl thought in the back of your head feels grumpy about it. Your feet are all clean and soft from the spa water, your face is the same from the facial, and Vicky did something to make your hands the same, so that's all good, and you smell of something nice and flowery you can't remember the name of but know you like, you guess from the oils and stuff.
"Aww. No good." Dinah whines quietly, and you look over to see she's got the pirate map open in front of her. "I wanted to try do the riddles, but I can no read them now." She answers, when Mrs Danni asks what's wrong.
"Well, that was good timing!" Mrs Annette says brightly, coming into the room carrying a happy but slightly red Taylor on one hip and holding the hand of a scowly-pouty and very red Missy. "As it happens, my idea for what to do was reading. If the box made you forget how you won't be able to again until it wears off of course, but there are some fun learning games we can play, and being read to is fun too."
Taylor is so happy at the idea she has to catch her binky when it falls out 'cause of her cheering, and Dinah agrees right away it sounds fun too. Missy looks like she might say no, but then Taylor looks at her with big happy eyes and asks her pretty please and she says yes instead. You were going to say yes anyway, but after Vicky says she thinks reading to you while you're like this would be fun, you cheer almost as loud as Taylor.
Mrs Annette has you, Taylor, Missy and Dinah sit in a half circle on the floor for the first bit, while Vicky goes off to the spa with Mrs Danni. You're a little sad she's not joining you, but since she can still read this bit wouldn't be as fun for her and she's going to the spa so she can show Mrs Danni how to do nail stuff, which you know she'll enjoy, so you don't really mind.
To start with, Mrs Annette has you all sing the alphabet song, then gives you each a piece of paper and a crayon and asks you to write the letters in order. You do pretty well, doing all the letters even if you get the order wrong for a few of them and writing them is hard, but Dinah does better, getting them all in the right order and neater than you, while Missy and Taylor can only write some of the letters, even working together, and don't do them in order at all. Missy looks like she might cry again for a sec, but then Taylor hugs her and Mrs Annette says something quiet to her and she calms down.
After that, you play a game where Mrs Annette shows a card with a picture on and you have to say what letter the name of the thing in the picture begins with, which none of you do very well at but still ends up being fun, and the same is true for the game after it, where Mrs Annette says a letter and you have to say a word that starts with that letter. The last game is one where you have to try and rhyme words and you don't enjoy that one as much, 'cause you know the right words, but keep messing up when you try and say them. Vicky and Mrs Danni come over to join you before you've been playing that one for too long though, and you stop playing then, Vicky showing you all her nice red and pink painted fingernails while the grownups go to the kitchen and come back with water for you all. They've only got two sippy cups, but Vicky and Mrs Annette help you and Dinah drink your plastic cups without dropping or spilling them.
Once everyone's finished their water, the group splits up to do some reading, you going with Vicky, while Dinah goes with Mrs Danni and Taylor and Missy with Mrs Annette. You get to sit in Vicky's lap and since you shrunk earlier you fit comfortably, your head on her boobies like when you woke up from your nap earlier. Mrs Danni uses her tentacle legs to make a kind of seat for Dinah to sit in and the others end up with Taylor sitting between Mrs Annette's legs and Missy sitting in her lap. They had to swap. 'cause Missy couldn't see when Taylor sat in her lap, but they seem happy this way round too, even if Missy's blushing a bit.
The books you read with your sister are all really little kid books, with big pictures and not a lot of words or pages, but they're not boring at all. A bit 'cause your head's not that much bigger than the books are for, a bit 'cause you don't know most of them and can't read them well enough to spoil the story for yourself, but mostly 'cause Vicky's really good at reading stories. She does lots of different voices and noises well, and shows you interesting things in the pictures, and gets you to read words sometimes, but not too much and she helps you do it when she does, and she doesn't mind when you ask to read a book again a bunch of times, and basically she's just the perfect story time big sister. She's so good in fact, that when there's a knock on the door and Mrs Danni has to go answer it, Dinah comes over to read with you, even though you can't fit both of you in Vicky's lap so she has to sit on the floor, and a little later Taylor and Missy crawl over to listen too while Mrs Annette looks at something on the table.
"Very nicely done, dear." Mrs Annette says, a few books later. "You've really done excellently at being a big sister tonight, you know. Especially since I can't imagine you expected do find yourself with so little a sister!" Vicky goes bright red, but smiles and cuddles you as she thanks Mrs Annette for the compliment.
"Missy no be sad. I like Missy as big sis, even if she no be as big a sissy as Vicky." Taylor says, much louder and more clearly than she's normally spoken tonight, and you look away from Vicky to see Missy throw herself into hugging Taylor, happy tears in her eyes.
A little later, once all the books are away, Mrs Annette picks up the pirate map from the table.
"So, to finish of our reading time, I thought we could try and solve the riddles on this thing. Even Vicky would probably find reading them a bit of a trial, but I can translate them into sensible English and we can work out where they're referring to together."
"Amy already do two in morning, Mrs Annette. They say, um, Im-ack-ee-la and Clown-ee-don? Two big kid schools, not Amy's or Winyslow?" You pipe up, running into an issue from your toddler talking Trait for the first time. You know the answers are Immaculata High and Clarendon High, but the names don't come out of your mouth right, no matter how many times you try.
"I think I know which ones you mean, but can you show me which riddles those are the answer to, Amy?" Mrs Annette asks, and you look but you can't even tell what most of letters on the back of the map are 'cause of the funny way they're written, so you have to say no.
"Don't worry dear, hopefully you'll be able to say when you hear them." Mrs Annette says, and after checking no one else wants to say anything and everyone's sitting comfortably, reads the first riddle. "Upon the hill of the ship's masters stands a hall more important than not. The booty lies beneath, through a doorway forgotten behind Billy's Boots."
"Ship master is Capitans, right? So it be Capitans Hill." Missy suggests, after a moment's thinking.
"'portant hall be city hall? No more halls on Capitans Hill, I think?" Taylor asks quietly next, and none of you can think of any others, so you're pretty sure that means that if they are any, they're not important.
"Booty in basement, Amy thinks. How else be under hall?" You say. "But what booties that hide door?"
"There a big statue at back of City Hall that I think is of someone named William, and I told not to run round in garden at back, 'cause there are doors to the basement they covered up and lost. One maybe near statue?" Dinah offers, and you all agree it sounds likely.
The next riddle talks about "immaculate territory" and you recognise it as one you solved, and everyone quickly agrees it's talking about the statue on Immaculata's roof, and also that the treasure is in a hidden compartment in a rude place. It's easy to work out the riddle after that is talking about Arcadia High, but no one can work out where until Vicky remembers hearing rumours about a secret room at the back of the gym store cupboard. The Clarendon riddle is next, and you had a hard time with it this morning, but with Mrs Annette taking all the random pirate bits out, it's dead easy to be sure it's talking about somewhere near the kitchens of that school. The second to last riddle is tricky, but in the end you work out that the treasure is hidden in the stage building at Brockton Bay University, somewhere inside but high up. The last riddle surprises Mrs Annette a bit, 'cause she couldn't tell where it meant until Taylor said part of the first bit was a new, not very nice, nickname for the Dockworkers Union, and none of you can tell where in the compound the treasure's meant to be, if it's actually in the compound and not nearby. Even when Mrs Danni comes back, she's not sure where it might be either, though she has a few ideas.
"If it's somewhere in this compound, we could find out tonight, couldn't we?" Vicky says, but Mrs Danni shakes her head.
"Since Dinah says we've not found it yet, the only places it could be are ones it's not safe to go poking through in the dark. Most of them probably aren't that safe to be in during the day, for that matter."
It's not the best way to end doing the riddles, 'specially since you haven't really solved the last one and Mrs Annette seems to realise it, 'cause she claps her hands loudly to get everyone's attention.
"Right! We've done what I wanted to do, so let's move on to something my darling wife will enjoy, even if she'd never ask to do it. We're going to have ourselves a sing-a-long!"
Mrs Danni blushes but doesn't say no, and when you all agree, looks really happy. She moves into the middle of the playroom and stretches up high on her tentacles, making her really tall, while Mrs Annette has the rest of you stand in front of her in a half circle. There isn't a CD player, radio or even a cell phone to play music on in the room, but it turns out you don't need one, 'cause Mrs Danni lifts her hands up and waves them around like she's conducting an orchestra, and the sounds of instruments come from nowhere. After a mintue or two of what she calls "warming up", which involves a lot of different noises and tunes, some of them quite weird, she waves a hand in a different way, and words write themselves in the air in front of her. They're really fancy looking, and you can only read a few of them, but you still know what they say somehow, so you know they're the lyrics for "Row Row Row Your Boat".
"An easy one to start with." Mrs Danni says with a smile. "Everybody ready? Then in three... two... one..."
The first time round ends in giggles, as everyone sings a bit differently from each other, so it sounds really funny, but after a few goes you're all doing it together. Singing even the easy words right is harder than you thought it was going to be, but you manage about as well as anyone not Vicky or a grownup.
The songs Mrs Danni can do seem to be all Disney ones or sea shanties, and she mostly sticks to the Disney ones, but that's fine 'cause even you know how most of them go already, so it's easier to sing them right. Sometimes all of you sing at once, and sometimes Mrs Danni has just one or two people sing, but listening is as fun as singing and Mrs Danni is really good at leading it, so you have a blast. There are a few odd things, like when Mrs Annette sings "Under The Sea" by herself while dancing with Mrs Danni, and has to stop the first time she gets to the chorus 'cause Vicky starts coughing really hard for no reason and Missy laughs so hard she falls on her butt, or when Mrs Danni sang "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" and Vicky and Missy blushed a bit but Mrs Annette who was standing next to her went bright red, but it's mostly just everyone having a great time together.
You could have kept going for ages without getting bored, but after a while your voices get tired, so you finish up and Mrs Annette gets more water from the kitchen. You and Dinah get the sippy cups this time, and Missy spills her cup when she tries to drink without help, so she has to be changed into dry clothes, and then have your sippy cup when you're done. She's very red when she comes back from being changed, and you're not sure if it's 'cause of the accident or 'cause Mrs Annette changed her into cute pink flower pyjamas since it's late and the bottoms don't hide her diaper like the jeans did, so it looks very big and obvious over her bum.
Once you've all had enough to drink, Mrs Annette leaves Vicky in charge until bedtime and takes Mrs Danni off somewhere. Taylor says you should play Magical Girl Adventures again, which gets Missy to stop scowl-pouting and agree right away, and you and Dinah agree too. Vicky looks less sure, but you ask her "Pwetty pwease" while making the cutest face you can and she agrees. It takes a while to get all the stuff Taylor and Missy say you need out, 'cause Mrs Danni gave them lots of ideas when she was telling them magical girls stories while you were having your spa and napping, but once it's done, you can tell even before you start playing that it's going to be the best magical girl game ever.
You, Taylor, Missy and Dinah take turns picking two of the dollies you found earlier, but Vicky says someone needs to do the monsters, so the last two stay in the castle of the Kingdom of Good as the Magical Girl Queen and her youngest daughter. Vicky plays monster as well as she read stories, making the toys and dollies picked out as monsters roar and stomp, or give evil speeches or make nasty but funny threats as needed. She also makes the monsters fight just hard enough before they loose and go flying back to the box behind the castle for the Kingdom of Evil.
The city you all built for adventuring in is also big enough that you can't always see the rest of the room when you're crawling around it, and your big sister uses that and her flying and strength too, swooping down sometimes and grabbing one of you to be carried off by a monster and rescued by the others. Monsters like the Cuddle Monster or the Fluffy Tail Monster, or the Tickle Monster or Spiny Monster or Raspberry Monster or others. Your turn being taken by the Tickle Monster is the worst, 'cause Vicky knows all your ticklish spots and uses them to keep you laughing too hard to see the whole time until you get rescued. You also might have wet yourself from laughing so much, but if you did it was only a tiny bit and you're wearing training panties, so no one can tell, so you'll never let anyone know if you did.
Your Magical Girl Adventure isn't just fighting monsters, though. You have to work together to solve mysteries to find the monsters, or find treasures to get stronger, or break a curse, which is lots of fun, though sometimes Vicky forgets and has a letters or numbers bit in the puzzle that's too hard 'cause it's actual words or counting and none of you can do it. The curses and cures Vicky comes up with are one of the funniest bits, you think, like the one where you all have to start baa-ing like sheep when you speak and it gets worse over time, so you have to finish the mystery while you can only baa, and the cure is all baa-ing together to the tune of "Baa Baa Black Sheep". Or when Taylor gets pricked by an evil rose, so she turns into a Dark Magical Girl until you cure her with a kiss.
You play and shout and crawl all over the room for a long time and the Magical Girls beat loads of monsters, but in the end the shouts turn into yawns and can all just about sit up if you lean on each other, and Vicky says it's time for bed, leaning over the gate of the playroom and calling for the grownups. You whine a bit, 'cause you don't want the fun to stop, but it's not serious 'cause you know you're getting really sleepy, and the others seem to feel the same. Dinah actually falls asleep a bit, then gets woken up when she falls over sideways and the rest of you fall on her 'cause she's not helping hold you up when she does. You all manage to move so you're not squashing her, but none of you can get back up again, so you just lie there. You remember the stuffies you found earlier, and that they looked nice to sleep with, as you're looking at the cute animals painted on the ceiling, and with a lot of effort, mange to tell Vicky about them. You think. You didn't make a lot of sense even to yourself, but she brings the box over just as Mrs Annette and Mrs Danni come into the room, so that's nice.
Quest update
Pirates of the Pervy Main - You found an honest-to-god treasure map in a hidden box of pervy stuff from before F-Day. You kind of want to see if you can solve the piratical riddles on the back, even if you have no interest in actually hunting down the booty.
- All the riddles have been solved, pointing to treasure caches at Arcadia High, Immaculata High, Clarendon High, Brockton Bay University, the Dockworkers Union Compound and City Hall.
Danni's breasts are once again full of magic milk, providing one of several bonuses but with a chance of side effects, mostly of the regressive kind.
Spoiler: Detailed effects
Amy currently has 8/20 points towards unlocking FAV purchase ???? (will also need Modify Individual II). For each person that drinks she will gain 1 point, plus 1 if the drinker gets any side effect. Points may also be gained towards FAV purchases locked behind ????. If Amy herself drinks, points gain is doubled. (This is not the only source of points towards this unlock, but finding others soon is not guaranteed.)
Does anyone drink some before going to sleep? (Pick 2):
[Milk] Amy
[Milk] Vicky
[Milk] Missy
[Milk] Taylor
[Milk] Dinah
[Milk] No one 1
[Milk] No one 2
QM: If Amy gets her mental regression extended into the day tomorrow, I'll probably tone the impact on the narration down a bit, it's alright to write now, but it'll be a pain when there's more complicated things going on.
The party is going to bed around 11 pm. What time will they aim to leave the Dockworkers Union compound in the morning? (Good location and bedding provides 20 to sleep result checks):
[Leave] 7 am
(No time to take actions in the compound in the morning. Missy will still be an -10 INT, PER and CHA another hour and has a 75% chance to lose 1d3 Mood due to needing help to get ready. Anyone who does not use a Goodnight Stuffie to get to sleep will have -15 to their sleep result check due to shortened timeframe, anyone who does will be grumpy and bratty for an hour.)
[Leave] 8 am
(May take a couple of actions in the compound in the morning. Missy has a 45% chance to lose 1d3 Mood due to needing help to get ready. Anyone who does not use a Goodnight Stuffie to get to sleep will have -5 to their sleep result check due to shortened timeframe.)
[Leave] 9 am
(May take several actions in the compound in the morning.)
Going to sleep holding a Good Night Stuffie ensures a great night's sleep (Greatly increased Mood, WP recovery and energy, greatly reduced Stress and LIB), the best possible result for how well someone sleeps, regardless of other conditions. The party's current location is safe and secure, so there is no risk from sleepers not waking for disturbances, but to save on laundry Annette will insist anyone taking a Stuffie to bed wear an appropriate degree of protection (Of course, she'll suggest this for everyone bar Vicky anyway). Does anyone sleep with a Good Night Stuffie?:
[Stuffie] Amy
-] Yes
-] No
[Stuffie] Vicky
-] Yes
-] No
[Stuffie] Missy
-] Yes
-] No
[Stuffie] Taylor
-] Yes
-] No
[Stuffie] Dinah
-] Yes
-] No
Finally, Dinah may use her power to answer questions about future actions. She now has enough information to be highly specific about things relating to Winslow High and the immediate area out to long term, and make broader predictions about the wider city out to short term. Each question costs 2d10 WP, are any asked?:
[Dinah] Don't ask any questions
[Dinah] Ask one question
-] Write in what
[Dinah] Ask more than one question
-] Write in which
QM: XP/FAV spend vote will be in a separate post, alongside interval rolls that happen while the party is asleep and nightly rolls.
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Last edited: Jan 4, 2021
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Annatar, Ralyx, Midnight007 and 49 others like this.
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: Most of the actual text of this update feels a bit unnecessary, but I didn't want to just post a bunch of rolls and voting options or lose another month to indecision, so here it is.
Edit: Also, the combat stats on the front page are now well out of date, but I'll hold off updating them until any gear changes have been made, which should be the update after next.
Spoiler: Rolls
Spoiler: Overnight change rolls
"Vicky no get stuffie?" You ask sleepily, hugging the plush gold puppy you've just picked from the box.
"Ah, no. One of us should be able to wake up quickly if there's trouble, even if the chances of it are low." Vicky answers, like she'd not made a really funny yelp when Mrs Annette told her the rules if she took one to bed.
You guess having been a big kid all evening means the idea of having to wear a Goodnight to sleep in matters to her, even though it's better than what the rest of you get to wear. Mrs Annette might have said you and Dinah could just wear Goodnights if you didn't have a stuffie, but you could tell she'd rather you wore diapers even then and you've gone the whole night without upsetting her, so you decided to take one, 'cause that way you'd fall asleep quick and not have to lie there thinking about being in a diaper for long.
You cuddle into your big sister's side while Missy takes ages picking a stuffie, eventually getting a black kitty like Taylor's, and stay there when it's time to go get ready for bed. Vicky easily lifts you on to her hip like Mrs Annette does with Taylor, while Mrs Danni has to use both hands to carry Dinah. Missy doesn't let anyone pick her up, so you have to go slow while she toddles along holding Mrs Annette's free hand, but that just means you get to snuggle Vicky longer so you don't mind. When you get upstairs, your sister and Mrs Annette swap who they're carrying, and Vicky takes Taylor and Missy down the hall while Mrs Annette takes you into what you realise is the room you got clothes from earlier.
"Any preference what you wear for bed, dear?" Mrs Annette asks, with a gentle smile, setting you down on the floor.
"Amy no mind." You answer, and Mrs Annette's smile gets wider before she starts going through the boxes.
She takes a bunch of things out and looks at them before picking a slightly frilly pink and blue nightdress with two girls you know are from a Disney movie but don't know the names of on the front. It's nice and soft once Mrs Annette changes you in to it, but a little short, so it doesn't really cover your training panties when she picks you back up and takes you out of the room. Out in the hall, you pass Mrs Danni with Dinah in her arms, naked 'cept for a diaper and the sheepie stuffie she's hugging but not seeming to care. You blush a bit at the sight, and more when Mrs Annette carries you into the room they came out, which is a big nursery.
"You don't have to wear a diaper to sleep if you don't want to, Amy." Mrs Annette says, pausing before lowering you on to the big changing table.
"I wear." You reply. You already said you would, and Carol always gets really mad if you try and change your mind after agreeing to something, and you like Mrs Annette, so you don't want to upset her.
You hug your puppy and look away as Mrs Annette gets things out, and thankfully she doesn't take long to be done, putting on powder and stuff and taping it closed fast enough you only have to ignore that you're being changed like a baby for a little bit. At least the diaper doesn't feel that bad once it's on, mostly like the rubber panties you tried on after lunch but softer and squishier, even if it's a bit bigger, so your nightdress doesn't cover the bottom of it at all.
After that, Mrs Annette takes you to the bathroom, where Vicky looks a bit funny for a sec but doesn't say anything as she helps you and Dinah, now in a really soft and puffy sheep onesie brush your teeth. From there she takes you both to a bedroom with three big beds, one of which Missy is already sat on as Mrs Danni finishes brushing her hair. Dinah goes to sit on that bed, while Vicky goes to another and takes your hair out of its pigtails before starting to brush it. Mrs Annette comes in a little after you, Taylor on her hip wearing a nightdress just like yours, and everyone gasps a bit at the sight of Taylor's hair. It's all turned the same dark purple as Missy's and is loads longer, having grown from partway down her back to just touching the top of her butt in the few minutes since you saw her. Taylor's eyes also look a bit like she's been crying, but she's fine now, happily telling Missy they match as Mrs Annette puts her on the last bed and gets a brush.
"Oh! I should do questions before I sleep." Dinah says suddenly, after a little while of quiet while people's hair is brushed.
"Questions?" Mrs Danni asks from where she's sitting on her tentacles next to the bed to reach her brown hair easily.
"Yeah, I check if bad things will happen every night if I can. Um, I guess my old questions don't work now, but I could ask...what are the chances anywhere we've spent time today will be attacked in the next day?" Dinah explains, and then her eyes go really wide. "Ninety seven percent. Oh no, that's really high!"
"Don't worry, we get attacked here all the time, but most of them are no trouble for our defences." Mrs Danni says quickly, placing a comforting hand on Dinah's shoulder. "Maybe ask what the chances of a significant attack in the next day are?"
"Thirty three percent." Dinah responds automatically. "Hmm, that's... Chances of an attack where us being there and helping would make a difference? Four percent. Those aren't so bad. My head doesn't feel bad, but I can't think of any more questions. Does anyone have some?"
"Chance Clockblocker nice when see him if tomorrow after tomorrow?" Missy asks, saying the other Ward's name carefully.
"Ninety percent chance." Is the answer. "Still good. More?"
"Chance Ta-Ta come to Winlow tomorrow after tomrrow?" Is your question, curious when you'll get a chance to look at the foxy girl's Infection more.
"Sixty nine percent chance." Dinah says, then after more questions. "Nineteen percent chance it being in morning she comes if she does. Thirty nine percent chance in afternoon, forty nine in evening."
"I've got one, but I think it'll be hard. Are you sure you're okay for that?" Vicky says when Dinah asks again for questions. At her nod, she continues. "Chances anyone from New Wave other than me and Amy will end up in a similar situation to the one Madison and the others at Winslow were in before we got involved? In the next week or so, maybe."
Dinah listens, then looks like she's thinking or looking at something for bit before answering. "Oww. Um, not really clear. I think we don't know what things are like in the city or with them now enough for my power to know. But it feels like Brandish and Flashbang will most likely be in the same situation in a week as now? And Lady Photo and Manpower probably will? Laserdream and Shielder's situation could change, but it could not? And it'll probably get worse if it changes, but it could get better? Oww." Dinah's face screws up in pain for a sec before getting better. "Oww. Sorry, that's not much help, but I don't think I can do more."
"No, it's alright, that's fine." Your big sister says. "I guess since we don't know what Mom and Dad's situation is, we can't really say if it not changing is good or bad, huh?"
"Not to change the subject, but changing the subject." Mrs Danni says, after a long bit of not too nice quiet where you worry about Mark. "Does anyone want some milk before bed? These things are full up again, I'm afraid." She waves a hand at her boobies.
"Ooh! Amy does!" You shout right away, wiggling down from the bed and waddling over to Mrs Danni.
"I have?" Taylor asks quietly when no one else speaks, then squeaks a bit when her Mummy scoops her up and puts her on one of her Mummy-Daddy's tentacles.
Mrs Danni helps you climb up to sit on a tentacle, then opens her shirt and bra and you lean in as soon as she does. Even though you know you must look even more like a baby than the first time you did this, you're not embarrassed at all, latching on and sucking away as soon as you can reach. The milk's just as warm and nice and like mummy hugs as before, and it feels really great as it fills your belly. You grab Taylor's hand as you drink, and feel that the milk's doing different things to you this time, making your body stronger and Taylor's will stronger, but not as much as the first milk did. It also makes Taylor's body fight of the Infection better, you think 'cause it's weak at doing it, and also 'cause she's getting milk from her Mummy-Daddy and not a stranger. The milk also makes you be a little kid in your head longer, but not much longer, so you might not wake up big, but it won't be long after that.
By the time there's no more milk, your belly's full and you're too sleepy to open your eyes as you're pulled away from Mrs Danni's boobie. Your mouth feels empty without a boobie to suck on, and you whine as you're stopped from sucking your thumb, but then a binky gets put in there and it's nice enough, you guess. Then you feel your puppy being put in your arms, and snuggle her as you're put in a bed with someone next to you and tucked in. You feel a soft kiss on your forehead, and hear Vicky whisper "Sweet dreams sis." and you don't even finish replying before you fall asleep.
You dream of being a bright, sparkly and playful pixie, living with Vicky and an energetic lamb with Dinah's head in a flower castle owned by the beautiful Princess Taylor and her sister Missy. The Camp Cats are all gardeners who look after the castle, 'cept Emma, who's Taylor's really dumb pet dog, and Mrs Annette and Mrs Danni show up in a big pirate ship sometimes to take you on adventures. It's a fun dream, and it's the first of many that night.
As they sleep, the party's Infected bodies responds to the trials they faced during the day, and their experiences fuel rapid growth in power. Choose how to spend or save everyone's accumulated XP and FAV. Costs are on the front page, under the purchases tab of the mechanics threadmark and each character's Favour tab in the party sheet. (Please vote by plan):
[Spend] Plan name
-] Amy XP Spend
-] Amy FAV Spend
-] Vicky XP Spend
-] Vicky FAV Spend
-] Missy XP Spend
-] Missy FAV Spend
-] Taylor XP Spend
-] Taylor FAV Spend
-] Dinah XP Spend
-] Dinah FAV Spend
The party will all collect 5 points of STA from the Crystal Ball of Stats shortly after they wake up. Do any members of the group transfer points of STA as they do so?:
[Transfer] Yes
-] Who and how many, up to 15 points between any two people in chunks of 5.
[Transfer] No
Having emptied the Crystal Ball's pool, do the party place any new points in it? If the party wants to take it with them, the Ball may be purchased from the Dockworkers Union shop, but even if it's not the Heberts are fine with the party visiting to empty/fill it in future, though the Union will also use it sometimes in that case.
[Store] Yes
-] What stat, how much and who.
[Store] No
Annette and Danni want to give the party a gift in order to thank them for having the sleepover. There is no cost to picking any item, but they would like it if a party member has the gift equipped when the group leaves. Items not chosen will be available in the Dockworkers Union shop, but may be expensive. (Pick one):
[Gift] Admiral's Hat
A fancy looking black bicorn hat that smells faintly of the sea and stays on your head no matter how roughs the conditions get. Increases DEX and PER by 15 and has a Major enhancement when worn that has a 25% chance of increasing both stats by 2 if the wearer passes a check in either.
Strain: Vampirate Admiral
[Gift] Bat Pacifier
A bat-shaped black and pink pacifier that makes your speech very quiet but still clearly heard when it's in your mouth. Cannot accidently fall out or be forcibly removed, and modifies PER by x2.5 when worn. Has a Major enhancement that activates after every 1d3 consecutive hours of being worn if the wearer's PER is less than 100, increasing PER by 3d3.
Strain: Vampirate Cabin Girl - Tween dhampir pirate hopes to be as strong as an Admiral one day.
[Gift] Fishscale Cloak
A long hooded cloak made of beautiful silvery scales. Provides 15 DEF and has a Safe enhancement which prevents other equipped/carried items from suffering damage due to exposure to water. May also be activated to allow the wearer to transform into a sea creature of their choice, which causes Significant exposure checks every half an hour until they turn back but prevents exposure checks from being in contaminated water.
Strain: Selkie - Beautiful sea-creature shapeshifter in search of a lover to support.
[Gift] Mother Pearls Necklace
A large pearl necklace, beautiful but with a matronly air to it. Provides 10 STA and 5 CHA and has a Moderate enhancement that creates 1d5 pearl every hour it's worn. The pearls are valuables worth 50 each.
Strain: Sea Witch Coven Mother
[Gift] Sea Strider Boots
A pair of piratical looking leather boots. Provide 7 DEX/STA and have a Moderate enhancement when worn that allows the wearer to walk both on water and under it as easily and safely as on dry land.
Strain: Promethean - Sea creature taur with huge jock energy that fights fiercely for their school.
QM: Putting this here even though it technically happens later to balance out the votes better, so consider the strain bits a preview of what Item Analysis will do if bought.
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Last edited: Jan 4, 2021
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Threadmarks: Day 2, Part 1 (Early Morning)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: Gotta go fast! Oh, it feels so good to have momentum for this quest again.
When you wake up, the milk hasn't stopped making your head little but you remember last night right away and you don't need the bathroom, so you're fine with staying where you are, snuggled up with Taylor and your puppy in a warm and comfy bed, a bit longer. As you wake up a little more, you notice what your power noticed about the Infection changed in you in the night, and you suck on your binky a little to keep calm as you think about them. Your body and will getting better by a lot is good, 'specially since it's not a strain going it, just the Infection making you stronger 'cause of what you've done. Your hair getting lighter and getting gold bits in it is fine, and the Trait that will make you look brighter and more colourful is nice, even if big you might be a bit grumpy about it, 'specially since it's made your nails be always a bunch of bright colours like Vicky painted them last night. But the pixie Trait's changed your mind, and even if you know how and it's only little bits, that's not so nice at first. But thinking about it, not getting as worried by the idea of using your power to mess with people isn't that bad, and caring less about what other people think when they see you isn't either. You think being little is helping you think that, though, and you can feel that wearing off, so you focus hard on not worrying about the changes and suck the binky harder, in the hopes big you won't get upset when she's all the way back.
It works, kind of. The pacifier in your mouth (and your head being kind of trapped against Taylor's collarbone) stops you from waking anyone up by screaming, at least.
Even once you're back to thinking like a fifteen year-old, the changes to your mind aren't what has you trying not to scream. They're pretty much just make you worry less about your powers and being judged, and honestly, if you could have gotten therapy before this without Carol freaking out, those would probably have been some of the first items on the agenda. There's a little worry of "What if the changes are making me think that even though my powers say they're not", but you force yourself to ignore that bit of paranoia, since it won't lead anywhere good. No, what has you freaking out is remembering bits of what five year-old you did with Vicky. The cuddling and the playing and the general innocent adoration is fine, and you're thankful for one of your new mental shifts already, since it helps keep your reaction to your big sister seeing you in training pants, and later a diaper, down to a dull roar. But you sat mostly naked in her lap with your head on her breasts! Even if you where napping for most of it so you don't remember most of it or know how long for. She took you to the toilet like a toddler! Even if you both clearly didn't think of it as anything but being sisterly. And if you ignore the inherent embarrassment of a teenage acting like a preschooler, none of what you said or did was that embarrassing. And at least little you didn't do anything that even hinted at less-than-sisterly admiration for Vicky...
Okay, you're even more glad you didn't wake anyone up freaking out, given how little of what five year-old you did was actually objectionable, explaining it would probably have ended up focused on the toilet thing, and that would have come off as a weird thing to focus on even if you weren't currently wearing a (probably used) diaper. But speaking of, bits of you are waking up themselves now, and you refuse to even tempt the slightest possibility of them making their own arrangements if you lay around too long.
"Taylor. Wake up. Amy need go potty." Oh, yeah, you'd forgotten about the effect from the playpen. Between that and Tattletale, you have to wonder if there's a deliberate effort on the part of the Infection to make it harder for people who can analyse it to communicate clearly.
It takes a few more repetitions and some poking, but Taylor eventually makes some sleepy confused noises and her eyes flutter open. Then they widen abruptly and she lets out a pacifier-muffled shriek before her body jerks, probably in an attempt to move away foiled by the way the two of you are half-lying on each other and your legs are tangled together. Fortunately, she quickly remembers what's going on and the two of you are able to extract yourself from the covers (and each other's grip) in short order. Getting out of bed is a little more complicated, but a mutual agreement of silence is quickly agreed about any falls that may or may not have occurred due to misjudging standing in diapers that definitely weren't this big last night (and also about how long it takes both of you to remember you can just take the pacifiers out of your mouths).
You and Taylor had more than enough skin contact for you to know how she transformed in the night, but knowing isn't the same as seeing, and you can't help but look your new friend over once you're both up and moving. Her exposed skin looks (and feels) smooth as silk, free of flaws or blemishes, and you know the skin under her clothes will be the same. Other than the waterfall of dark purple that flows down her whole back to brush the top of her butt, the only hairs on her body are her neat and graceful eyebrows and long, elegant eyelashes, which are now dark purple too, and frame beautiful eyes whose irises are now a rich and striking red-purple colour. Her eyes are only one part of a changed face, with elegant cheekbones and a higher forehead, a daintier nose and a smaller, plumper lipped mouth, and even ears and a chin that seem in some hard to describe way more regal and beautiful. Added to her torso having become longer (so she's even taller than you now) and more elegant, with slender lines and a narrow waist, even in a childish nightdress and a sagging diaper, she looks like a supermodel. Or, more appropriately a princess. The only off touch is the two white roses seeming to grow from the hair at her temples, and those just add a otherworldly touch to her beauty.
Blushing slightly, you force yourself to look away from Taylor before "checking over her changes" turns into "checking her out". The bed on one side of the room is empty and unmade, probably where Vicky spent the night, and the other holds a still sleeping Dinah and Missy. Well, Missy and a blanket burrito with Dinah's face barely visible inside it. Missy seems unbothered by having all her blankets stolen away, lying on her back snoring cutely with the stuffed cat she picked last night in her arms, a content smile on her face, and her pyjama pants almost kicked off, revealing a thoroughly used diaper.
"Help Amy put Missy pants back on?" You ask Taylor in a whisper. "She no be embarrassed as much when waky then."
"Should we get them both up afterwards?" Taylor responds quietly.
"No, let sleepy. We no in hurry." You say. You've no idea what your group is going to be doing today, but there's no point rushing off. The city's been as it is for weeks, a couple of extra hours aren't going to make a difference.
Looking closely at the still slumbering Ward once she's dressed again, you see more changes than you would have expected, and place a hand on her face to find out what's happened. Somewhat to your surprise, you find that Missy's Infection strain has mutated in the night, not only becoming significantly faster and more broadly acting, but causing several extra bursts of transformation. It's also mutated so that it might make her actually younger, rather than just looking younger, which she's probably going to take worse than the changes that have actually happened. The black roses growing from her hair in a ring round her head aren't too over the top, at least, and she'll grump about the soft flowery scent you can detect from her, but not actually mind never smelling sweaty, while her tears becoming something like clear honey will annoy her mostly because it'll seem like a deliberate reference to her getting the Cry Baby Trait temporarily (and you're not too sure it isn't). Her eyebrows and eyelashes matching the rest of the hair on her head she won't mind, nor her eyes becoming the same colour as Taylor's, or the way the skin on her upper body and head has turned very pale, though it taking on a soft and velvety feel that might be even nicer to the touch than Taylor's skin might get some complaints. The last and most drastic change, her facial features getting cuter and daintier, is the only one you can see her getting worked up about, and you think how much they look like Taylor's, which have clearly grown out of cute and in to beauty might help there. Missy's fine with looking pretty after all, she just doesn't like how looking cute gets her treated like a little kid.
The changes to their faces mean Missy and Taylor look quite a lot alike, actually. Both are still quite recognisably themselves, but someone who didn't know seeing them would probably assume they were related. Possibly not sisters, but quite likely cousins. With the changed colour of their hair and eyes matching, they look about as similar to each other as Vicky and Crystal, other than the considerable height difference. Their changed noses, for example, are absolutely identical, but their mouths look completely different.
Once you're done with Missy, you move round the bed to check Dinah. It's hard to be sure with so little of her visible, but you're pretty sure her face looks even younger, and reaching into her cocoon to touch her face confirms that her physical age has regressed another year, leaving her even shorter and slightly pudgier, as well as completely prepubescent. Equally dramatically, the wool that appeared on her lower shins yesterday has spread up to her belly button, covering her entire lower body in a layer of short white wool (You assume. You're not digging her out and striping her to check). It's two pretty big changes, but based on how she acted yesterday, you think Dinah will care about them about as much as her other arm getting more athletic looking or her "Eyes On Me" Trait getting stronger.
It's hard to be sure, since you're already familiar with their bodies and Infections, so you "checking up" on changes that don't involve a new strain is fast and easy anyway, but you think your powers read what had happened to the two younger girls faster than yesterday. At the very least, you did it quick enough that Taylor's only just finishing remaking the bed you shared when you turn around, putting her black cat and your gold dog on the pillows with a gentle pat. Making Vicky's bed for her is quite emphatically not your problem, and you insist it's not Taylor's either, half pulling her out in to the hall. She suggests you go and get a change of clothes from the store room before heading to the bathrooms, and given what your options after going to the toilet will be if you don't, you swiftly agree even though it's in the other direction.
"Morning girls!" Annette's cheerful voice calls from far too close behind you as you leave, bundles of appropriately teenage clothes under your arms.
"Morning Mom." An annoyingly unsurprised Taylor replies, a trace of wonder in her voice that makes it clear how glad she is to be able to say that to her mother's face again.
"Mornin' Mrs Annette." You say once your heart rate has dropped a bit. "Amy big girl again, but playpen make sound like baby for bit." You remind the older woman when she looks puzzled by your childish sounding voice and words.
"Ah, of course. Anyway, good to see you both up. Since I imagine you'll want to get cleaned up before dressing, why don't I show you to the big bathroom? It's got very nice showers, even if we're not quite sure how they got there." The knowing look Annette gives your diapers makes you both blush, but a shower sounds heavenly, so you agree, and try not waddle too much as you follow her.
The big bathroom turns out to be a wood lined room with ornate brassy fittings, shaped somewhat like it's inside a ship. There's only one toilet, but Taylor doesn't want it but unlike the showers and bath there's a screen between it the rest of the room, so while Taylor pokes around the room you hurry over, pulling at the tapes of the bulky undergarment you're more than ready to be out of. Once your business is done, you head for the sink to wash your hands, and find Taylor apparently having become enraptured by her appearance in a large mirror partway through undressing.
"Wow, I look...really good." She says, apparently to herself as you finish at the sink and wander over.
"Diapy part of Taylor look good? 'Cause Amy no judgy if is, but Amy bein' Taylor friend no go to diapy changes." You say, mostly joking, making the dark haired girl jolt and blush.
"No, no! It was kind of fun for the night, but that's it!" She fairly screeches. "Not being able to see how bony my butt is might make me look better, but wearing diapers to hide it way too far!"
"Taylor sure?" You tease as you take your nightdress off and turn on a shower, dodging the rush of freezing water that quickly heats up. "Taylor happy wear one quick last night."
"Absolutely! Just cause what happened in the kink guide meant wearing one for real didn't feel weird, doesn't mean I want to wear diapers!" Taylor protests, starting up her own shower before finally taking her own diaper off.
"Wha' happen with kinky book?" You ask as you step into the spray, judging that saying something about her protesting too much would be taking the teasing too far.
"It was...basically a bunch of scenarios repeating but a little more...ageplay-ish...each time. They were all about me being in the Wards and Missy being partnered up with me as a mentor, and like, the first time through was probably how that would actually go, with me respecting her experience and her being glad to share it, but the next time through it was like we'd switched ages, even though our bodies looked the same as always, and it ramped up from there. I knew it wasn't real the whole time, but...it was a lot like having a really detailed dream. Sometimes I'd think something was off, vaguely, but I'd just shrug it off and go along with whatever was happening, even as it went from Missy helping me with fifth-grade homework to sucking my thumb while she read kindergarten books to me, to her taking me on patrol round the city in a baby carrier and stopping midway for me to get a snack by sucking on a tinkertech fake breasts rig she was wearing. There were a few one offs, like the one with diapers being part of all female Ward's uniforms, or a tinkertech accident turning me into a baby, but mostly they were all the same set." Taylor explains as the two of you wash.
"That less weird than Amy think, but also more weird." You comment, thinking also that the way your words get translated between your brain and your mouth is adding a surreal layer to this whole conversation. "Sound normal, but mixed up age stuff, no weird sex stuff."
"Yeah, it was kinky, but not about sex, if you get what I mean. It was...kind of nice, being the little kid and knowing that someone older than you was looking after you and cared about you... It definitely made last night...easier? Easier to get into, though not as much as getting my brain zapped back to five!" Taylor laughs, smiling fondly. "For Missy as well, I think. Even after the puzzle box messed her up, she kept trying to be like a big sister towards me and I have to admit I appreciated it. Although... Don't tell her I said this, but it's probably a good thing she got effected by the box. Mom would have had her changing my diapers all night otherwise, and the weirdness of that would linger more than with what ended up happening, which was at least equally embarrassing for both of us."
You consider asking for more details there, but decide you don't need to know unless one of them tells you, and the two of you finish washing up in silence, asides from some embarrassed squealing when Annette comes in without warning to collect your discarded diapers and deposit a pair of large, fluffy towels. There's a little oddness when you get dressed afterwards and your clothes change under the influence of your new Trait, but other than the mild brain break of trying to work out how a black bra and panties can get visibly brighter in colour while still being pure black, it's pretty minor, and you're soon on your way to the kitchen.
Danni's cooking something at the stove when you get there, and Vicky, still in her pyjamas, is slumped in a seat at the table, staring at a glass of water like she can turn it into coffee by will alone.
"Sleepy well, big sissy?" You ask impishly as Taylor greets her father (other mother?). "Amy sleep like baby."
"Well, you didn't keep me up by screaming all night, but I did wonder when I got up if you'd crapped yourself." Vicky mutters viciously, then winces and looks apologetic. "That was unnecessarily bitchy. Sorry. I didn't sleep well for no good reason and there's no coffee to make up for it."
"No worry. Vicky really nice big sissy to little kid head Amy last night, Amy deal with grumpy pants morning Vicky." You assure her, patting her on the hand and considering giving her a bit of a boost, before deciding the Infection makes it too risky. You do confirm she's completely unchanged since your last check up, at least.
"Little kid you was pretty damn cute." Vicky says with a smile. "The whole thing was fun for me, too. Like the babysitting Mom never let me do, except with backup and a kid's dreamland of toys. Speaking of, you and Taylor should go get your boosts from the crystal ball. I got mine earlier, and you can totally feel it. It's not a big thing, but it's there."
Breakfast isn't ready yet, so you and Taylor head to the playroom to do as your sister suggested. Looking at the instructions on a sheet pinned to the table, it seems simple enough, even when Taylor makes an unexpected suggestion.
"Shall we try me passing some of my stamina over to you? Not much, just as much as I get back extra. I don't need it as much with the magic wand to fight with, and you're the one who can heal and do stuff with the Infection."
"Amy guess? But little bit only." You answer after thinking it over.
On your end, the transfer feels rather underwhelming, honestly. You feel your body get a little bit tougher and more enduring once, and then a second time in quick succession, a sensation best described as a weird, sort of pins and needles-like tingling that lasts a couple of seconds each time. Possibly because she ended up in the same place she started, it apparently felt similarly unimpressive on Taylor's end, and the two of you are soon heading back to the kitchen a second time.
Dinah's arrived since you left, sitting in a chair and rubbing sleep from her eyes but looking cheerful, the hood of the sheep onesie she's still wearing down to reveal a riotous tangle of brown bed head.
"Morning! Your hair looks very nice this morning!" She says brightly, apparently to both you and Taylor.
Returning her greeting is interrupted by Vicky finally spotting the gold streaks in your hair and realising they're the same colour her own hair has turned, though without the slightly fur-like texture. She can't seem to decide if she's happy or sad about it, but she's certainly loud about it, and keeps it up for several minutes, until Annette arrives to report Missy's in the shower and will be out for breakfast soon.
"It should be ready just in time then." Danni replies. "Ah, would anyone like some milk to go with it?"
You're not sure what worries you more. That you spend several seconds wondering where the milk's come from, given you know the Dockworkers don't have access to a source of it, or that when the penny finally drops, you have to bite back an enthusiastic "Yes please!"
Danni's breasts are once again full of magic milk, providing one of several bonuses but with a chance of side effects, mostly of the regressive kind.
Spoiler: Detailed effects
Amy currently has 14/20 points towards unlocking FAV purchase Temporary Changes (will also need Modify Individual II). For each person that drinks she will gain 1 point, plus 1 if the drinker gets any side effect. Points may also be gained towards FAV purchases locked behind Temporary Changes. If Amy herself drinks, points gain is doubled.
Does anyone drink some alongside breakfast? (Pick 2):
[Milk] Amy
[Milk] Vicky
[Milk] Missy
[Milk] Taylor
[Milk] Dinah
[Milk] No one 1
[Milk] No one 2
QM: Forgot to do the fetish gain rolls last time. Done and added now, neither gained anything.
Even accounting for the most sluggish pace getting ready and time to say proper goodbyes, there's well over an hour to spare before the party plans to leave the Dockworkers Union Compound, and plenty of things that can be done in that time. What does Amy turn her newly enhanced ability to study and manipulate the Infection to before the party departs? (Pick 2):
[Amy] Infection Analysis I - With Danni vouching for you, some members of the DWU are willing to let Amy analyse their Infections.
(One analysis roll each for Deckhand, Promethean, Promethean Leader and Sea Witch Infections, Amy will wear INT maxing equipment)
[Amy] Infection Analysis II - With Annette vouching for you, some members of the DWU are willing to let Amy analyse their Infections.
(One analysis roll each for Triton, Triton Leader , Selkie, Selkie leader Infections, Amy will wear INT maxing equipment)
[Amy] Party Mod - Make some changes to up to 2 other members of the party, either by modifying their strains as described in Alter Strain or changing their physical stats as described in Modify Individual. Costs WP depending on changes.
-] Who and how
[Amy] Party Mod 2 - As above, but for different people
-] Who and how
[Amy] Item Inspection - Use your new ability to go through all the enhanced items the party has collected so far, learning any unknown effects and what strains they carry, with a short description of unknown strains.
It's not just Amy who's making good use of her time before leaving the compound. What do the rest of the party get up to? (Pick 5):
[Party] Piratical Trading - The Dockworkers don't have any shops for external traders in their compound, but with Danni making inductions the quartermasters are happy to make some deals.
(Shop vote, store will be available later regardless.)
[Party] Treasure Hunt! - The piratical streak of the Dockworkers means they're always up for searching out hidden booty, especially when they don't have to leave the compound to do it. The riddle might not be all that useful in narrowing down where the treasure is, but many hands make light work.
(Find Pirates of the Pervy Main cache, containing 1d52 random items, likely of the lewd or weird kind.)
[Party] Personal Time (Vicky) - Between the pollen from yesterday and some steamy dreams, Vicky's currently feeling a little worked up. A little personal time will help her take care of things.
-] Using one of the aids the party has collected (Effects variable depending on chosen item)
-] No aids (95% chance of reducing Vicky's LIB by 3d1015, 5% chance of increasing it by 3d10)
[Party] Big Gun Placement - The Dockworkers have a couple of very big new cannons to put in place, a job requiring considerable muscle power and time. Or some well judged Parahuman help, for which the party will be suitably credited.
(Gain 3 Dockworker reputation and 500 Dockworker store credit)
[Party] Salvage Sorting - Several new shipping containers were "recovered" last night, and it's a formidable amount of salvage to go through. A little Parahuman assistance will speed things ups, and in return the grateful Dockworkers will let the party have a go at the newly traditional "Salvage Lucky Dip".
(Gain 3 Dockworker reputation and a randomly themed container holding 1d10 items, at least 1 of which will be enhanced.)
[Party] Annette Hypnotherapy - Annette offers to spend some time working with the members of the party to help them adapt to the weirdness of the post F-Day clothing situation, via her abilities and a handful of more conventional self-help techniques. She may even let the party have some of her "teaching aids", but the session might result in some adventurous clothing choices
(Reduce party concern about wearing weird things, 75/50/25% chance of getting 1/2/3 pieces of enhanced but odd clothing, 1d5 members of party must wear something odd when selecting equipment to leave in.)
[Party] Morning Briefing - Sit everyone down together and make sure you're all on the same page before you set out for the day, and have various conversations that didn't happen due to the slumber party turning so childish. Also get some information about possible actions from the Heberts, though they admit the Dockworkers Union doesn't know much about the wider city.
(Gain info about what party members want to do. Limited information gain on some options from DWU knowledge.)
[Party] Help Amy - Fetch things, coordinate people, take notes and otherwise assist so Amy can get more done before the party leaves.
-] One action from Amy action list above
QM: New individual Favour purchase are under revision, please wait warmly.
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Last edited: Feb 18, 2021
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Threadmarks: Day 2, Part 2 (Morning)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: I look at how much FAV Amy earned this update and have to remind myself it's an unlikely to be repeated situation that's responsible.
Also, if there's anything you think the party should have talked about they didn't, please say. I think I covered everything, but I've got the nagging feeling I missed something.
Spoiler: Rolls
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls
With considerable reluctance, you force yourself to say no to Danni's offer after thinking about it. As tasty and good for you as her milk is, you can't justify risking ending up thinking like a kid again when you're going to be out in the city, rather than well inside a secure location for the duration. The others seem to think similarly, since they all decline as well, which makes the matronly octopus woman look disappointed but not surprised before starting to plate up a selection of fried bread and sea life, finishing just as a damp haired Missy enters the room.
"It's been annoying me all night, so I think I'm going to make my first job this morning rounding up some of the lads and lasses and seeing if we can find that cache the riddle suggested was on site." Annette announces as everyone tucks in. "Anyone want to come along?"
Dinah responds with an energetic yes right away, and Taylor's own agreement is only a fraction slower and less enthusiastic, while Missy thinks for a bit before saying she'll come too and Vicky declines somewhat distractedly.
"Any Dockworker let Amy looky at Infection if ask? Amy want come with, but Amy should look Infections here before go if can." Is your own answer, after a little thought.
"I'm sure we can find some volunteers if we ask." Danni says, after exchanging a look with Annette. "It's hardly an intrusive process, and it could tell us some interesting things."
"Thankies. Amy good for Vampyrates from Mrs Annette, but Sea Witchies like Mrs Danni Amy still need more, and other kinds of Dockworkers too."
By now, you've experienced enough of it to call the playpen's effect on how you sound when speaking annoying, but bearable. Your voice is childlike in tone and pitch, but no one's made an issue of it, so you can deal with it for the next day and a half, and it might be simplifying your vocabulary sharply, but it's still leaving your meaning fairly clear, compared to, say, Tattletale's condition. You're able to talk to the others over breakfast about their changes overnight easily enough, even when explaining about Missy's strain mutating so drastically, or the much smaller change in Taylor's strain that non-the-less has big implications for what happens if a fight goes badly.
After breakfast, Dinah leaves to shower and change, Taylor determinedly shoos her parents from the kitchen and address the washing up, with Missy volunteering her help, Vicky disappears off somewhere and you steel yourself to have an embarrassing conversation or two. You take a moment to consider how Taylor and Missy look together before you speak, thought. You saw over breakfast that really do look a lot alike (and, surprisingly in Missy's case, like Annette) in the face now, and seeing them from behind, while their builds aren't all that similar, with them both in borrowed long skirts and t-shirts and matching hair colours, they could easily be taken for sisters, and you're more than a little glad neither seems to mind their new resemblance.
"Amy need talk to Taylor and Missy 'bout um, privates things Infection do?" You feel yourself turn bright red as the babyish filter applied to your speech makes a highly embarrassing (though not inaccurate) change, but decide just to plough on. "Not big privates, but still alone talk privates maybe?"
"I'm fine with talking in front of Missy, but if she'd rather we didn't?" Taylor says softly, looking at the younger girl, who thinks, then shakes her head.
"No, it's fine. And I'm fine with Taylor hearing whatever it is you want to talk to me about as well, Amy." Missy's blush is clear on her now snow white cheeks, but she doesn't seem likely to change her mind.
"Okies. Missy first. Amy think that Infection make Missy like girls, not boys, before we wake up, but not know deffie with what Amy find from Infection last day. Missy tell if no mind?" You're not sure if your words coming out so childishly phrased makes having this conversation worse or not, but it's certainly surreal.
"Ack! Err...sort of? I've definitely been, um, noticing girls in a way I didn't used to, but I still find guys attractive too. I think. We've not really seen all that many since we woke up, and most of them have either been pretty girly looking or not my type anyway, but remembering, ah, certain guys looks still feels, um...good." Missy's blush somehow gets brighter, and she focuses hard on the dishes she's drying rather look at either you or Taylor, but she manages to answer relatively smoothly after the initial shock.
"Huh, different than me then." Taylor says thoughtfully, handing the other girl a just scrubbed frying pan and pretending not to notice her relaxing slightly. "I don't like guys at all anymore."
"Hmm... Amy less sure now. Amy though Infection Amy powers make have like girls bit 'cause get from Amy, but maybe not if Missy still like guys any? But Vicky no change liking any? Amy no get rules. Maybe see more Infections help?" You mutter, mostly to yourself. You could get another data point by talking to Dinah, but that feels even more uncomfortable now she's physically ten again, so you move on to what you wanted to talk to Taylor about. "When Taylor got magical girl Infection, it change to try give Taylor wee-wee, but can no do it 'cause princess Infection say no change those bits. Amy sure it no do anything, but can change so it make Taylor just girl if like?"
"If it does ah, 'change anything' you can change it back, right?" Taylor asks, and you nod. "Then it's not that urgent, you can fix it this evening or something. And I guess if it does change anything that'll tell us something useful, at least."
The uncomfortable conversations done, you start helping to put the breakfast things away, feeling mildly glad everything goes in the lower cabinets and not the higher ones you're no longer tall enough to reach. Admittedly, you'd have had a hard time putting things in the high cabinets even before you shrunk five inches, but you'd at least have been able to try without flying or Missy's powers. Things are just about done when you hear Danni calling you from the hall, and stick your head out to see her standing next to another, younger looking octopus woman who's much shorter but still lushly curvy, and wearing a rather provocative corset-like top, in contrast to Danni's modest blouse. Also, she's got more tentacles, so she might actually be a squid woman.
"You said earlier you wanted to use your powers to examine someone else with the same strain of Infection as me, dear? Tammy here wants to talk to me about something, so you can check her over while she does."
You get the feeling Danni is rather annoyed with the other woman about something and is letting you analyse her Infection while they talk in order to make a point of some kind, but quickly decide not to get involved and just take advantage of the opportunity. Tammy looks a little unsure about having you stand behind her in the living room with one hand on her bare shoulder as they talk, but swallows her objection at a sharp look from Danni. Given that from what you overhear even when focusing on her Infection, she's turned up at Danni's house first thing in the morning to complain about some absolutely high school level boyfriend (or at least dick-possessing friend) stealing shit between her and several of the other Sea Witches, so she's probably aware she's trying Danni's patience enough already. You're able to finish off examining the Sea Witch strain as they talk at least (which confirms there's nothing in it other than the mildly boosted and much more indiscriminate sex drive to explain why a bunch of twenty-somethings are acting like a pack of bitchy teenage girls), which doesn't tell you anything examining Danni didn't except the exact differences in Infection strength, change rate and target sex between the baseline and Coven Mother Sea Witch variants.
"Learn what you wanted to dear?" Danni asks after a chastened Tammy has left.
"Amy did. No much new from learn from Mrs Danni, but know all not-mommy Sea Witchies Infection now." You answer.
"Care to compare notes then? We think we've generally figured things out from observation, but you can offer a pretty unique second opinion on that." Danni says, smiling encouragingly.
"Okies. Um, let Amy try thingy first?" Danni nods, so you concentrate as you speak about your findings. "So, mommy Sea Witchies better than not-mommies 'cause they boss special smelly things and make really nice milky." You pull a face at how it comes out, you hadn't even meant to say the last bit yet. "No. Amy no going to do by talking. Even if Mrs Danni know what Amy say, Amy have proudies. No give spechy wi' 'Special smelly things'. Amy still write big girl, Amy get paper and do that."
Danni manages to keep a straight face at your rant long enough to agree with you going to fetch some paper and a pen, at least. You head to the playroom, that last place you saw the pink school backpack with its endless supplies, but it's not there, and you're not sure where it would have been moved to. Fortunately, Annette is in the hall with the rest of the treasure hunting party when you come back, and she tells you before they leave that all the bags you came with are in the room you slept in at the moment, so after waving good bye to them you head upstairs.
The door to the room is ajar, and you can just see the satchel a little way inside through it, so you float towards it, only for the door to fly open just as you reach it, leaving your face inches from a floating, panty clad crotch. Given the short list of options, you're not surprised to look up and see your big sister's face (well, her boobs, but her face once you move back a bit), but that one of her hands is hooked into the waistband of said panties and the other is holding the dildo you found in Winslow after beating Sophia is less easily absorbed.
"Vicky! We guests!" You hiss as your face flushes, waving a hand at the room to try and get across the point you don't think you could articulate even without your talking impaired.
"I know! I was going to one of the bathrooms!" Vicky hisses back, waving the arm holding the dido and having to catch her pants as they slide from where they're slung over a shoulder.
"Why no pants if true?" You respond with narrowed eyes.
"I... That is... It didn't seem worth it t put them back on after I, ah, checked the fit. I heard everyone leaving, I thought it would be fine!" Is the red faced explanation, and you slap a palm onto your own face in response.
"Amy no want know more. Amy going to get schooly bag and forgot. Big Sissy should make sure go to bathroom no near living room. And very make sure lock door." You grab the item you came for and leave without waiting for a response, deliberately stopping floating so you can stomp away properly.
"Is something wrong dear?" Danni asks when you make your scowling and slightly red faced return.
"Amy no want talk about it. Big Sissy be dumb-dumb." You respond irritably, taking out paper and a pen to start writing a summary of what you know about the Sea Witch strain and its leader mutation. As long as you keep your mind focused on "work", it won't wander to fantasising about what's happening somewhere upstairs. Your notes come out clear and legible, but; "Oh come on. Amy write pen. Why Amy words in crayon!?" Danni doesn't manage not to laugh, this time.
Comparing notes on the Sea Witch and Vampirate strains confirms what your powers say matches up to what the Dockworkers have observed, and you've just about finished up when a knock at the door heralds the arrival of the first actual volunteer for you to analyse. Kurt looks like he was dredged up from the sea floor several days after a 15th century naval battle, but he's the first Infected you've seen closely who's heavily changed, fully and unambiguously male, and in possession of a completely functional brain, a combination you hadn't been sure was actually possible before now, even if several of the strains you'd already analysed could theoretically result in it. The Deckhand strain is the most common one amongst the residents of the Dockworkers Union compound, and despite turning those with it into zombie pirates, by far the least weird. Your examination confirms the suspected but not proven belief that the Deckhand's tendency to break out in to sea shanties when working or fighting is because of the strain, and boosts the power and coordination of the singers and also reveals there's a fairly small chance of them getting a Trait for literally magical singing, but Kurt doesn't have it, and can't think of anyone who might of the top of his head. The rest of your results match the Dockworkers' observations closely, with the exception that the negative impacts of the Dumb Muscle Trait don't seem anywhere near as great as you'd expect for most people with the strain. But your point of comparison is Leafy, and it was hardly the only thing turning her brain into jelly, so you might just be misjudging things.
Danni's next two guests, who you have to go out to since they can't fit inside, don't make things much clearer for you there. Their names are Bobbie and Billie, and they're a Promethean and Promethean Pod Stallion respectively. They resemble the women who were pulling the cart yesterday, in that they have the torsos of amazonian women atop the bodies of crabs but without the zombie-like appearance, and both are hermaphrodites, in possession of substantially sized dicks and balls. By which you mean, the smaller Bobbie's testacies are each bigger than your head. Bobbie is slightly larger than the two from yesterday and Billie is massively so, crab body alone well over nine feet tall and almost as much across and muscular human shoulders wider than you are tall. There are a number of bits to the Promethean's strains that reduce their intelligence, but while they're clearly less mentally agile than Kurt, it's put them at a "dumb football jock" sort of level, which is still miles better than the mush-brained Leafy. (Speaking of dumb jocks, your sister, looking pink in a way that's probably nothing to do with also looking freshly showed, emerges while you're in the garden looking for something to do, and ends up agreeing to help the two Prometheans with moving some very large cannons.) What you learn of their changes and abilities matches up with what the Dockworkers know pretty well yet again, though from the look on Danni's face, you don't want to know how they learned that with a heavy enough load to pull, Billie can run at over a hundred miles an hour. When slowed by all the concrete walls they had to crash through. The Trait Billie has that allows her to keep being an excellent leader in a fight even when using the abilities that boost her physical might at the cost of making her dumb as a rock is interesting, as is the only Trait you find the Dockworkers didn't know about, Abs of Steel, which ensures her stamina can never be made less than her strength. Fortunately, Danni's able to distract the hulking pair when they start trying to come up with ways to test it by reminding them about the cannon move.
Danni leaves with the Prometheans and Vicky to get started on placing the cannons, and you're left alone at the cottage. Not for long, though, you've barely had time to gather your notes, take them inside and reflect that your powers seem to be analysing the Infection much quicker today, when space warps in a characteristically Vista way outside the living room window. Moments later the treasure hunters return, plus a long metal box and a pair of beautiful but otherwise surprisingly ordinary looking women.
When the box is opened for your inspection by an excited Dinah, the most obvious thing inside is the long wooden oar, the well made appearance of which is spoiled somewhat for you by the way your powers promptly label it a "Spanking Oar" when you touch it, and proceed to dump a bunch of information about it into your head. Objectively, that you can now touch items enhanced by the Infection and learn both what the enhancement does and what strain of Infection they carry is very useful and a great improvement over yesterday. But you'd much rather have found that out from something that's enhancement doesn't boil down to "Spank someone's butt bigger for a bit and make them like it". Like the pair of knee high boots with six plus inch spike heels, which might be made out of tight black leather, but have the far less kink-related enhancement of making it so the wearer can't lose their balance. Or the black silk eyepatch with the cute Jolly Roger on it, which would seriously impair the wearer's senses, but help them spot things regardless, and allow them to rapidly improve said senses. Those are both under the oar, and much less embarrassing to learn about and have to explain to the others (especially the far to innocently curious Dinah). At least the tube of lube that matches the one from the first cache, the rum and white chocolate flavoured body paint and the vast collection of piercings are all unenhanced.
As you're watching a mildly flustered Taylor explain the sorts of places the piercings, most of which are clearly not earrings, would go to Dinah, with cheerful interjections as to why someone would put them there from her far too amused mother, you feel the fairy Infection in your body rouse into activity, giving you just enough warning brace for it to transform you before it starts doing so. Which actually ends up being something of a waste, as all it does is place two Traits within your body. One is the identity preserving one from your strain, which doesn't have any further effects from being part if you rather than the strain, but is now basically impossible to be blocked or its effects lost, so it's a pretty good pickup. The other Trait is the one that made you shrink last night (which it luckily won't do again), and as a Trait it gives you the ability to make your whole body glow, at levels between "bright" and "blinding", or to concentrate the light into a dazzling flash that can weaken someone's will temporarily, and send them into a deep sleep they can't be woken from for hours if there willpower gets totally depleted from it. Which would also be a pretty great change, were it not for the last effect of the Trait, the details of which you can't quite bring yourself to believe without testing.
"Missy? Try picky up Amy please?" You ask quietly, pulling her attention away from the floorshow.
The twelve year old looks confused, but does as you ask, eyes widening in surprise when she's able to lift you with hardly any effort, only the fact you're the same size stopping her from moving you around as easily as a baby. Because that's about what you weigh now, with your new Trait reducing your weight to a quarter of what it was. Or your effective weight, at least. You're not any thinner or anything, and the density of the various tissues of your body hasn't changed, you just weigh way less than you should. You know somehow that if you try and apply force, by slamming into someone or bracing yourself or even pressing down on something, it'll be like you have your actual mass, but if you sit on someone or otherwise try to just use your mass without exertion, it will be at the reduced level. Which seems a bit arbitrary, but better than if it was just like you weighed twenty-odd pounds in all cases.
"Amy get new Trait, make Amy lots and lots lighter." You explain, to Missy and the rest of the room, who've turned curious eyes towards the sight of Missy trying to find a comfortable way of lifting you one-handed. And then again less than a minute later to Vicky, who returns looking for Missy to make a door bigger in a less permanent way than Billie waking through it until it gives up.
As they're leaving, Annette asks if Missy wouldn't mind giving her a lift to the docks, where she's apparently got some work to do, and Taylor asks to come with, clearly wanting to spend as much time with her resurrected mother as possible before you leave. Dinah joins the exodus as well, curious to see more of the compound, you think, leaving you alone with the two women, who were introduced as Jean, a Selkie Matron, and Sally, a standard Selkie. Looking more closely at the two of them as you start your analysis of their strains confirms your impression that they're almost indistinguishable from non-Infected humans visually, with only their solid black eyes and sheer perfect beauty to give away their transformation. The Selkie strain grants the ability to change between three shapes, human, animal and mixed, with mixed apparently being the most natural. Jean happily demonstrates the changes for you, and explains that while they can move around fairly easily on land in any form, human legs are still better than a seal's tail for walking, and also moving about on land while half or fully a seal (or dolphin or swordfish or...) is a process somewhat lacking in dignity, so the Selkies amongst the Dockworkers tend to stick to their human shape when out and about. Other than that, the Selkies have a limited degree of water related powers, and traits which strongly incline them towards falling in love with someone and becoming rather submissive to them, though Sally shyly explains that while she likes doing domestic tasks for her partner far more than she used to, it's not as subservient a relationship as it might appear. The main differences with the matronly Jean's strain are that it makes her look matronly, rather just generically more feminine, her power over water is stronger, her ability at domestic tasks is literally magical, and that she'll find being pregnant to be highly beneficial. That last fact is the only thing about the Selkie Matron strain the Dockworkers didn't know already, and from the look on Jean's face, you telling them about it has reinforced an already strong desire to get pregnant, and she's probably going to be doing something about it in short order.
The two Selkies leave shortly after you finish examining them, and you find yourself at a loose end, having gone to organise all your notes in the satchel, only to find that it's done that for you. You decide you might as well make notes on the Infections your group has and what transformations they've caused all well, and are just about done with that when there's a thunderous knocking on the cottage door. Opening it, you find yourself face to bared torso with a cheerfully grinning bipedal orca woman built like she juggles weightlifters, a smaller shark woman with a resigned expression slung over her shoulder. This first impression of the Triton Alpha Liza quickly proves to be a highly accurate one, both of her personally and the relationship between her and her longsuffering lover and assistant Mary, and you're honestly a little surprised you make it through the whole examination without her breaking any part of Annette and Danni's living room. The Triton strain itself prove to hold few surprises, it makes predatory piratical fish people without any unusual flourishes beyond the ability to heal quickly, and the Alpha mutation adds to that minor power over water and a natural leadership ability that also strengthens them if they have more followers. Liza's a little disappointed you didn't find any hidden abilities for her to unlock, but thanks boisterously you for looking them over and confirming what they knew through observation before dashing off somewhere, Mary saying goodbye as well before following at a calmer pace.
It's not long after the Tritons leave that Taylor, Dinah and Annette return, Annette carrying a large wooden barrel against one shoulder as though it's light as a feather. The Dockworker's Union find a lot of shipping containers full of random stuff washing up or floating nearby, apparently, and as thanks for Taylor and Dinah using their powers to help them find the interesting bits in the night's haul quickly, they got to have a go at the "traditional" (for the last fortnight or so) game for what happens to the bits of salvage that are interesting, but not immediately useful for the Union's goals. Which basically boils down to making vaguely themed bundles out of it, sticking the bundles in waterproof barrels, then floating the barrels in a pool of moving water and letting people earn the right fish a barrel out (with a giant fishing rod that only hooks wood, because the Infection) and claim its contents. You suppose it's an entertaining enough way of randomly distributing things, though with both Taylor and Dinah involved, you're pretty sure there's very little chance involved in the choice of barrel. Once the lid is removed, the first thing inside is a large green silk handkerchief, which your powers tell you has a minor enhancement that means the owner can always pull it out of a pocket, bag or sleeve when needed, clean and ready for use. Under that is a fancy looking purse covered in dice patterns, which is enhanced so the person carrying it can use send valuables to a secure storage place they've already established, or produce any valuables in that same location from it. They have to be able to fit through the purse's opening, but that's nearly as big as your head, so it's not to onerous a restriction. The next item is a box boldly declaring it contains a "Lucky Dip" vibrator, which is quickly put aside before the combination of Annette and Dinah can make it's existence mortifying for you and Taylor in to opposite yet horribly complimentary ways. (When you get chance to look at it later, you're torn between morbid curiosity at just how varied a combination of settings it can really produce, dread at the thought of ending up with a knobbly, sporadically vibrating horsecock stuck in you for several hours or a similarly unpleasant mix if you use it and get unlucky, and the guilty desire to leave it somewhere Vicky can find and hope she accidentally scrambles herself in to temporarily finding incestuous lesbianism hot.) (You have to force yourself to list the reasons the last idea is a terrible one several times before it stops intruding on your thoughts.) Below the vibrator are two cases of seven large bottles of shampoo/conditioner and bodywash respectively, the packaging featuring a cartoon playboy bunny as a "lucky rabbit", to go with the enhancement that will make anyone who uses them together a little luckier for the day, somehow. The large leather case under the bottles is the only unenhanced item in the barrel, a portable casino games set, and the last item, which looks like a large metal toolkit, is probably the weirdest, given that with a few hours work it can be used to turn any room that's already reasonably secure into a nearly impregnable vault that will get bigger and more secure the more valuable things are kept in it.
Vicky and Missy aren't back by the time you've finished with the barrel and packed its contents into various bags to take with you. With not long left before you plan to leave, you, Taylor and Dinah end up sitting and chatting in the Hebert cottage's living room while you wait for them, mostly about inconsequential things once you've checked your notes about their Infections match up with their experiences. The topic of where you're going to go and what you'll do after leaving the DWU compound comes up, but doesn't really get far, because you and Taylor both agree you should go with more of a goal than just exploring the city, but can't come up with anything beyond a vague "Help people, I guess." as to what that goal could be. Dinah seems to have something she wants to do, at least, based on her expression, but doesn't seem willing to bring it up, so the subject is dropped. When Vicky and Missy do return, it's with the news that Danni had to stay behind to sort out a disagreement over what size of gun is being forged next and your departure is delayed a little longer so Taylor will have chance to say a proper goodbye to her father first, and Missy suggests using the time to make sure you're all on the same page about what's happened and what you're doing.
"...so, yeah, it was definitely sabotage of some kind that let the Infected in quarantine at the PRT building lose." Missy says a few minutes later, having gone through the bit memory crystal showing Shadow Stalker escape with you all, pointing out various things she spotted. "The footage doesn't the right places to tell what kind, but even if the Infection made a guard decide to let people out somehow, it wouldn't happened that way. It's meant to be impossible for more than one of those cell doors to be open at once, even with power to the building out like that. And the troopers in the guard post outside the containment cells clearly have their call for backup go through, but no one shows up, even though it takes over ten minutes for them to be overrun and the main ready room for the in-building response team is two floors up and has multiple paths to that cell block. Stalker just going through the walls makes it hard to be sure, but it looks like the response to the breakout in the rest of the building is having coordination issues too."
"Someone deliberately sabotaged the PRT's response to the Infection hard enough to take down the whole department? Who!? How!? And most importantly, why the hell!!!?" Vicky yells, after several moments of stunned blinking, colourfully summing the general response to Missy's report.
"Your guess is as good as mine?" Missy answers with a resigned shrug, tugging gently at one of her hair flowers. "They almost certainly had whatever they used set up before F-Day, so whoever's responsible for F-Day seems likely, but we've no idea who that is or what they want. We might be able to find out more if we went to the PRT building, but I get the impression that's easier said than done, even with my powers."
"Most likely, dear." Annette says as she enters the room, apparently drawn by the yelling. "The downtown area is too far for us to get more than the occasional distant look at from aboard ship, but from what we know, there are a lot of strong and vicious Infected there. No groups as large as in the Docks, probably, but no less dangerous for it. The trip might be informative enough to be worth it at some point, but I'd recommend getting more used to the city post-F-Day and the variety of Infected beforehand."
"Seems smart." Vicky agrees. "So, what do people want to do get that experience? Like, I want to head to our house, and sooner rather than later so we can meet up with Gallant, Triumph and Aegis at the same time, but I want to try and get to Crystal at the university too, she might know where Eric and her parents are. And I want to try and help Mom and Dad, but we know their situation won't change soon, so I think we should find out more about the Manor before we do." She glances at Annette, but the older woman shrugs, clearly not familiar with the location
"I want to find out what's going on with the other Wards, so your house and going to where the map says Clockblocker is for me, I guess. And I suppose if we're heading that way anyway to see Clockblocker, I'd like to stop by my house? I don't really expect to find anything useful there, but I should at least check for clues about what happened to my parents." Missy doesn't seem all that enthusiastic about the idea, which surprises you a bit until you remember her parents could probably lose a mother of the year competition to Carol, who at least cares about Vicky. "I also want to help Kid Win and the people at the Boardwalk out by fetching the things on the list Parian gave us, though that's not urgent urgent and might take up a lot of the day, so it can probably wait until after those?"
"Oh! Speaking of that, I found a note in one of the bags from Tattletale earlier. It'd somehow gotten wrapped around...never mind. But it's got a few more locations to check out when we do Parian's shopping, mostly places the Boardwalk people never found but have stuff they could use, I think." Vicky chirps up, a hint of pink in her cheeks that tells you exactly what the note was around, and makes you have to suppress some highly distracting images.
"What sort of places would you be going for that then, dears?" Annette asks.
"A little way west of the Boardwalk, mostly mom." Taylor says, waving at the map of the city hanging on one all of the living room. "That sort of crescent that has a bunch of shops mixed in with the offices and abandoned workshops but the city council tries to pretend doesn't exist so they can say that development on the far side of downtown is the shopping district. The hardware store and supermarket to the south were the two big ones, but the list has places all along it."
"Ah, that makes sense. We used to scavenge from the northern parts of that area before the tribes got too numerous to make it worthwhile. You can get a lot in a cart a Promethean is pulling, but it's a bit of an attention getter and hard to sneak away. Having to club rabid dog-women of the sides with your pistol because you've run out of shot isn't a particularly fun few hours. But you're a lot less obvious that we would be, and Missy changes the situation with regards to travel times a great deal." The girl in question beams at Annette's words, and the piratical vampire looks thoughtfully at the map for a moment before continuing. "If you're going to be in the area, there's a builder's yard in the north, just around here. My darling wife would certainly appreciate any wood you could bring back from there for her little boatbuilding project."
"Shipbuilding. My little shipbuilding project, dear." Danni says fondly, appearing in the doorway as if the mention of the project summoned her.
"Well, I guess that makes that trip the main thing on my list, then." Taylor says while her parents banter flirtatiously. "There are a few things I was making with my powers that could be useful if they're still at my house, but everything I'd really want to find there is here. And while I'd rather help the Boardwalk with their supply situation soon, given how lucky I've gotten, I'm not going to object if people want to try and track down their families first."
"Um, I do want to check my own house for signs of my parents, but the map says the area it is in is dangerous now, and I know they will not be there, so we do not need to go if people think it would be too risky." Dinah puts in quietly, looking worryingly worried about offering her opinion. "And it is quite likely they were in the enclave on Captain's Hill, and Triumph was apparently there, so he might be able to tell us something about them, and my Uncle, Aunt and cousins, if we meet up with him." Does Dinah know Triumph is one of her cousins? And would she know that you know that? You open your mouth to ask, pause as you consider how to phrase it for minimum toddler talk mangling, and lose your chance.
"Ah, about the Enclave Dinah." Danni says quietly, after exchanging a concerned look with Annette. "We're too far from there to have heard much about what want on there, but everything we do know says things ended very badly, so, your parents..."
"The odds are not good. I know. I have not asked, but I know." Dinah says, sadly and slightly watery eyed. "That is why I wish to look, but not if it risks anyone else."
"Oh, sweetheart." Danni sighs, approaching Dinah with open eyes and sweeping her off her feet into a hug when she nods.
"So, err, what's your opinion about where we go next, Ames?" Vicky says, while the rest of you awkwardly try not to stare it the quietly sobbing Dinah.
"Amy no really mind? See Crysy maybe nice? Nicer if Crysy know to find Aunty Sarah and Unca Neil and Eric. But Amy like all ideas Amy hear." You honestly aren't that bothered, as long as you're doing something. There's a tiny part of you that would like to delay Vicky and Dean's reunion as long as possible, but you ignore that little imp of jealousy with the ease of long practice.
"Well, it sounds like most of the places you're thinking of going are away from the shoreline, so there's not much information we can offer on them, but I can tell you about the places we do know about?" Annette offers, in a bright tone that suggests she's filling the silence. The idea gets general nods, so she continues. "Our main interest is the bay itself, which given it's far bigger than it should be and full of sea monsters is a place with a lot to talk about these days, but I'd boil it down to a strong recommendation against going out there on your own. It's very hard to navigate, ninety percent of what's in it is hostile, and there's not a lot you'd find useful to be found. The Rig may well have useful information, but there be dragons. Cyborg dragons with a tendency to try and carry people off to be experimented on. People generally revive without lasting marks afterwards, but they have a seriously bad few days first. They hunt in the city too, but only in small packs, which are much more manageable. Along the shore of the bay, you've seen the Docks and we talked about Downtown earlier, so there's just the area to the south of it, which is mostly full of orcs that used to be the National Guard. It's probably less dangerous that the Docks, even with all their fighting, but there's also not a lot there outside of the forts they've built on the beaches and the wasteland. Oh, and there's the Ship's Graveyard. That's definitely a no go zone. It's an actual labyrinth these days, one people don't tend to come out of. That's about it, really. Probably not a great deal of help."
"I mean, any information is good information, right?" Taylor says, smiling at her mother. "Oh, what about Lords Market, that's fairly near here, isn't it?"
"Yes, of course, I'd forgotten. Not much of anything there these days. Some interesting stuff turns up there, but randomly and quite occasionally, and the Ferals in the surrounding area are fairly nasty."
Dinah's recovered enough to rejoin the conversation after Annette says that, and the five of you spend a little while longer debating your next move, with occasional comments from the Heberts, before coming to a decision. Which means it's time to head upstairs to change out of your borrowed clothes and into your gear for the day, then say your goodbyes and get on the road, but just as you're standing to leave, Annette re-enters the room (surprising all of you bar Taylor, who hadn't notice her leave), holding a fancy looking black bicorn hat, which she hands to Taylor.
"A little something to remember this night by, Little Owl. This is my old hat, and in addition to looking stylish and never getting blown off by the wind, it enhances the wearer's swiftness and perceptiveness." The unspoken subtext of the hat being something to remind Taylor of Annette's mysterious and miraculous revival is clear, and Taylor barely manages to hold back sobs as she embraces her mother.
Items found
75 worth of lube, collection of piercings worth 1000
Spanking Oar - A very large wooden oar with a big paddle and the words "Captain's Favourite" written on the shaft. Too unwieldy and not sturdy enough to be used in combat. Has a Moderate enhancement that activates when it strikes someone's butt, giving them a temporary spanking fetish (or strengthening an existing one), and making the butt in question bigger and more sensitive for a time. Repeated blows increase the effects and duration. Also increases LIB gain from spanking,
Strain: Butt Booster - Always hybridised strain that grants some random buffs to the infectee's gluteus max.
Towering Boots - A pair of very high and tight black leather boots with extremely tall and sharp heels. Provide 15 DEX/STA and 5 CHA, and posses a Safe enhancement that prevents the wearer from losing their balance, no matter the circumstances.
Strain: Legs For Days - Makes legs longer and more shapely, with minor effects on feet and hips.
Rum Flavoured Body Paint - A large bottle of edible body paint with a rum and white chocolate flavouring
Practice Patch - A well made black eyepatch with a cute Jolly Roger on it. Modifies PER by -35 when worn, but has a Major enhancement that allows the wearer to reroll all failed PER checks, and increases PER by 2 following each initially successful PER check, 4 following ones that succeed on a reroll and 6 following ones that fail, max 150.
Strain: Vampirate Cabin Girl - Tween dhampir pirate who trains to grow strong as an Admiral.
High Roller's Purse - A large and fancy dice patterned purse with a Safe enhancement allowing carrier to produce any cash or other valuables they own that are stored securely elsewhere from it, as long as they can fit through its opening, and also to send such items to the same secure storage.
Strain: Carrying Capacity - Intimate places become copious containers.
Insta Vault Kit - A hefty set of parts and tools that can be used to turn any room into a secure vault in short order. Has a Safe enhancement that means the resulting vault will get slowly larger, more secure and more complex the more valuables are inside it. How secure the room is originally is the most important factor for how secure it gets, so choose wisely.
Lucky Handkerchief - A large handkerchief made of green silk with a subtle clover pattern. Has a Minor enhancement the ensures the owner can always find it clean in a pocket when they need it, no matter what they did with it last.
Strain: Lucky Bunny - Beautiful Bunnygirls who've got lucky and can really bounce. (Exposure very unlikely)
"Lucky Dip" Vibrator - A vibrator that appears ordinary, other than its neon green colour, but once inserted, gives a(n almost) completely random experience in terms of size, shape, texture, rhythm, intensity and duration. Once it starts, cannot be stopped or removed until it's done. Has a Moderate enhancement that has a 77% chance of activating when it brings someone's LIB to max, randomly rearranging their kinks and sexual preferences for 7 hours.
Strain: Get Lucky - Always hybridised strain that grants a completely random enhancement of a sexual nature.
Lucky Rabbit Shampoo and Bodywash - Two sets of seven bottles each with a pictures of a cartoon playboy bunny and various "lucky" things on them. Leaves skin and hair (and fur) nice and healthy and leaves a faint scent that makes you think of good luck. Has a Safe enhancement that makes anyone who uses it slightly luckier for a day.
Strain: Lucky Bunny - Beautiful Bunnygirls who've got lucky and can really bounce.
Casino in a Box - A large and well made case containing dice, cards, poker chips and other things for playing traditional casino games, as well as rule sets. Doesn't do anything unusual, but still fun.
QM: Note that just because something has a strain attached to it, doesn't mean it will cause exposure in normal circumstances, just that unlike, for example, the Insta Vault Kit, it's possible to get exposure from it. e.g. Having the Lucky Handkerchief in a pocket won't result in exposure, but using it as an improvised facemask might.
Where does the party head next, once goodbyes with Annette and Danni are done? Given the distance of the Dockworkers Union compound from anywhere they want to get to, the party will be using Missy's powers to return to Winslow as step 1 regardless, which means they can check in with the Camp Cats and drop off things they don't need to be carrying around regardless at no extra cost. (Pick one):
[Next] Travel to and search Missy's house (Random rolls for what you find, will be there ~1 hour)
-] Walk from Winslow (Costs Missy 4 WP, takes ~1 hour, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 9 WP, INTPER roll, TN 100)
[Next] Travel to and search Taylor's house (Random rolls for what you find, will be there ~1 hour)
-] Walk from Winslow (Costs Missy 4 WP, takes ~1 hour, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 9 WP, INTPER roll, TN 110)
[Next] Travel to and search Dinah's house (Random rolls for what you find, 80% chance of getting into a fight on top of the result, will be there ~ 1 hour)
-] Walk from Winslow (Costs Missy 4 WP, takes ~2 hours, 75% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 9 WP, INTPER roll, TN 150)
[Next] Travel to and search the Dallon house (Random rolls for what you find, also advances Happy Reunions? Quest, will be there at least 1 hour)
-] Walk from Winslow (Costs Missy 4 WP, takes ~4 hours, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 9 WP, INTPER roll, TN 125)
[Next] Travel to Clockblocker's location (90% chance of a friendly welcome, will be there an unknown amount of time)
-] Walk from Winslow (Costs Missy 4 WP, takes ~2.5 hours, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 9 WP, INTPER roll, TN 120)
[Next] Travel to the University Campus (100% chance of a friendly welcome, will be there an unknown amount of time)
-] Walk from Winslow via safe route (Costs Missy 4 WP, takes ~8 hours, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Walk from Winslow via risky route (Costs Missy 4 WP, takes ~5.5 hours, 50% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Walk from Winslow via very risky route (Costs Missy 4 WP, takes ~3 hours, 80% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 9 WP, INTPER roll, TN 150)
[Next] Search the various locations west of the Boardwalk provided by Parian and Tattletale (Salvage and various events in a number of locations, will take 5-8 hours depending on how many locations the party hits, gain materials that can be turned in for Dockside Supply Run quest)
-] Walk from the Boardwalk (Costs Missy 4 WP, takes ~1.5 hours, 50% chance of random encounter per 15 min)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 9 WP, INTPER roll, TN 135)
[Next] Travel somewhere else
-] Write In where and how
The party will of course be gearing up before heading out in to the city. Do they keep using the setups they finished the night in (the items currently on their gear tabs on the front page), or do they swap things around? Annette and Danni are willing let the party borrow unenhanced clothes if they find themselves missing things like underwear or shirts to go with what they own in an outfit. The party are not locked into their gear choices all day, but other than swapping in finds, an option to change completely will not be offered for several updates. (Plan votes preferred):
Note: All exposure timers will start from their maximum, except for the Pink Labcoat if kept on by Amy, which will start with 1 hour elapsed.
[Amy Equipment]
-] No Change
-] Write in changes
[Vicky Equipment]
-] No Change
-] Write in changes
[Missy Equipment]
-] No Change
-] Write in changes
[Taylor Equipment]
-] No Change
-] Write in changes
[Dinah Equipment]
-] No Change
-] Write in changes
QM: To pre-emptively answer the two most likely gear combination questions, one person can wear both the Practice Patch and the Geeky Glasses, but not the Admiral's Hat and the Pretty Princess Tiara or Sheep Headpiece. Because they have two eyes, but only one head.
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Last edited: Jan 4, 2021
Dec 17, 2020 ReportLike QuoteReply
Annatar, Ralyx, Midnight007 and 54 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 2, Part 3 (Morning)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
Spoiler: Rolls
All of you bar Missy are changing into complete "outfits", and Missy's putting on a bikini, so there's a point as you get dressed where it seems like everyone's naked at once. You do your best to summon up a locker room mentality and ignore it, but it's easier said than done. The point around halfway down Missy's torso where snow white skin and her pinkish normal skin meet draws a second glance, from the striking contrast and the sharpness of the dividing line, but after that you can ignore it. And the short but thick white wool that covers Dinah from the tops of her hooves to her waist is surprising at first, but easily adjusted to (and also conceals those parts of a ten year-old you'd feel like a creep for seeing completely), especially given the casualness with which she treats it being there. But Vicky's butt is always a tempting sight for your gaze to wander towards, and the happily wagging golden tail that's sprouted above it doesn't make it less attention getting. You could have probably have kept your ogling noticing of Taylor down to a single lingering glance at her long, smooth legs, but your dearest big sister insists on loudly telling her how good her changed appearance looks (in a frustratingly non-sexual fashion), so you have your attention drawn to things like the contrast between her dark purple hair and fair skin as it falls its way down her body, the way the curling ends of said hair frame her hips and butt, or the fact that armpits and crotch are just as free of hair as the rest of her body, and as flawless and silky smooth looking too.
"Oh!" Dinah's surprised cry pulls your attention from Taylor's increasingly perfect looking body, and you look over in time to see the slight pudge of her belly shrinking and firming up, followed by the rest of her torso changing similarly, not becoming particularly muscled, but clearly athletic while still healthy for a preteen. The build of an active gymnast, perhaps, a comparison that Dinah suddenly throwing herself into a handstand and walking a half circuit of the room on her hands suggests is pretty accurate.
"Look! I couldn't do anything like this before, but now I can!" The youngest of your group cries as she moves.
"Ah, that's nice Dinah. But maybe get dressed before you show us more?" Taylor says, sounding mildly embarrassed.
While a blushing but unrepentant Dinah dresses, you finish pulling the last bits of your own ensemble on, discovering that the wings of the harness merge with your own wings when worn, something you hadn't noticed last night before you took them off, too distracted by the situation and having wings at all. The non-solid nature of your wings gives you an idea, and a quick switch proves you can wear the harness under the pink labcoat with no issue, glittering wings passing through it unimpeded. The benefits of the butterfly wings remain even if they're not visibly there, and those benefits far outweigh the risks of further exposure to the Pixie Power Infection. The chance of shrinking when it reaches certain points is the worst of those, and you seriously doubt you'll be lucky enough to never reach those points even without the harness, so there's no point in weakening yourself to put them off a little longer. The same applies to the cat-girl outfit (the tabby patterned colours of which got much bolder and brighter when you put it on), and while you've not gotten round to checking what the labcoat might contain strain-wise, it seems less likely to pass it on than the first two items, it helps quite a bit with analysing Infections and hides the fact there's a tail stuck to your panties, so it stays too. You finish getting ready by collecting the crossbow beating Shadow Stalker won you, which you've not had to use yet, but promises to be quite effective when you do.
Vicky winces when she puts the dog-girl outfit on and the "fur" on the tank top, skirt, boots and gloves changes to a golden colour that matches her hair, ears and tail, but doesn't change her mind, just puts on a fake smile while slipping on the necklace form of the bone spear and shouldering the large rucksack. You wish she didn't have to, but you don't know if the few alternatives you have would risk something worse or not. The answer is highly likely to be "Yes", given that the Doggy Style Infection is pretty minor, for all Vicky hates it.
Looking around at the others, the tights of the junior cheerleader outfit lie smoothly over the wool on Dinah's legs, so the oddest thing about her appearance at a casual glance is probably the bulky bulletproof vest on her torso, or the sight of the reclaimed whip hanging at her belt near the shrunken equipment sack. The standard in its carrying harness is a little unusual, you suppose, but it seems fitting with the outfit, and you're honestly pretty used to the sight of the younger girl carrying it around by now.
Taylor meanwhile looks stunning in her own cheerleader outfit, even the thick and awkward looking glasses not detracting from her beauty, and swapping the tiara for her mom's hat gives her a jaunty, rakish air.
Finally, Missy claims the removed tiara for herself, and swaps the boots bought from L33t for the ones from the DWU cache, then finishes off by putting on the eyepatch from it as well. Combined with the fact she's still wearing the nerdy vest over the chainmail bikini, her appearance is by far the most eccentric of your group's. Shiny, almost painted on black leather up to the knees, then nothing but a bikini bottom, then a thick white vest is a...look, certainly. One that leaves Missy six or so inches taller than you, thanks to the ridiculous height of the heels, something you can privately admit probably isn't helping your opinion of it.
Once everyone's dressed, and one last check has been made that you've got everything, you head downstairs to say goodbye to the Heberts, who are waiting with sort of happy-sad smiles by the front door.
"Well dears, it was lovely to have you all, and I hope we'll see you all again. For more than just dropping off Danni's wood!" Annette says, causing Danni to grumble quietly before adding her agreement.
"Thank you for the sleepover! I had a lot of fun." Dinah says brightly, skipping forward for hugs, only to lose her nerves and pause at the last minute, causing Danni to laugh before leaning down to embrace her, then pass her to Annette.
"Well, feel free to come over for another anytime." Annette says, ruffling her hair as she puts her down. "And that goes for the rest of you too. You've got big things ahead of you, but if you ever want to just have a night were you can forget your troubles and let someone else look after you, our door will always be open to you, together or individually."
"Well, babysitting was kind of fun, I guess..." Vicky says, giving you a fond look that makes you blush. "Not sure I'd want to do it again anytime soon, but we'll totally keep in touch. The Vista Express will make it easy, right Missy?"
"Yeah, I should be able to get us here from most of the city pretty quickly now that I've spent some time here." Missy nods, the blush being reminded of last night caused fading from her cheeks. "And I could bring you to see Winslow too, if you'd like." The adult Heberts agree it might be nice at some point, then give goodbye hugs and handshakes to your sister and the Ward.
"Amy likey sleepover too. Mrs Annette and Mrs Danni really nice. Amy happy to see them." You say before exchanging your own goodbyes and subtly hustling the others out the door so Taylor can say her farewells to her parents with a little privacy.
It's quite some time before Taylor joins you in the garden, and her eyes are red from crying, but no one comments, just turns with her to wave to the equally red eyed but smiling couple on the doorstep. Then Missy concentrates and waves her hands, and Annette's voice wishing you safe travels is the last thing you hear from the Dockworkers Union compound as you step into the warp.
A few short steps across several miles take you to Winslow's rooftop garden, unchanged except for the rapid growth of various plants and the portable water purifier you found now humming away next to the pond. It's also deserted apart from Madison, sitting on a bench and looking about five seconds away from curling up for a nap in the morning sunlight, and Leafy, now almost totally green and sprawled out in the grass near the pond, fast asleep. Madison looks blearily around at the sound of your arrival, and nearly trips over her own paws standing to greet you.
"Morning! Did you have a nice night, wherever you were? Everyone else is still asleep, I'd say it's a cat thing but Emma and the normals are out too, so I think it's more a 'Sophia isn't here to make people get up earlier' thing. I'd probably have gone back to sleep myself, but I saw the message you'd be stopping by this morning, so I thought I'd come up here and wait. It's nice and peaceful up here now, so..." The feline girl is smiling widely, her now cat-like eyes glinting with happiness, and you let her wave of chatter wash over you as you head down into the building to drop things off.
The former principal's office that's now the Lair's centre is much changed from how it looked when you last saw it, stone walls having reverted to a more normal appearance, including the (re)appearance of large bank of windows in the back wall, the oppressive, low hanging foliage being replaced by cheery planters and bunches of flowers, and the moss-like floor by a grassy lawn. It looks a little like a large, unfurnished doctor's office, or possibly a small hospital ward. There are also a couple of side doors, which you're not sure if they were always there and were revealed by the vanishing of vines and stone, or appeared following your takeover. One is cramped, shadowy and full of filing cabinets, so gets used as the storage room for your various finds, at least until you can find a good place to set up the vault in a box, and the other is the treatment room Missy and Dinah found yesterday. It's not large, containing just a single narrow bed and some cabinets, but there's a healing air to it above and beyond the one that's settled over the rest of the building, and touching the bed tells you that resting on it will boost both conventional medicine and the efficiency of your powers on the rest-ee.
Madison keeps up her stream of chatter throughout you looking round the changed room and emptying out the various bags and storing things away, letting you know that, basically, nothing much has changed while you were away. The various Camp Cats are settling happily into their post-Shadow Stalker lives with nothing more than a few harmless spats to complicate things, and most of them are enjoying the new garden enough to be more than fine with looking after it instead of anything more active. The five Huntresses who haven't found gardening to their liking are busy enough keeping watch and guarding the doors that they're not looking to go hunting in the surrounding area either. There was apparently a little trouble at midnight when those who were dispersed when you were taking over Winslow revived, the two former hanger-on's coming out somewhat belligerent and having to be shown the door with some force. Madison doesn't think they'll bring any trouble to the school, they headed off separately and away from the Docks, so even if they find a group willing to take them in, it's not likely to be one that cares about Winslow.
"I wanted to thank you before you go, Panacea!" Madison says chirpily as you leave the medical room after giving it a look over. "My pussy came back last night, and I feel so much better! Still kind of horny compared to before, but around what the other girls feel, rather than the Fuck Bois, so that's great."
You nod somewhat awkwardly, then open your mouth to reply, before freezing as you remember the toddler-fiying effect of your voice. You haven't actually said anything since getting back to Winslow, so Madison doesn't know about it yet, and while it's probably not realistic to keep her or the other Camp Cats from finding out, given it'll be well over a day before it wears off, you'd still rather put it off as long as you can. Fortunately, Madison doesn't seem to notice your hesitation or lack of a verbal reply, and continues to ramble on about not only her own condition, but everyone else's. The Huntresses are happier and a bit more affectionate with each other, which could be your changes or could just be the lack of Shadow Stalker pushing her "predator" attitude. The Fuck Bois sound totally unchanged, which is disappointing, but it's too early to be sure if that means your changes to their strain won't help yet, and the same is true of Leafy. Jenny, Bert and Tiffany haven't changed in any obvious manner, and you make a note to check what strains of Infection they actually have some time soon. Emma's appearance was also unchanged when she emerged from the casket, and hasn't changed since, but she also didn't come back as a sex crazed beast and interacted pretty well with people before going to sleep, so there's hope there. She sounds to have been fairly slow and dog-like in her thinking, but she was cheery and didn't snap and snarl at people, and "dim but nice family dog" is a much more workable base to build on than "half-feral guard dog", which is where you were afraid the Infection might have left her.
"Taylor! Emma miss you when she wake up!" The dog-girl in question turns out to have woken up since your arrival, and is sitting in the rooftop pond while Leafy scrubs at her with a broom (but no soap), at least until she sees Taylor, at which point she leaps out and bounds over to her, thankfully not shaking her dripping fur out.
"Sorry, Emma, I had something else to do last night." Taylor responds after a long pause, voice slightly flat. "Why were you in the pond?"
"Emma have bath! Sophia no let Emma come wash in pond much before, but now she can come clean up every day! It kind of cold, but Emma is a Good Girl and will keep clean!" Emma reports, cheerfully.
"The showers in the locker rooms still work, you know. Why not use them instead of the pond?" Taylor offers, after another long moment to take in her ex-friend's words.
"They do? Ugh, why did Sophia not let us use them then!? Some stupid thing about washing with cold pond water making us tougher, I bet." Madison complains in a loud mutter as Emma considers this.
"Okay! Emma go to showers! Taylor come with?" Emma asks, a bright smile on her pug-like face.
"I've already had a shower today." Taylor replies, panic slipping though her calm briefly.
"Aww. Taylor play with Emma after shower?" Emma whines, before perking up hopefully
"No. We have things to do in the city. Maybe later?" Taylor offers, looking like she hopes to put that "later" off as long as possible.
"Awwwww. Okay. Emma go shower now." Emma responds, turning towards the stairs, then pausing and twisting back to look at Taylor. "Taylor look very pretty now. It good. Taylor pretty, Emma ugly. Bodies match minds." She leaves as soon as she finishes speaking, squeezing her bulky frame through the narrow roof access door and vanishing down the stairs before Taylor can respond.
An awkward silence settles over the rooftop, prompting Madison to laugh somewhat nervously and wish you good luck before vanishing inside herself, dragging a confused looking Leafy and her broom with her. The rest of you exchange unsure looks as the grass in the lawn and the leaves of the nearby bushes ripple away from Taylor, then abruptly still.
"I'm not dealing with that now." Taylor announces in a flat voice. "Let's just...head to the Dallon house like we planned." Her body language makes it clear she's not open to further discussion on the subject, and even Vicky is unwilling to push it, so soon after you depart the roof through the first of several warps in space.
Spoiler: Rolls
The journey from Winslow to your house is shorter than the one to the Boardwalk yesterday, despite involving more actual walking, as Missy needs to pause to consider the route less often, probably because there are less potential hazards to avoid. Other than a couple of strange shapes in the foggy distance, there's nothing like the odd sights you saw last time, just street after street of deserted houses. The houses are generally unmarked beyond broken down doors or smashed windows, but all the ones you see appear to have been emptied of anything vaguely portable at some point, either by their fleeing owners or by later looters. You also pass the occasional burnt out car, torn up patch of ground or demolished wall, but there don't seem to be enough of these signs of violence to imply major fighting. Taylor reports sensing Feral Infected in some of the houses, but she thinks they're asleep, or possibly hibernating, and while some of those you pass close to stir slightly, you're away from them before they do more than that.
The last bit of scrunched space leaves you all at the foot of your drive, and you take a moment to consider the house before approaching. It's not an encouraging sight. The front lawn and garden are torn up and muddy, like a great number of people have been walking on them, some of them dragging heavy objects. Most of the windows you can see are broken, and the front door is hanging slightly ajar, having clearly been smashed open despite being reinforced. The garage door looks battered, but seems to have held, unlike the gate to the back garden, which (along with the fence) is nothing but scraps, not even fit for kindling. It could be worse, the walls seem intact and the roof is undamaged, but while your house is standing, it's clearly not been left untouched, and you feel a little trepidation about what the inside will be like, feelings Vicky clearly shares based on the unhappy sound she makes.
"Is that you, Vista?" An androgynous, vaguely familiar voice calls from above and behind you just as you're about to start up the drive, and you join in the mass spin to face it.
The red-clad figure descending from the clouds looks like a muscular young woman rather than a young man, but is recognisable as Aegis, even without considering the distinctive helmet. Given he's wearing an ordinary (if tight looking) t-shirt and pants with it, you guess the rest of his costume hasn't survived, which isn't a surprise given how rough he is on them normally. Compared to most of the Infected you've encountered so far, Aegis appears downright ordinary. What you can see of his skin is his usual tanned colour, and still normal rather than stone or something, he doesn't seem to possess a tail or any unusually shaped body parts, and even the new curves at his chest and hips are modest, looking like they belong to a normal woman rather than a porn star.
"...we heard a rumour the three of you were here, and it was on the list of places we wanted to check out anyway, so, here we are." Missy says a little later, finishing up her quick explanation to her teammate about your party's circumstances. You've not paid much attention to it, distracted by what your power picked up during the brief touch you got of the Wards leader's skin while greetings were being exchanged. He's far more heavily Infected than you would have guessed from his appearance, and you're pretty sure it's because of the way his powers have reacted to the Infection, but you can't make much sense of how without further study.
"Also, I'm going to hug you now, if that's alright?" Aegis nods, and Missy throws her arms round him, burying her face in his torso and sniffling slightly. The tears prompt some truly awkward attempts at back patting and reassurance from Aegis, which lead to Missy breaking off the hug to punch him in the arm and huff defensively. "Don't make a big thing about the crying, there's a thing that'll make me cry easily more 'till it wears off. Later today. ... And I was worried about you all. Jerk."
"Sure, sure." Aegis says, not quite hiding his amusement well enough to avoid another punch. "Triumph and Gallant are inside, they can fill you in on what we've been up to, Triumph's in the living room and probably already knows you're here, so just head on in."
"Aegy no come in?" You ask, since you were expecting to be able to sit him down and examine him while people were talking.
"Ah, I should get back to keeping watch. We've had trouble turn up a few times, and with us being here showing up on the rumour radio and Triumph's condition, I don't want to risk anything sneaking up on us." Aegis answers, giving you all a nod and taking to the air again before you can ask any questions, such as what Triumph's "condition" is.
Heading inside, the slightly harsh but beautiful sounding female voice that answers your sister's greeting does indeed come from the living room, so you make your way there through the ravaged looking front hallway, Dinah clearly forcing herself to stay safely behind Vicky and not run ahead. Once you get there, you find the windows have been boarded over, but a faint glow, apparently coming from the figure trying to push themselves up from the battered remains of the couch, provides enough light to see by. Even before you manage to look past the beak and feather threaded mane of hair to see the couch's occupant has a mildly more feminine version of the youngest Protectorate member's face, you're pretty sure it's Triumph. Because they're clearly heavily, as in could pop any moment, pregnant, which is certainly a "condition" to be worried about!
While you're still boggling, Triumph's raptor-like gold eyes widen, and they let out a shocked gasp of "Dinah?", abandoning their attempts to stand in favour of catching the youngest member of your group as she cries out "Rory!" and throws herself across the room, sobbing happily.
Not wanting to gawk at the joyous reunion between the two cousins, you look around the room instead, and can't help but wince at the state of it. The legless, torn sofa Triumph is sitting on is the only piece of the original furniture left, and even the few pictures and knickknacks Carol allowed for decoration are missing, someone having gone so far as to scrape the paint off the walls and partially pry up floorboards in several places. If you had to guess, they were looking for hidden safes or secret compartments or something. Which the house does have several of admittedly, but one none so easy to get to as that. Another look around gets another wince. You weren't expecting to find much here, but you'd hoped for clothes and a few of your personal possessions, and from what you've seen do far even that seems too much to expect.
"The ground floor seems the worst off." Taylor mutters quietly to you, making you jump slightly at the unexpected words. "The upstairs rooms have furniture, at least, and I can feel traces like there were at Winslow in a few places. And the basement and attic feel a mess, but quite cluttered, so they might be untouched."
"Doors there be sneaky." You whisper back. "Tell Big Sissy too, it help be less sad." Taylor goes to do that, but before she can there's a clattering on the stairs, and high pitched cry heralds someone galloping into the room and throwing themselves at your sister.
"Neigh! Wicky!!! I'm so happy to see you!" The new arrival squeals as she easily catches them.
They're wearing one of Vicky's costume dresses, which barely covers their ample rear. It's a fine and shapely posterior (maybe even better than Vicky's), and it's eye catching nature means the next thing you notice is that they seem to have two horse-like tails, one emerging from a hole in the costume at their tailbone, and one from the bottom of the skirt. The lower one is longer, threatening to brush the floor even with the new arrival dangling off the ground in your sister's arms, and on second glance looks stiff and bristly, not alive.
"Oh! My! God! Dean!?" Vicky exclaims, drawing you attention from trying to work out what's going on there.
"Wes, it's me." Apparently-Dean declares with a whinny, one that quickly turns surprised as Vicky lets him(?) drop from suddenly limp arms.
The landing makes their skirt ride up, giving you a sudden unwelcome insight into what's going on with the second tail, and you quickly tear your eyes away and turn them to searching for any signs of Dean's features on the new arrival. There aren't many. His face is soft and girly, with long eyelashes and thin eyebrows that might look even more feminine than Taylor's, a faintly horsey look to it (even ignoring the actual horse ears), and a pair of huge, plump lips that are probably responsible for the lisp. The brown eyes and sandy blond hair are the right colours at least, though the hair is long and curly, with a spiky, mane-like strip running from the crown of the head to partway down the back. He's gotten back on his hooves by the time you've finished studying his face, letting you see that if this is Dean, he's much smaller and slighter than the last time you saw him, only a few inches taller than Missy and without her athletic muscle definition. His figure is as girly as the rest of him, with round hips, a narrow waist and small but unmistakeable breasts, along with his generous ass.
"Dean?" Vicky says in a puzzled, slightly numb sounding voice after several long moments of silence. "Why are you wearing one of my dresses?"
"Ahahah. Um, it's a long story but I can explain?" Dean says, nickering nervously.
"Long story say why Stupid Dean has horsy tail brush stuck up bum too?" You ask, unable to help yourself. "Hmm. Stupid Dean, Stupid Dean, Stupid Dean. Amy can no say other way. Infection funny." It's not just the filter that puts childish glee into your voice at this discovery, though you could do without the concerned look your big sister's extremely girly looking boyfriend gives you. "Amy still big girl. Infection make Amy talk little for few days. Stupid Dean stop worrying and start telling story."
"Um, well the dress is because my clothes got destroyed before I came here and I knew where one was hidden?" Dean says pleadingly, fluttering his eyelashes at Vicky as he begs for forgiveness with big, water eyes.
"I can vouch for that, at least." Triumph (or Rory, given the circumstances) puts in suddenly from the couch. "I don't think those lizard-women from the Fire District meant to hit us, just warn us off, but their aim was shi-bad enough I'm surprised they only burnt the seat of Dean's pants off. And I can't do what happened with his shirt and the banister justice, but yeah, it totally wasn't wearable afterwards."
Vicky looks like she believes the story, or at least is too deeply in shock to get worked up about it, but you can't resist prodding further. "And bum brush?"
"I was cleaning." A blushing Dean responds, neighing nervously. "And, well, these aren't much good for normal tools, but I found some things I can use for stuff like that anyway. I forgot to take the brush off before coming down."
Dean having hooves instead of hands now sort of explains things, but a butt plug brush is still pushing it, especially given the Camp Cats can do anything with their paws they could with their hands, despite that not being physically possible. You're considering seeing how "What, did you say 'If you stick a broom up my ass, I could sweep the floor too' to someone and they took it seriously?" comes out, when the sound of loud sniffing from Missy draws everyone's attention.
"Whaa! Dean, I'm so glad you're okay! But you're still a guy and your breasts are bigger than mine and it's not fair! Whaaaa!!! Why did I say that!! Stupid cry baby Trait! Whaaa!!!!" Missy's outburst turns into something of a vicious cycle, as bursting into tears in front of everyone (Dean) makes her more upset, which makes her cry more, which makes her more upset, which makes her cry more, until she ends up running from the room, still sobbing, a worried Taylor following her.
"So, err, Panacea, I hate to ask this pretty much straight off, but could you give me a look over? All of...this...is kind of a surprise, and I could really do with a medical opinion." Rory asks apoplectically in the awkward silence that follows, waving a hand at their pregnant belly and heavy breasts. Next to them Dinah turns begging puppy (lamb?) eyes on you at the request, the desire to be sure her cousin is healthy plain on her face.
"Amy no mind. Amy powers tell her lots of fun things looky at Infected." You say, settling down on the other side of the couch from where Dinah is snuggled in and taking one hand, which turns out to be clawed rather than long nailed, like you'd thought. "Baby good. Rory good too." You announce shortly after, having been able to work out both mother and child are healthy in short order.
"That's...good, I guess?" Rory asks nervously in response to your words. "Err, are you able to tell who the father is? I don't remember having sex since I woke up, and I don't think I was pregnant then, but I suddenly got like this since arriving here the night before last. And maybe when I'm, ah, due?"
"Amy looky. Take more time, Rory story time while work." You reply, already focusing as they make several abortive attempts to start before Taylor suggests beginning with F-Day and going from there.
The start of Rory's tale matches what you've already heard, with the fog, people getting lost and rising tensions as people transformed or turned into sex fiends, and starts to diverge about a week afterwards. "...there had been lots of police around Captain's Hill since F-Day, but there's always lots of police there when there's trouble in the air, especially trouble they think they can pass off to the PRT, so I didn't think much of it, even when they started reinforcing the roadblocks. With Armsmaster holed up in his lab, Miss Militia in quarantine, and Assault and Battery missing, Velocity, Dauntless and I were run off our feet keeping the gang war down to scuffles, instead of Lung chasing Kaiser through downtown. It was all I could do to keep Dad up to date before passing out, when I could make it home at all. Then one morning they wouldn't let me pass, said there was a lockdown. Which was news to Dad, and pretty much everyone else. Had to change into my costume and threaten to start putting people in Master/Stranger containment before it came out that our illustrious ex-Mayor Hoffman was the one who talked the Chief of Police into it. I think Dad got louder than I can when he was pointing out that he was Mayor now, not Markus Totally-not-a-Nazi. Which got the lockdown lifted, but also lead to having to fill the council in on Armsmaster's findings about the Infection. And of course it took about ten minutes from the end of that meeting to everyone on Captains Hill finding out that trying to prevent exposure was both next to pointless and far too late, which would probably have been a riot despite mine and Gallant's best efforts if Lady Photon hadn't shown up looking for Dad."
Rory pauses for breath, and you resist the urge to ask after your aunt, since it's clear there's still more to come and jumping around will just confuse things. That Vicky also restrains herself is a bit of a surprise, but after she took a seated position in the air to listen, Dean apparently settled himself on hands and knees just in front of her, and she's staring with horrified fascination at his flicking tails (and possibly his ass).
"Dad agreed to sort something refugees from the rest of the city to Captain's Hill, of course, and managed to talk people round to it, and Director Piggot said it was as good a use of our time as any since the gangs had suddenly gone quiet, so Gallant and I started helping the adults of New Wave bring people there. The fog was less bad for getting people lost that week, so it was pretty successful. Maybe too successful, we filled up the camp in the park in just a few days, and we could have started putting people in empty houses, but Dad thought it would upset people, and he was worried about having enough food and water to support many more people long term - this was before we knew the Infection could cause supplies to just appear, of course - but people had heard about it, were coming for shelter on their own, and weren't happy to be turned away. I never found out if the police actually built the big barricades that showed around then, or if it was an early example of the Infection warping the scenery, but they were there, and they didn't improve people's mood when they saw them. Then, of course the PRT building and the Rig got sabotaged and things got worse. I'm not a hundred percent on all the details, though. One of my feet turned into a paw not long after, and Markus had 'convinced' people by that point that people with 'obvious', by which he meant animal based, changes from the Infection should 'segregate themselves', 'just in case', so I spent the next week or so stuck inside Bosun's Boulevard, and they wouldn't let Dad come talk to me 'for his own safety'."
Bosun's Boulevard is one of several gated communities on Captain's Hill, the lowest, least prestigious and least affluent, for whatever that's worth when talking about a place like that. From Rory's descriptions, you think what people now refer to as the Enclave consisted of five of the gated communities, plus the area enclosed by putting walls between them, including Captain's Park, the city's largest.
"We heard rumours, mostly when new people 'joined' us, but things weren't clear. That supplies were tight was pretty consistent, but so were people saying they'd seen or heard about the police raiding the rest of the city for supplies. Which probably means they were and were hording the supplies for some reason, but I can't swear to that. That there was trouble in the city was also pretty consistent, but I don't think the bits about mobs trying to storm the walls were anything but tall tales, given we never saw any signs of them, and Bosun's Boulevard would be the first place a mob coming from pretty much anywhere in the city would get to. Anyway, things were tense and slowly getting tenser, and one night I think things boiled over, based on the sounds, but when I was trying to find a vantage point, a bunch of fuc-err, weirdos in cloaks jumped me, one stuck some kind of flashy metal thing in my face, and I don't remember anything from then until waking up a few days ago in some kind of creepy basement cult temple, the occupants of which were fortunately too busy fighting...each other? Invaders? Not sure, but they couldn't coordinate to stop me escaping. Chased me for a while though and there were enough that if Gallant and Aegis hadn't separately shown up to help, I'm not sure I would have got away. They filled me in on the state of the city, I decided to stick with them for a bit, then after a few days of playing the wandering hero, well, bumf." Rory concludes, waving at their immensely pregnant state again.
Your study of their body finishes at around the same time, and you scowl slightly when you realise that the looted state of the house means there's unlikely to be any paper handy to write on, and you left the school satchel at Winslow, so you can't just pull some out of there, either. You'll just have to explain aloud and hope it comes out reasonably understandable.
"Amy done looking. Amy say what Amy found as best Amy can, but say if no clear." Rory nods at your words, so you continue. "Rory Infection have lots of bits for making babies good. One can make baby happen much, much faster. Amy think it turn on and make baby big when Rory no know to mean it to, then when Rory worry about baby getting big, it slow it down again. No to slow as normal baby, but could be a week. Maybe bit more?" Rory looks pretty poleaxed, but eventually nods without asking any questions, so you continue. "For baby daddy... Did Rory play with new private parts? Try put wee-wee into no-no? Or get wee-wee messy and not clean? 'Cause Rory is baby daddy as well as mummy." They look even more stunned at being told that, but manage a shaky denial. "The Amy no know how. In Rory no knowing time, maybe?"
"I mean, I'm about ninety percent sure based on the flashes I do remember I was turned into a statue or a doll or something for most of that time, but I didn't have the...equipment...for getting pregnant before then, even if my hips had gotten pretty big, so there's no other time it could have happened. And I suppose knocking myself up is the least bad explanation for it...?" Rory mumbles, shocked and half to themselves.
While they're processing, you look over at the other shock case in the room, and pull a face at seeing Vicky now on the ground, most of the stunned disbelief now gone from her face and Dean half draped over her as he whispers in her ear. It's a pose you've seen them in plenty of times before, but previously it's been Vicky hanging off Dean and whispering in his ear, normally as a prelude to convincing him to buy her something expensive. Your sister doesn't look as besotted as Dean normally does in that situation, but she also doesn't seen as bothered by having a boyfriend who looks (and acts) like a girlfriend snuggling up to her as you'd have expected. You'd honestly wonder if Dean's powers were involved somehow, but his emotion changing blasts aren't that subtle, and making them so doesn't fit the changes you've seen in Parahuman powers from the Infection.
"Rory okay hear rest now?" You ask, and get another nod and a shaky yes. "Infection give Rory gryphon bits, Amy pretty sure no all gryphon bits, but not sure how many. Also give big hips on top of making girl shaped, and nice voice, and let Rory do special things with hips and voice, but Rory no have Traits for that, so no do yet. Rory glowy 'cause of Infection, but Amy no know all how yet, and few other bits no know either. Sorry no can say all bit of Infection now. Can looky tomorrows, and know then?" Rory makes a non-committal noise and leans back heavily, clearly deep in thought. Dinah peaks up over the swell of their belly to mouth thank you at you, then reaches up to stroke her cousin's feathery hair soothingly.
"Stupid Dean turn now." You announce, floating yourself off the sofa.
"Wuh?" Said pony boy responds eloquently, getting a giggle from a returned, if still red-eyed Missy.
"Amy looky at Stupid Dean with powers now and see what Infection do. Stupid Dean stop being gross with Amy Big Sissy and do story time what happen to Stupid Dean." You explain patiently, as though to a dim child while you walk over.
"Oh, of course, if that's what you want, dear." Dean says, reaching out a hoof, but not otherwise un-entangling himself from your big sister. The look on your face as you take it is entirely caused by you focusing, and not at all by annoyance at the continued canoodling.
"Things were pretty much the same for me as for Triumph, at first. Less fighting, but plenty of putting in appearances to keep people calm, and helping look for you and Wicky of course, dear. After Triumph was 'segregated', I worked with your Mommy and Daddy and Aunty and Uncle to lead groups down into the city looking for survivors and supplies, mostly. Which wasn't always easy, even if we didn't run into Ferals. Getting separated was a real risk, no matter how careful you were, as was getting lost, but the worst thing was that you could be out for half a day and get back to find you'd been missing for three, or the other way round. It wasn't long before it was just the Parahumans and a handful of other volunteers who were willing to leave the Enclave's walls. And how the police managed to go raiding without it happening to them, I don't know. But it could just be they only actually did it a few times? We never managed to catch them at it. Anyway, about a week after the PRT building fell, I went out with just your Aunty and Uncle, and we just...couldn't find our way back. Then a day or so later, they went round a corner a few seconds ahead of me and were nowhere to be seen when I did."
You've noticed as he speaks that Dean is mostly addressing you, and in a voice that has strong "reading to the toddler" tones to it. You're not sure if it's on purpose to wind you up, if he's just reacting automatically to how you sound, or if he genuinely thinks the Infection has regressed you, but it's highly irritating regardless. But it's damn near certain that taking him to task for it would come out sounding like you were throwing a tantrum and not help, so you bite your tongue and focus on what your powers are telling you. Which is pretty embarrassing for Stupid Dean.
"After that, I just kept moving, and helping people where I could. Found my way back to the Enclave eventually, which was pretty twisted up and mostly looked like it had been abandoned for weeks, and ended up losing my armour there. I took it off to sleep in, and when I woke up the room had completely changed and it was missing. I've not had much luck with keeping clothes intact since then, and my body started changing a lot faster afterwards. But I kept going and doing what I could, and eventually helped Triumph get away and we came here. I'd, ah, come by a few times since leaving the Enclave, so I knew it was intact and had running water, even if it was kind of a mess." Dean finishes, with a tone that makes you wonder uncharitably about the purity (or lack thereof) to his motives for coming here.
"Stupid Dean know what happen to Daddy and Carol?" You ask, meaning it to fill time while you finish your analysis, and finding yourself wincing at the unintentionally revealing way it gets rendered.
"They were fine when I got lost, and I'm pretty sure they stayed at the Enclave until whatever happened to it, but nothing more than rumours after that, sorry dear." Dean answers.
"We heard someone say that Brandish at least was seen going into somewhere called 'The Manor'. Do you know anything about that?" Taylor says, producing a funny little squeak and jump of surprise from Dean, who you're not entirely sure had noticed her presence before then.
"The Infected inside call themselves the 'Servant-Bimbos', they're looking for their 'Master', and more than one person has tried to be that master, failed, and ended up joining their ranks. They might also grab people, to recruit or test, or something, but I've only heard vague rumours about that. It's on Captain's Hill, but not all that close to the Enclave. I...can't think of any good reason Brandish would go there, to be honest." Dean replies after a few moments thought, looking slightly worried. It's not much more than you knew already, but it confirms what Tattletale told you, at least.
"What's up with Aegis?" Missy asks next. "He seems...on edge. Even if he's worried about Triumph, I wouldn't expect him to be so worried about a room full of Parahumans being attacked he can't bring himself to stop and talk for more than a few minutes."
"He's not stopped since F-Day, I think." Dean says concernedly while Rory shrugs, scowling slightly. "His powers make the Infection less of a worry for him, so he's been pushing himself to help as many people as possible. His folks vanished early on, which didn't help, plus I think it's been longer since F-Day for him than most people. It's hard to be sure since how long, he keeps not sleeping or eating for as long as he can get away with, but two weeks more than me at least. I've tried to get him to stop, or at least slow down a bit when we've run into each other, but he hasn't listened. Rory was sort of getting through to him, but then the pregnancy started showing, Carlos went into hyper vigilance mode, and I haven't been able to keep him still more than five minutes at a time since." That's...not great. Not as bad as it would be for someone else, Aegis can avoid sleep deprivation by adapting his brain to sleep in sections or something, but even if it won't actually damage him, it's not good for him.
"Amy finished looky at Stupid Dean." You say after a few minutes of quiet, Vicky and Dean's cooing at each other an annoying background sound throughout it. "Amy think Stupid Dean body as change as it get, so have pony bits and look girly, but stay tiny yucky boy." You hadn't actually meant to include the tiny, even if Dean's manhood is indeed tiny now. "In head, will make Stupid Dean act sissy and like being treat like pony, and like doing work, and like walk like pony, not person. Or maybe make already?" From the blush, at least part of those changes have happened already, but you don't press to find out which. "Also make Stupid Dean no good with hands, even if not hooves, but good with mouth, and can turn on be much better at doing one thing but dumb at all other things. And Stupid Dean can be really good horsy?"
"Oh, yes, I can! I should do it for long just to demonstrate, given the side effects, but I can give you a really good pony ride if you want?" Dean says eagerly, in response to your slightly puzzled last statement.
"No. Stupid Dean stick to giving Big Sissy pony rides." Snorts from Taylor and Rory and the look of amusement twisting Vicky's features makes you play back just how that last sentence came out. "No! No play gross and icky horsy games with Amy Big Sissy!" You blurt out desperately.
"Can I have a pony ride?" Dinah's voice, guileless and innocent, asks a moment later, prompting Vicky, Taylor and her cousin to break down laughing, while Dean looks unrepentant, Missy looks like she's not quite sure if she wants to get the joke, and your blush threatens to melt your face.
Dinah does in fact get that pony ride (Rory possibly getting some minor bit of revenge on Dean by pushing for it), and while the ride itself is chaste and wholesome, Dean cantering and prancing around the back garden on all four hooves while Dinah giggles on his back, watching is...less wholesome. Deans limbs seem to shift slightly so moving on all fours is comfortable and fast, with his torso more or less flat. And he's wearing a short skirt. It somehow clings to not actually show those of you watching everything, but you still get a far better look at Dean's oversized, still butt-plug spouting ass than you wanted to.
"I can't get away with asking for a ride next, can I?" You hear Missy whisper to Taylor midway through.
"You probably could, but what would be worse: Him saying yes because he thinks you're too young and innocent to see the sexual implications, or him realising that you have and saying yes anyway?" Taylor whispers back, prompting Missy to wince and blush.
A little while later, Rory helps a giddy Dinah dismount, and as the two head back inside, Dean approaches your sister, still on all fours. His arms and legs seem to have gotten longer, arms obviously more so, so his head and body are higher than you'd expect based how long his legs are when standing normally, and his neck seems a bit longer and more flexible too. Fortunately for you keeping your breakfast down, Dean doesn't offer Vicky a ride. But the sight of him nuzzling at her hand in horse-like manner isn't all that much better, and you quickly fly back inside when it looks like he might be about to lick it (and still see enough to see that his tongue looks longer than human normal). A green looking Missy manages to appear back in the living room before you despite leaving after you, and Taylor shuts the back door a touch more firmly than necessary when she follows you both.
"Do you know what happened to my Mom and Dad, Rory?" Dinah asks shortly after her cousin is settled on the couch again, face and voice suddenly gravely serious.
"Your Dad went out to work soon after F-Day, when people were still trying to carry on normally, and didn't come back. He never made it to the Enclave, and we never heard anything from him, sorry. Your Mom was at the Enclave, staying with my family, and was still fine last I heard, but I don't know what happened to any of them after it fell. I was planning on going back and finding out, but, well, instant pregnancy. Sorry I don't know more." Rory answers, sad and soft.
"That is more than I knew before, and places to look. It is fine." Dinah says in a brave little voice that doesn't quite hide her unhappiness. A watery-eyed Rory pulls her into a hug, and both start sobbing quietly, prompting the remaining three of you to look at each other and shuffle awkwardly out of the room.
"Right. I'm going to have a look around and see if I can find anything useful the looters missed. Assuming that's alright with you, Amy?" Taylor says, after several long, uncomfortable moments.
"That fine. We come to look for thingies, not just see Rory and Aegy and Stupid Dean." You respond.
"True." Taylor acknowledges. "Do either of you want to come with me?"
"I'm going to go outside and make Aegis stop and talk if that's what it takes." Missy answers, determination settling on to her features. "Even ignoring how stupid the whole endless patrol for trouble thing is, how is not telling us about the trouble he's run in to going to help anyone?"
"Amy think Amy will check secret hidy places." You say, then reconsider as a thought strikes you. "No, Amy make Vicky stop being gross with Stupid Dean and do that. Amy know Carol no tell Amy all secret places, but do tell Vicky. Amy no sure what Amy do after."
Everyone else has something to be getting on with, but with the Infections of everyone currently willing to let her take a look as studied as they're going to get for the day, Amy's at something of a lose end. What does she do? All events will happen regardless, this is just about where Amy's attention goes. (Pick One):
[Amy] Accompany Vicky and Dean - There are a number of well secured or hidden locations in your house that might have avoided being ransacked with the rest of it. Vicky plans to check them, Dean insisted straightaway on going with her, and her shock at his changed appearance seems to be wearing off quickly. Maybe you should accompany the reunited couple and make sure they don't get "distracted".
(46% chance Amy successfully cockblocks Dean. If that fails, 73% chance she's able to use her powers to keep Vicky's LIB down (variable but likely 10 WP cost). Chance Vicky takes steps to stop Amy interfering part way through, depending on results. Search may complete faster depending on results, Amy may lose Mood and gain Stress/LIB depending on results.)
[Amy] Stay with Dinah and Rory - Dinah's happily cuddled up on the remains of the couch with her cousin and clearly isn't budging any time soon, you might as well hang around the living room too. You're mostly sure Rory's not about to suddenly go in to labour, but maybe you should be nearby in case you're wrong. You can use the time to see what your improved powers say about the items you've got to hand, too.
(Item Analysis on everything the party has equipped, plus 1d5 other portable items. Amy able to respond to crises or other consequences of the other events more quickly, 10% bonus to getting Triumph to come to Winslow.)
[Amy] Help Taylor search the house - All the obvious useful or valuable things in your house have been stolen or broken in the time since F-Day, but Taylor's powers are good at finding up unobvious things. You could go with her to show her around and be another pair of hands if needed. It'd speed things up, and it'd be a low stress chance for you and Taylor to get to know each other a bit more.
(Search of house completes faster, odds of special items being found on first search increased. Progress towards Amy-Taylor Friends Bond increasing in rank. Remove the possibility of Taylor gaining teasing material by finding Amy's secret stash of lovelorn poems. Or her other "secret stash".)
[Amy] Talk to Aegis with Vista - Aegis is somewhat obsessively patrolling outside the house, to keep threats away from the "vulnerable" Triumph, and isn't in the mood to chat (or stop), so Missy's putting her Vista hat on and going to him, even if she has to put your house inside a mobius strip to do it. For your part, if you want to get a better look at his odd reaction to the Infection, going out and flying after him may be the only way to do it.
(Chance of being able to examine Aegis before leaving increased from 24% to 66%. Amy helps Missy work on bringing Aegis round to the idea of not rushing off to find the next crisis to intervene in as soon as Triumph is somewhere safe. One more set of eyes to see trouble if it shows up.)
Unlike Aegis and Gallant, Triumph doesn't feel the need to be a wandering soldier for justice. In fact, they'd quite like to find somewhere safe-ish to just be for a bit and recover from their time in captivity. You happen to be in possession of just such a place, and while Rory is reluctant to impose on their little cousin (and the rest of you), they'd also like to be sure of not having to give birth while squatting in an abandoned house somewhere, so getting them to stay at least a little while won't be hard. (Pick One):
[Triumph] Invite Triumph to stay at Winslow permanently
(99% chance of success due to high CHA of group members and Dinah's presence. Triumph will move in to Winslow High. They will not join the Party exploring for at least 2 weeks, but will find other ways to contribute, at the very least considerably bolstering Winslow's security.)
[Triumph] Invite Triumph to stay at Winslow until they give birth at least
(100% chance of success due to high CHA of group members and Dinah's presence. Triumph will remain at Winslow for 3-9 days, there will be further chances during that time to convince them to stay permanently, or at least for longer (or to leave).)
[Triumph] Let Triumph decide what to do
(5% chance Triumph will ask to move to Winslow permanently, 55% chance they will ask to stay until after giving birth, 40% chance they will choose to seek out somewhere to stay on their own.)
QM: If you'd had this encounter with Triumph later on, there would have been an option to help them find somewhere of their own to stay as well. But it's Day 2 rather than Week 2, so nope. Also, the party doesn't know the general population at the Boardwalk or DWU well enough to consider sending Triumph their way at this point.
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Last edited: Jan 15, 2021
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Annatar, Ralyx, Midnight007 and 60 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 2, Part 4 (Morning)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: That thing where you look at the final list of all the loot and think "This might be a tad much", but you've put in too much effort coming up with everything to ditch any of it and the argument for it all just outweigh those against.
Spoiler: Rolls
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls
"Big Sissy stop being gross and go looky in secret places please?" You call through one of the kitchen's broken windows, resolutely not looking at what's happening in the garden. Vicky sighs disappointedly (and Dean lets out a very sad whinny), but the sounds of them being mushy at each other do stop and she calls back an agreement.
It takes long enough that you've returned to the living room, told Dinah and Rory you'll be out front talking to Aegis if they need you, been shown the new bands of wool round her wrists and neck (and convinced her you don't need to see the one wrapping round her chest as well) by an excited Dinah, helped Taylor find partially concealed door to the basement in the back of the pantry, and are debating the risks of seeing something you'd rather not if you go out the back door on your way to see Aegis, but your big sister comes back inside, slightly flustered looking and dog themed outfit recently straightened, Dean trotting along behind her with a dumb smile on his face and no apparent intention of returning to walking on two legs any time soon. Vicky looks mildly annoyed to have her boyfriend time interrupted, but heads to the pantry and its disguised box of survival gear right away, so hopefully she'll get all the hidden stashes Carol set up checked before she and Dean go back to sucking face, or whatever they were doing.
Heading out the front door, you find Missy right away, standing in front of a small warp in the air, looking irritated and moving the fingers of one hand sharply. You feel mildly irritated yourself at having to float in the air to be able to look over her shoulder and see the other end or the warp is following Aegis as he flies, and force yourself to take a deep breath and let go of it. Getting worked up every time you're reminded you've shrunk won't help, and Missy's heels are ridiculous enough you'd probably have had a hard time looking over her shoulder even at your old height.
"Amy try talk Aegy?" You ask the purple-haired Ward, who nods while venting a deep, frustrated breath. "Agey come down? Ten minny all? Agey Infection do very weird thing, Amy want looky so Amy can know more."
"Sorry Panacea, I have to keep watch. Maybe later?" Aegis responds distractedly, not even looking back at the warp.
"Okay, this is just getting ridiculous. Flying in circles at full speed is a stupid way of keeping watch and you know it. If you're really that worried about trouble showing, we can talk on the roof." Missy says, voice mostly annoyed but with a trace of pleading.
"No, the sightlines on the roof aren't good enough. Something could sneak up on the house through the surrounding ones. Sorry." Aegis says, sounding surprisingly contrite for someone spouting complete nonsense.
You know for a fact Carol was very careful when picking a house to find one that was hard to approach unnoticed, and you know that slight rise your house is on means clear views into the neighbours' yards from the upper floor widows. You've never checked, but you seriously doubt the roof is any worse in that regard. Moments later you get the chance to find out, as Missy makes a noise like an angry teakettle before twisting space to step on to the crown of the roof and you follow to see that there is, indeed, an excellent view of the surroundings.
"Aegis, there's over a hundred feet of yard space in every direction from the house and the only thing blocking any of it from sight is about three trees. If you're seriously worried about not seeing anything sneaking up, there are either Strangers in the area we need to know about, or you need come here so Panacea can fix whatever's wrong with your eyes." Missy says briskly after a minute or two of looking round. You're not sure if it's the enhancement on the boots or her powers that let her walk on the narrow point of the roof so confidently, but you, personally, are very glad for your new floating powers meaning you don't even have to try.
"No actual Strangers, but some kinds of Infected can be pretty sneaky, you know." Aegis responds in a way that manages to be both vaguely condescending and transparently bullshit self-justification.
"No, I don't know. F-Day was the day before yesterday for us, remember? And the first person I've run into who could give me a proper threat report can't spare five minutes from his busy schedule of looking out for trouble that's not there to actually do it." Missy snaps back, clearly running out of patience with the Ward leader's excuses.
"Gallant could brief you." Aegis says after several long moments. "And we get enough Ferals nosing around that it's not worth taking risks."
"Gallant is shit at threat reports. And doesn't have eyes for anything but 'Wicky" at the moment anyway." Missy responds, unimpressed and starting to twitch her hands ominously. "And are the Ferals trying to get in the house, or are you just calling coming within half a mile nosing around' to justify not taking care of yourself in the name of paranoia?"
Things continue like that for several more minutes, Aegis offering increasingly half-baked reasons why he can't stop patrolling for even a minute and Missy's temper visibly fraying as she pokes holes in them, until eventually the youngest Ward snaps "Enough of this crap!" and makes a series of gestures like someone turning a whale into a bowl of spaghetti and tying the result into a five-dimensional knot. It's disconcerting to watch, but the results are even more so, as everything that was visible behind or to the side of the house becomes squished into a small arc in front of it, their former locations becoming nothing but a warped blur, Something similar happens to the sky above, except the small patch that clearly shows an area some distance away, and also contains a surprised looking Aegis.
"Sit!" Missy barks, pointing between Aegis and the roof between you and her. "You can watch the whole area from here, Amy and I will be keeping an eye out too, and if any trouble does show up, we can deal with it as far away from the house as I feel like." Aegis looks like he's trying to come up with an objection, but another "Sit!" and a paint-striping glare from Missy has him descending to the roof.
"Agey let Amy do checkies? Makey sure Agey good healthy least?" You ask before he's even landed properly, grabbing one of his arms the instant he gives a slightly resigned looking nod, and you feel your eyes widen as what your powers are "seeing" registers. "Infection and Agey powers do weird, weird things together. Amy need looky lots to know what good healthy even looky like."
"That's fine, he's going to be here for a while anyway." Missy says before Aegis can respond, with a look that dares him to even think of objecting.
Aegis lets out a vaguely amused chuff but doesn't object, instead lying down on the slope of the roof and staring at the concentrated approach point like he expects Kaiser to charge down it any minute. Riding on Behemoth. Missy lets him sit for several minutes before starting to question him about what he's seen and done since F-Day, but by that point you're too deeply entranced by trying to solve the riddle of his Infected biology to pay much attention. Ever since getting your powers, understanding someone's biology at a touch has been as simple as reading a children's book for you and even the addition of the Infection hasn't really changed that. Each a new Infection strain is like a new book, and while at first your ability to read that book is as muddled as your ability to read normal books was after the milk and the puzzle box last night, things soon become clearer. It might take a few attempts to achieve full understanding, but you're getting better and better at doing so, and once you do, only the oddest effects of the Infection require more than a moment to grasp, even if changing things as easily as normal biology still eludes your powers. (Which is honestly kind of a relief, the urge to tinker with things is much reduced when your power is busy trying to how to do so.) But anyway, most people you've examined since F-Day, your power can read their bodies like you reading a picture book with your grown up literacy skills (though much more interesting). Aegis, on the other hand, is like reading the freaking Voynich manuscript. With an even worse baby brain than you had last night!
You're not sure how long you sit there with your hands clenched round Aegis' arm, but eventually you find yourself about to give up, having deciphered little more than "Aegis is a living being" and "Whatever redundancies his body is running with, they seem stable long term". You don't (can't) really direct your power beyond the very general when you examine someone like this, just choose which bits of information you want to focus on, but you make one last effort before abandoning the study, trying to get your power to consider Aegis as a whole, without any particular focus, like you're looking at a magic eye picture. Astoundingly, it seems to help, your overall "picture" of Aegis going fuzzy, then suddenly snapping into sharp clarity. You have just enough time to realise this new perspective lets you make at least broad sense of Aegis' body before a wave of pleasure threatens to white out your brain.
You know almost at once it's not your own, but that doesn't help you do anything to stop it beyond biting your lip and resisting the urge to act on it as hard as you can.
Amazingly, despite the immense strength of the pleasure and its seemingly endless depths, when it finally passes you find you've weathered it mostly untouched. Your nipples are briefly hard enough to cut glass and your pussy tingles with excitement like Vicky's pole dancing in front of you, but both of those fade unnaturally quickly, leaving you barely noticeably horny at all. Given the way the conversation next to you is continuing without a hitch, your outward reaction to whatever that was wasn't particularly attention getting, and it doesn't even feel like you bruised you lip biting it, so there's basically no lingering signs of what you just felt. Hell, your panties don't even feel damp!
Your first thought when trying to work out what happened is that it was the effects of Dean's power, or your sister's, but neither of those seem to fit. Vicky's aura wouldn't be just pure orgasmic pleasure like that, it causes reactions to Vicky herself, not raw emotion, and your companions on the roof would definitely have noticed if she'd been blasting it out even a fraction as strongly as what you felt. Dean's blasts are slightly more likely as a culprit, but only slightly. They don't cause anywhere near that strength of emotion, and they're, well, blasts. They smack into walls rather than go through them, and you feel it if one hits you. More than a little worried about what could be responsible, you open your mouth to let Missy and Aegis know what happened, only to freeze as thinking about Aegis directly makes you think about the feed of information your powers are providing on his body, and you realise behind the much clearer view of his condition is a sense of...something. It's not an emotion or a thought or even a proper feeling, but it's clearly there, and it makes you think of someone who's just fingered themselves nearly unconscious to a new and wonderful bit of porn. You're (mostly) sure that's not even a good metaphor for what just happened, let alone and actual description, but you're absolutely sure that your powers were somehow responsible for what you just felt.
Given that it's almost certainly what's responsible, you're more than a little reluctant to use your new understanding to check Aegis' body over, at least until you can be sure your powers will behave, but attempting to glare them into compliance just results in feeling like you've gone cross-eyed and no reduction in the amount of smug contentment underlying what you learn from them, so in the end you just sigh and give it up as a bad job. Your grasp of what's going in with Aegis is by no means perfect - his powers have clearly formed some kind of elegant, hyper-adaptive symbiosis with the Infection, but what that means or how it works is unclear - but you can at least assess his general condition properly now. And that condition is...not poor, exactly, but clearly leaning very hard on his adaptability to keep going. His system is just keeping on top of various stress hormones, fatigue by-products and wear on body parts, has bodged together some kind of heat-based photosynthesis to avoid starvation and is staving off severe dehydration by what can only be described as aggravated adaptation bullshit, quickly and continually changing things so everything works "properly" despite there being nowhere near enough fluids in his system. The whole mess seems stable for now, but you're pretty sure it won't remain so indefinitely, there will come a point where there's just not enough spare material and/or energy for Aegis' powers to work with, even allowing for an unknown degree of assistance from the Infection. You open your mouth to give Aegis his doctors orders of several big meals, at least one full night's sleep, and all of the water, only for him to tense up like a dog sighting a squirrel, somehow managing to stare even more intently into the warped space at the drive.
"Are those...walking clothes?" Missy asks perplexedly, squinting her uncovered eye at the mass of bizarre shapes lurching into view.
"Yeah, that's a thing now." Aegis sighs in a how-the-fuck-is-this-my-life sort of tone as he takes to the air. "They'll try to put themselves on whoever they can catch, and they're fine with banging anyone who tries to struggle into things until they stop. They die or whatever after they've been latched on for a few days, but they're tightly clinging, squirmy and near impossible to remove before then."
"Can they be stopped before they grab on? Or do I need to redirect them?" Missy asks next, voice all Vista, parasol held in one hand like a rapier and free hand flexing menacingly.
"Hit them enough and they dissolve, like anything else Infected. Things that will damage cloth are most effective, but just punching them will work eventually." Aegis relays, body quivering with the desire to attack, nut clearly retaining enough sense not to charge in alone when he's got back up.
"Right. Do we want them bunched up or spread out?" Vista asks, eying the loose formation of shambling garments.
"I've got a pretty reliable trick that works well on groups, so bunched up, if you can do it without getting mixed up in them." Aegis responds, prompting a "Who do you think you're talking to?" sort of look from Vista before she creates a warp to get you all closer.
What follows can barely be described as a fight, and with the butterfly wings you're wearing letting you stay well above the mob, there's very little for you to do during the brief encounter. Oh, you get to use your crossbow for the first time, putting bolts through an extremely fuzzy and ugly sweater, a luridly coloured romper and an oversized hat with several stuffed rodents on it as they try and make a break for it, but for the most part you just watch Vista in action, herding the collection of clothing with swift smacks and prods until the whole lot is inside a five foot circle on the asphalt they can't seem to get out of. While she's doing that, Aegis hangs in the air, focusing, and out of the corner of your eye you see scales spread across his face and down his arms. Then, once Vista has the clothes corralled and gives him a thumbs up, he opens a mouth now containing a forked tongue and a great many very sharp teeth, takes an impossibly deep breath, and spits a salvo of blue fireballs into the massed garments.
"Nice!" Vista calls as the flames crackle and burn.
"Thanks! Picked it up from Lung." Aegis calls back, panting slightly as the scales recede.
"Did Aegy really?" You ask, flapping over so you can place a hand on his arm and see how much doing that took out of him.
"Well, probably from someone who got an Infection from someone who got an Infection from someone who got an Infection from Lung or something like that, but fire breathing reptile-women in kimono are definitely connected to the 'Dragon Empress of the Red Light District', even if they call themselves 'Independent Opportunists' when you catch them raiding." Aegis explains, appearance now almost back to how it was.
Whatever he just did has left several patches of scales on his body, including a line of them across the bridge of his nose, his tongue forked, and his dick (but not balls, oddly) replaced with a reptilian vagina, connected to a womb that isn't sure if it wants to make eggs or a baby, but is ready to start doing so at the slightest opportunity. Aegis doesn't seem to care at all about the lingering changes, and you get the strong impression from your powers they're fairly temporary, with the reproductive changes being more long lasting than the scales or tongue, though you've no idea what sort of timescales are involved there. His body's energy reserves are also far less depleted than you'd "expect" from producing such hot flames in such quantity, but there's still a fairly noticeable dip, and you have to wonder if the reliability of the "trick" is tied to if his body can eke out the energy to actually do it.
"Looks like most of the clothes are gone, but there's still a shirt left!" Vista calls up before you can bring this up with Aegis. "It's not moving, but should I stab it to make sure?"
"No, if it's still there after the rest have gone, it's back to being ordinary, not-alive clothing." Aegis calls back, and you follow him as he descends to the ground.
Vista prods the shirt in question cautiously with her parasol before approaching it and picks it up gingerly when it doesn't react, possibly more because of its garish pink shade and excessive volume of frills, lace and ribbons than fear it's playing possum. The words "Pretty Princess" are written on the chest in large, glittery letters, and touching it tells you that it carries the strain of the same name, along with an enhancement that will make the wearer be seen as much more feminine than they are, and also make others react to them as "royalty", whatever that means. The only thing besides the t-shirt left in the slightly charred patch of road is a single pink bobble, which can apparently become any number of needed bobbles, but will also sprout flowers when worn, and apparently make anything done with plants have better results.
Once you've checked both items over, Missy warps space to you can return to your front door with a step, and returns to the roof with Aegis while you take them to the living room, where Dinah and Rory are talking quietly and a small, mismatched, assortment of stuff has appeared on the far side of the room from the couch. Checking in with the cousins confirms nothing much has happened while you've been outside besides Taylor returning with various finds and a rather...rumpled...looking Vicky and Dean dropping off a bunch of survival gear just before you came in. Given the all the survival gear should be in the cache in the pantry, you're mildly annoyed that Vicky didn't even get through emptying the first cache before stopping to make out with her boyfriend, but tracking down wherever she is in the house and yelling at her about it is both unlikely to help and carries a high risk of seeing her with Dean's now overlong tongue down her throat, so you'll give it a miss, no matter how tempting the yelling is. More regretfully, you'll also have to pass on examining the finds, at least until after you've finally talked with Aegis about his condition.
The pair of Wards are still on the roof when you head outside, though Aegis is standing and twitching with the urge to go back to patroling, which won't do.
"Aegy, sit!" You order in the best "Doctor Voice" you can (which currently sounds even more like you're playing pretend), pointing at the roof and looking uncompromising. "No argue, sit. Doctor orders! Or Amy make Agey go sleepy so Amy can fix healthy."
Aegis mouths several objections but doesn't voice any of them, eventually sitting without comment, possibly because Missy looks ready to put him to sleep by hitting him with her parasol if he does anything else, so you continue.
"Agey powers and Infection do very, very weird things, and Amy no know all things. Yet. But Amy do know that Agey pushing too hard. Agey need sleepy, eat lots and even more drinkys, or Aegy fall over of hungries, even with powers. No today, no tomorrow, no tomorrow after tomrrow, but will happen if Agey no. Looky. After. Agey. Self. More! Amy and friends have lots and lots of water and much food at Winyslow, Aegy coming when go back and having some if Amy have to get Big Sissy to carry."
Aegis makes a series of protests about his ability to go without food or water and how important it is he do so in a situation like the one Brockton Bay is in now so that there's more for people who can't do that, but they're complete nonsense and you both know it, so you allow them to wash over you with no reaction beyond a steadily worsening glare.
"Aegis!" Missy interjects when a lack of ready excuses leads the boy to pause long enough for her to get a word in edgeways. "You know not eating enough is bad for you, even with your powers. You know. Do I have to give you Piggot's 'Maintain your body properly or it will betray you when you need it most' speech? I've heard her give it enough times, mainly to you, I could probably do the whole thing from memory if you need to hear it again."
Aegis looks wildly around, mouth moving as he tries to think of a way out of the situation, before slumping in defeat. "If I agree to come eat, will you let me start patrolling again? Objects walking the streets usually means there's more Infected stirring."
"Only if Aegy lets Amy ride, so Amy can keep a looky and be sure Agey body no get to stressy. And fly like in Wards, so Vista can be with if Amy wrong and Aegy fall from sky of stupids." You demand, backed up by a faintly smirking nod from Missy.
"I don't know, carrying you around as I fly seems like a lot of extra effort, and I got the impression I should be avoiding those." Aegis responds, just enough mischief leaking past his straight face to make it clear he's just saying it to be a punk.
"Amy very light now." You say, floating up to sit on one of the Ward's broad shoulders. Even having shrunk you don't fit comfortably, but it makes the point about your (lack of) weight well enough.
You spend about half an hour sitting on Aegis' back as he and Vista patrol the area around your house, powers picking away at the puzzle of his biology. You don't learn much, but you do learn enough to argue for him staying at Winslow tonight and getting a proper night's sleep, before his brain has to turn off long term memory or something to have enough brain cells not in need of downtime to actually function. You also (with Vista's help) convince him to come by Winslow semi-regularly so you can keep an eye on his health, though you have to put it in terms of studying his reaction to the Infection as part of "treating" the Infection as a whole to get him to agree. Which is a benefit of him coming by, but it's not your primary concern. Or even your fifth-ary (Q-something-ary? You're not sure) concern.
Possibly, after you've studied a great many more strains of the Infection, you'll be able to find a way of "curing" it, and the way Aegis' powers have interacted it will quite likely be a part of it if you do, but that cure is almost certainly not going to be "The Infection is purged from everyone and everything in Brockton Bay". And, to be honest, given Aegis is pretty sure the city has a quarantine zone set up around it and the standards for getting one of those dropped, you're not sure purging the Infection would be the best, what with its ability to create supplies beyond whatever gets air dropped in (if the government even bothers to keep doing so).
But for the moment, your main concern with Aegis is simply keeping him healthy and sane, which you suspect will prove easier said than done. Mainly because, for whatever reason, he's extremely adverse to the idea of tying himself to a group. You might be able to persuade him to stick with you for the rest of the day, rather than spending the time scouring everywhere within several square miles of Winslow for trouble or people in need of help, but you'll have to channel the bedside manner of the most fearsome nurses you've ever encountered to get him to even consider sleeping later than dawn, and probably chain him to a bed to keep him from rushing off as soon as he wakes up. Similar efforts are likely to be needed to get him to stop for longer than the check up takes when he comes by, but Missy will gladly help with the arm-twisting there, and if needs be you can probably talk Vicky into holding him in place until you've shoved enough food and water down his throat. Or at least use the threat of it to get him to eat enough.
The end of your time riding along while Vista and Aegis patrol comes when Vista pauses on a roof, face pulling into an odd expression before she asks in an urgent hiss; "Amy! Are the toilets in your house working?"
"Why Amy know 'bout potties?" You ask back, rising an eyebrow, then pulling a face of your own at the way your response comes out with "It's not like I'm potty trained" as practically audible subtext despite that being utterly untrue.
"I'm ah, actually not sure if they're working either." Aegis says when Vista turns desperate eyes on him. "But I think so? I'm sure Triumph would have mentioned it if not."
You're not sure if the phrasing there is because Rory is pregnant and can be assumed to need the bathroom more (though doesn't, because weird Infection voodoo), or because Dean goes to the toilet outside like the housebroken pet he now strongly resembles, but you're pretty sure you don't want to know. Instead, you pat Aegis' torso as Vista brings your front door to the three of you and say; "Amy so, so, sorry for Agey kid-in-ees.", a comment which draws a vaguely offended "Hey!" from the Ward as you float off his back.
Missy's already disappeared up the stairs by the time you follow her inside, and you decide against calling up to tell her about the small bathroom under said stairs. Your house isn't so big she won't find the main bathroom on the second floor easily enough, even if she has to check every door.
"Agey can patrol more if Agey want. But no go too far. Amy be much mad if have to play hide and seek to get Agey for lunchies. Agey no like what Amy do then." From his mocking salute, you don't think Aegis takes your childishly voiced threat as seriously as he should, but you're confident he won't run off to avoid the dread spectre of eating a full meal at least.
Returning to the living room once more, you find Dinah looking through the expanded stuff-collection while Rory watches fondly from the couch. It really is an incredibly varied assortment, ranging from a rocking chair you vaguely recall seeing in a corner of the basement for as long as you can remember, to a large stack of bundled 100 dollar bills, to a small pile of clothes that look sort of like things you've seen Carol wear at first but looked at more closely are all cut in a way she would denounce as "slutty" if she saw someone in them (possibly while the person in question was in earshot), to a collection of folders that prove to be full of various PRT threat reports, bulletins on gang activity, and pages in Carol's handwriting detailing various "issues" with the Protectorate, Wards or PRT.
You're considering where to start your own inspection when you hear footsteps and turn to see Taylor returning, a suitcase rolling along behind her on its own like an obedient dog.
"Done with Aegis?" She asks conversationally as she takes one of the cases' handles and lays it gently on the ground.
"Yep! Agey will come back to Winsylow with us for lunchies. He patroling again, Amy and Missy maybe stay with longer, but Missy need go potty." You flush slightly as you say the last bit without meaning to, but Taylor's quiet laugh doesn't feel directed at you.
"That explains why she stuck her head in your room and looked around for five seconds before running off. One door off, hey?" Taylor says as she unzips the case. "It's good you're here, since I've just finished looking for your room. Should this have been under the loose floorboard where I'd guess the bed used to be?"
She pulls out one of your costume robes and throws it to you, and you answer with a distracted negative as your powers start reading the Infection in it. That it has an enhancement that builds healing charges when it's worn seems par for the course for the Infection, and that it bolsters the wearer's willpower, perceptiveness and intelligence while tanking their social graces is also pretty usual (down to feeling like deliberate mockery), but the nature of the Infection it can pass on is...weird. It feels very similar to the one you all woke up with, despite that fact that as far as you know your powers created it halfway across the city from here, but also off somehow. You're not sure how, exactly, but you can't help but feel that anyone wearing it is risking contracting a strain far less docile and broadly positive than the one your powers created.
"I thought so. Other than the clothes left in the wardrobe and the one dresser draw - you got lucky there by the way, the clothes in your parents' room were all fit for a trashy nightclub at best, and the ones in Vicky's for a elementary school - nothing was really where I'd have expected it to be." Taylor responds as she unpacks various clothes you recognise as your own, placing them in a pile next to the clothes you thought she'd found in the basement or something, but looking at again you can recognise as much more childish versions of things you've seen Vicky wearing. "Except for the book I found under the floorboard, of course." Taylor continues impishly while you're wavering between relief at seeing four pairs each of your bras and panties and embarrassment everyone seeing them, causing you to freeze in place, sudden horror mounting. "Some interesting little poems in there. I'm sure having it will be a great comfort to you in the middle of all this."
"Taylor, jerk!" You hiss into her unrepentant face, somehow managing to keep from doing anything more attention getting.
"Don't worry I only skimmed it to find out what it was and no one else is going to see it. It's in my backpack, I'll give it you later so you can hide it." Taylor replies quietly, which isn't quite as comforting as she probably means it to be. "The thing I'd be worried about causing embarrassment from your room is this, which was sitting on the floor of your wardrobe."
It's clear from Taylor's tone that she takes the item in question's location to mean it wasn't something you owned before F-Day, which is good (and true!), but that doesn't make what she holds out less mortifying. It's an oversized pink pacifier with a crown-shaped guard and a truly enormous bulb, which would be bad enough, but it's also attached to two stretchy straps made out a sparkly, semi-transparent pink material, clearly intended to be used to fasten it in place like a gag. That such a question-raising sex toy turned up in your room is bad enough, but it's what your powers read when you touch it with a disbelieving hand that confirm the Infection has a malicious, mocking will of its own, one that hates you in particular.
"Infection is giant poopy-head!" You scream, unable to stop yourself, drawing the eyes of Dinah, Rory and a returning Missy. "No just put stupid binky-gag in Amy room, but give stupid power where if Amy wear it Amy talk come out big girl again!"
"That does not sound too bad?" Dinah says innocently, while everyone else practices their poker faces.
"If Amy wear, can no take off Amy self, need friend do. And Infection Amy could get is... Amy may no be able see sure, but Amy know, if Amy get it make Amy talk like baby all time, no just day and day more." You could be wrong about that, of course, but given that the read your powers get of the strain in the pacifier says it won't transform carriers much, you'd be prepared to make a fairly large bet it has all sorts of embarrassing traits to give them.
No one seems to want to say anything else in response to your rant, so you drop the gag to the floor and ask; "Taylor find any else in Amy room?"
"Just this weird-looking smart phone." Taylor answers, producing the phone in question, which is very sleek and chrome and shiny and doesn't look quite right to be any model you've ever heard of. Touching it reveals it's solar powered, and send messages to anyone the user can name, visualise and knows the rough location of, regardless of if they have any way to receive text messages or not! And that's not even the most ridiculous thing it does! If the user knows just two of the details needed to send messages, they can make a video call to someone! Doing so will eat through the phone's charge like a starving man at an all you can eat buffet, but still! How does the Infection do this shit!
You get a chance to regain you composure after explaining the impossible smartphone, since Taylor needs someone to show her where the hatch/ladder into the attic is hidden, but what you hear on the way back from doing so makes a mockery to all your efforts.
"Ooooh Dean! Take that thong off, you naughty boy!" It's Vicky's voice, loud and trembling with pleasure. Dean responds, you think, too quietly for you to make out the words, but your big sister's response to that is too clear for you to even try not to hear. "It's mine, isn't it? Just like your oh-so-plump new ass is mine. So be a good little pony and take it off so I can see what you're hiding under my skirt." You can't tell where they are, but all the doors in the upper hall are closed, so it's got to be your imagination that supplies the sound of rustling cloth following Vicky's demand. "Oh, wow! They are tiny now, aren't they? Ahahaha, don't worry, I still love you, even with a itty bitty sissy dick. It fits your new look, which I've got to say is growing on me." Vicky continues loudly, while you stand in the hallway, barely able to bring yourself to move enough to breath. "I've liked the idea of you fucking me against Mom's desk for ages, but we've not really got time for that now, and I'm not sure you're up to it anymore anyway, so hows about your plant all four of your cute little hooves on the desk, and I see if I can fit your teeny tiny balls in my mouth along with your dick. And after that, we'll see if you can make me howl like the good bitch I am with that tongue of yours." Dean makes a very loud, horsey sound of agreement to this idea, and that's enough to finally push you to flee.
The sounds follow you as you do, but fortunately once you race into the living room and shut both its doors they're pretty much blocked out (even if a corner of your brain insists on trying to pick out the faint hints of them and supply what Vicky may be doing as she or Dean make them). Rory looks vaguely apologetic, which you're not sure you want to unpack, Missy looks curious in a mortified sort of way, and Dinah, of course, adorably oblivious and concerned.
"Um, Amy, what were those sounds? Is Dean hurt?" The sheep-girl asks, and you silently curse the Infection's highly targeted effect on her highly perceptive nature before responding.
"Dinah no want know." You try not to growl, not wanting her to think you're mad at her.
"But-!" She says, worry for stupid Dean and your stupid big sister written over her young face.
"No want know." You hiss, stomping over to the loot pile to distract yourself studying.
It proves a somewhat questionable source of distraction. Trying to figure out why your powers swear the "chair" portion of Carol's office chair is not enhanced despite the fact it's floating in mid-air is a pretty absorbing puzzle, until your brain wanders to what's going on in the office it came from, and that Taylor apparently found a dog collar in said office too makes your flesh crawl even before your powers label the strain in the collar "Good Dog". The pump with the many oddly shaped hoses is vaguely disconcerting on its own, but learning of its function makes it even worse, and leaves the thought "Doesn't sound like Vicky needs a pump to suck fluids out of Dean" buzzing round your head like a fly. Things like the large popup shelter that collapses to the size of a beanbag, the jigsaw that changes every day, the ration bars, the brushes and even the pills that guarantee no pregnancy for 24 hours are cool and likely to be helpful, but not that attention getting now that you're becoming used to the Infection. The pair of Carol's glasses (that might be a court prop rather than actually needed) that can boost someone's ability to study people or things a good deal but also run the risk of the wearer ending up something like a non-foxy Tattletale if they catch their strain are pretty interesting to focus on, if any due to imagining Carol's face if told that something of hers would make someone anything like a villain, but can't keep you busy forever. And the less said about thick rubber outfit that blends Carol's Brandish costume with one of her courtroom suits, the better.
You've just confirmed that the large first aid kit Carol kept in the survival gear cache (In case you needed it? In case you weren't there? In case she decided she couldn't trust your help anymore?) isn't enhanced when Taylor returns, door flinging itself open ahead of her and slamming itself shut the second the case is inside.
"Maybe we should put that gag on your goddamn sister." The purple-haired girl mutters, cheeks as red as her eyes. "Not totally fair, if whoever broke in hadn't bent the door so badly the office would probably be pretty soundproof - except for your mother's goddamn secret hatch up into the goddamn attic - but after having to tune out the dog and pony show between her and her over-curvy somehow-still-a-boy-friend the whole time I was searching the junk heap somehow stuffed into your attic, my charitable nature is worn a bit thin."
"Carol...little bit a giant packraty. And Daddy no likey throw thing out too." You offer, doing you best to ignore the suggestion of gagging Vicky before it becomes tempting.
"Yeah, well I had to give up on reaching a bunch of the stuff I could sense hidden in there, even Missy probably couldn't make space to get to it." Taylor says grumpily. "If what was blocking the way was old furniture, or even bits of furniture, that would be one thing, we could probably use it but it's not, it's just crap! And I thought our basement was bad!" She takes several deep, calming breaths before continuing. "Good news, I found a bunch of spare duvets, blankets, pillows and sheets and stuff, so we've got more than enough stuff to make beds for all of us, assuming we manage to find any beds. I also found a random draw with a pack of pills that claim to provide resistance to extreme temperatures in it. And a butt plug with dog tail on it and I'm pretty sure no one has been up there since F-day, so given the collar in her office and the stuff in the bathroom, either your mom had a deeply ironic kink, or the Infection is fucking with us."
"Infection make fun." You say with certainty, even if you're not entirely sure it's actually an either or question.
By the time you've finished confirming that the bedding Taylor found lacks any enhancements, and the clothes she brought from peoples rooms likewise, the noises from upstairs have either stopped or become quiet enough you can't hear them. As you debate with yourself on the risks of opening a door to find out which, you hear a gasp from Missy and look over to see her dark purple hair growing rapidly while several pink flowers bud in it, weaving themselves in with the ones already there to from a flower crown around her head, one almost as beautiful as the sparkling tiara she's wearing. Just as Missy's hair stops growing, a little below her shoulder blades, Taylor's starts, and soon reaches well down her thighs.
"Okay, my hair is very pretty, but I'd like the Infection to pay attention to certain neglected body parts now, it's done everything else." Taylor mutters, tugging at the top of her cheerleader outfit with one hand. "Or, it could not be done with my hands, apparently." She sighs, taking in the much longer (but still perfectly manicured) nails that hand now sports.
"Dinah! Your face!" Rory's exclamation draws everyone's attention, and their hilarious attempts to describe said changes keep it.
You can understand why they're describing it, given the apparent total lack of unbroken mirrors in the house Dinah can use to just see what's happened, but for the life of you, you can't see why they didn't just start with "You face is much cuter and looks on the young side of ten" and go from there if she wanted more details, rather than trying to explain via weird analogies how her cheekbones look different first off. At least Dinah finds the whole thing amusing (and apparently not too confusing), smiling widely to show off a newly gap-toothed grin before hugging her part-gryphon cousin.
The whole thing creates a happy atmosphere in the room, enough so that you almost forget to glare and Vicky when your big sister saunters in, boyfriend trotting obediently behind her. Neither show any signs of their activities beyond wide, sated grins, messy hair and great airs of smug contentment, but you're derailed from figuring out how best to let them know they haven't gotten away with it by Vicky setting the box she's carrying down, allowing you to recognise the item on top.
"Amy no think we have that no more." You whisper, shocked at the sight of a photo album you honestly thought Carol had thrown out not long after you got your powers.
"What, you never thought to look in safe behind false panel opposite the painting in Mom and Dad's room for it? That's where all the family stuff Mom wants to keep extra safe goes, after all." Vicky says, teasingly but clearly happy the safe did its job, and you kind of hate what you have to say next.
"Carol...no tell Amy safey is there. No tell where thingies in go, too." You can't really describe what you feel at the knowledge that Carol didn't throw out all the various mementos of happy family memories that vanished from the house not long after you Triggered, just hid them somewhere and never told you, but it's awful.
"SHE WHAT!!!?" Vicky screeches, hard enough to shake the cloth covering the windows, and you feel a deeply furious wave of her aura pass over you, practically a solid thing in the air, before she darts forward and pulls you into a hug, wiping at the tears you hadn't realised were falling with a hand that trembles with the difficulty of turning her rage to gentleness.
"I don't care what's happened to her since F-Day, I'm going to deck her when we find her!" Your sister mutters, enraged and doing her best to channel it productively. "Ames, I swear I didn't know she hadn't told you. I didn't mention the safe because I thought you knew, and you know what she was like if we even hinted about talking about any of her hiding places. I thought it was just Mom being Mom, but if part of it was to make sure you didn't know about some of them... I'm going to use her as a freaking basketball!"
"Amy believe Big Sissy. Big Sissy no be too too mad? Carol do thing like this. Amy used to it." Honestly, this isn't...well, no, it is pretty bad, even by Carol's standards, but it's not the worst thing she's done, you can clearly see how she was trying to protect things (from you) and she didn't actually demand anything of you to do it, or even lie to you. She just...didn't tell you something after she made a decision (and you assumed the worst, because why wouldn't you?), she's not required to inform you of every choice she makes about the family's security. Compared to trying to meet her impossible expectations for being "good", it's practically nothing.
It is nothing. It is.
So why does it take so long for you to stop trembling in your sister's arms?
Finds/Loot
2000 cash, 500 Gems, 50 Wood, 305 Jewellery
A great deal of Pre-F-Day gang/PRT information, dating back years. Highly unlikely to be useful now, but needs checking to confirm that.
Enough slutty looking woman's clothes to make up outfits for one person for 2.5 days.
Enough slutty looking men's clothes to make up outfits for one person for 2.5 days.
Enough childish looking girl's clothes to make up outfits for one person for 4 days.
Enough teenage girl's clothes to make up outfits for one person for 4 days.
5 sets of bedding (Duvet, sheets, pillows etc.).
Blooming Bobbles - A set of hair bobbles with living flowers growing from them. Appears to be just a single ordinary pink bobble when unworn, but can become as many as needed with the flowers and colours of the wearer's choice. Provide 10 CHA and has a Safe enhancement when worn which adds 1d5 extra degrees of success to any successful plant related rolls.
Strain: Flower Girl
Super Girly Princess Tee - A garish pink t-shirt with the words "Pretty Princess" written on the chest in glitter, and enough frills, lace, ruffles and ribbons decorating it to make a second shirt. Provides 30 CHA, 15 DEX, and has a Moderate enhancement when worn that greatly increases how feminine the wearer is perceived as being, and inclines others to react to them as royalty.
Strain: Pretty Princess
Productive Pump - A device that may have been a water pump at some point, but now pumps far more intimate things. By attaching one or more of its many pumps to somewhere on someone's body that can produce fluid and pumping for five minutes, enough drinkable liquid for three people is produced, possibly with other beneficial effects depending on where was pumped. The pumping process is harmless, but increases the subject's LIB and the productivity of the pumped areas. The fewer locations pumped, the smaller the LIB increase, but the greater and longer the productivity increase. Has a Safe enhancement that allows the produced drink to be made either entirely non-Infectious, or extremely Infectious with a chosen strain from the producer.
Strain: Overproduction - Always hybridised strain that makes a single body part ridiculously productive.
First Aid Kit - A large and extremely well stocked kit of emergency medical supplies. Provides 25 to a medical roll, 50 uses. (No bonus with Amy's powers)
Popup Shelter - A good sized shelter that can be quickly put up or taken down. Provides protection from the elements and is more comfortable than being outside. Large enough for several people to work in, or for 20-30 to sleep in at a stretch. Has a Minor enhancement that means it collapses down to the size and weight of a beanbag.
Strain: Booster - Increases the Infection Level of an already present strain.
Emergency Rations - 20 Ration bars of unclear nature and origin. Not terribly appetising, but they'll keep you fed. Have a Minor enhancement allowing one to fill the eater's food needs for 24 hours as a low quality meal.
Strain: Bloat - Short lived strain that causes excessive eating and even more excessive weight gain while it lasts.
Family Photo - A family photo of New Wave from a few years ago in which everyone looks happy. Allows a free, instant Bond activation between any two of those present, once per week.
Album of Happy Memories - A large photo album with many pictures in it. Looking through it brings to mind the best parts of the past, increasing Mood and reducing Stress, but leaving the reader in a blissful daze where they are barely aware of their surroundings and may act as they did in the memories for several hours. Multiple uses in the same week extend the length of the dazed period considerably and result in odder behaviour.
Wedding Rings - When worn by two people with a Bond, provide bonuses to resist anything that might damage that Bond or runs strongly against its context, but also causes the wearers to act more and more like a besotted newlywed couple the longer the rings are worn for, until they can think of nothing but each other. This effect wears off after the rings are removed for 6 hours.
Daily Jigsaw - A 1000 piece jigsaw, which returns itself to its box each midnight, the image and shape of the pieces changing completely when it does so. Has a Moderate enhancement which activates if a group of people complete the day's puzzle together, boosting their relationship and/or all appropriate Bonds greatly.
Strain: Puzzle People - Carriers become living puzzles, able to swap body parts with others with the same Infection for various bonuses.
Air Mattress - A smallish, self-inflating air mattress that's fairly comfortable and rolls up small for transport. Has a Safe enhancement that increases the sleep result of whoever uses it by one.
Strain: Booster - Increases the Infection Level of an already present strain.
Rock-a-Bye Rocking Chair - A large and comfortable rocking chair that's easy to fall asleep in. Has a Moderate enhancement that greatly reduces Stress and LIB for anyone who has a nap in it, but has a chance of making them act much older for a short while afterwards, with anything they wear temporarily changing to reflect the behaviour change. Two people can use it at once if one sits in the other's lap to nap, but this guarantees the behaviour/clothes change for both, with the lap-sitter becoming much younger acting instead. The same thing will also happen, but with random ages, if someone uses the rocking chair within an hour of another person.
Strain: Ages of Man - Always hybridised strain that causes carriers to find themselves cycling between young and old.
Fancy Tea Set - A box containing an elaborate, high-quality tea set, from china teapot to ornate sugar tongs to lace doilies. Used properly and with the right supplies, can have one of several beneficial effects, such as vastly raising Mood, increasing any Bond's strength or greatly increasing relations with a person or small group.
Rapunzel Comb - A nice looking wooden comb with a Major enhancement that allows it to be used to lengthen or shorten hair with enough time spent brushing.
Strain: Rapunzel Rapunzel - Greatly lengthens hair, but also grants various hair based powers.
Hover Chair - A large leather office chair with no legs that floats a little way off the ground. Very comfortable and can be steered around with a thought by whoever is sitting in it, with a max speed of a steady jog and the ability to go up to 6 feet in the air to avoid obstacles.
"Walkies" Dog Collar - A smart looking collar with a bone shaped tag that changes to feature the wearer's name. Grants 10 DEX/STA and has a Minor enhancement that allows it to extend a lead, which if held be another person allows them and the wearer to share any positive movement related effects.
Strain: Good Dog - Makes you a little more dog-like in appearance and a whole lot more of a good girl in behaviour.
Lawyerly Glasses - A pair of smart looking glasses that give the wearer a no-nonsense air and seem designed for glaring over the top of. Provide 25 PER, 15 INT/CHA and 10 WP, and have a Moderate enhancement allowing the wearer to re-roll failed checks made to study something or someone.
Strain: Legally Blonde - Brilliant minds hidden behind bimbo-like looks and behaviour.
Travelling Case - A large suitcase which is capable of following along on its own, though may need some help to keep up at high speeds or over difficult terrain. Has a Safe enhancement letting it contain many times its apparent volume.
Strain: Carrying Capacity - Intimate places become copious containers.
Power Suit - An extremely odd outfit that blends Brandish's costume with a smart suit, and is also made entirely out of rubber. Provides 45 to all physical stats and 30 to all mental ones, the effects doubling when in combat, and has a Minor enhancement making the wearer immune to electrical or pure energy damage.
Strain: Rubber Heroine - Half superhero, half sex doll, all rubber.
Doggy Treat Multivitamins - A large container of multivitamins shaped (and tasting) like dog treats. Good for combating nutritional issues, especially for those with fur, but may cause some mild dog-like behaviour.
25xNo Knock Up Pills - A pack of pills which make it impossible to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant for 24 hours.
Fur Brush - A large brush with a paw pattern, intended for use with fur rather than hair. Has a Safe enhancement that causes it to clean, neaten, condition and otherwise maintain hair, fur, wool and similar at the same time as it's used to brush it.
Strain: Good Fur Day - Always hybridised strain that causes full body fur with a special trick or two.
Door Alarm - An alarm that can be easily set up on a door of any kind, and will sound an unmissable alarm if triggered by someone trying to open or force it. Has a Safe enhancement that lists authorised users, who can open the door without triggering the alarm.
Pacifier Gag - A large pacifier attached to an adjustable strap, both of them pink, sparkly and princess themed. Once strapped in place, only allies of the wearer (and not them) can remove or displace it. Provides 25 CHA, and has a Moderate enhancement that makes anything the wearer says come out clearly and as they intend, negating all effects that would interfere, regardless of source.
Strain: Baby Gaga - Minimal TFs strain that makes you much more charming, but has lot of babyish mouth related effects.
Very Smart Phone - A shiny, beyond-recent model Smartphone in a sleek case. Nearly indestructible and recharged by sunlight. Has a variety of apps, and does not appear to require signal to work, though it cannot send or receive information from outside Brockton Bay. Has a Safe enhancement that allows it to send messages to anyone the user knows the full name, general appearance and rough location of, which will reach them regardless of their normal capacity to receive messages, though they cannot reply. It can also be used to make a two-way video call to someone the user knows at least two of the previous three facts about, but this will quickly drain the battery, requiring at least 6 hours of charging before the phone can be used again afterwards.
Strain: Cybered Up - Multifunction sexpot cyborgs.
Panacea Robe - A simple white hooded robe decorated with red crosses, which can be worn over many outfits. Grants 30 WP and modifies INT and PER by 1.5, but modifies CHA by 0.25. Has a Moderate enhancement that stores a charge every 30 minutes it is worn for, max 12. A charge can be expended to instantly restore 50 HP to someone the wearer is touching.
Strain: Panacea? - The Panacea strain, but something is off about it...
Temperature Resistance Pills - A pack of 30 pills which provide resistance to extreme temperatures for six hours each.
Adaptable Tail Butt Plug - A butt plug featuring a long tail. The tail changes to match the appropriate animal for whoever it's inserted in, and also slowly increases in size, keeping them "comfortably stretched". Gives 5 STA and has a Minor enhancement that provides resistance to environmental conditions and effects, with a greater degree of effect the less clothing is worn. Can be worn with any underwear.
Strain: Tail of Behind - Always hybridised strain that grants tail and butt based abilities, but also increases sexual focus on those body parts.
New Quest: Adaptability - Amy's not yet sure what exactly is going on with the interaction between Aegis' power and the Infection, but it interests her power enough to nearly cream her panties by proxy over it. It's impossible to tell at this point what further study will reveal, but it's almost certain to be highly useful in any solution to the Infection, and Aegis has already been convinced to stop by Winslow semi-regularly for it, so there's no reason not to pursue it.
- Stage 1 of ??? complete. Stage 2 7/25 progress, completion will earn FAV and ???
Info gained: Missy has a very general overview of the various large groups and common Feral infected types in most of the city, which will be mentioned when they become relevant. She will try and get more details out of Aegis as time allows, and sitting in on these sessions may be a source of Favour for Dinah.
It might be the number of people present, enemy action or just bad luck, but either way things are getting increasingly active around the Dallon house. There is now a 50% chance of a Random Encounter every 10 minutes, with the chance increasing by 10% every time there is no encounter. After the first encounter, it will reset to a 55% chance, after the second, 60%, and so on. The party have accomplished most of what they came here to do, but there are still a few places where Taylor could sense things but not reach them. Do the party retrieve these items before leaving?:
There is still a special item to be found in the basement. Retrieving it will take 10 minutes.
[Basement] Yes
[Basement] No
There is still a special item to be found in Carol's office. Retrieving it will take 5 minutes.
[Office] Yes
[Office] No
There is still one item and a special item to be found in the bathroom. Retrieving them will take 5 minutes.
[Bathroom] Yes
[Bathroom] No
There is still a special item to be found in Vicky's Room. Retrieving it will take 5 minutes.
[Vicky] Yes
[Vicky] No
There are still three items and a special item to be found in the attic. Retrieving them will take 15 minutes.
[Attic] Yes
[Attic] No
The party will leave via fast travel back to Winslow, Aegis and Gallant will automatically accompany them due to rolls. What will the party do after dropping off Triumph and the loot?:
[Next] Travel to next location right away - No time for any analysis, max 1 item gear change per character, increased odds Aegis comes with group to next location.
[Next] Quick lunch break - Time to analyse/make alterations to 1 person and up to 5 items, max three items gear change per character.
[Next] Long lunch break - Time to analyse/make alterations to up to 3 people and 15 items, unlimited gear change, reduced odds Aegis comes with group to next location, other actions may be available.
QM: Wow, the ending of this update took kind of a bleak swerve on me.
On a timekeeping note it's a bit hard to say what time you'll get back to Winslow - if you collect none of the remaining items it'll be 11:05 or so, all of them it could be anywhere between 11:50 and 12:30 depending on encounter rolls
Also, do people feel the sub-tabs under group inventory need breaking up further?
Also also, I'm going to bed literally seconds after I post this, and will respond to any questions in the morning.
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Last edited: Jan 10, 2021
Jan 9, 2021 ReportLike QuoteReply
bearblue, Annatar, Ralyx and 58 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 2, Part 5 (Late Morning)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
Spoiler: Rolls
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls
When you finally manage to pull yourself together, you find the living room empty of everyone but yourself, Vicky and Dean, who's expression of grave concern would look far less stupid if he wasn't still standing on all four hooves. And he didn't have such a stupid face in general. Not that that's new, his various "grave" faces for reacting to other people's feelings have always been pretty dumb, but looking like a sissy horse with pillows for lips takes the ridiculousness of looking gravely anything to a whole new level.
"Thanky Big Sissy. Amy sorry she crybaby." You mutter as you slip out of your sister's grip, fluttering your wings instinctively to stabilise yourself as you stand.
"Hey, none of that. What Mom did was awful and you have every right to be upset about it." Vicky says with scolding kindness as she stands too.
"Oh no! Big Sissy feeties is pawsies!" You gasp, unable to help yourself, as the movement draws you eyes to the change.
The paw shaped boots of the dog-girl costume meant the change to your sister's feet wasn't as obvious as it could have been, and what tips you off about the change is that the fur of the paws stops a little above the ankle, where the tops of the boots are further up the shin. The new paws are also far more realistic looking than the boots, of course, and noticeably smaller. A little bigger than Vicky's human feet were in terms of general size, and much more so in terms of wideness but not massively oversized like the clunky boots where. Just...the paws you'd expect for a dog the size of your sister. The boots themselves seem to have turned into something sandal-like, with straps running between all four of Vicky's toes and up the back to an adjustable band, carefully positioned not to pressure the new dewclaws both paws sport. Dewclaws coated in bright red polish, which in incredulous glance confirms is true of all the claws on her reshaped feet, looking for all the world like they were claws rather than nails when painted.
"Oh, yeah, that happened a bit ago. Cute, aren't they?" Vicky says breezily, waving a hand in a motion that's part dismissal and part "Ta-da!" while her tail wags contentedly behind her.
You think for a second when your eyes are drawn to them her hands have turned into paws too, but then she realise she's just put her fingers inside the second part of the mitten-like glove. Before, like you, she'd been wearing them with her fingers and about half her hand exposed and the "paw" section on top, like some sort of bulky ornament, but now her hand is completely concealed inside. The gloves are thick and not particularly flexible, so having her hands like that makes them about as useful as Dean's hooves (possibly less, given Infection bullshit). Combined with her seeming unconcern about a transformation you know she hated the idea of, it's more than a little concerning.
"Big Sissy okay? Big Sissy big sad to get doggy bits yesterday." You ask, as cautiously as your toddler-fied speech allows.
"I'm good." Vicky says in a voice so unforced you can't help but believe it despite yourself. "I was a bit put out when the ears and the tail first showed up, I'll admit, but they've grown on me since then. Plus, it's obvious the Infection isn't going to just, leave us looking normal, so better to be a cute puppy than, like, a sea slug or a giant blob or something. Plus, plus, if they get too annoying or something, my wonderful, adorable little sister can just make them something else!"
Such cheerful praise and confidence in your abilities from Vicky is your greatest weakness, and your attempts to voice further concerns or explain it isn't that simple are derailed by you turning into a blushing, flailing mess. A condition that isn't helped by your stupid Toddler Talk Trait rendering what few attempts at words you do get out as literal baby babble! Even with all that against you, you might still have managed to recover and make your points if it weren't for stupid Dean suddenly deciding to do something even stupider than usual.
"Neigh! Amy! Don't be sad!" His lisped, horsey cry is your only warning of the horror you're about to endure.
Coming up behind you, Dean slips his head between your legs, then somehow manages to toss his neck and shoulders in a way that lifts you into the air and lands you squarely on his back. Your legs clamp on to his sides as you instinctively try to avoid falling, and you can't override the panicked reflex before Dean starts moving, even with the knowledge those squishy things you can feel just below your knees are Dean's breasts! Worse, not only are you stuck as Dean starts galloping around the living room (while singing a song you're pretty sure is from a cartoon), but his gait makes you bounce up and down, and your position ends up shifting until you're sitting against his oversized ass, your labcoat and both of your skirts somehow ending up moving in just the right ways that there's only the thin fabric of your panties between your asscheeks and slapping against Dean's big bouncy buttocks, something you're made very aware of with every landing.
"Wahhh! Stupid Dean! Amy no want horsey! Big Sissy! Help!" You cry over the sound of clopping hooves and Dean's singing, which seems to be trying to make up for being completely off key through sheer enthusiasm.
Vicky does not help. Vicky, in fact, does the opposite, once she manages to stop laughing long enough to speak. "Good Boy Dean! Why don't we take Ames out back and you can give her a real ride?"
Dean lets out an excited whinny at the suggestion, while you can only hope through your betrayal that him slowing down to get outside will give you a chance to jump off without risking being thrown off. It's quickly proven to be a foolish hope, since rather than Dean slowing down even a hair, Vicky races ahead of him opening doors, allowing him to charge straight out into the back garden, moving, if anything, even faster when he gets there. To add insult to injury, your cries get twisted, with something like "No! Stop!" becoming "No stop!" while the childish pitch blurrs the line between distressed-fear and excited-fear. Hearing yourself, you barely believe you don't want Dean to do this, and you know that's the case!
Once outside, things are a little less scary in terms of maybe hitting something, and while you can't bring yourself to let go and jump, you do relax a little bit. You'd like to blame the way you can feel a grin slipping on to your face on that, or the happy feel of Vicky's aura as she watches, but you know that's not the case. Part of you is enjoying this. Maybe it's the speed and energy you're being raced around with, maybe it's the sheer effort and desire to cheer you up, maybe it's Dean's willingness to humiliate himself so totally (though not the part where he seems intent on badly singing children's songs the whole time) , but you're having fun despite yourself. Even the knowledge that Dean's impulse for how to cheer you up was to do something you'd normally do for a grumpy preschooler isn't enough to stop it (and maybe, for a little part of you, the catering to childishness adds to the fun). It's clear your pony ride isn't stopping any time soon after the first two times round the garden, so you (not so) reluctantly decide to stop trying to get out of it, focus on the good parts of it, and get petty vengeance for the embarrassing bits later.
Eventually, Dean slows to a stop in front of Vicky, who slaps his ass affectionately and says "Good pony" before lifting you off his back (which absolutely does not draw a sad "Awww" from you) and into a cuddle, which you happily lean backwards into, almost ready to forgive her for her part in what just happened. At least until she turns to face the house, and you see that everyone else has come outside at some point during your ride, at which point your desire for revenge skyrockets. There's no sign of mockery or judgement in people's expressions (though Missy is clearly conflicted about if your ride is something to be jealous of or not), but you're pretty sure Rory is now less than convinced by your earlier claims your mind is still totally mature despite how you sound, Taylor is absolutely going to rib you about this later, she's just not going to do it publicly, and Dinah's simple happiness that you got to have a pony ride too won't prevent her from innocently demolishing your pride with this incident later, in some unexpected manner and time.
That Vicky once again completely fails to grasp that you're squirming frantically in her grip because you want her to put you down until you hiss "Big Sissy! Amy wants downs!" in the sort of whisper that caries to everyone in earshot doesn't help your attempts to salvage any dignity from the situation, but the ultimate death-knell of your efforts comes from the betrayal of your legs, which appear to be fine as Vicky's putting your down, only to reveal the second she's not supporting your weight that they decided to turn into jelly at some point during the ride, dropping you on your ass in front of everyone. Even sitting in the grass, no doubt looking a great deal like a toddler who's confused why this "walking" thing didn't work right this time, you might have saved some scraps of pride, but your butt is a little tender from being bounced against Dean's so many times, and the hard impact with the ground results in an eye-watering flare of not-quite-pain from it. While you're still trying to process if you're feeling pleasure or discomfort, Vicky lets out a coo and scoops you back up, resting you against her shoulder and patting you on the rear in what's clearly meant to be a soothing gesture, but does nothing to help you deal with your conflicted feelings about any sort of pleasure resulting from contact between your ass and Dean's.
"Hey, Amy? We found this book behind the cabinets in your mom's office, can you tell if it does anything?" Missy asks brightly after you've had a few moments to recover your wits, coming up behind Vicky to hold the book in question out to you while gamely trying to keep how amusing she found what she just saw off her face.
It's a huge thing, thick and with at least A3 pages, and probably has a hard and weighty cover under the layer of tiger-striped faux-fur. The words "Official Record of Deposition" on the front cover manage to somehow convey vaguely menacing seriousness despite being surrounded by cutesy animal prints and written in slightly glittery gold ink. Slipping an arm free and over Vicky's shoulder to touch the book (which Missy looks vaguely smug about being able to hold up to where you are without her powers scrunching some of the space) reveals it possesses an odd ability, even by Infection standards. By writing a question on one of the forms inside, alongside information identifying someone, the answer that person would give if made to answer the question will appear in the book at some point in the next few days, you're pretty sure without their knowledge. Using the book will result in exposure to the animal transformation causing strain it carries, but at a pretty minor level, and the stain itself seems to just advance the changes from a strain that's already there, not inflict anything new. There's also a chance of some sort of...side effect? Cost?...being applied to the user while they're waiting for the question to be answered, but you if the book is used sensibly it will be nothing worse than, like, meowing occasionally.
Once you've passed on what the book does, Missy thanks you cheerfully before stepping away for a second and coming back with a box full of sachets that can be mixed with water to make protein shakes that actually will make you stronger, followed by a small case that contains an infinite supply of makeup and can give tutorials on its use, both of which were in the weird little cupboard in the bathroom that only Vicky can reach without a stepladder. It's only when Missy steps away a third time and takes longer to come back that it occurs to you that Vicky's been holding you for several minutes while you were examining things, and what's worse, has decided at some point she needed a hand free to play with Dean's mane, so is currently supporting you with an arm under your bum like you're an oversized toddler clinging to her. The disappointed tone in Missy's voice when she steps back into to say she can't bring the box they brought out of the basement to you could be entirely genuine, but combined with the look on her face, you know she was deliberately trying to keep you in this mildly embarrassing position for as long as she could. Possibly out of petty spite that you got to ride Dean before she did, possibly just because it seemed funny.
After considering a number of responses to your situation, including embarrassed flailing and sticking your tongue out at the smirking Ward, you decide your best option is to do nothing, essentially. Freaking out or making a fuss will just draw attention, tell everyone you're embarrassed and make it clear just little control you've had over your situation. But if you're chill, there's less to remark on and Vicky will have to put you down in a moment so you can go to the box anyway. So all you'll need to do is stay cuddled up with your gorgeous sister for a tiny bit longer. Oh no, what a hardship!
Of course, you brilliant plan gets derailed right away, with Vicky carrying you through into the kitchen rather than putting you down to walk yourself, and then sitting herself in mid-air, back to the large cardboard box that's appeared there, while wrapping both her arms around you. "This isn't to awkward, is it Ames? I just...want to keep hugging you a bit longer if I can." Vicky's voice is sad and quiet, and you can tell something's hurting her, but not what.
"It okay." You answer. If Vicky wants hugs to feel better, she can have them, and your dignity can get stuffed. If your sister needs to, she can carry you around like a teddy bear for as long as she likes.
You manage to get through examining the box and reporting on its contents of self-assembling into anything you want rubber furniture without your resolve wavering, despite the looks you get for doing so sat in Vicky's lap, but then the universe itself decides to weigh in. Rather than standing once you've finished and the group starts moving to try and find the last few items Taylor can sense, Vicky simply starts floating along with you still cuddled up in her lap. Which would be bemusing, but fine, if it weren't for the bit of Infection weirdness that happens at the same time. It's like a heat haze or hot breeze rolls through, except it passes through the walls of your house like they're not there, and rather than leaving warmth in its wake, it leaves horniness. How isn't clear, you don't feel Infection (or anything but) air in whatever it is, but your powers let you see Vicky's body becoming more aroused for no apparent reason at literally the same instant yours does the same, and can see the faces of everyone bar Dinah flush at the same time, so it's clearly responsible.
"Ugh, what was that?" Taylor asks, shaking her head like she's trying to clear it.
"Infected weather, I think." Dean says, which makes the rest of you, even Rory look at him in bafflement.
"My powers aren't as good as Amy's for things like that, but I'm pretty sure there was no Infection in it." Taylor responds, and you nod and hum an agreement, since you're afraid if you open your mouth something about the fact you can feel Vicky's nipples poking into your back will come out.
Dean shrugs, which, given his still four-legged posture and how closely behind he was following Vicky, means you get enough of a view down his borrowed dress to tell his nipples are hard too. "Don't know then. All I know is that since a fortnight or so after F-Day, horniness seems to be weather as much as rain is. Sometimes you just get a front of it rolling through like that, sometimes it seems to settle over an area for a bit, and sometimes you get storms of it. Those aren't fun. Though at least walls help then."
The idea of environmental horniness seems impossibly bizarre, but you're being told about it by a guy who's gone from being pretty high on the tall and handsome scale a month (or so) to someone who could be mistaken for a preteen girl if he wasn't so curvy, and is also now part-pony, and the group he's telling it to includes another guy who's now a heavily pregnant, fully hermaphroditic part-gryphon and their half-sheep cousin, who's two years younger than she was this time yesterday, so what does impossible even mean anymore? Other people's thoughts on the matter seem to run along the same lines as yours, since after a few moments where people are visibly considering the situation, there's a collective shrug and silent agreement to just leave it be and move on.
You all head upstairs, even Rory (who's very grateful to Missy for scrunching the stairs so they can get up them in only a few steps), and head to Vicky's room, which contains her wardrobe, one of its doors hanging loose, one corner of her bed frame, her dressing table, which is built into the wall and has been striped to its metal core, and the torn corners of some posters. Nothing else, not even curtains. It's a disheartening sight, and one that makes you glad there's no reason to go in to your room according to Taylor. You're not all that fond of your room or anything in it, but seeing it like this would hurt anyway, much as seeing her room like this is hard for Vicky, even if she doesn't show it beyond a quiet noise and squeezing you more tightly to her. Comforting her through this is enough to concerns about horniness out of your head, at least until Vicky finishes telling Taylor how to get her (far less obvious than yours) loose floorboard up and the taller girl reaches into the space and produces a copy of your sister's costume dress, identical to the one Dean's wearing, except for the minor detail of being made out of white latex rather than white fabric.
Being passed that to examine while sitting in your sisters lap makes you wonder if you're actually in your own personal circle of hell.
Pushing aside the visions of what Vicky would look like in this costume is hard, but fortunately the dress itself helps by having some rather irksome effects. The once a day shield power is fine, and the sort of thing you'd expect, the big boosts to health, strength and stamina are fine, but sharply cutting the wearer's intelligence? Your sister might be impulsive, but she's not dumb, and never has been. And the strain the dress has! Your power labels it "Collateral Latex Barbie", and you're honestly just glad the Infection decided slipping the latex part in was more important than sticking right to the theme of something inspired buy that stupid nickname some ass on PHO coined and had stick in the meme-ier parts of Brockton Bay's populace (plus the occasional ganger who thinks provoking someone with your sister's Brute rating is a sensible life choice). If it had, you might have had to destroy the dress here and now, rather than just being annoyed at it is you explain its effects to the others.
Once you're done with that, the party heads for the attic, though Rory takes one look at the narrow ladder and even narrower hatch behind the fake wall panee and declines to come with, commenting "Flashbang goes up there? How?" before Missy makes a shortcut back to the living room for them, which they quickly use, settling down on to the couch with a sigh of relief.
The attic itself is cramped and full of stuff, forming an almost literal maze, and you finally have to Vicky "Enough" when she tries to shift you on to one hip and dig through things one handed (you actually say "No mores", but details). Shifting through things in search of the items Taylor senses turns up a cardboard box with one more set bedding in it, a big wooden pole that turns out to project blades made of something like Brandish's hard-light, creating a formidable battleaxe with what's basically a giant-slaying enhancement (it also has a strain that turns people into "Old Battleaxes", which makes you snicker, given the connection to Carol), and a large wooden doghouse shaped like a palace. Though, really, calling it large doesn't do it justice, it's basically an oddly shaped shed. The thing has floors! It's not enhanced in any way you can detect, but that there seem to be more "rooms" inside than even its size can account for and each room is apparently always just big enough not to feel claustrophobic while still too low ceilinged to move on anything but hands and knees and small enough that people in the same room can't avoid brushing against each other, no matter how many people are in the room. It's also very comfortable inside, according to Dinah's cheerful report when she comes out, and given that it takes Taylor and Missy banging on the side to get Vicky and Dean to stop canoodling inside and come out. It ends up being easier to just put the thing in the equipment sack Dinah's carrying now, than try and get it downstairs to where the rest of your finds are waiting for best packing, even with your sister and Missy's powers.
Removing the doghouse reveals a previously unreachable section of the attic, one with what seems to be a sphere made of junk in the middle of it. The last item Taylor can sense is inside, so you all split up to explore the junk paths and try to find a way inside. You're a little amused as you do so by the fact the sphere is the only thing up here that you'd be willing to swear isn't how it was before F-Day. This attic has been a monument to hording tendencies for as long as you can remember, and storage of stuff she doesn't want to get rid of is the only place where anything off the straight and narrow path is acceptable to Carol. Well, of straight path, at least. The winding passages through the junk are certainly narrow, too.
It's when you reach the point where, based on people's shouted reports, every possible path has been explored without finding a way into the sphere that the Infection decides to remind you that no matter how ordinary things seem, it could have a surprise waiting. And no matter how much you think you've adjusted your expectations to account for its tricks, what it does can still blindside you through shear weirdness. A flicker at the corner of your eye strikes you as not quite right somehow, spiking all your senses to high alert in an instant, and only that warning (and maybe your shrunken stature) lets you drop under the chains which suddenly lash out to grab you, and you roll frantically out of reach of the grasping...sausage links!? You don't have time to boggle for long, as you have to evade a net of noodles and a lasso of linguine, then a follow up barrage of potatoes moving like they've been fired from a cannon. A blinding flash from your new light creating ability does nothing to dissuade the aggressive foodstuffs coming from the junk sphere, the surface of which ripples like a pond as they pass through it, but after several minutes you manage to dodge your way round the corner of a junk path, and nothing follows you (though a last spray of leeks does embed themselves in the attic wall. As you're getting your breath back, a thought strikes you, and you risk a glace round the corner to confirm the open space there is far larger than it was before the food attacked.
"Help!" It's not just the blood pounding in your ear that makes Dinah's cry sound distant, you find as you fly frantically towards it, unsure if the younger girl heard your response of "Amy coming!". Your wings flapping are hard enough that glittery wake is more a short-lived tornado than a trail, and you're going as fast as you can, but it doesn't feel like enough.
The only path available to you is a circular one around the edge of the area, and it's far larger than it should be. You pass several gaps in the wall of junk as you go, but all of them just lead to open areas with the sphere at one end. None of them contain any trace of Dinah, or anyone else, until suddenly one does. You practically pass it before you register what you've seen, and Dean's ass (and the stupid tail-brush butt plug still in it) are distinctive enough even at a glance you almost keep going, but your conscience forces you to flip in the air and go back to help the pony-boy. Other than his fat ass, only Dean's legs are visible, hooves kicking frantically, the rest of him having been pulled inside the rippling surface of the sphere.
"Stupid Dean no kick! Amy here help!" You have to repeat yourself at the top of your lungs several times, but eventually he gets the message and his legs still. Grabbing them, you pull with all your might, staining against the resistance of whatever's holding him until Dean pops free with the suddenness and force of a cork from a champagne bottle.
Leaping back up as you recover from the tumble, you're relieved to see nothing flying from sphere to try and recapture Dean, especially when you turn to the boy in question and find him sprawled on his back, unmoving except for his mouth, which is chewing placidly as a large cucumber disappears down his throat. His belly bulges slightly beneath his dress, as though he's consumed a big meal in the short time since you last saw him, his face is stained with the juices of many vegetables, and there's a vagueness to his expression, especially his eyes, that worries you. Touching him confirms he has no injuries to worry about, but you can't work out what has him so out of it his eyes don't focus on you as you lean over him, at least until he swallows the last mouthful of cucumber and suddenly snaps into alertness.
"I couldn't stop eating..." He mumbles in a disturbed voice as you prod him into rolling over and on to his hooves, alongside a number of upset horse noises.
"No time no, Stupid Dean." You tell him, even as you force yourself to push past your reluctance and settle on to his back. "Stupid Dean gallop-gallop fast as can, help Amy find others." He still seems to be having trouble working out what he should be doing even after your clear instructions, so with even greater reluctance, you reach back and smack him firmly on the ass.
That gets him moving like you shoved a rocket up there, and soon you're tearing around the circumference of the room. You quickly reach a clearing that contains Vicky as well as Dinah, but while your sister is gnawing on a haunch of ham, her face as blank as Dean's was, she free from the sphere and no food is attacking them, so you slap Dean's ass again to get him to continue on, calling, "Amy back soonies! Keep Big Sissy safe for Amy Dinah!" Unfortunately, first one, then two complete circuits of the room reveals no sign of Missy or Taylor.
Vicky's condition when you get back is basically the same as Dean's, just with meat juices staining her face rather than vegetable ones. She finishes the last of the ham as you dismount Dean, and as you're waiting for her to come fully back to her senses so you can work out the best way to rescue the other two member of the group from inside the sphere when the item in question suddenly vanishes, revealing a dome of flying food, the captured pair barely visible inside. Vicky instantly bursts forward to aid them Dean hot on her heels, but this proves to be a bad idea, as they bounce of some kind of invisible barrier just before the dome and are not only sent flying back but end up with another item of food (sausage links for Vicky and a lettuce for Dean) stuffed in their mouths, which they consume with even blanker faces than the pieces they were eating when rescued. Attempts by you and Dinah to draw their attention are utterly ineffectual, and Clockblocker might have well have frozen the food for how successful your attempts at moving it are.
Very careful testing while they're eating confirms the barrier extends all the way around the dome, of food, and that just approaching or touching it doesn't trigger any sort of response. Less than careful testing by the two combatants once they finish confirms that no attempts to breach the barrier have any effect on it, and that even attempts to do so at range, with tools or otherwise indirectly end up with the one doing so forced to eat another item of food. This doesn't seem to have any sort of effect on the amount of food around your friends, but does have escalating effects on the attackers, and eventually even Vicky gives in to your pleas to stop trying, though only after the last attempt saw her spending several minutes excitedly eating kibble off the floor with her mouth while scrabbling round on her hands and knees (Dean having spent the same time placidly consuming a pile of hay). Both of their bellies are noticeably bigger by that point, having expanded from "big meal" to "huge meal" sizes. A check with powers confirms this is "natural" expansion rather than an transformation, but you think it might stick around for longer than it should. Or possibly less time, you can't tell. And you're pretty sure there are other, temporary but lingering, effects of from the force feeding, though you can't tell what beyond a vague impression of something to do with the metabolism.
(It's at this point that you finally notice Vicky has contracted the Gallant Infection strain, presumably from some or all of her and Dean's activities. Your embarrassment at missing it until now despite the amount of skin contact you've had with her in the past hour is mollified somewhat by the fact it and the strain she had already have had some sort of weird interaction, and the Gallant stain is in an odd state that practically screams "suspended pending input" to your power. What that means or what input it's waiting for, you can't say without more detailed analysis than you can spare the attention to do now.)
Even as your sister and her boyfriend try and breach it (and for some time after they're persuaded to stop), the mass of food continues to swirl around Taylor and Missy, occasionally parting enough that you can see what's happening inside, in a way that's almost certainly deliberate mockery of your inability to do anything about it. The pair are trapped side-by-side in massively oversized highchairs, their arms pinned by the trays, their legs by straps, and their heads by some kind of brace that seems to force their mouths open slightly, so that no amount of struggling lets them avoid the incoming food. And unlike Vicky and Dean, they're aware and trying not to eat as the food comes, futilely trying to avoid soup, mash potatoes, gravy, and anything else that can be loaded on a spoon and stuffed into an unwilling maw. At first. As the unstoppable train of food continues, you see their struggles weaken, the fear on their faces slowly turn to slack blankness, and the awareness in their eyes slowly fade away, until they're swallowing down the spoonfuls offered to them with machine-like regularity and calmness. There's the air of a curtain falling between acts when the food dome closes ranks after that, and when it opens again, it's with a flourish to show a much changed scene.
Missy and Taylor are still in the highchairs, but not restrained by them anymore, their legs swinging gently as they reach out their hands to snatch food from the trays of the chairs or the air around them and bring it eagerly to smiling faces. You could almost believe they were genuinely happy with their situation, were it not for the doll-like emptiness of their eyes. Each time they're revealed, how the pair are eating alternates between patiently allowing forks to bring them a stream of daintily cut up morsels which are elegantly consumed, and them grabbing wildly at whatever food they can and shoving it in their mouths as fast as they can. There are some differences, like Taylor being more prone to smear food over her face during the wild periods and Missy being provided with seemingly endless cups of milk, but for the most part the treatment of the two is identical. And so are the changes they undergo. At first it's just their bellies expanding like Vicky and Dean's, but they quickly grow far bigger than the couple's, and as they steadily approach the point of looking more like Rory's pregnant belly than anything that could result from one session of eating, the other changes start. First their cheeks get plumper, then their whole faces do, followed by second, then third chins appearing, and then the changes spread down their arms, most obviously with Missy, whose athletic definition disappears under a wave of renewed baby fat, but Taylor's arms lose some of their slenderness too, and both their hands end up looking distinctly pudgy. As their torsos thicken, Taylor's chest bulges out noticeably while Missy's does not, and you can't help but think that difference is a deliberate bit of petty mockery of the pair's sensitivities about their appearances. After that, below bellies now truly ridiculous in their immensity, their hips thicken and widen together, followed by their asses doing the same, but far more so. Their thighs thicken in a similarly prodigious manner, then plumpness rolls down the rest of their legs, with even their feet not left untouched, and finally the changes are done.
The dome of food continues to swirl around your friends even after the changes finish, but after a final scene in which the two are given huge cakes they smash their faces into before devouring them with their fists, the dome closes one last time and vanishes, shimmering away like a mirage. Taylor and Missy are left behind, vacant-eyed with drool dribbling thought the layers of caked on food around their slack jaws. There's nothing stopping them from getting up from the seats they were trapped in (other than the sheer height of those seats making getting out a daunting prospect), but they don't even twitch to do so. A thousand increasingly horrible reasons why run through your mind as you rush over to them, but your power reveals that they're simply...well asleep isn't quite right, but it's close enough, and you're pretty sure that they'll come out of it soon and letting them do so on their own is the best course of action. Further examination tells you that all the changes to their bodies are temporary, lasting for a day or so, except the ridiculous bloatedness of their bellies, which should last much less time. You're once again sure there are effects beyond the obvious physical ones, but can't quite pick out what. (Also, Missy's picked up both the Pretty Princess strain, hybridised with her existing one, and a wholly separate new one since this morning, the new one being a mutation of the Vampirate strain that's different from Annette's Admiral one.)
"Big Sissy, Stupid Dean, Dinah, go." You declare after you've relayed your findings about the purple-haired pair's condition. "Wakey and see changies bad, more bad if all stare when do."
There's some argument (mainly from Vicky), but you're resolute in your decision and the three of them leave the attic to start packing up. As you wait for them to rouse, you notice both of them are sporting an addition to their outfits in the form of a large, frilly pink bib, reading "Princess of Milk Guzzling" and "Mommy's Pretty Hungry Princess" for Missy and Taylor respectively. Deciding you can at least spare them this, you go to remove the bibs, only to find you can't. The knots in the strings won't budge, and while the bibs are tied fairly loosely around your friend's now-plump necks, it doesn't matter, because you can't even change how they're positioned, never mind lift them off. The bibs aren't alive or anything close to it, but your powers can get enough of a read from them to give you the impression they'll be irremovable for several hours, but should come off later today. You also learn that they carry a temporary strain that will make someone a messy eater, and have an enhancement that prevents the wearer's clothes from being dirtied by food in any way, which is presumably why the gloves of Taylor's cheerleading outfit are pristine despite her having food smeared almost up to her elbows (and Missy's hands being absolutely caked in mess).
A minute or so later, the two girls groan the groans of someone regretting that last run at the buffet, and their eyelids flutter several times before the awareness abruptly returns to their eyes. Taylor goes utterly still a second later, face set in the determined stare of one tying to alter reality through sheer denial, while Missy's eyes flicker around the room, settling on you briefly before she looks down at herself and promptly slams them shut.
"Amy? Make me very happy by telling me whole 'Force fed into becoming a mindless eating machine' thing was some kind of hallucination attack and it's just the after-effects making me think my body's a blob of fat." You can tell from Missy's voice she's not actually expecting that to be the truth, but you still kind hate to have tell her no.
"Amy can no do, sorry. No ever and ever though? Missy body go back to no fat in day or so. And belly stop be silly big sooner." You offer, aware it's cold comfort at the moment, even if not having to lose the weight normally, or worse, being stuck this overweight forever, is a good thing in general.
Missy groans again, bangs her head against the padded rest behind her in frustration before opening her eyes again and begins to push herself up from the seat before stopping mid-motion and looking conflicted. "I can't believe I'm having to ask this, but I can't see past my own giant fat belly. My feet are way off the ground, aren't they." Your confirmation makes her look even more conflicted for several seconds before she sighs in defeat. "I really don't want to need help to get out a fucking highchair, of all things, but messing it up on my own and ending up bouncing on my own blubber would be even worse. Can you help, like, brace me or something, Amy?"
It takes a couple of attempts to find a workable method, since not only does the chair have Missy several feet off the ground, you and she are the same height, but you need to actively exert yourself in order to weight merely a good deal less than her (rather than a literal fraction of her weight), but you manage to get the other girl out of the chair and on to her feet without anything more embarrassing than her having to take a couple of steps to get balanced properly happening.
"Thanks." Missy says, pink cheeked but sincere. "Maybe I could of managed it on my own, but I just had visions of getting wrong and ending up stuck on my belly like a beached whale. I couldn't see how big a step I'd need to take, and being in there was fuzzing my powers up so I couldn't tell how much space I'd need to crunch to bring the floor to me."
"I hope it's being in the chairs that messes with powers, and not them screwing with space around them or something." Taylor says suddenly, and you both look over to see her eyes are screwed shut and her expression vaguely nauseous. "Because my sense of perspective is fucked six ways to Sunday from mixed up information and, no offence, but you two are way too short to help me get down without Missy's powers. If I could bend over properly, maybe, but I'm pretty sure Rory could beat me in a bending contest right now.
Given that the seat of Taylor's chair is actually above your head (and also not, because when you look at Taylor rather than it you don't have to look up anywhere near that far), her assessment stings your pride a bit, but isn't actually wrong. Fortunately, Missy's powers do work on the space below Taylor's feet, so she's able to heave herself up safely. After a few moments to adjust to her changed centre of balance, she takes several slightly waddling strides over to a covered table and yanks the cloth off, revealing a large cardboard box.
"Komplete Kitchen Set. Well, we knew the Infection's sense of humour sucked already." Taylor mutters as she looks down at her find.
The box is full of every cooking tool, utensil and piece of crockery you could ever need, plus several you couldn't, all in great numbers. Given the situation in terms of kitchen supplies back at Winslow, it would be too useful to leave behind even without the enhancement that will cause replacements for lost or broken items to appear in it the next day, but getting it out of the attic presents something of an issue. It's way too big for you to carry on your own, and Missy or Taylor helping seems unwise, at least without the two of them having longer to adapt to their sudden weight gain. They're both remarkably steady on their feet for being abruptly 30 to 40 plus pounds heavier, much of it in their asses and thighs, to say nothing of the bulging bellies that are at least that much again on their own, but being able to balance properly when walking around isn't the same as balancing while navigating a heavy and unwieldy object round obstacles and down stairs.
The puzzle of bringing the box is abruptly simplified when you all pretty much simultaneously recall the equipment sack and its powers, so you leave the box for the moment and head out of the attic. You're pretty sure the junk piles try to close in so Missy and Taylor have to squeeze past things, but Missy's having none of that, keeping the path comfortably wide with the occasional assertive flick. The Wards powers likewise turn getting through the narrow hatch and down the rickety ladder from a trial to trivial, and you make a stop in the bathroom on the way downstairs so the two of them can at least try to clean themselves off. There's not room for both of them at the sink, and a quick match of politeness judo sees Taylor scrubbing at her skin while Missy does her best to study her reflection in the shower door.
"Ugh, I look like a pear. A fat baby one who's never exercised a day in her life." The younger girl groans after she's gotten a good look.
There is, you can't deny, a certain air of puppy fatness to her looks, around the face and arms especially, and while it makes her look less blatantly overweight than Taylor, it also makes it easier to mistake her for younger than she is, and if given the choice she'd probably prefer to make Taylor look skinny and have no chance of being mistaken for eight. On top of that, you know Missy's quietly proud of how in shape she keeps herself, and having the transformation erase all traces of that, leaving her body looking soft and plump must sting, even more so given the changes rapidly getting Dinah to a level of visible fitness similar to how Missy should look. Also not doubtless not helping Missy's view of her changes is that Taylor, probably because of the transformations she had already from her princess strain, has a much more dignified air to her newfound chubbiness, making Missy seem even more awkward in comparison (objectively, they're both pretty awkward, but Missy does come off as the worst of the two). Although part of that may be that Taylor's cheerleader outfit is much more flattering than Missy's mishmash of clothes, she skirt in particular being far more forgiving in terms of what's happened to her ass and thighs than Missy's strained looking bikini bottom.
Your varied attempts to think of something helpful to say are abandoned unspoken when Taylor pulls the plug out of the sink and Missy freezes at the sound of water gurgling down the drain, face contorting and a hand flying to her crotch. "Missy okies?" You ask, rather pointlessly.
"I gotta go potty!" She yells, more in general panic than in response, and lumbers over to the toilet in a rapid but extremely awkward looking manner, then freezes again, face a mask of indecision as she remembers she's not alone after she's already started to pull the bottom piece of her swimsuit down with food covered hands.
You quickly leave the room to spare her as much dignity as possible, and Taylor follows swiftly after you, gloves clutched in one still wet hand and water dripping from her round cheeks. She's much cleaner, but there are still unmistakable food stains on her skin, especially her face, and the pinkness makes it clear she's scrubbed up as best she can without soap. The two of you exchange a look of second hand embarrassment, then of the first hand kind when Taylor realises her best option for finishing drying off is the bib around her neck, which means she has to actually acknowledge its existence for long enough to wipe her face with it, rather than continuing her and Missy's shared policy of pretending the bibs are a shared hallucination everyone else is having.
Rather than standing around awkwardly while Missy finishes her business in the bathroom, you and Taylor continue on downstairs. Vicky's the only one in the living room when you get there, and your sister gasps and gapes in shock when she gets a totally unobstructed look at Taylor's changed appearance for the first time, then belatedly remembers her manners and attempts to school her face into a more neutral expression before turning her attention back to packing up your finds.
"Where are the others?" Taylor asks, graciously ignoring the way Vicky seems unable to stop sneaking glances at various parts of her fattened body.
"Oh! Um, Dean and Rory went to pack up their things, and Dinah went to help." Vicky answers, starting guiltily.
Taylor tenses, and you think she might be about to (justifiably) lose her temper with your sister, but instead she spins ponderously on her heel and leaves the room. "We've got company!" She calls carryingly as she heads for the front door, and you blink in surprise before following in her and Vicky's wake.
What you behold when you get outside is odd indeed. It's not the sight of a dozen or so people, all with at least one bag or sack and two pulling a crude cart, making their way up the road, the motley mix of sizes and proportions amongst the group, or even the way the cart-pullers muscles have clearly been inflated like balloons that makes it odd, though those don't exactly detract from the oddness. No, what makes it odd is that each member of the group is not only dressed like a clown, from their red noses down to their oversized shoes, but is acting like one too, capering and pratfalling their way along the road like they're in the ring of a circus rather than making their way through the ravaged streets of a disaster-stricken city. You can practically hear humorous trombone and accordion music playing just looking at them!
No, wait, you actually can hear that, the rubbery looking, possibly multi-armed clown bringing up the rear is playing them.
"Oi! This is our patch, clear off!" The leader, or at least the most fancily dressed, one calls when they see the three of you, prompting a chorus of (not terribly) threatening jeers and honks from his fellows.
"Your patch!? This is our house, you circus freaks!" The lead clown pales under his greasepaint at your sisters furious roar, and the others literally fall over each other in terror as she bursts forward and seizes him by the lapels.
"EEEK! Sorry Miss Glory Girl, ma'am, I didn't mean nothing by it!" The leader babbles, while most of the other clowns try and fail to all hide behind the two inflated cart pullers at the same time. "No one but Ferals have been living round here for weeks, not since the riots, and there's good scavenging to be had if you're lucky. Never from your house though!" They add frantically, which would be more convincing if they didn't look meaningfully at the house two doors down when they said it.
Vicky narrows her eyes, clearly weighing up whether the clear intent of this group to loot your already ransacked house further justifies doing worse than scaring them, and with a sigh you jog over and place a restraining hand on her arm. "'Nough, Big Sissy. Clownies rude, but not being meanies. Looky for thingies 'cause all ones need keep looky for thingies after F-Day."
The clown nods in eager agreement with your words, and Vicky scowls a bit and drops them. After recovering from their comically overdone tumble, they brush a shower of glitter from their clothes, and look at the two of you with an expression of dramatic woe on their painted face. "Indeed! I apologise wholeheartedly for my rudeness! Is there anything I can do to make it up to you? Bucket of custard maybe?" They produce a large bucket from behind their back, then throw it carelessly away with a "No, of course not!" resulting in two of their fellows getting showered with custard and the third, who stepped out of the way, having the bucket land on their head. "Hula hoop? No. Pies? No. Rubber chicken? No. Auntie Ally's Bloomers? Definitely no. Ah, got it! Flowers!" Said items are produced and thrown away as the clown lists them, resulting in various comical mishaps amongst their fellows, except the flowers, which are held out towards the two of you hopefully.
"Could let Amy looky with powers? Amy just need touch arm for bit do. Amy learn lots and lots about Infection, happy tell you." You offer ignoring the plastic plants and their barely hidden water sprayer.
"Oh, you're Panacea! I didn't recognise you without the robe! Yes, of course, of course! Francesca! Get over here and let the nice healer take a look at you!" The leader's call prompts a masculine looking clown even shorter than you to be shoved from the mass of their comrades, huge shoes flapping everywhere as they basically fall the whole way to you.
The strain he carries proves is a relatively uncomplicated one, but some of its mechanisms prove frustratingly illusive. It has parts that make carriers reliant on being in a group and having leaders, and allow them to gain great mental benefits from pranking people, at the cost of suffering greatly if they don't prank people, but the parts that cause the actual clownishness elude you, along with a few of its basic properties. You do encounter two new potential Infection-caused target sexes in it, though. It can either make carriers entirely male, but with a womb and vagina, as it has to your "volunteer", or entirely female but with a dick and balls.
"Okies! Amy learn lots, but need looky 'nother to learn all clowny strain. Okies, or do clownies need go?" You announce, and the leader looks exaggeratedly thoughtful.
"Hmmm. In that case, I propose I deal, my dear. You can examine as many of us as you like, but first you have to be out 'volunteer from the audience' for a little show. It won't take long, and you won't get hurt or changed permanently by any of it, and it'd really boost everyone's morale to be able to put on a show with a new audience. What do ya say?" You're pretty sure the leader is being honest, but you still hold up a hand in a "wait" gesture and fly quickly back to your drive, where everyone has gathered while you were working.
"Dinah? Chance bossy clowny be lying? Aegis, know clownies be meanies?" You ask the sheep-girl and the Ward, who's gained several rocky patches on his skin, a lizard-like tail and a number of quickly healing cuts since you last saw him.
"Three and a half percent." Dinah responds almost instantly.
"Well, they're District, and that whole part of the city can get pretty mean, but they're generally fine with outsiders as long as they're outside their territory, which this is by far, and given their options to getting back to the Funny District from here, I doubt they'd risk doing something that could start a fight at these odds even if it wasn't going to involve a pissed of Glory Girl." Aegis answers after visibly thinking it over.
You turn back to the clowns. It's hard to be sure of course, but you'd say that in addition to the Clowning Around strain you could finish off, there are 2-3 more strains present for you to learn about, and at least two people with each of them, so you could get a far bit more data. On the other hand, given the sort of things the clowns have been doing when not putting on a show, and the fact you know most or all of them have a Trait that lets them recover mentally by pranking people... You are absolutely going to be buying that knowledge with a good amount of your own humiliation. Is it worth it?
Finds
1 set of bedding (Duvet, sheets, pillows etc.)
Furniture in a Box - A huge but impossibly light box, full of parts (and a few tools) that can be assembled into any sort of furniture that can be visualised, without the need to know anything about how to put it together. Up to 5 distinct "items" of furniture can be made, with things that are obviously connected, like chairs with a dining table or a mattress with a bed frame counting as a single item, and items can be taken apart to build new items relatively easily. Everything made from the box will be partially or wholly made of rubber, which will not affect its function or comfort, but is near-impossible to ignore. Has a Safe enhancement that allows items to be ordered to quickly build/rebuild themselves as long as the original box is relatively close by. The enhancement also allows items to adapt for the needs/comfort of their users.
Book of Deposition - A large book with a faux-fur cover and tiny cute animal drawings in the margins and corners of the deposition forms that make up its pages. Has a Minor enhancement that works by writing a question in the body of a form, alongside identifying details about the person the user wishes to answer it. That individual is not contacted or made aware of the question, but the answer will be based on their knowledge and phrased as they would phrase it. After the question is written, the one who does so makes a CHA roll and checks for Infection at a Mild severity, and then answer will then appear in the book at some point in the next 1-5 days. The better the CHA roll and the more detailed the indentifying information, the faster and more detailed the answer will be, and the more likely it is to reveal information the subject considers secret/private. Only one question can be pending answer in the book at a time. Additionally, each time it is used, there is a 75% chance of the user suffering some short of animal-themed complication to communicating until it is answered. This can range from something minor like a verbal tick of making an animal noise sometimes to being unable to communicate but animal noises and body language, with severity being random, but influenced by how demanding the question is, how much indentifying information is used, and the CHA roll.
(Special note: Dinah can gain FAV from the book's answers, but only if she asks the questions herself)
Strain: Animal - Causes 1d3 TF rolls on an existing strain guaranteed to cause animal-related TFs, does not affect IL,
Pack of Protein Shakes - Mixing one of these sachets with water and drinking the result makes anything which may cause STR gain more likely to do so, and increases any gain by 1, for 24 hours. They also carry a Safe enhancement that allows STR to be raised above 30 by XP for 72 hours after consumption. Contains 60 sachets.
Strain: Bulk Up - Always hybridised strain that causes muscle growth.
Super Makeup Kit - A small case that contains whatever makeup the opener desires, along with all the tools needed to apply it and a fold-out mirror to do so in. A Safe enhancement makes its supplies infinite, and grants it the ability to guide the user in applying its contents for the best effect. Using it can provide minor bonuses in certain context, but there is a chance whenever it's used that the makeup will shift in weird and impossible ways shortly after it is applied, giving the wearer an entirely different look than intended for the day.
Strain: All Dolled Up: Carriers turn into pretty little dolls.
Latex Glory Girl Dress - On of Vicky's costume dresses, now made out of shiny, just not see-through white latex, which somehow manages to both cling tightly and billow dramatically. Provides 50 HP and modifies STR and STA by 1.5 but INT by x0.25. Has a Minor enhancement that blocks the first blow each day that would cause the wear's HP to go below 3/4rts.
Strain: Collateral Latex Barbie - A doll-like superheroine who can't help but spread the love of latex.
Palatial Doghouse - An extremely large, well made doghouse shaped like a palace, complete with having rooms, windows and more than one level inside. The space inside is big enough for multiple people, but also always cramped enough they can only move about on their hands and knees, and will brush up against each other continually. The doghouse provides shelter against anything less than severe weather and sleeping inside is like sleeping in a comfortable bed.
Hard-light Battleaxe - Appears to be a stout wooden pole, but can be made to sprout two large axe-heads made of solidified light at will. The axe can be as sharp or blunt as desired, and the shape can be varied slightly as needed. Provides 15 STR, modifies DMG by x2.2 and HIT/DEF by x1.3 and has a Safe enhancement that doubles final damage against objects and giant or larger targets.
Strain: Old Battleaxe - Fearsome fighters who are more than a touch on the mature side.
4x Keep Clean Bib - Large cloth bibs that change in appearance when worn, in order to best make sure the wearer doesn't make a mess when eating. They are always vaguely mocking and have a mocking message written on them. Have a Moderate enhancement that prevents the wearer's clothes from being stained by food, drink or related substances under any circumstances.
Strain: Messy Eater - Temporary strain that causes carriers to consume more while it lasts and make a mess of themselves doing it.
Komplete Kitchen Set - A large box containing pans, utensils, crockery, glasses, measuring tools and any other non-appliance item that might be useful in or around the kitchen, in sufficient amounts to see to the feeding of a dozen people. Has a Safe enhancement that makes everything in it easier to clean, and causes replacements for any damaged/lost items to appear in the box the next day.
Happy Reunions, Quest Complete - Successfully met up with Triumph, Aegis and Gallant Triumph is now resident at Winslow, Aegis is at least going to keep in touch, and for better or worse Gallant looks to be hanging around for a bit, at least. 10 XP
The Scavenging Crew from the Funny District is willing to allow Amy to examine as many more of their members as she wishes, if she lets them put on a little show with her as the "star". If she accepts, Amy will be subjected to a number of gags, resulting in embarrassment but no harm, with a chance of temporary effects (90% chance of 1, 75% chance of 2, 60% chance of 3, 45% chance of 4, 30% chance of 5) lasting no more than 6 hours, which will be humiliating and may have some mild stat impacts (-5 to 5 max) while they last, but nothing worse than that.
Amy will have a 15% chance to lose 1d5 HUM from taking part in the show, but her doing so will increase everyone else's Mood by 1d31 (except Dinah, who will only gain 1 due to already high Mood)
Depending on rolls, it will take 20 to 60 minutes (30-40 range most likely) for Amy to learn all she can from analysis of Scavenging Crew and the Party will remain at the Dallon house for that time. There will be no random encounters during that time, but there is the chance for various shenanigans as people fill the time.
Does Amy agree to the deal?:
[Deal] Yes
[Deal] No
Who/what does Amy analyse once the party has returned to Winslow and eaten? (Pick One):
[Analysis] Vicky
[Analysis] Missy
[Analysis] Five Items
-] (Optional) Write in which (Random equipables otherwise)
[Analysis] Other
-] Write in who
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Last edited: Feb 6, 2021
Jan 14, 2021 ReportLike QuoteReply
Annatar, Vhalidictes, Midnight007 and 46 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 2, Part 6 (Noon)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: I didn't plan on having this out anywhere near so soon, but inspiration bit down like an angry rabbit, so here we are.
Spoiler: Rolls
"Bossy clowny has dealy." You announce, prompting cheers from the waiting clowns, followed by a lot of running about and falling over as they get ready.
The clown you were talking to and the one with the instruments quickly take charge of the efforts, and despite a great deal of slapstick happening in the process, swiftly get a performing area set up. It's pretty basic, just some benches for seating in front of a slightly raised piece of wood for a stage and the whole lot surrounded by brightly coloured windbreakers, but it's impressive under the circumstances, especially since you're about ninety percent sure the various parts used weren't in the cart before clowns started pulling them out.
The clown with the instruments takes up a position to the side of the stage and plays a brief fanfare, then the chief clown bounds onto the stage, with only one near trip over his own feet. "Ladies and Gentlemen! Children of all ages! Welcome to this improv performance by the roaming circus of the Funny District! I am Waldo, your host for our short time together. Now, our show today may be brief, but hopefully it will be enough to have you all roaring with laughter! Now then, to kick things off, please may I have a volunteer from the audience to come sit on this chair and not move!"
Recognising your cue, even if you'd swear the chair wasn't there until it was gestured dramatically at, you stand as the others obligingly cheer and clap and the musician somehow gets a drum roll out of her accordion. The chair looks like a perfectly ordinary dining chair, but the exaggerated look of barely hidden glee that greets you moving to sit on it tips you off that there's some trick involved. Partly to play along, partly out of genuine suspicion, you make a great show of pausing just before sitting and examining the chair closely. You find nothing, expect to be surprised anyway, and still let out a startled shriek and launch yourself into the air when the slightest brush of your bum against the seat prompts a loud, rubbery, squeak.
"Ah, I see madam came prepared and is already wearing the proper safety underpants. But please, take a seat." Looking down in confusion at the suddenly French accented words (and the loud laughter from your watching friends) you see that your cat-tailed panties have been replaced by a pair made of bright blue rubber, thick enough it looks like you've got a basketball between your legs. This is very obvious, as your skirt seems to have decided to jump for longer than the rest of you and is currently entirely the wrong way up.
Scowling in not-entirely-mock annoyance, you float down on to the chair again, ignoring the quieter but still clearly audible squeak of rubber on rubber it produces and your point of view being half a foot higher up than it was the last time you sat down. The second loud squeak that happens when your back touches the chair's makes you twitch violently, but you stay in it and go to cross your arms defiantly, only to have your arms bounce off something a long way from your chest. To more laughter from the audience, you look down to see your bra has switched with one that's also bright blue rubber, with cups sized like they're intended for a well endowed woman to use to smuggle watermelons, clearly visible through your straining shirt.
"Ah, madam has the proper safety undertop already as well. Now, it is very important that you for the next part of the show that you do not move, no matter..." Waldo pauses to gasp and wipe their forehead with the back of their hand in a dramatic manner. "Pardon me, I'm feeling a little overheated. Francesca! Bring me my ice!"
The clown you examined earlier hurtles out from backstage, a comically oversized bucket held above his head with both hands, and it comes as absolutely no surprise to you when he trips over his own huge feet at just the right point to shower you and Waldo with ice cubes. What does surprise you is the sudden cold of ice on skin in some very intimate locations, as, defying all logic and physics, ice thrown at you from the front get into both cups of your bra, the back of your underpants the front of your underpants and even the bottom of your underpants, without any ending up inside the rest of your clothes.
"GAH! Freezie, freezie, FREEZIE! It all in Amy undies, get out, get out!" Even if you could speak normally, you doubt your shrieked response to suddenly having a slush machine's worth of ice in your underwear would have been much more dignified. Certainly, the way you paw at yourself and flail in the air trying to get any of it out is utterly without dignity, and what's worse, totally useless. You can't slip so much as a fingernail into the cups of the bra, or past the waistband of the panties, never mind get any of the ice out.
Your friends, of course, find the whole thing rib-crackingly hilarious, while Waldo simply stands stoically in place until you're done, then waves you into the chair again. "My apologies for the mishap ma'am. Now, as I was saying it is vitally important that you do not move for the next part of the show. Not even an inch! No matter what happens, or what you may see, hear, smell or taste!"
You land in the chair once more, wincing slightly as this shifts the slush around and brings fresh cold into contact with your nethers and nipples, then grip on to the sides of the seat and nod, announcing "Amy ready." and bracing your body and mind as best you can.
Despite how the show began, however, you're left entirely untouched for the rest of it. Oh, there's everything from plates to custard to rubber chickens to Champaign bottles flying around as the clowns make a meal of serving you a meal, but none of it touches you, despite an increasingly frazzled looking Waldo getting hit by all of it, no matter where they move to. You also make it through the whole thing without doing more than batting an eyelid, other than a little bit of faux-impatient finger drumming, up until the very end, when a sudden shock of new cold against your breasts makes you flinch inwards, your head moving just enough for the pair of corks that were just fired from their bottles behind you miss and slam into the music clown, sending her ass over teakettle and bringing the music to a screeching halt (How corks coming from behind you hit someone to the right of you is a mystery, but less of one than how the noodle pot exchange didn't result in fatalities).
"She moved! She moved! Finally, she moved! We can stop!" Waldo declares with great feeling, falling to their knees and raising hands still drenched in custard to the skies in victory. A loud cheer from backstage greets their words, and then between blinks an entirely clean clown is pulling you up out of the chair and bringing you to the very front of the stage before which all your friends are standing to applaud. "You've been a wonderful volunteer, Miss Panacea! Take a bow!"
You do as cheerfully instructed, and promptly fall flat on your face, because there's still a basketball keeping your legs apart, and you've got two watermelons full of cold water hanging off your chest. By the time you get up from that, all signs of the performance area have vanished, and your underwear is back to its normal size and blessedly free of ice water. A few minutes of milling around, congratulating the clowns on their performance and discussing what the best bits were (You in giant rubber undies full of ice doesn't win, fortunately, but does seem to be everyone's second or third choice), your group heads inside to finish up the packing the clowns' arrival interrupted, while the clowns start preparing for their scavenging. You head over to Waldo, to arrange the examinations and to ask them an important question.
"Amy normal undies will come back, righty?" You ask, as menacingly as you can.
"Yep, they'll reappear once the duration of the prank expires. I mean, I could switch them back now, but I think you'd prefer those for until it does." Waldo answers, and you narrow your eyes at them.
"Why Amy want tha-AHH! Freezies!!!" The sudden sensation of ice cubes appearing in the back of your panties makes you shriek once more, and two points of cold appearing in your bra seconds later don't help.
"Yeah, that. The ice will keep appearing for a while, less embarrassing to have rubber drawers on when it does, hey? Least you won't be dripping everywhere." Waldo says while you glower at them.
"How longy?" You growl out, as the ice starts to melt and become merely uncomfortably cold against your skin, rather than freezing.
"Eh, not too long. Six hours or so? Have to remember to recommend Francesca for the next level of training, he landed it very well." Waldo responds, with great nonchalance.
"Bossy clown, jerk." You mutter, prompting a laugh from the chief clown, who survives only because they call your first subject over moments later.
Said first subject is one of the two who were pulling the cart, who appear to be guarding it, along with a small pile of bags left by their fellows, rather than joining any of the Teams now spreading out to search the houses next you yours. Close up you can confirm that their outsized muscles are like that due to being full of air, and that their whole skin has a slightly rubbery appearance, with even the non-puffed up bits seeming slightly too large for them, giving the general impression they're wearing an partially inflated full body costume under their clothes. Touching them reveals they have a hybridized strain, made up of the Clowning Around strain and another one that's responsible for the general balloon-ishness. You make enough progress to say that the two strains are similar enough you'd assume a common ancestor, but parts of both are still frustratingly out of reach when you reach the point there's nothing more you can learn from the clown in front of you and thank them for their time.
"Waity sec please?" You say to the second bouncy clown when they lumber over to you.
While you were working, the others got everything packed up and came back out. Missy, Taylor and Aegis have disappeared off somewhere, which is fine, as is Dinah watching the clowns amusedly while hovering attentively near her cousin, who seems to have quite sensibly decided to use the hover chair to get their pregnant self back to Winslow. No, what's not fine is the final couple in your party, who are leaning heavily against the side of the house, tongues down each other's throats and hands engaged in an enthusiastic mutual ass-grab session.
"Big Sissy stop be gross with Stupid Dean now? Or go do other place? Amy can hear sucky face sounds where Amy working." Your sister, of course, is too busy trying to clean her boyfriend's tonsils to pay attention to your request, so you sigh and grab something off a passing clown with a polite, "Amy need, thanky." and throw.
"GAH! What the hell, Ames!?" Vicky splutters, tail lashing angrily, face covered in short lived whipped cream and custard from the pie that just hit her and Dean right in their joined mouths.
"Big Sissy gross noises with Stupid Dean hear from all way over there. Go do other place, 'less Big Sissy and Dean giving clownies show back." You say, hands on hips. Perhaps the pie was a little over the top as a way of getting their attention, but the slowly growing pool of cold water in your bra and underpants doesn't exactly leave you in a patient and understanding mood.
Vicky grumbles like you've asked her to clean her room, but leads Dean off round the back of the house. You're pretty sure that means they're just going to start making out again in the back garden, but at least there you can't hear them and Dinah won't see it if their make out session escalates to a point that would make the young sheep-girl ask uncomfortable questions. If they want to chance some of the scavenging clowns getting an eyeful, that's their lookout.
Returning to your amused-looking next subject, you place a hand on their arm and start examining them. Their strain turns out to have parts of a third infection in its makeup, this one musically themed. The traces of that strain aren't enough for you to say much about it, but you manage to get a fairly complete picture of the Bouncy Buffon strain from your examination. Other that the general clownishness part you still can't crack, they have the stronger but dumber trait you've encountered before, the balloon trait that lets them be boosted by blowing (or having blown) air into themselves, but also makes them rather airheaded in addition to the appearance changes you've noticed, and two "bouncy" traits, one that lets them bounce attacks back with their bellies and one that lets them bounce out of a fall unharmed if they land on their butts, both of which also make the body art in question bigger and bouncier.
Once you've sent your second examinee on their way, you look around for Waldo, and find them talking to Rory while Dinah gambols around on the remains of the lawn, hands encased in two oversized novelty "hoof" gloves, that are presumably responsible for the way she's managing to run and jump on all fours. Waldo nods when you ask if you can examine them next, so you get started, and immediately find your brow creasing as you try and makes sense of what you're seeing. They've only got the one strain, a "leader" mutation of the Clowning Around one, and you manage to lean all the structural bits of both and how they differ (Waldo's strain is stronger, and has a 1-in-3 chance of making carriers hermaphrodites, which theirs has done), but trying to make sense of the abilities the strain grants makes your power throw its metaphorical hands up. The strain has a part that makes its carriers leaders and more decisive, but only with a group to lead, on their own they're almost as prone to indecision as the standard clowns (you also think there's at least one more "level" of performer above them, for the strong personalities that those with the Principle Performer trait are inclined to bend to), and that you can grasp fine, but the other, more clowning-centric parts are a mystery.
"Heeey! Amy!" Taylor's loud, slightly slurred voice gets your attention just as you're finishing with Waldo, and you look up to see her and Missy staggering down the street towards you, leaning heavily on each other.
"Taylor!? Wha' happen?" You ask worriedly as you hurry over to the weighty pair and put your hand on Missy's forehead (Taylor's being too high to reach easily). There's no alcohol in her system, but it's certainly showing all the signs of her being highly inebriated at first blush.
"We found a weeird statue, it had milk coming out its boobs like a fountain, and you saw it and were like 'I should drink that' and even though you knew it was a bad idea you did it anyway, and next thing you know you're sucking statue tit and can't stop 'till the milk does." Taylor rambles drunkenly as you check them both over more thoroughly. Her words do explain the stains of white liquid around both girl's mouths in a far less alarming manner than most of the ideas that flickered through your head when you saw them, at least.
"You'd think I wouldn't want more milk ever, but I did, and it was really nice, but now my head's all slow and fuzzy and spiny and I still kind of want more milk." Missy mutters, then her eyes suddenly fill with tears and she shouts in your face. "Amy! Am I going to be a milk-obsessed dummy-head for ever now!?"
"No worry." You assure the Ward. "Milky make Missy very drunk, but it no last much long, Missy head normal once go. Likey milk longer, but 'till end of day only. ... Amy think." Both girls have the same Milk Drinker Trait you got from the playpen last night and while you're pretty confident Taylor's will go away in 12 hours or so, you're not totally sure that's the case with Missy. "Milky also make heads and bodies gooder, even more than just Milky Drink do on own, 'till end of day too."
"This is what being drunk feels like? I hate it. Why do my folks...? Uh, thanks Amy. I'm gonna go sit down or something until it wears off." The Ward says, then slips out from under Taylor's arm and waddles off, muttering to herself. Taylor wobbles at the sudden lack of anyone to lean on, but luckily doesn't fall over.
"Taylor boobies get bigger!?" You blurt out in response to what you see when the tall girl lurches forward. You didn't see anything that could cause that when checking her over, but there's clearly more than just the fat from the weight gain filling her top out.
"Nope! Can you keep a secret, Amy?" Taylor responds, continuing before you can say anything. "I've got a special bra on now. A pie hit me in the chest and, poof, there it was! It's all full of custard, which is a bit weird, but it makes my breasts look bigger, so I don't care." She looks down at herself and blinks. "Huh, I must be even more drunk than I thought, I didn't realise it added that much more. Oh well. You need anything from me, Amy? I'm going to go sit down until I'm sober too then." Taylor once again doesn't wait for you to respond before waddling off towards your house, and you sigh and shake your head in before going to find Waldo.
Your next subject is the rubber faced clown who provided the musical accompaniment for the show. Pretty much since it ended, she's been standing in the middle of the street, ompah-pah-pa-ing away on her accordion and occasionally blowing her trombone. The music seems to help coordinate the rest of the clowns somehow, but given the fact she hasn't stopped playing for so much as a second since the show finished, you can't help but think there's more to it than that. Given how your previous examinations have gone, you don't expect your suspicions to be answered, even after she nods her approval for you to examine her, but you find yourself pleasantly shocked for once (at the same time as being unpleasantly shocked by the appearance of yet more ice in your underwear). As your power looks over the Infection in her body, things just seem to click in to place, and you're barraged with information as the secrets of the clown-based abilities are finally revealed to you.
The base of it is the Clownshow Trait, which the cause of the clown-like looks and bumbling behaviour and also gives the ability to create any object imaginable for a short time, but only if it is to be used in some sort of gag. The "Kontroller" mutation has two traits that build on that and the prankster trait you already knew about, one allowing those with it to coordinate those with the base traits to achieve much greater results than they could alone, the other strengthening their own gag-power and allowing them to grasp the fearsome secrets of Clown Fu, a terrible and effective combat art you mind recoils (with laughter) from considering too closely. The final ability possessed by Kontroller's is a pretty potent one, and it's trouble preventing field is probably responsible for the calm since the end of the show, though possibly not entirely on its own. The second strain in the musical clown's body, the "Madcap Minstrel" possesses a trait allowing those with it to learn songs with very unusual effects, and it wouldn't surprise you if the continual playing has been one of those, extending the no-trouble effect's duration. It's a potent combination for keeping a group safe if so, but you suspect there are more conditions and caveats to pulling it off than is apparent from just knowing the nature of the two Traits. That the Madcap Minstrel strain effectively turns its carriers into non-verbal, cartoonish rubber clowns in return for the positive effects it has is a good reminder that the Infection doesn't let its carriers get anything for free, and you suspect that even cherry picking the Traits you want in a strain with your powers well never let you get the "good" without a certain amount of "bad".
Thanks to your power's breakthrough, you're confident you've learned all you can from the clowns, so you thank the musician for her time, then thank Waldo for their people's, and head over to where the others are (mostly) gathered in front of your house. Rory and Aegis are looking appreciatively at a small gemstone Dinah apparently found while poking around, impressed either by the find or the way she's keeping it perfectly still on the flat hoof of her glove, while Taylor is snickering at a pouting Missy, who now sports a mass of green jello over her bikini bottoms, one quite clearly shaped like a pair of frilly panties.
"Why Missy...?" You trail off, not sure how to articulate the question.
"Lost a bet. Being drunk sucks." The Ward grumps, in a voice that clearly indicates she's not willing to discuss it further.
"Amy see. Where Big Sissy and Stupid Dean?" You say, leaving the subject alone and turning to that of the only people not waiting for you to finish.
"Round the back. Feely pretty close together so I guess they're sill 'busy'." Taylor answers, still sounding a little drunk, but much less so than before. You think her "chest" also looks bigger than before, but you're not certain of it, so you decide not to embarrass her by bringing her potentially expanding bra up in front of everyone. Especially since you're pretty sure your own bra cups have expanded slightly to contain the still sporadically arriving ice and resultant water.
"Gah! Big Sissy like doggy in heat. Amy go get." You respond, throwing your hands up and stomping your way round the side of the house. "Big Sissy? Time go. Stop be gross with Stupid Dean and come." You call loudly, stopping before rounding the corner into the back. There's no response, and you call twice more, louder and louder, before concern something has happened overpowers your worries about seeing something you can't un-see.
"AHHHH!!! AMY EYES!!!"
If it had just been the sight of your sister's naked ass and pussy that greeted you upon turning the corner you'd have been fine. Happy, even. But your entirely nude big sister is lying on top of an equally nude Dean, who's all fours stance gives you a far too good view of his tiny dick and balls hanging down beneath him (also of his ass, which would be a sight almost as good as Vicky's if it wasn't attached to Dean). The two seem to be asleep, ears and tails twitching lazily, and even your shout doesn't rouse them. Moving closer, you see that their clothes are piled inside the kitchen door, and there's a freshly scrubbed look to bits of their skin, especially Vicky's. Given what you know about how much cum Dean's miniscule balls can produce, you'd guess they had to clean up after the inevitable results of their inability to keep it in their pants, decided to sunbathe to dry off, and drifted off. Which doesn't explain the pose, but you're not touching that with a ten foot poll. What you do touch is Vicky's shoulder, partly to wake her, partly to check on her. The check goes fine (other than burning the knowledge of how much of Dean's cum is currently in your sister's stomach into your brain), her Infection state is still stable, she's not under the influence of anything besides the food from earlier, and there's no danger of her getting pregnant (possibly because Dean's masculine equipment is too small to do anything for her in the relevant place), but waking her is less than successful, even a firm shake getting nothing more than a nonsense grumble. Dean proves similarly hard to rouse, so you resort to desperate measures.
"WAKEY WAKEY!!!!!"
Screaming directly into all eight of the pair's ears from as close as possible is possibly unnecessary, but the way Dean rears up with a startled neigh, dumping your sister off his back onto her invulnerable backside is very satisfying.
"We is go now. Big Sissy and Stupid Dean get dress and come front fast, or Amy tell Missy to leave behind." You inform the blinking couple, before quickly darting off around the corner, Vicky's annoyed yell of your name echoing after you.
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls
Spoiler: Rolls
You're surprised at first when Missy's final crunch of space puts you at the foot of Winslow's steps, rather than her usual destination of the roof, but then you see Taylor shrink in on herself at the sight of the school, then go eerily still while the grass of the lawn ripples unnaturally and it makes sense. Most of the Camp Cats are likely to be at work or play in the garden right now, and Missy's normal arrival point would mean pretty much anyone on the roof would get a good look at her and Taylor's fattened up appearance. Given that Sophia recruited her Huntresses from girls she knew at school, and therefore people who were at least a little complicit in bullying Taylor here, you can absolutely see why Missy would want to avoid them all staring at once. Going this way means they'll only have to deal with the guards and anyone who happens to be in the halls seeing them.
"Hi Bosses! How was the trip? Ooh, you've brought friends!" One of the two feline featured girls waiting behind the barricades at the top of third floor stairs exclaims, giving Aegis in particular an appreciative look and blinking briefly in surprise at the sight of Rory bobbing along in a hovering office chair.
"This is my cousin Rory. They are going to be staying with us now, if that's alright?" Dinah says brightly, putting a hoof-glove on one of said cousin's hands and giving the guards an adorably fierce face to make it clear "No" isn't an acceptable answer.
"Of course, Lady Dinah. We will welcome any kin of yours gladly!" The other guard says, and you recognise them as Mandy, one of the first two Huntresses Dinah hit with the whip yesterday. Unfamiliarity and the inhuman shape of the face make it hard to be sure, but you're pretty sure the other guard is the same girl who was with her yesterday.
"Oh my God!!! Taylor, what happened to you and Vista!?" Said guard blurts out, then clamps both paws over her muzzle, looking ashamed of having done so.
The windows rattle as Taylor shrinks in on herself even more, cheeks burning, and an equally red cheeked Missy meets the guard's gaze defiantly. "Stupid Infected trap thing. It'll wear off. Do not make a big thing about it." The Ward growls out, prompting Mandy and her friend to nod obediently, after which Missy grabs Taylor's hand and pulls her past the guard post, having to widen the gap in the barricade with her powers so two can actually fit their immensely rotund bellies through.
Rory quickly drives their hover chair through the expanded space, and the rest of you follow, Vicky exhorting the guards to "Keep up the good work" as she goes past with Dean, finally back to walking on just two hooves, trotting obediently at her heels.
"Is it alright if I go up to the roof and introduce Rory to everyone there before we have lunch?" Dinah ask as you make your way further into the third floor.
"Amy no see why no. We all come." You respond. "Though Amy no talky when do, if Amy help."
"Do you mind if I don't, Dinah? I'd rather put off being seen like this as long as possible." Taylor says, shame tingeing her voice as she waves vaguely at her hefty form, Missy nodding in agreement next to her.
"Oh, of course! No one has to come, I can do it myself, really." Dinah assures her.
"Good. We'll sort out lunch for everyone and meet you in the room where we ate yesterday?" Taylor says, visibly relaxing at not having to face being seen by others.
"Get jungle fruity we finds. No good soonest." You tell her, and she nods before the plump pair waddle off down the hallway. Given that you're currently avoiding speaking around the Camp Cats to put off them finding out about how you sound as long as possible, you can't blame the two of them for trying to avoid their sate becoming general knowledge for as long as they can, even if it's likely to be much harder to pull off not being seen than not speaking.
"So, are well telling people you're Triumph, or keeping it quiet?" Vicky asks Rory as the six of you head toward the roof access.
"Tell them, I think. It'll probably make them happier about me staying, and it's not like anyone's identities mean much anymore, anyway." You're not sure if Rory's frustrated comment is referring to the pointlessness of keeping a secret identity in a quarantined city, the distinctive transformations that make even trying to far harder, or just that Brockton Bay is such a mess that even if someone wanted to use someone's identity against them somehow, there's next to no way they could, but you agree regardless.
"Got it." Vicky responds, the happy wagging of her tail making it clear she thinks it's the best way of doing things.
"Can you just introduce me to them as Gallant, Wicky?" Dean asks softly. "I know it's a bit silly with me not having my armour or even a mask, but well, I look pretty silly now, and people take me more seriously if they just know me as a Ward."
"Oh, of course, whatever you'd like." Vicky says brightly, getting a dopey grin from her boyfriend. "And if anyone makes fun of my silly pony anyway, I'll teach 'em some manners!" The grin gets dopier at this announcement, then gets even worse (somehow) when Vicky reaches down to tussle the pony ears poking out of Dean's hair affectionately.
The majority of Winslow's current inhabitants are up on the roof when you get there, and leave their work in the gardens to assemble at Vicky's whistle. They're all fine with it when told that Rory will be staying at Winslow, and mildly disappointed to hear the Aegis and Gallant won't be. You'd expected Vicky introducing a short, pony-featured femboy as Gallant would be met with disbelief, or at least snickering, but there's barely a batted eye amongst the gathered crowd, with more attention paid to cooing over Rory's pregnancy (and that seems to be more down to the Huntresses wanting to be welcoming to Dinah's cousin than anything else). Then again, you suppose compared to the five Fuck Bois sunning themselves on the lawn, each of which used to be a teenage girl and whom most of the people here have seen slowly change into their current state, finding out Ward's "Knight in Shining Armour" is now a cute, mostly human-looking sissy isn't all that remarkable.
"Where are Madison and Emma? And Leafy?" Vicky asks Tiffany, who's regarding the huddle of Huntresses (and Jenny) around Rory's chair with mild bemusement.
"Madison took Emma down to the sports field with a few of the others to run around for a while." The soldier reports. "She was getting a bit overexcited about being allowed outdoors, and we didn't want to her to tear up any of the plants by mistake. And Leafy went inside about...ten minutes ago? Not sure why, but she'll be back soon enough if you're looking for her. She loves this garden even more than the cats do."
"Nah, it's fine, Leafy is the one I'm least worried about running into Rory without us introducing them." Vicky says, waving a hand airily. "But if you could make sure the ones downstairs know? And find a volunteer to help them get settled? We've got more we want to do in the city today and we're kind of running late, so we'll be heading back out after we eat."
"I'll see to it myself, ma'am." Tiffany responds, with a crisp salute that your sister seems unsure how to respond to. Fortunately, the dark-skinned woman seems happy enough with an awkward nod, and jogs off down the stairs after receiving it.
Vicky lets the Huntresses admire Rory's baby bump for another minute or so, then announces it's time to go, prompting the mob to disperse near-instantly, mildly bickering with each other about who shoved who out of the way to get closer. Rory looks more pleased with all the attention than you would have expected, given how much of a nasty surprise the whole pregnancy thing was to them. Then again, the beak means you're mainly getting that from the crinkle of their eyes and the way the glow about them seems slightly brighter, so you could be wrong.
It says something about how the last two days have gone that main thing that strikes you about the sight that greets the seven of you when you arrive at the conference room is just how ridiculously huge the jello panties make Missy's currently sizable ass look when she sitting on the table and leaning forward like that. That she's on said table so she and Taylor can comfortably nurse on Leafy's breasts at the same time takes several moments to even register to you as odd. Leafy's eyes flick over to you as you enter, but she doesn't move otherwise, and the two suckling girls don't even twitch at the sound of the door opening.
"Aww. They look so happy. Let's see how long it takes for them to notice we're here." Vicky suggests in an impish whisper, and once you tell Aegis there's no reason to worry about the fact they're doing so in the first place, no one has any objections to finding out, so you spread out along the table and tuck into the fruit piled there.
"Stupid Dean no use hoovies even eat no more? Dinah manage in silly big clowny hoof glovies." You ask, after having glanced over at the boy and seen how he was eating. The ten year-old is eating with surprising delicacy for someone with saucers over her hands, while Dean is simply taking big bites out of his fruit, rind and all, barely even using his front hooves to keep it in place as he does so. He shrugs unconcernedly at you, and you turn towards Vicky to surgest she remind her boyfriend of his table manners, only to gasp in shock. "Wha Big Sissy doing!"
"Eatin'?" Vicky says, giving you a look, as though you're the odd one for making a fuss, and not her for shoving her face into half a fruit and eating through it like a dog emptying their food bowl.
"No do wi' hands? Big Sissy eat like doggy 'stead?" Your sister just shrugs at you, as unconcerned as Dean, and goes back to eating. You really hope this is one of the effects you couldn't be sure of from the food earlier, and not either a transformation you hadn't noticed or your sister cracking.
There doesn't seem to be anything you can do about it now though, so you turn your attention back to your own food, and watching to see when Missy and Taylor notice you're all here. Which ends up not happening until the meal is nearly over with. Missy pulls her head off Leafy's breast with a pop, thick strings of sap still trailing from her mouth to the nipple, glances over her shoulder toward the noise you're making curiously, and promptly falls off the table with a yelp. You hurry over, but other than the jelly layer over her bikini having splattered all over the floor and a bump to her ample rump, she's fine. As she pulls herself heavily back onto her feet, said layer reforms, this time bright orange, about a quarter of an inch thicker and in the shape of an even frillier pair of panties.
"Aww, man. Why did I take that bet? Being drunk really sucks." The purple-haired girl mutters at the sight of the reformed jello. The her red eyes widen and her head snaps round to look at you all. "Guys! Hi! When did you get here? Not that it matters, there's not been anything to see happening in here while we were waiting for you!"
"Oh, a little while." Vicky says, cutting the Ward off before she strains something forcing "nothing to see here" into her face and voice so hard. "We figured we'd get stuck in to the fruit, since you and Taylor were...making other arrangements."
"I...er... We...I... Well... You see..." Missy babbles, pale cheeks turning red as tomatoes, until Taylor finishes her own "meal" and steps over to put a hand on her shoulder, mouth and cheeks smeared with sap.
"We ran into Leafy and she offered to help carry the fruit, and we were getting hungry but didn't want to start without you." Taylor's face and voice are calm, suspiciously so, and you can't help but notice the petals of the flowers growing around the room turning a bright pinkish-red. "I'm not sure if Leafy noticed that or not, but she offered her breasts, like she does, and well, it was too tempting resist this time. Tasted very nice, but you really aren't aware of anything else while you're drinking it. Thank you for the, err, food, by the way, Leafy." The plant-woman smiles happily at Taylor's words, then starts collecting the leftover fruit rinds scattered along the table.
"Amy think food do more than make fatty. Taylor and Missy keep going for drinkies like hungry babies, though should be stuffed full." You wince as your words come out far more insultingly phrased than you've intended, but other than a matching wince from Missy, neither girl reacts to the phrasing.
"I'm pretty sure you're right. And for food, too. You'd think with everything I'd eaten in the past hour or so the idea of more would make me nauseous, but I keep looking at the fruit and thinking I could have a bite or two at least." Missy says, pointedly turning so she's not facing the table after she does so.
"Ames, you done?" Vicky's question interrupts your worried musing about the situation, and you shake your head, hurrying back round to your abandoned meal. "You going to want to break into another fruit?" Is the follow up question after you've done so, and you look at the four remaining fruits before shaking your head again, since your mouth's full. You briefly consider trying to get Aegis to eat at least part of another one, but he's eaten a fruit and a bit already from what you saw, and that's enough for now, or at least enough of enough to not be worth pushing him over.
"We'll take them back with us when we drop the loot off, then. Catch us up once you're done." Vicky says, picking up two of the melon sized fruits. It occurs to you as people leave that Leafy's been hearing you talk in a toddler-fied manner this whole time, but since her gossiping about it would mean she'd regained the ability to talk, you decide you're honestly fine with it if that ends up happening.
Missy was out of the door almost before your sister finished speaking, but Taylor stays even after everyone else leaves, a distracted look on her face.
"Can I ask you an...odd...favour, Amy?" The tall girl asks, waving a hand and causing the door to shut once the others are out of earshot. You nod, and she continues. "I've no clue if it's obvious to anyone else yet, but that bra I told you about? It's getting inflated more and more, and I'm pretty sure the custard appears faster the more of it there is already. And I can't believe I'm talking about an unremovable custard-filled bra! Those clown's pranks were weird. Who would even think of a thrown pie that-. And I'm rambling. So, the favour. I need to drain the custard out if I don't want to end up looking like I've stuffed my bra with water balloons and the best way to do that is...forsomeonetosuckitallout?"
"Amy sorry?" You ask, not sure you heard that last rushed statement right at all.
"I, uh, need you to suck the custard out of my bra." Taylor repeats, cheeks flaming.
You blink slowly several times as you process the request. Several conflicting influences bounce wildly around your head, but what decides you is the now familiar feeling of more ice appearing in your own bra. You've gotten pretty lucky with your own lingering prank, you feel. You've managed to train yourself not to flinch each time more ice is added, and the expansion of your underwear is much slower, both of which mean no one else is going to notice it any time soon. Even the way the water remains far colder than it should once the latest ice has melted is something of a blessing, since the chill helps focus your thoughts a little, and is a reminder that the wetness between your legs is nothing to do anything your body has done.
"Amy help." You answer, and then on impulse. "Amy have secret clowny prank too. Amy undies still rubbery, and getting big real slow 'cause new ice melting in them. Amy think no way empty 'till prank done, but Taylor help Amy try hide if get too big?"
"Sure, of course." Taylor responds, looking relived.
"Oh, other thingy? Taylor try eat?" You say, pointing towards the last bit of fruit from your meal. "Amy think mean foodie before make Big Sissy eat weird, Taylor eat more and Amy want test if true."
Taylor looks a little worried at your words, but nods and goes to eat the fruit. It, ah, doesn't go well, to say the least. First it takes her several attempts to actually pick up the bit of rind the fruit is attached to, then it almost slips out of her hand several times as she's bringing it to her mouth, and finally, she misses when she tries to bite the bit of fruit off. Several times.
"Oh, the Infection is a bitch." Taylor moans. "Not only does it make me eat like a pig, not only does it make my brain just misfire so I mess up said eating, but it makes it so the only way I won't end up wearing half my food is if someone else helps me eat. I think. Hold that fruit up for me?" Bemused, you do so, and Taylor leans forward, eating the fruit off the rind in a couple of bites. "Okay, so help doesn't mean 'feed like a baby', just 'help'. Could be worse. And what is life now that I can honestly think that!?"
"How Taylor know?" You ask curiously while patting her consolingly on the hand.
"The Infection...sort of told me? Not sure if it was a taunt triggered when I tried to eat, or if my powers read the effect a bit when it triggered to make me mess up." Taylor says, sounding puzzled. "We could test with Missy later and find out, I guess."
"Maybe? Testy on friends no good, but no hurt and know more about Infection, so..." You shrug. "Amy done eaty, help Taylor with custard now?" Blushing again, Taylor nods, and starts pulling her top up.
Fortunately for your dignity, Taylor doesn't suggest you sit in her lap to nurse the custard out, even though your respective heights would make it somewhat doable. Instead, she stands, and you use your floating ability to hover at the right height to reach the "nipples" on the cups of the bright yellow bra that's replaced her cheerleading outfit's one. The expansion of her bra wasn't noticeable under her top unless you knew to look for it, but with it out of the way, there's clearly a pair of almost C-cup balloons wobbling over her breasts. Feeling your cheeks heating, at the sight and what you're about to do, you steel yourself and lean forward, closing your mouth around one rubber nipple and sucking tentatively. It's nothing like sucking at an actual nipple (and you agree with Taylor about how screwed up your life is currently that you can accurately make that comparison), but the custard that squirts into your mouth is nice tasting enough, and comes in amounts you can swallow easily.
"Okay? No feel too weird?" You ask after you've emptied one cup. Between the fact it was custard, the rubbery feeling of the bra and it's bright yellow colour filling your vision, you'd managed to ignore the more embarrassing implications of what you were doing, but the odd look on Taylor's face when you glanced up reminded you that you were basically sucking at your friend's breast, even with the thick rubber in the way.
"Ah, yeah. It was fine up until the last bit. That felt a little weird. But I can deal with it, especially if the other option is ended up with one giant balloon breast." Taylor says, a slight hitch in her voice, and after a moment to consider her expression and decide she's not hiding anything serious, you apply yourself to the other cup.
No oddness occurs once you've finished the second up, other than a rush of energy you realise is the boost from your temporary Milk Drinker Trait kicking in even though you weren't technically drinking from Taylor's breasts, so once Taylor's pulled her top back into place, the two of you set off through the halls towards the Lair proper, the air between you surprisingly free of awkwardness. The walk is long enough that both your blushes have faded away completely by the time you get there, but given how annoyed you are to find Vicky and Dean making out yet again, you could have been bright red still and it wouldn't give anyone hints that something embarrassing just happened between you and Taylor.
"Big Sissy! Put Stupid Dean down!" You shout, grabbing Vicky's excitedly wagging tail to make sure you get her attention. She detaches her mouth from Dean's to give you a mulish look, but you cut whatever she's about to say off. "Come with, Amy need checky Big Sissy. Big Sissy get new Infection somewhere."
Your pointed comment and meaningful look are enough to get Vicky to pale and come with you without complaint, and you lead her through to the room with the medical bed in it. You won't be there anywhere long enough for its effects to kick in, but it's still private and comfortable place for Vicky to sit while you examine her new infection.
"Big Sissy have Stupid Dean's Infection. No surprising, all icky gross stuff Big Sissy do him. Infection do weird with Doggy bit of Infection Big Sissy have" You say as you start working.
"Ahahaha, yeah. I, uh, kinda forgot there was a risk of that. But you can make it not so bad, right? I've just got used to having doggy bits, I don't want them to change into pony bits!" Vicky says, pleadingly, and you're glad you've got something to focus on that isn't the puppy dog eyes you know she's giving you.
"Amy think no do already. But Amy need looky. Shss." You respond, and your sister falls silent.
Focusing on the Gallant strain first, you're able to fill out the gaps in your knowledge of it, just. Deciphering its spread of target sexes tells you that Dean got rather lucky to remain entirely male, about as much as Vicky got unlucky to have it decide to try and make her a guy too. You find an odd ability the stain has, granting carriers bonuses and maybe even special powers by behaving in ways related to a fetish or fetishes, which may or may not explain some of Dean's behaviour. Other than that, it has three of what you'd call seduction-focused traits, the same mild horniness causing Pheromone Cloud ability the Sea Witches have, and two new ones. One lets carriers use their sex appeal in combat more effectively, but makes them major flirts outside of it, while the other means that people always find the carrier attractive when they try and seduce them, especially if they'd normally be utterly against their preferences, and can actually change those preferences to "how the carrier looks" temporarily. Which explains how Vicky got over Dean's changed appearance and started flirting back so fast, at least. The final trait, which makes carriers much more loose sexually and happiest when being passed round between partners is vaguely discomforting in the way all the sexuality manipulating strain parts you find are, but not all that remarkable otherwise.
With the strain fully understood, you turn your attention to the odd state it's in. From what you can tell, the first time Vicky would have gotten the Gallant strain off Dean, there was a clash caused by the fact her current strain wanted to give her dog-parts and the new one pony-parts, and her current one won. Which would have been the end of it, if the first time was also the only time (today. Probably, things might have been different with a longer gap between exposures but you can't be sure), that would have been then end of it. But it wasn't, not even close. And combining that with several other factors, the clearest of which is that the strains wouldn't have clashed and might even have been complimentary if Gallant's strain had been dog rather than pony based, with the other two seeming to be in some vague way the nature of Vicky and Dean's pre-F-Day relationship and an even vaguer one you think is the idea of a dog and pony together resonating somehow, resulted in the Gallant strain hybridising with your strain, and then going into a sort of "standby mode" and waiting for input. Possibly from itself, possibly from an outside source, though you've no idea what that source could be, given that it's clearly not your powers. That it's not intended to be your powers providing the input doesn't mean they can't do so, however. Telling the Gallant strain to just start behaving normally would be easy as breathing, but you could also make Vicky's first strain consume it totally with some effort, which would have the side effect of making sure Vicky never caught the Gallant strain again. Or, with less effort, you could cause the "Gallant" strain to become "Glory Girl", which at its most basic would be a dog-themed version of the Gallant one, but sort of complimentary to it rather than exactly the same. A trait that would give Vicky bonuses when riding someone, a counterpart to Dean's Gallant Steed Trait, is pretty likely, for example. The Infection seems to be considering several "types" of dog the Glory Girl strain could theme itself around, from a tomboyish, fighting focused Guard Dog, to a powerful, hardworking Farm Dog to a sissyish, pampered Lap Dog, and several more beside. Deciding which one it picks would be simple, but you're pretty sure you could put together a customised profile from the various ideas if you wanted to.
You're about to explain your finds to Vicky, since the Gallant strain has "queued" several transformations, so she needs to both brace herself and decide which option she'd prefer, but then your power alert you to increased activity from the strain. The mere act of observing its state appears to have been enough to destabilise that state.
If you don't want it to resolve itself in a random, likely unpleasant for Vicky manner, you need to decide how to push it with your powers. Now.
Examining Vicky has allowed Amy to learn more about the strange interaction between her existing Puppy Cheerleader strain and newly contacted Gallant one, but observing the odd state in detail has caused it to destabilise, and Amy must choose which potential resolution path it takes now, without any time to talk it over with Vicky. Failure of any of the rolls will result in a random outcome, weighted towards the Normal Behaviour result. (Pick One):
[Vicky] Normal Behaviour - Allow the Gallant Strain to simply take effect normally, with some of its Keywords being disabled due to conflicting with the Puppy Cheerleader strain.
(Gallant strain takes effect as normal, with Who's A Sissy Pony disabled, plus a 50% chance of being disabled for Pony Express, One Trick Pony and Workhorse and a 25% chance for Gallant Steed. No roll)
[Vicky] Subsume Strain - Push the Puppy Cheerleader strain to not only consume the existing Gallant strain Infection, but all future cases of it. This will strengthen the Puppy Cheerleader strain and advance its changes considerably, but make Vicky "immune" to the Gallant strain.
(Gallant strain is absorbed by Puppy Cheerleader, applying all queued TFs as though they were for that strain, increasing its IL by 44 and causing all future Infections from Gallant's strain to automatically be absorbed as well. TN 75 INT roll, costs Amy 10 WP.)
[Vicky] Catalyze Strain Reconfiguration - Cause the Gallant strain to change to a "Glory Girl" strain, becoming dog-themed rather than pony-themed and complimentary to the Gallant strain.
(Follow up vote to choose what sort of "dog", setting general way how Traits will change and what the target sex spread will be. Vicky and Dean will be able to learn combo feat "Dog and Pony Show" Amy will earn a large amount of FAV, will likely gain insight into ???, opens up options for tweaking Dean's strain. TN 35 INT roll, costs Amy 5 WP)
[Vicky] Customise Strain Reconfiguration - As above, Gallant strain becomes "Glory Girl" strain, and pony-themed elements become dog-themed, but exert greater control over the changes.
(Customise by point spend in follow up vote. Resulting strain will be more easily modified with Alter Strain tree, but also more likely to mutate. Vicky and Dean will be able to learn combo feat "Dog and Pony Show", Amy will earn a decent amount of FAV, may gain insight into ???, opens up options for tweaking Dean's strain. TN 55 INT roll, good result may generate extra points, costs Amy 10 WP)
[Vicky] Put On Hold - It will be difficult and make the whole situation messier, but you can attempt to put off the point where the current balance collapses, allowing you to come back to this decision later.
(Every hour that passes without a decision being made will increase the number of TFs that happen when the special interaction is resolved by 1-3, and there is 50% chance every 6 hours of it resolving itself in a random manner. Increases difficulty of other options and makes applying them take 30 minutes of work from Amy. Will not be possible to make decision until party returns to Winslow due to the focus it will take. TN 135 INT roll, costs Amy 15 WP.)
Each character may make up to 3 changes to their equipment before the party leaves. Replacing an item with another, similar item (e.g. swapping a cheerleader outfit for the mascot outfit) counts as a single change, and if taking off a complete outfit, characters will put non-enhanced clothing on as needed to be fully dressed, unless the plan specifies otherwise. (Vote by plan):
[Equipment] Plan Name
-] Amy:
-] Vicky:
-] Missy:
-] Taylor:
-] Dinah:
Additionally, do any members of the party use anything from the "Consumables" section of the group inventory before setting out?:
[Consumable] No
[Consumable] Yes
-] Write in who and what
The party will be leaving Winslow for their next destination around 13:30. Where do they go? Dean is likely to tag along regardless, but if Aegis does will be affected by the destination. (Pick One):
[Next] Travel to and search Missy's house (Random rolls for what you find, will be there ~1 hour, 60% chance Aegis comes)
-] Walk from Winslow (Takes ~1 hour, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min, -30% chance Aegis comes)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 9 WP, INTPER roll, TN 100)
-] Fast Travel as a stop on the way to Clockblocker's location (Costs Missy 9 WP,INTPER roll, TN 100, 30% chance Aegis comes, must go to Clockblocker's location via fast travel upon leaving)
[Next] Travel to and search Taylor's house (Random rolls for what you find, will be there ~1 hour, 40% chance Aegis comes)
-] Walk from Winslow (Takes ~1 hour, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min, -30% chance Aegis comes)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 9 WP, INTPER roll, TN 110)
-] Fast Travel as a stop on the way to Clockblocker's location (Costs Missy 9 WP, INTPER roll, TN 110, 30% chance Aegis comes, must go to Clockblocker's location via fast travel upon leaving)
[Next] Travel to and search Dinah's house (Random rolls for what you find, 80% chance of getting into a fight on top of the result, will be there ~ 1 hour, 50% chance Aegis comes)
-] Walk from Winslow (Takes ~2 hours, 75% chance of random encounter per 15 min, -40% chance Aegis comes)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 9 WP, INTPER roll, TN 150)
[Next] Travel to Clockblocker's location (90% chance of a friendly welcome, will be there an unknown amount of time, 95% chance Aegis comes)
-] Walk from Winslow (takes ~2.5 hours, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min, -40% chance Aegis comes)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 9 WP, INTPER roll, TN 120)
[Next] Travel to the University Campus (100% chance of a friendly welcome, will be there an unknown amount of time, 20% chance Aegis comes)
-] Walk from Winslow via safe route (takes ~8 hours, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min, Aegis will not come)
-] Walk from Winslow via risky route (Takes ~5.5 hours, 50% chance of random encounter per 15 min, Aegis will not come)
-] Walk from Winslow via very risky route (Takes ~3 hours, 80% chance of random encounter per 15 min, Aegis will not come)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 9 WP, INTPER roll, TN 150)
-] Fast Travel back to the Dallon house and walk from there (Costs Missy 4 WP, takes 2 hours, 45% chance of random encounter every 15 min, -19% chance Aegis comes)
[Next] Search the various locations west of the Boardwalk provided by Parian and Tattletale (Salvage and various events in a number of locations, will take 5-8 hours depending on how many locations the party hits, gain materials that can be turned in for Dockside Supply Run quest, 55% chance Aegis comes)
-] Walk from the Boardwalk (Costs Missy 4 WP, takes ~1.5 hours, 50% chance of random encounter per 15 min, -35% chance Aegis comes)
-] Fast Travel (Costs Missy 9 WP, INTPER roll, TN 135)
[Next] Travel somewhere else
-] Write In where and how
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Last edited: Jan 17, 2021
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Annatar, Vhalidictes, Midnight007 and 43 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 2, Part 7 (Early Afternoon)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
Spoiler: Rolls
You quickly consider your options. Stopping things until you can ask Vicky what she'd prefer to happen would be best, but you're not as confident in your ability to do so as your are any of the other options, and even if you succeed, it would be a mess that would mean far more drastic changes hitting Vicky when you unpick it. Letting the strain take effect "normally" is swiftly discarded as an idea. Vicky wouldn't like the effects, you don't either and you can do something to at least try and get a better outcome, so you should. Having the her current strain consume the interloper completely has too high a chance of leaving Vicky stuck as a pre-teen until your ability to manipulate the Infection gets much better for your taste, so that's out as well. Trying to control in detail how the strain changes is tempting, but customising the sort of sex dog Vicky turns into without her consent or input would be seriously creepy, even if you could probably convince everyone of the necessity of it. Forcing the strain to change and setting the broad shape seems your least bad option, and once you decide that, choosing the "path" the change takes is easy. As much as your sister hates being called a bimbo, it's the route that will change her appearance least, looks-wise, and given the Identity Resilience Trait your strain provides, she should end up acting less like a bimbo than Dean does a sissy, so should be bearable for her. You hope.
Squashing the little voice that says everything you just thought is nothing but self-justification for why turning your sister into a porn star-bodied, exhibitionist slut is a good thing, really, you focus your power and push.
Watching what unfolds through your powers is breathtaking, but also a little bewildering from the sheer amount of things happening. The array of sexes the new Glory Girl strain could leave its carriers shifts, making the previous Male targeting invalid, and you honestly couldn't say if your own desires have any influence on the new result being fully female or not. The way the various sections of the strain detailing what its effects are shift is like watching the world's most intricate ballet, though what your power decodes of those effects is far less pleasant to "see". You're distracted from the misery of getting that information as it comes in and knowing it's in store for your sister because of what you did, however, by the realisation of how the strain is changing those sections. You were pretty sure that the Gallant strain would do more than just incorporate information from Vicky's Puppy Cheerleader strain to inform its own changes, and you were right, but utterly off on the scale and the mechanism. It pulls in a frankly staggering amount of information in bursts of just a few seconds, which it then uses to adjust itself, but more staggering than the volume of information is where it's coming from. Which is, as far as you can tell, the Infection. All of the Infection. Not (thankfully for your sanity) as any kind of consciousness, but it's like everything another Infection strain has come up with since F-Day is the internet, and Vicky's rapidly finalising strain has a search engine to make Bing cry to go through it with and find ideas to do what it wants. And it's not dependent on those ideas either - it might take a couple of notes from somewhere, but what it does to turn the potential Gallant Steed Trait in a Glorious Rider one is entirely its own work. Possibly cribbing from Vicky's powers, given the beneficial aura it makes those with it radiate when "mounted", but still clearly worked out by the strain itself, simulating a multitude of possibilities and coming up with a working one.
You can say with confidence that there's no intelligence within the strain itself despite its complex actions, any more than one of Aleph's chess playing supercomputers is intelligent, but the first thing that happens as the newly reworked strain settles itself fully into Vicky's body makes you wonder, since it's the embedding of the new Glorious Rider Trait, making it likely the strains newly innovated trick will see use sooner rather than later. Following that, the strain boosts your sisters ability to be charming slightly, and then you open your eyes to see the other changes happen. First, Vicky's own eyes, which are looking at you with mild concern, change, irises becoming a paler blue which then spreads to cover almost all of the visible eye. It's not the only dog like change, and your sister shivers slightly as her hands shift and sprout fur, fingers thickening and joining up as they swiftly become a pair of golden-furred canine paws, claws as incongruously painted as the ones on her feet, gloves turning from chunky mittens to thin cloth coverings. The next change makes Vicky lean forward slightly, the weight from the sudden addition of an extra cup size to both breasts unbalancing her slightly, and you tear your gaze from the view down her expanded cleavage just in time to watch her lips puff up noticeably, followed by her face shifting slightly so that her expression of slight concern takes on a wide eyed, vacant cast, as through she's wondering why a new thought hasn't shown up since the last one left.
"Okay, cute paws and I'm surprised it took this long for the Infection to make my breasts bigger, but my lips feel weird. What happened there, Ames?" Vicky says after a few moments to consider her changes, new lips thankfully not making her lisp like Dean does once she's used to them.
"Amy sorry, Big Sissy!" You half wail, her unaccusing tone striking you harder than anger would have. "Amy looky what Stupid Dean strain do in Big Sissy, but Stupid Dean strain do weird thing, and Amy looky make fall, and Amy need make fall one way, or fall any way. Now Big Sissy gonna be bimbo doggy and all Amy fault!" You wince as your toddler talking trait once more makes you voice something you'd rather not in a poorly phrased way.
"What would it have done if you didn't make it do that, sis?" Vicky asks with surprising calm.
"Sissy boy like Stupid Dean, but doggy." You answer. "Or other doggy, but sissy most like."
"And would any of the other sorts of dog been better?" Vicky continues, still far more calm then you deserve.
"Hard Amy say. But...more different than Big Sissy now?" You expect saying Vicky is "most like" a bimbo to be what finally sets her off, but it doesn't.
"Then it's fine. I trust you to have made the best decision your could. And honestly, given this only happened because I couldn't keep my hands of Dean, bimbo is...kind of appropriate." Vicky says, pulling you into a hug (and nearly suffocating you between her expanded breasts). "Are you alright to tell me what to expect, or do you need a little more time?"
"Amy tell now." You answer determinedly. That Vicky can care so much about comforting you in a situation like this is wonderful and reminds you why you love her so much, but you refuse to use her kind nature to let you run away from your responsibilities.
Telling Vicky what her strain does also helps you process the information your power collected as it was changing, letting you process the new keywords, from Working Like A Dog, which gives you some very distracting images when you consider its effect of making Vicky more skilled with her mouth and willing and eager to provide sexual services, to On A Short Leash, which is similar to the trait it replaces, except handsy strangers may find themselves losing said hands, to Bitch In Heat, which grants/inflicts a nearly bottomless ability to keep going, sexually. It also increases chances of pregnancy, and when you make sure to emphasize this Vicky and get way too much information about the sort of things she and Dean are getting up to following his transformation back and the resultant low risks of pregnancy, the recoiling of your mind from the knowledge leads to you thinking about the on the nose name of the trait, which leads to you realising that your power, rather than assigning names to help you make sense of things, has simply been providing the designations the Infection has for things from where they're encoded in the strain in question. Possibly without realising it. Or maybe without realising you didn't know it was doing it. You're not sure, but there's a sense of mildly embarrassed realisation in your head, and you're about 80% sure it's not (all) you.
"Wicky? What happened?" Dean blurts out when the two of you return to the main room, and you have to give him credit for his eyes lingering on her new paws as much as they do on the boobs now straining her shirt.
"The Infection decided to have a little surprise waiting for me. Could have been worse." Vicky responds, with a carefree smile that looks decidedly thought free as well.
Dean doesn't look convinced by her words, and trails after her as she heads into side room being used for storage. Resolving to send someone else in after them if they're too long, you look over the others. Dinah's at the doorway, saying goodbye to Rory, who's leaving in Tiffany's company, and looking far more adorable in one of your robes than you ever have. Missy is testing how the combination of the tight rubber skirt of the Power Suit and her (now bright red and even thicker) filly jello bloomers effects her movement in one corner, and Taylor, her thick glasses swapped with the smart pair from Carol's office, is doing something at the sink in the far wall.
"Wa Taylor do?" You ask, wandering over. She's filled a glass from the kitchen set with water, and is stirring a light beige liquid inside it, another glass full of the same sitting beside it.
"I'm mixing up some of those protein shakes we found. Since Dinah and I's outfits can make us stronger and they're safe enough, I figured it was worth at least seeing how effective they were." Taylor explains.
"Amy have? Amy have Trait maybe make strong. No often as cheer clothes, be good see how different work." You wonder.
"Sure. Can you get me another glass out of the box? And, err, could you help me drink mine?" Taylor says, blushing faintly at the second part.
After you've drunk the slightly powdery tasting drink and held Taylor's glass so she can drink hers, the taller girl washes the glasses out, then turns to you, a slightly nervous look on her face. "So, um, two things. First, I want to test how bad the side effects of wearing the wedding rings are, so we know in case we need them in the future and, well, Vicky and Dean would be the obvious choices, but with how they're acting at the moment, I'm not sure we'd notice a difference from the rings. And Dinah and anyone's right out until we know how far it goes, and Missy and anyone's not much better, so it think, um, you and I should wear them?"
"Amy like Taylor, but two days too soon marry." You say, as dryly as you currently can (which isn't very).
Taylor's cheeks flush, but she rallies and strikes back. "Well, I suppose you and Vicky could wear them in that case. You've known each much longer than two days, after all."
You very nearly say yes to that joking suggestion, almost as much to see how Taylor comes back if you do as because of the visions of you and Vicky acting like newlyweds, but you know you'd never be able to bring yourself to follow through, so you throw your hands up in mock defeat and sigh. "Fine, fine, Amy wear. But Taylor as to tell all why wear rings."
Taylor nods at your condition, then grabs the two gold bands with their simple diamond settings from where they're sitting on a sideboard and passes one over to you. Nothing seems to happen when you slide the ring on to your finger, and Taylor putting its mate on a moment later results in nothing more than a brief shimmer that could almost be a trick of the light passing over both rings.
"Okay. See how go. What Taylor other question?" You say, after a few moments of waiting for nothing to happen.
"Oh! Err, I was wondering if you'd let me do something with your hair and the bobbles you found? I just, err, think it would look good, and I wanted to do something nice for you?" Taylor says, far more nervy and blushing than she was when asking you to wear a wedding ring.
"Wow, ringy work fast." You laugh, giving Taylor a teasing smile and watching her splutter denials for several seconds before having mercy. "Sure, Taylor do Amy hair. But no piggy tails!"
Taylor laughs herself at your condition, and sets about using the multiplying bobbles to weave your hair into a crown braid, dotted with small golden flowers. It's surprisingly...intimate to feel her hands moving delicately through your hair, not impaired in the slightest by fat-thickened fingers, and you feel your cheeks heat a little, then more when a curious Dinah and Missy come over to watch.
"Wow, that looks really good, Taylor!" Dinah says, looking unfairly adorkable wearing the geeky glasses Taylor took off. "Where'd you learn how to do that?"
"Mom taught me. We used to practice on each other's hair when I was younger." Taylor answers, and even with her behind you, you can feel the smile that banishes her slight grief when she recalls her mother is alive again.
Judging from the looks on the faces of the two younger girls, you're pretty sure Taylor's the only one in the room who had a mother willing to do something like that with them (at least that you remember), and even including Vicky brings it up to about...one and a third moms. Vicky learnt far more about things like hair and makeup from Aunt Sarah than she ever did Carol. Hell, you wouldn't want to bet Crystal didn't teach her more. You'd generally had other things you wanted to do more in the limited time you spent with your Aunt, and you didn't regret that in the slightest at the time, but now, listening to Taylor explain what she's doing and watching Dinah excitedly practice with the ends of Missy's long hair, you kind of do.
Vicky and Dean emerge from the storage room just as Taylor is finishing with your hair, both looking happy (and kind of dim), but not noticeably mussed. Vicky has the studded red-leather do collar you found around her neck, and is holding a jar in one paw.
"Hey, Ames? It's not bad for you or anything to eat multivitamins when you don't need to, is it?" Your sister asks.
"No less eat many many too many." You answer, and while you're sill flinching at how it sounds, Vicky lets out a "Great!" unscrews the lid of the jar, pours out a pawful of the small bone-shaped treats inside, and swallows them in several happy mouthfuls.
"Vicky!" You snap, more exasperated than anything else. "Why do?"
"They seem cute, arf, and I wanted to find out if they tasted as nice as they look. Woof?" Vicky's dog ears flop cutely as she tilts her head in confusion at the bark that punctuates her sentence. Some quick experimentation proves she can speak without making any sort of dog-like noises, but in her own words, "It's cute, so why bother?"
At least "you ate dog treats a on a whim and now you're going to act like one for a day" gives you ammunition to fire back against Vicky's teasing response to you and Taylor testing out the wedding rings.
Once that's all sorted, a quick discussion has you deciding to head for where the map says Clockblocker is next. It's at least in part because Aegis was visibly wavering about coming with you to anywhere else, but it makes sense. He's nearby, in a safeish area, and even if you spend a while with him, there will be time to do something else before it gets dark, assuming you travel via the Vista express. With that decided, Taylor slips the purse from the lucky dip barrel over one shoulder, Missy puts on the backpack she was wearing, and the Ward walks over to one of the Windows, cracks it open (which requires some space squishing so she can reach high enough), then widens that crack and moves it down, until the window looks like a blurry edged door, opening on somewhere several streets away. Vicky leads the way through, Aegis almost as close on her heels as Dean, and the rest of you follow.
The map was a little unclear about where Clockblocker actually was, just colouring in a few block radius up against one of the hills at the edge of the city, but even if you hadn't known he lived in the Maxwell Heights apartment complex before F-Day, the fact that all four buildings there now sport variously designed clocks along their lengths would be something of a clue to start looking for him there. That a number of said clocks are on the cheeks of what are clearly concrete butts growing out of the sides of the buildings is...probably also a "Look here for Clockblocker" sign, if you're honest.
The buildings of Maxwell Heights are laid out in a rough diamond, with two blocks up against the hill, one halfway between them a little way in front of it, and the last on a terrace a little way up it, making it tower over the others even without having ten floors to their eight. As you walk closer, you can see that the gaps between the three lower buildings have been blocked off with crude, but tall and sturdy looking, barricades (that appear to be partially merged with the walls and ground) and the ground floor entrances to the side blocks have been bricked up, leaving the front one, it's glass doors replaced with thick wooden gates, as the only way in.
There are two guards standing outside the gates who eyeball your group cautiously but don't say anything as you get closer, and you take the opportunity to eyeball them back. Both are in their late teens or early twenties, one male and one female looking, but both in possession of backsides to rival the one Dean now sports. They're wearing basic but well made armour, and carrying spears of a similar quality. The clothes you can see under their armour look clean and in good condition (also well fitting, except over those huge asses, but that doesn't mean much these days), and their faces and builds suggest they're eating well. Which, given Missy and Taylor's current condition, doesn't necessarily mean they are, but they don't have the air of desperate people to them. They're nervous, and weary of threats, but they're not at the point of assuming every stranger is one, in your opinion.
"Hi!" Dinah says brightly before anyone else decides what approach to take. "These are Clockblocker's friends, and they came to see if he is alright? If that is alright?"
The guards look surprised by her words, and then more surprised when they follow her waving arm and recognise Glory Girl and Aegis (Missy seems to have mixed feelings about not being recognised too, but a teasing tug of her purple hair by Taylor gets her over them). A hissed conversation ensues, at first between themselves, and then with someone(s) through a hatch that opens in the gate, and you politely do your best not to eavesdrop, despite the excited noises that occur when you're recognised as well. The somewhat circular sounding discussion is nearly brought to an abrupt end when someone past the gate loudly and confidently asserts Dinah is Vista, but before Missy can decide if she wants to be outraged or not, a familiar voice calls out from beyond the gate, and a chorus of "Sir!"'s accompany it creaking open and the guards waving you inside.
The figure waiting for you in the lobby, practically vibrating with excitement, shares very little with the Denis you last saw beyond still being a pale blue-eyed red head, but the grin alone is enough for you to know who you're looking at. From the waist up, Clockblocker is now a pretty enough girl of around eighteen, with a build on the athletic side of average. From the waist down, however...well, he still looks female (other than the sizable bulge in the front of his shorts), but the build is decidedly not average or athletic. The hips are merely big, especially compared to the thick thighs, but the ass is beyond even gargantuan. It looks like the back of his (clock patterned) daisy dukes have Missy and Taylor's oversized bellies stuffed inside! Twice, once for each butt cheek! If it turned out the bigger thighs where entirely muscle gained from hauling that immense (and shapely) rear end about for a few weeks, you wouldn't be surprised in the slightest.
"Guys! I'm so happy to see you all!" Clockblocker calls, grin threatening to split his face and clearly holding himself back from leaping forward to hug someone. "You've got time to catch up, right? Come on, come on follow me, we can talk at my place. Don't mind the throne room, it's a gag that got out of hand."
Clockblocker leads you all through a small room off the lobby which has been decorated with a profusion of hanging curtains and bunting, with a raised dais at one end on which a throne-like chair stands, one that would be greatly oversized for most people, but probably only just fits someone with an ass like the one Clockblocker now sports, and then up several flights of stairs. Despite the sheer mass of his lower body making him move with a pronounced waddle, Clockblocker bounds up the stairs with excited ease. Dinah bounds after him, but you're very glad you can float rather than climbing them on foot, and not only does your sister clearly feel the same but Aegis as well, given way the latter tries to "subtly" take every flight after the third an inch or so off the ground. The last three members of your group not only can't fly at will, but have extra Infection-added weight to haul up the stairs, a considerable amount of it in Taylor and Missy's cases. Vicky takes pity on a huffing Dean around the fourth floor and carriers him the rest of the way, but that still leaves the girls to get themselves up to whichever floor Clockblocker is staying on.
"Amy sorry. Get Big Sissy to put Stupid Dean down and come help?" You offer.
"No, it's...fine...huff...I can...make it." Missy puffs, panting with effort but clearly determined. Taylor is holding her bulging belly with both arms, but looks determined as well, nodding sharply in agreement.
You do your best not to hover concernedly as the two currently well overweight girls struggle up the stairs, but don't do a particularly good job of it, and get shooed off to catch up with the others a couple of floors later. You find them in a very clock themed apartment with much wider doorways then usual on the top floor, Clockblocker just releasing Aegis from a hug. The living room everyone's in isn't a Lair, but you can feel a "breeze" of Infection that implies one or more rooms further in is.
"Surprised you're not in the penthouse of the back building, woof." Vicky says, looking around the modestly sized and furnished room.
"Hah, no chance! The Infection might have tied it to the hill with vines or whatever, but I still wake up in high winds thinking it's about to finally blow over and I'll be finding out if I can use my powers to stop a whole building. Besides, this is my folks and I's place. They were out of town of F-Day, so..." He's probably never going to see them again, you mentally fill in as he trails off. He looks solemn for a few moments, than a mischievous grin appears on his face. "So, Dean. You and Vicky are a dog-girl and a pony-girl. How's that working out for you?"
"Pony-boy." Dean lisps defensively, crossing his arms and pouting while Vicky gives Clockblocker the evil eye.
"Ah, my bad for the assumption, but dude, have you looked in a mirror lately?" The other Ward responds, sounding only mildly apologetic. Dean gives a very dismissive, horsey snort in response, and Clockblocker turns his attention to you. "Amy! You make a very pretty little pixie. Can I hug you without having my legs turned off or anything?"
"Amy guess." You do your best to drawl, and find yourself swiftly scooped up and spun around in a hug. "Ah too muchy, too muchy!" Clockblocker quickly puts you down at your call, at least, but you see the mirth appear in his eyes as your altered voice registers, and quickly move to cut his thoughts off. "Amy no sound like for good. Infection thingy make Amy baby talk two days."
The young man snickers, but nothing worse. "Got it. I might be able to help with that, actually. I-."
"Holy Hell, Clock. I could stand on your ass, how'd you get it up the stairs so quick?" Missy's out of breath call cuts him off and you look over to see her and Taylor in the doorway, the taller girl practically doubled over as she takes great gasps of air.
"I didn't skip leg day, of course." Clockblocker answers with a grin, slapping one meaty thigh for emphasis before turning more concerned. "Seriously though, are you okay, Vista? I've never seen people have much trouble moving around, no matter how much extra weight the Infection put on their ass or their chest. I thought it was the same for you, or I'd have taken you up the elevator."
"I'm fine." Missy snaps, sounding both annoyed and touched. "Gah, stupid food! Taylor and I got caught by a bunch of moving food, and it made us eat it until we were fat. Just for a day or so Amy thinks, but it's a pain."
"Ah. So rather than the Infection turning you into a fat goth with a pretty fat goth sister, it's just turning you into a goth with a pretty goth sister. Wearing jello underpants?" Clockblocker says teasingly, but sounding legitimately puzzled by the last bit.
"No, they're temporary too. I lost a bet with a clown." Missy explains, while Taylor flushes slightly at being called pretty. As though them being mentioned is a trigger, the jelly bloomers in question ripple several times, then abruptly break apart into a shower of jello cubes. "Oh, come on! They wear off right after Clock gets a good look at me in them? Being drunk sucks ass!" Missy snarls, glare seeming to make the cubes evaporate into nothingness.
"I have to hear that story later. But first, I was saying to Amy when you got here that I might be able to help with your weight issue. Since my Infection really kicked in, I've been to do a bunch of things to people I use my powers on, and one of them is messing around with how long 'temporary' effects of the Infection last. Normally I can only move things about, make one wear off sooner by making another last longer, but I found a stopwatch a while back I can 'store' the time in, so I could make one of the effects just...go away. Only one, though. Sorry." Clockblocker sounds genuinely apologetic at the end of his explanation, as though only being able to offer unconditional relief to one issue is a personal failing on his part.
"Amy looky Clocky strain wi' powers? See what do?" You ask, and dart over at his nod, dragging him over to the huge armchair, clearly sized to accommodate his ass. "Missy, Taylor, choosie who get Clocky help." You direct over your shoulder as the Ward lowers himself into place.
Settling on to one of the chair's wide arms (and having to control your expression as the act of sitting reminds you that you're currently wearing thick rubber panties full of cold water in a way you can't ignore), you place a hand on Clockblocker's arm and concentrate. His strain is complicated, with a lot of new effects, but your powers take to it eagerly, and you're able to learn most of what it does. Other than the part giving the now hermaphrodite Ward a big dick, it's focus is divided between being ass and thigh-focused and time-focused. One the ass side, there's a butt-based version of the attack reflector ability the blow-up clowns had, butt and thigh based special attacks, a trait that causes waddling but makes the previous stronger, the usual sort of size and ass-preference enhancers, and somewhat concerningly, a trait that turns Clockblocker's ass into a giant weak spot for anyone who knows to spank it good and hard.
"Clocky know big butt is weak spot, yes?" You ask in a pause in the Ward's story about organising the residents of Maxwell Heights to defend themselves following the collapse of order in the city (which was actually a little before the PRT building fell, at least around here).
"Yeah, we...found that out pretty quickly. On the plus side, it makes being spanked in the bedroom more fun?" He responds, prompting simultaneous mutters about TMI from you, Missy, Taylor and Aegis.
"Why would someone spank you in the bedroom, Mr Clockblocker? Are you bad there?" Dinah says, all innocence, and you quickly focus again to avoid any possibility of getting involved in the explanation.
The "time" centred parts of Clockblocker's strain give you more trouble than the other ones, which doesn't surprise you when you realise just how much they're tied up in his Parahuman powers, to the point that if the strain infects someone who isn't a Parahuman, there's a small chance of it giving them a version! You can't even begin to work out how, since Clockblocker himself doesn't have the relevant trait, but you triple check what your power is telling you, and it's definitely the case. There's one trait you pick up in the section that doesn't tie directly into his power, one that lets him delay when the results of sexual things he does hit the target's bodies, and you think there might be another one or two that fit a time theme without a direct connection to his powers, but you decode two abilities that do, and you're sure at least one of the sections you can't make sense of is as well. The way they're connected to his power means that, unlike everything else your power has recorded from the Infection, you won't be able to add those abilities into other strains, not without considerable further study, which is something of a shame, given what they do. Being able to alter how long temporary effects last would be very useful, and as for the other...
"Clocky really make old or young if catch with powers?" You ask, incredulously. "Amy powers see, Amy no believe."
"I really can, yes." He answers with a grin. "I could demonstrate if you like? How'd you like to be eighteen for a few days, Missy?"
"What's the catch?" The twelve year-old asks, eyes narrowing.
"No catch! Well, it's a bit random how long it last, and you take about half a day to go back to your normal age afterwards, but nothing to it other than me using my powers to stop you. I can make it permanent, too, but that takes more setup." Clockblocker explains cheerfully, and you nod your own confirmation that your powers see no side effects.
"Help Amy learn more see happen." You offer to the wavering Ward.
"Well, maybe then...?" She says, thoughtfully, before pulling Taylor into a whispered conversation.
"While she's thinking about that, I've got a favour to ask of you all." Clockblocker says, suddenly serious. "Would you be willing to hang around for a few hours and help with security? It would mean a could shake more fighters loose for a scavenging run than normal, and that would let us go further out than normal."
"We could go get whatever you need instead, arf?" Save your people the risk?" Vicky offers, tail wagging as she leans forward.
"I...thanks for the offer, but I'd rather we do it?" Clockblocker answers after several moments thought. "We've been getting pushed in more and more lately, and pushing back would be good for everyone's morale, even just the once. We could do what I'm planning on even without you guys to help, I don't expect anyone to hit here while we're out, or even for the scavenging group to run into more than just a few Ferals, but it'd be a gamble. With you guys here, anything that we run into in the city and can't handle is the sort of thing that'd roll over us either way."
From what you overheard while looking at Clockblocker's Infection, the community here (which is apparently known as the "Clocked Up Commune", and Clockblocker swears it wasn't his idea) is hemmed in on three sides, and only the steepness of the hill keeps that from being four. The Merchants and Goblins to the north try and raid them semi-regularly, the tribe of monkey-amazon dickgirls pushed out of the Docks have learned not to try the defences of the Commune but will go after any groups they run into outside them, and of their "nicer" neighbours, one group sporadically launches a "crusade" against the "heresy" of having big butts and normal sized breasts, one are arrogant, openly slave-taking, elves and the last is lead by a minotaur that Clockblocker regularly has to beat down to remind him he's there to trade, not add the Commune's population to his herd of cow-girls. None of them get along with each other, thankfully, and the Commune has the numbers to fight any one, or even two, of them off if they try and hit the apartments themselves, but going more than a block or so away is risky, so they can't get much to supplement the things being grown in the allotments that fill the space inside the square of the buildings.
The Commune is probably in a better state as far as having enough supplies and space for their numbers than the Boardwalk is, but you can see how being effectively trapped inside that space for over a week would wear on people. You, personally, can't see any reason not to hang around for a few hours and help out, but you were the one with the least concern about what your group did today, so you refrain from saying anything while the others consider Clockblocker's request.
Feat Unlocked
Dog And Pony Show - When using Glorious Rider/Gallant Steed with each other, Vicky and Dean gain additional stat bonuses, Dean may move with full use of Vicky's flight, and Dean's empathy-based defence penalties are applied to use of Vicky's Aura. In addition, they may defer all or part of LIB gain they would get from being mount and rider until they separate. Likewise, they may defer all or part of the mental state impairment until they separate. The more and longer things are put off with this feat, the greater and longer lasting the impaired period after they cease acting as mount and rider will be. Learning this Feat also grants Vicky and Dean a general awareness of the other's location/condition.
Training: Vicky and Dean must use Glorious Rider/Gallant Steed on each other for at least 3 hours, 3 times.
Cost: 25 XP.
(Training this Feat or starting to do so will unlock additional options for what Dean does next)
Information Gained
Infectious Information: Infection strains are capable of transmitting information to each other, it seems primarily intended for adaptations amongst the same strain to be passed along, but can work intra-strain and possibly be used for conveying other data. There is some form of collective repository of information Infection strains can consult (under certain circumstances?) mainly consisting of keywords for various effects, it's not clear if this is centralised or simply a very fast way of finding another strain that's already worked out how to do a particular thing and asking it how.
Special Abilities: Certain Abilities granted by the Infection are closely linked to a particular Parhuman's power, or other unique source. In order to manipulate said abilities in strains, Amy will need to study them extensively, with the requirements dependant on the ability in question.
One of Clockblocker's Infection granted abilities allows him to manipulate the durations of temporary effects on others. This normally requires the duration to be added to another temporary effect, but Clockblocker has an item that allows a duration to be stored inside it (under certain limits). Since he's so happy to see the party, he's willing to use this item to completely remove one of the unwanted effects with a high remaining duration applied to a party member. All current effects will expire naturally before the option to store duration is available again. (Pick One):
[Store] Amy's Toddler Talk trait
[Store] Missy's increased appetite and messy eating
[Store] Missy's weight gain
[Store] Taylor's increased appetite and messy eating
[Store] Taylor's weight gain
[Store] Nothing
Another of Clockblocker's abilities is to temporarily make someone older or younger. He's offered to demonstrate by aging Missy up to 18, which will last for between 24 and 72 hours before starting to wear off, taking another 12 hours to return her to her original age. Does Missy accept?:
[Age] Yes
(Amy will be able to earn points towards unlocking Temporary Changes and the Thief Of Years special ability by studying Missy during the effect's duration.)
[Age] No
Since a considerable amount of Parahuman muscle has just shown up at his door, Clockblocker would like to take advantage of that. If your group is willing to hang around for a couple of hours and act as security, he can lead a Commune salvage party out in much greater numbers than usual, allowing them to hit several locations that are too risky otherwise. Is the party willing to do so?:
[Security] Yes
(Party will remain at Clocked Up Commune for ~2.5 hours. 20 Clocked Up Commune Rep, 10 Clockblocker relationship. Party's time will be mostly occupied with being on watch and helping out in small ways, but Amy will have time to do some strain analysis and Missy will be able to reactivate her Bond with Aegis and possibly Dean.)
[Security] No
(Triggers vote for where to go next and for getting temporary effect durations redistributed. 75% chance Aegis remains here and makes his way back to Winslow for this evening. Probably.)
Vicky and Dean have unlocked a combination Feat. Training it requires them to use Glorious Rider/Gallant Steed on each other for 3 hour chunks. Dean provides a considerable stat bonus to Vicky when acting as her mount, and Vicky provides bonuses to all party member's actions when mounted, but it will cause both of their LIBs to rise steadily, and their mental states will become more simple and animalistic over time, until they reach the level of a fairly dim dog/pony respectively. This will not impair them in combat, or cause any issues staying with/helping the party, but might lead to some odd behaviour. They will automatically dismount as soon after the 3 hour mark passes as is practical. Vicky will remain in a dumbed down state for ~36 minutes afterwards, Dean for ~135. Do they start training it now?:
[Training] Yes
[Training] No
QM: Nat 100 make for a very generous Clockie.
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Last edited: Feb 6, 2021
Jan 23, 2021 ReportLike QuoteReply
Annatar, Vhalidictes, Midnight007 and 53 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 2, Part 8 (Afternoon)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: Eh, March 4th, May 4th, same difference, right?
But seriously, I'm sorry how long this took. Work and life alternated kicking my ass for a bit, then I realised a lot of the trouble I was having getting the update written was due to trying to write towards a next part that just wasn't going to work, then I realised the change in plans and rewriting had eaten Dinah's screen time and had to rewrite again to fix that...
Spoiler: Fights
Spoiler: Analysis Rolls
Spoiler: Other Rolls
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls
"We can totally hang around for a few hours and let you go scavenging, then." Your sister tells Clockblocker after a short discussion between herself, Aegis, Missy and Taylor.
"Great!" Clockblocker says, clapping his hands together eagerly before reaching out and smacking a discreet button on the wall besides his chair.
"You rang?" A deep female voice asks calmly from the corner behind you moments later, and you have to flap your wings frantically to keep your jolt of surprise from pitching you off the arm of the chair and into Clocklocker's lap.
"Prompt as always Jeeves." The Ward responds, grinning at the shocked reactions of the rest of you to the woman's abrupt appearance. "We've got some extra security for the afternoon, so we're going to do today's salvage run in force. Could you let everyone know while I finish up here and get ready?"
"Of course sire." The voice says, faint excitement under its calm and you twist in place just in time to see the generous backside of its sombrely dressed owner disappear through the doorway leading into the apartment's kitchen, where, judging from the way Taylor and Dinah start, they vanish as suddenly as they arrived
"So, who am I using the stopwatch on? I've got time to do that and give Missy an age lift before I need to head down and be seen watching the prep work." Clockblocker asks while you're wondering what on earth just happened.
"Amy." Missy says, giving him a look that makes it clear she knows he's waiting for someone to say something about that exchange, and she's not going to give him the satisfaction.
"Amy no need-." You begin, looking sharply at the purple-haired pair, who even with the warping of your words both know full well you meant they should choose which of the two of them Clockblocker should help earlier.
"Amy's will last the longest, and neither of us felt right getting thin while the other was stuck like this." Missy continues as though you hadn't said anything, extra chins wobbling as she waves at her plumped up body.
"Plus it's only these things that are actually a problem rather than just embarrassing, and they'll wear off much sooner." Taylor says, patting her hugely rotund belly.
"Right then!" Clockblocker declares, springing out of the chair with such exuberance it nearly knocks you off your perch again. "Miss Dallon, if you'll take a seat. ... And I should go get the stopwatch first."
The Ward strides off into the depths of the apartment before you can come up with any sort of response, and after taking a moment to take in the spectacle that is the sight of Clockblocker walking away energetically these days, you slip off the arm and in to the seat proper, finding yourself rather dwarfed by it. And not just because of how small you are now - you might take up less than a quarter of the cushion but even Vicky wouldn't take up much more than a third of it, given how much space is needed to comfortably accommodate Clockblocker's ass.
"Okay!" Clockblocker announces, returning with an ornate gold stopwatch hanging from a chain in one hand. "So, how this works is you hold the stopwatch, I use my powers to stop you, then I start the watch, things get weird, and when my powers wear off you'll be able to speak normally again."
"How weird?" You asks, mildly suspicious even though you can tell Clockblocker doesn't have mischief in mind at the moment.
"Can't really say." Clockblocker shrugs. "It depends on the effect the watch is absorbing the time from. But from what I've been told it's 'odd dream' weird, not 'bad trip' weird."
You wrinkle your nose at this (lack of) description, but shift until you're sitting against the back and one arm of the chair, legs straight in front of you with only the bottom half of your shins past the edge of the seat (and pressed together to keep from flashing your rubber undies at the room), then nod and hold out your hands for the watch. "Amy ready."
Clockblocker makes sure you've got a good grip on the stopwatch, then starts counting down from five. On three, you suddenly find yourself frozen in place, unable feel anything besides your clothes or the metal of the watch in your hands. It's very different from those times you've been affected by Clockblocker's powers before, given that you can still see and hear (and, you know, are aware at all), but that's clearly what's happening. The Ward keeps counting, pressing the button on top of the frozen stopwatch down with a heavy click on zero, prompting the hands to somehow start spinning wildly, stay perfectly still, and tick forward steadily at the same time.
"Right, that's her cooking. It'll take around muwh muwh mwh." Clockblocker straightens and turns away from you, his words to the others suddenly becoming so much nonsense to your ears mid-way through the sentence.
Whatever Vicky says in response sounds equally nonsensical, as does the conversation with Missy that follows. You know they're speaking English, and you know you still know English, but you still can't understand a word off it. You can't even try and lip read, since you were looking down at the stopwatch when you got stopped, and you might be able to see, but you can't actually move your eyes, so you're stuck staring at it, your own legs and a small bit of the floor in front of the chair. The unintelligible conversation continues for a little while, then you hear footsteps, and you're left in silence, with no sound in your ears but the ticking of the watch. The highly irregular ticking, that seems to follow no rule but to happen when you least expect a tick, and combines with the spiralling movement of the hands to produce a distracting, near-hypnotic effect that you can feel steadily turning your thoughts to mush. Your head swims, like all the water that's been steadily filling your bra and panties is inside it, except it's not, you can feel it's still there. Especially in your panties, since pressing your legs together to keep from flashing them means your thighs are squeezing them, and you're sitting down too, which is two different things pressing them, so the cool water is kept close against your pussy and ass, and you're also very aware of how thick the rubber between your legs is now. Which you suppose isn't very thick, it's nothing compared to the rubber panties you tried on yesterday, never mind how thick they were during the clown's show, but it's still a lot thicker than panties should be, and it reminds you embarrassingly of the training panties you had to wear last night, thought they don't really feel much like them and you don't think the thickness is the same. So you're not really sure why you're reminded of them, other than your head being all fuzzy, like that time someone slipped something in your drink at a school dance and Vicky stuffed him in a basketball hoop until the cops showed up. That was funny. Though normally you can remember what he was shouting, it's all just babbling now. ... You can't actually remember what anything anyone's said to you sounds like, actually. You know what's been said to still, but you can't remember what it sounded like when it was said. It's very confusing, and trying to think about makes your head swim even more, so you decide to stop. Which might be a mistake, because then you can only think about the ticky, swirly, clock in your hands, and your brain's too mushy for that, and it goes all ticky swirly too.
You blink, vague dreams of hoping around on a space hopper that was also your panties while babbling cheerful baby talk at everyone fading away as you're suddenly awake, and feel your body sag against the arm of the chair. "What the hell. I need to have a word with Clock, if he doesn't think that's a bad trip... Oh thank fuck, I can say 'I' again!"
"Your voice is back to normal, too." A voice says, and you jerk your head up to see Taylor sitting on the sofa opposite you, idly braiding the ends of some of the long hair she's pulled into her lap. There's no sign of anyone else in the room at first, and even after you spot Missy, frozen mid-step near the door, you can't shake the sense of being touched Taylor waited for you to come out of Clockblocker's powers.
"Hmmmmm...I think my voice might still be a little bit high? Maybe?" You say, frowning. It's hard to judge, it's only a small change if it is one, but you're pretty sure you voice isn't quite how you remember it being.
"Sounds about the same to me? Maybe a tiny bit higher pitched? Not sure, I've heard you with little kid voice almost as much as normal voice." Taylor replies after a little thought, delicate brow wrinkling cutely as she does so.
"Could be the shrinking, I guess? The trait's definitely gone, and I can't feel any lingering effects...getting smaller could be the cause if I'm not imagining it." You suggest after mulling it over a bit.
"Could be? I, ah, wasn't really paying much attention to how you sounded over dinner last night." Taylor responds apologetically, blushing slightly.
"No worries, I totally get why you'd have more important things to pay attention to." You feel a slight blush on your own cheeks, and change the subject. "Where's everyone else gone, by the way?"
"Aegis, Gallant and your sister went to get started on taking over for the guards so more people could be free to get ready for the salvaging expedition right away, and Dinah went to see the 'Clock-cycles'." Taylor answers.
"Clock-cycles?" You ask, wincing at the name.
"They're...honestly, I'm not sure, Clockblocker's description wasn't very clear, but apparently one of the Infections here makes people good at making things, and they're what they've come up with for moving big loads around since they've not got any way of fuelling a truck." Taylor says with a shrug. "They sound kind of interesting, but I can get a look later. figured someone should stay and be here when you woke up. Err, when both of you woke up, I mean!" She corrects, blushing more deeply, and you feel your own brush deepen as well.
"Well, um, thanks for that." You manage. "Can I touch you? To check you out? Gah phrasing! Over! I meant over!" You half-scream, cheeks flaming, as you float over to the couch.
"Of course. And don't worry, I knew what you meant. I'm not exactly 'checking out' material even when I'm not a huge fatty... Who needs help to get out a chair in less than a minute." Taylor says with bitter resignation (and a bright blush) as she struggles to push herself up, oversized belly stopping her from simply standing.
"Hey, none of that." You say, waving for her to stay sitting and perching on the arm of the sofa, before placing a hand on her arm and letting your powers work (and trying not to think about how being chubby has made it even softer to the touch). "You look great normally, and the belly is a bit much, but you make the rest of the fat look...cute? Charming? Something like that. And take it to heart coming from me. The overweight look really isn't to my taste, I know way to much about what being obese does to the body to like seeing someone like that."
Taylor mutters something about only looking good because of her Infection, but still smiles and flushes cutely at your words, so you let it pass. She's got every right to be unhappy with the weight gain, in your opinion, and you're pretty sure that's the root of her earlier comment, given her reaction to her appearance in the mirror this morning. But that's temporary, and the changes that make her prettier are permanent, so there's no point making a huge fuss about it here and now.
"Okay, you've not picked up any new Infections, or had your current one change." You relay after a few minutes. "Good news is that your belly should stop being stupidly big in three hours or so, bad news is that you're going to have to put up with being fat and a messy eater for a around another twenty two, and you're going to need to eat a lot while it lasts."
"Ugh. Hopefully Clockblocker can do something about it when he gets back." Taylor says, pulling a face. "I really don't want to go back to Winslow looking likes this. ... And given that it's not even an hour since lunch and I'm already feeling hungry again, I'm kind of worried how we're going to get enough food for me and Missy to make it through almost a whole day more of eating so much."
"Hopefully." You agree, a flicker of movement in the corner of your eye catching your attention before you can say anything else.
Turning, you see that movement wasn't quite the right word, as Missy is statue still in the same pose, but something has changed about her none the less. You can't put your finger on exactly what until her frozen form changes again, growing slightly taller and wider hipped, and you realise that she looks a little older. The changes continue rapidly, leaving you and Taylor looking at an eighteen year old Missy, still caught mid-step. She's several inches taller, about the height you were before shrinking (so still slightly shorter than Taylor even with the ridiculous heels on her boots), with a relatively petite build, and a face that's still cute, and probably dainty under the fat, despite clearly maturing. There's still no traces of athleticism under the fat created by her forced feeding (and you'd probably say she actually looks even more out of shape), but you can't describe it as looking like baby fat anymore, so you think she'll mind it less. The same fat makes it hard to tell what the "natural" curves of her older body are, but her breasts currently look a bit bigger than your own (modest) pair, while her hips are fairly wide, and the rubber skirt of the power suit is tight over a large ass, slightly bigger than Vicky's but smaller than Dean's (and nowhere near the size of Clockblocker's). It's also nothing like as shapely, making you think quite a bit of its size is due to the weight gain rather than the body underneath it.
You have just enough time after the changes finish to take them all in before Clockblocker's powers wear off. Missy does her best, but even the enhancement on the boots can't quite overcome the results of having her weight and centre of gravity change so much while mid-stride, and she ends up falling forward, letting out a cry of "Damn it Clock!" in a smooth soprano voice as she lands heavily on her inflated belly. You hurry over, but there's nothing hurt but her pride, which takes a further beating (along with yours) when you help her to her feet, only for her to misjudge her new balance and for you to misjudge your relative heights and weights, resulting in her falling forward again, this time with you ending up squished beneath her. Your redness of your face afterwards is entirely due to lack of breath, and nothing at all to do with what said face ended up stuck between until the now-older girl managed to roll over. Taylor isn't openly laughing as she heaves herself up and comes over to help, but there's a certain amused light in her eyes, at least until annoyance at her own bulging belly getting in the way of bending down to offer you a hand chases it out.
"Kind of hoped I'd end up a little taller than this." Missy says a short time later, after she's managed to get to her feet and had chance to look herself over. She sounds disappointed, but not as annoyed as you'd expect. "Wish I knew if my ass is going to end up anything like this fat when I'm 'actually' eighteen, too. Can you tell, Amy?"
A hand on one of her bare arms and some concentration reveals that you can't, oddly enough. Your powers can tell that her ass is temporarily different from how it "should" be due to her being aged up, and due to the weight gain, but not exactly how much change each of the two temporary effects is responsible for. Missy and Taylor end up sitting on the sofa again while you see if you can crack anything, but while you manage to learn a fair bit about how the Infection does temporary changes, and also how Vampirate strain Missy now has differs from the original, you're unsuccessful in your original goal.
"Okay, good news is that you'll be eighteen for two and half days and the fat will go away after one, so you'll have plenty of time to see how you'll look without it. The bad news... Well, first off you've got the same Pretty Princess strain as Taylor, but while hers is going for a 'Perfect' princess, yours is going for a 'Petite' one. Which I'm pretty sure means 'small and cute', not childish, but I'm not sure how, ah, extreme it will be, if it'll just be along the lines of how you look already, or if it'll be more...dramatic." You explain, slightly nervous about Missy's reaction to being described as small and cute, and informed of the possibility of ending up more so.
"Well, that's...annoying, but somehow not surprising." Missy says after a few moments, with an irritated huff, looking irked, but not as much as you'd have expected. "If you changed it to make me a 'Perfect' princess, would it make much of a difference? I got the impression that it's more an exaggeration of how you look already, rather than going towards specific look. Err, can you change the kind of princess?"
"I should be able to. Might take a couple of tries to get the one you want, the way the Pretty Princess and Flower Girl stains have mixed makes a 'Petite' princess more likely, but it's doable, yeah. As for how different it'd look...not sure, at least until we know how big the changes would be. But changing it to 'Perfect' might make you taller, but definitely not, like, Taylor's height, I'm sure of that. Could even make you smaller, if being exactly five foot is more 'perfect' than five two or something." You answer after a little thought, glancing involuntarily towards the long, perfect legs of the now younger of the two girls on the couch.
"Let's not bother for now, then." Missy says decisively after a moment. "If I end up, like, four feet tall, I'll want that fixing, but I can deal with normal levels of 'small and cute'. Well, at least while I'm eighteen, not sure if I'll feel different once I go back to my normal age." You and Taylor make simultaneous inquisitive noises at the last statement, and the purple-haired Ward responds with a fond laugh that somehow gets the two of you blushing again before explaining.
"Clockblocker's age thing effects the mind, not just the body. I didn't live through five years while I was under it or anything, but my perspective is kind of like I did? It's a bit hard to explain - I don't remember going through high school, but I do sort of remember things I would have learned there. School stuff, though I have to focus a bit to 'know' it, but, like, growing up stuff more clearly. Kind of, it's really weird, but for example, before, at almost thirteen, I couldn't help but see people looking as down on me for being young or cute or a girl and take it personally, even when I tried not to, but eighteen year-old me is less...bothered? Worked up about it? I still don't like it, but I feel more able to shrug, say 'sucks to be them for underestimating me' and move on. Which is what I knew was a better way of handling it before, but couldn't really put in to practice. Because, you know, not-quite-a-teenager, kind of biologically hardwired to be touchy and emotional and by definition lacking in experience and practice at self control compared to an adult." Missy glares off into space as she finishes talking, and you get the feeling it's directed at someone in particular, probably a less than stellar member of the PRT's therapist rotation.
"Anyway, you said the princess thing was the first bit of bad news, what's the second?" Missy says brightly, once it becomes clear you and Taylor don't have any questions. (Which isn't quite true in your case, but "How does the Infection do this shit?" is pretty much a eternal question for you at this point, and you're reasonably confident Missy won't have magically learned the answer by being aged up.)
"You've picked up the stain from the eyepatch, and apparently Vampirate Cabin Girls are stuck being 'girls' There's a trait on the strain that effects age, and you've already got it. The target age is twelve, so it won't make you any younger, but twelve is the oldest age it can target, so..." You trail off.
"I won't get any older, outside of temporary things like this, either." Missy finishes, with a resigned sigh.
"Yeah. I think there's a possibility of the strain 'maturing' into the Admiral one, but it wouldn't be straightforward, and I'm not a hundred percent that'd actually let you age. It depends on how one, or possibly more, of the traits you haven't got yet work, and I can't get exact details of stuff like that until I examine someone who actually has them. And even then it can be hard to tell if there's overlapping effects." You explain. "You won't get the Undead trait, which would definitely stop you aging, or the vampire one, which might on its own, but the one that replaces them, Dhampir, still makes you half-vampire, with less power but also less weaknesses, so who knows where aging falls under that. Most of the other traits that are different from the normal Vampirate one are about learning and growing stronger, but with some costs - there's one that would let you learn more quickly, especially with a teacher, but also make you feel more loyalty to people who teach you, and one that lets you reduce your capabilities temporarily to make them grow afterwards, and one that would give you 'tasks' of some sort that would let you gain traits from the Admiral strain by completing them. And the one you've got, the Young Apprentice one, let's you forget how to do something, then get a permanent boost to broadly similar abilities from being taught how to do it again. So you could forget how to sew and once you've learnt how to do it again, your hands would be more agile, and so would the rest of your body."
"That sounds either really useful or really annoying. Not sure it's worth finding out which." Missy says as you explain her new trait.
"You're going to have to, I'm afraid. Part of the strain's effects are that you need to activate it twice a month for three months. Which is actually a little better than it could be, the strain changed a bit when it hybridised, it would have been once a week for the same time otherwise." You respond, as sympathetically as you can. "You'll be able to learn things again a lot quicker than learning them the first time, at least. Even without the Eager Pupil trait."
"Well, that's kind of a pain." Missy replies, pulling a face. "Anything else I should know about it?"
"The more you knew about something, and the more regularly you used it before forgetting, the bigger the boost when you've learnt it again will be. So you'd get a big boost if it was something like hand to hand combat, and a tiny one if it was something like ballet. Oh, and you can't be, like, super narrow with what you forget. You can't just forget how to make a particular meal, for example, but you could forget how to bake rather than how to cook in general. You'd get more of a boost from learning how to cook in general again, though." You tell her.
"Not much of one, I barely know how to cook now." Missy interjects.
"Yeah, I'm not brilliant at it either." You say, patting her on the shoulder. "Which could be a problem with some skills, you absolutely do need someone to teach you in order to regain them. I think that's... No, one last thing. It weights how much you know about something in relation to how much more you can learn, not how difficult it is to learn. So you'd get a bigger boost, and need longer to re-learn, something that's really basic but you've mastered, like feeding yourself, than you would from something like cooking, where it's more complicated but you don't know much."
"Not that you'd know I'd mastered feeding myself if you saw me eat at the moment." Missy mutters, looking at hands which still have a few faint food stains on them.. "Is that everything about the new strain?" She asks more loudly a moment later.
"Err, one last thing, which is a bit good news/bad news as well. The good news is that you won't get the trait the normal Vampirate strain has where you need things like cum and blood rather than food, the bad news is that you've already got the replacement trait, which is the Milk Drinker one." You eye Missy somewhat cautiously as you answer. You'd say that having to suck on boob regularly is a far better fate than having to suck other body parts (especially cock), but you're not sure Missy will agree.
"Well, that sucks." Missy sighs. "Pun intended. I can still eat and enjoy normal food even if I get Milk Drinker a bunch, right?"
"Yeah, that's one of the ways it's better than the Liquid Diet one. You can't eat normal food at all with that." You answer. "I think you could still live off normal food even at the highest levels, you'd just need a ton of it to get enough nutrition."
"No thanks. Eating like a pig for the next day is going to be bad enough. I'd rather not be able to eat solids at all than stuff myself and turn into a lardball for good." Missy says, making a disgusted face.
Your first instinct is to say that the effects of Milk Drinker would probably mean that extra fat is a wasted as other nutrients, but on second thought, someone trying to "doge" the effects of the trait by eating more and ending up fat because of it is absolutely the sort of thing the Infection would find "appropriate", even if the you'd expect the biological mechanisms involved to preclude it. You might be able to work out which would happen if Missy's Milk Drinker trait gets stronger, but for now you just nod in acknowledgement of the other girl's words before moving to help the big bellied pair rise from the couch.
Exiting Clockblocker's apartment you follow Taylor's lead through the hallways to a pair of elevators. The one you enter seems safe enough, though it resizes itself as the doors close to be just too small for you all to fit comfortably. It's also rather slow, so you spend several minutes with your face about an inch away from Taylor's boobs while Missy's are a similar distance behind it, and find yourself hyperaware enough of what's in front of you to see the slight expansion as more custard inflates her trick bra. Fortunately, you're already blushing hard enough that remembering how you emptied said bra not long ago (and wondering if you're going to get have to do it again) doesn't make it noticeably worse.
Once the lift (finally) reaches the ground floor, Taylor leads the three of you unerringly through a twisting tangle of gear-marked passages and out the back of the building into the communal space between the blocks. Most of the space is taken up by allotments in which a huge variety of plants, ranging from normal looking to downright bizarre, are growing, but the doors you exit from open on to a small paved area which is currently a hive of activity as several dozen people swam around like particularly busy bees. With particularly huge asses. Only a few of them have derrieres which match Clockblocker's in splendour, but even those who are otherwise fairly masculine in build have booties which rival Vicky's in size and shapeliness and those with a more feminine look universally have rears which surpass your sister's by a considerable margin. Given that less than a fifth of those you can see are male(-ish) there's a considerable collection of callipygian finery to be seen as you emerge, all of it displayed by the various tight pants, overalls, shorts and even skirts that strain to cover the bountiful butts crammed into them, and most of it moving energetically from place to place as its owners frantically prepare...whatever it is they're preparing. You find your gaze bouncing from one ample arse to another by the motion of the crowd, and keeping from drooling when Taylor's right next to you takes enough effort you can't spare the focus to direct your attention somewhere else. That the tall girl seems to be in a similar state is both a relief and an annoyance, but at least she's not ogling as openly as the red faced and panting Missy.
You're not sure how long the three of you would have been stuck standing in the doorway staring if you had to make yourselves stop on your own, but fortunately Vicky's voice draws your attention after a minute or so. "Arf, you're down at last! Eighteen suits you Missy! Amy, is your voice back to normal, woof?"
"Ye-yeah, it's fixed." You manage to croak out, the sight of your sister's recently expanded breasts bouncing slightly as she trots over on Dean's back doing nothing for your ability to think clearly.
"Great! Well, in that case, Dean and I are going to join Aegis in doing an aerial patrol. Catch you later! Woof, woof!" Vicky bounces in her "seat", tail wagging, then cracks what you realise is the lead from the collar she's wearing, drawn out and passed through her boyfriend's mouth to make a crude set of reins, prompting said boyfriend to whinny enthusiastically before breaking into a gallop. One that takes them both near vertically up in to the air.
"Well, it's good to see she's still as...enthusiastic as ever. And as good at convincing Dean to do things for her." Clockblocker says as he wanders over while the three of you blink up at the sky and the rapidly vanishing dog and pony pair. You knew that the wallkies collar could let someone else share Vicky's flying abilities, but seeing it happen is still surprising.
"That's Vicky for you." Missy says, in a fondly exasperated tone. "And did you really think that turning into My Sissy Pony would make Dean less whipped?" You find yourself snorting in time with Clockblocker at the snarky comment, then joining him in boggling as the aged up Ward continues talking. "Ooh, that's a handy effect of getting booted to the other side of puberty - I don't have a crush on Gallant anymore! I mean, I still want to fuck him if I get the chance, but It's not cause I'm hopelessly emotionally invested in the only decent guy I regularly interact with, it's just cause he's hot, even with bigger boobs than me and a horse face."
"I feel like I should be offended on Aegis and Kid Win's behalf." Clockblocker mutters, after several moments stunned into uncharacteristic silence.
"Not your own?" You mutter back.
"Oh, I know I'm an asshole, but I've got to stick up for my bros, you know." He responds cheerily.
"Sir, we'll be ready to leave in a couple of minutes, if you're still going to ask Vista to get us out without opening the gates." A voice calls before the conversation can go any further, and you look over to see a faintly scowling man wearing what's almost a BBPD uniform, except for the tiny skirt that barely covers even his relatively small backside, fluttering up to reveal the thickly padded seat of the surprisingly study-looking tights beneath at the slightest movement.
"Sure, no problem." Missy answers before her fellow Ward can say anything, prompting the man to scoff quietly before turning to shout at a group pulling some kind of large wheeled crate out of a shed to hurry up.. "Which side do you want to leave from? And which one do you want to come out on?" Missy says smoothly, unbothered by the slightly rude response.
Clockblcoker turns away from you as he explains to Missy what's needed, and for a moment you think his ass has somehow gotten even more immense since you last saw him. The you notice the extra bulk doesn't look quite right to be more ass-cheek, and realise that the rear of the copy of his costume he's changed into has been modified to contain a considerable amount of padding. You'd guess it's been done to protect his vulnerable backside from blows, and a less distracted look around tells you that everyone around who's wearing armour is also sporting extra butt protection, mostly in the form of reinforced tights or leggings like the ones the (police?)man who told Clockblocker they were nearly ready was wearing.
The activity in the courtyard is beginning to quiet down, allowing you to see its focus was a number of bicycle-like vehicles with very large, low, seats rather than saddles, the pedals horizontally in front of the seats rather than below, oddly shaped handlebars and at least three wheels. So not really all that bicycle-like, but still more like one than anything else. Presumably, these are the "Clock-cycles" Taylor mentioned, though the only clock-like thing about them is the painted hubcaps some of them sport. About half of them have a single seat, while the rest either have two seats side by side, or four in a block, except the very largest, which has eight seats in rows of two, plus a raised one at the back that's presumably for manning controls of some sort, given the number of leavers around it. Variously sized wheeled containers are hooked up behind all of the multi-seater vehicles, and almost all of the armour-wearing members of the commune you can see are either buckling themselves into a seat or strapping themselves onto a running board on one of the containers. The most noticeable exception besides Clockblocker is a tall, reasonably muscular girl wearing grease stained overalls and a straw hat, who's inspecting two four-wheeled, more complex looking and notably larger single seat cycles at the "front" of the collection of bikes. Dinah's also standing nearby, looking fascinated, so you and Taylor make your way over.
Once you get closer, you can tell that the girl is around Vicky's age, golden-blonde and blue-eyed, with a butt to rival Clockblocker's, even bigger hips, a generous bust (notably bigger than you can see on anyone else in the Commune), and a sizable bulge in the front of her overalls. There's dirt and oil smeared on her hands and fair, freckled face, a flannel shirt peeking out from under her armour and even a stalk of wheat sticking out of her mouth, making her look every inch the stereotypical "Farmer's Daughter", albeit one who probably rebuilds tractors for fun. She also has an extremely thick accent you can't place, but sounds like it was spat out by central casting to signify a none-too-bright hick farmer from the most rural, isolated location the listener can think of, and the clash between it and the (reasonably) clear, technical explanation she's giving Dinah about how the cycle's breaks work is fairly jarring.
"Wow! And those breaks will even work for the big Clock-cycles when they have the heavy wagons behind them, Miss Nell?" Dinah asks in wonder, crouching on all fours to look at something behind the seat of one bike.
"Eyup. Well, less you going down a big hill, might not work so well then. None of those we can get to, so I ain't tested 'em on one yet. But should be fine unless the wagon's real loaded, I reckon." Is the drawled answer, followed by some...creative...sounding muttering as the farmgirl-mechanic puts her weight into adjusting a bolt of some sort with a heavy wrench produced from somewhere.
"Why would someone grease a goat, Miss Nell?" Dinah asks, shuffling back slightly on both her permanent and temporary hooves.
"Ain't got the faintest clue, sugarcube. The Infection gave me a headfull of sayings like that, and they don't make no more sense to me than they do you." Nell replies, straightening and looking the bike she was working on over once more. "Ayup, that should a done it. Ay, King Clock! Get your fat rump over here and make sure it still fits comfy in your cycle!" She calls cheerfully, over her shoulder
"You're just sore that it's a whole quarter-inch on yours, Whoa Nelly!" Clockblocker shouts back, teasingly, but comes over and heaves himself into the seat of the slightly more gaudily decorated cycle.
His ass fits, but tightly enough you doubt the same would be true for the seats on the standard cycles. Once he's tested he can reach the pedals comfortably, he pulls a lever that makes the handlebars lower into easy reach and causes something complicated to happen around the seat, resulting in a series of bars securing him in his seat, looking a bit like a restraints on a particularly crazy rollercoaster. He gives Nell a thumbs up once he's tested things are locked in place, and she smiles back before sitting in the other cycle and securing herself in a similar manner.
"Helmets, Sire, Lady Nell." The voice from Clockblocker's apartment says suddenly, interrupting Clockblocker as he looks over his shoulder at the gathered riders and opens his mouth to say something, and Taylor starts as a woman is simply there, stepping past her to hand the pair in the bikes a pair of cycle helmets. They grumble and pout near-identically (and Clockblocker managing to pout clearly with his entire head covered is all him, nothing to do with the Infection), but put the provided headgear on. Clockblocker looks somewhat silly with his on over his costume, especially since there's a crudely painted crown on it, but he could looks more so, given Nell somehow straps her straw hat on top of hers.
Helmet in place, Clockblocker starts calling out readiness checks, and as the enthusiastic responses come back and the Clock-cycles form up into a more orderly column, you take the opportunity to get good look at the mysteriously appearing woman for the first time. She's a little taller than Taylor, with brown hair in a bob cut and a maternal air to her despite being nineteen at most. She has a soft, modestly curvy upper body and the huge rear and thick thighs you've come to expect from people here, and she's dressed in a fairly drab maid's dress, which seems intended not to be sexualised. It would probably manage it, too, if covering her ass didn't take up so much of the skirt's material that the hemline ends up notably above her knees. She's slowly scanning the gathered scavenging party, and you notice two things as she turns to do so - the first is that there's a nametag reading "Jeeves" in impeccable handwriting on the top right of her breast, and the second is that as she's nearly finished, her mask of professional fondness slips for a second, and she sends a scorching glare at something towards the front of the column, but with over a dozen single seat bikes now arrayed around Clockblocker's and Nell's, you're not sure what (or who) the target is, especially since the glare's only there for a second before vanishing behind bland professionalism again.
"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm eager to pick up some new briefs, so I'll be brief." Clockblocker says carryingly once everything is ready, to mild amusement from the crowd. "Thanks to some friends of mine from the afterschool job showing up and being generous with their time, we've got a rare chance to head out in force to stock up, so to start with we're going to head all the way along Short Street, kicking out Ferals and collecting everything that's not nailed down, then the nails, then everything that is nailed down! After that, well, we'll see what we find first, but I'm hoping we can make it to the garden centre at Longs and find a few new plants to fill out the corners of the Allotment. Sound good to everyone!?" Clockblocker's speech raises a loud cheer, which he allows to go on for several seconds before shouting over it. "Set a course, Miss Vista, warp factor 9!" Missy raises an eyebrow, but moves her hands through the air like a maestro playing a very oddly shaped organ, and space at the head of the column warps and shimmers to show the street outside.
Cheering and the sounds of furious pedalling fill the air, and in short order the whole column of Clock-cycles has passed through the warp and is disappearing down the street. Missy nods in satisfaction and releases the warp before looking upwards. "What's it like up on the roofs of the buildings? Seems like the best place for me to keep an eye out from. Good sightlines."
"We have small watch posts set up there for just that reason, Lady Vista." Jeeves answers deferentially. "It is probably less of a concern for yourself, but please be careful of the fencing on the front edge of the right building. It was damaged in a raid by the bee-women of the Merchants some weeks back, and restoring it to full stability has proven challenging even for our craftswomen."
"Got it. You guys okay if I head up now?" Missy says, then, once you, Taylor and Dinah indicate you are, waves a hand and disappears onto a roof with a single easy step.
Taylor looks around once the older girl has gone, eyes intent behind the wire frame of her new glasses as she considers the positioning of the buildings, then asks Jeeves; "Is there anywhere on the second or third floor of the middle building where I can sit without being in anyone's space? Towards the front, ideally, but it doesn't need any sort of view. My powers just care about distance, not line of sight."
"There is an apartment on the second floor used as a ready room by the militia's response team. It won't be in use at the moment, and it's fully connected to the bell system." Jeeves responds, almost instantly.
"Sounds good. If you could show me how to get there...?" Taylor says, getting an immediate "Of course, my lady." back.
"Um...is it okay if I stay out here and look around, Miss Jeeves? I cannot do much to look out for trouble, and the plants here seem really interesting." Dinah asks, hesitantly, as the big-butted maid turns to lead Taylor sway.
"Of course, Lady Dinah. Please take care to stay on the paths between the fields, and do not touch any of the plants without confirming with one of the farmgirls if it is safe to do so." Jeeves answers, and once you and Taylor give her little nods of approval, the young girl smiles widely before waving goodbye and skipping off on all fours, hooves clattering against the paving stones.
Shaking your head to silence the part of your brain that insists on trying to work out how the gloves clamped over her hands let Dinah move quadrupedally without changing the shape of her arms and legs at all, you follow Jeeves and Taylor back into the building you emerged from not long before. After a quick trip in the elevator (where you have to quickly float into the air to avoid being squashed against a wall by the maid's copious rear when the available space contracts), you're lead to a minimally decorated apartment with a higher level of "background" Infection than most of the complex (but about the same as the bit of Clockblocker's apartment you were in). It's full of seats and tables, carefully placed to fit as many as possible, yet still allow people to move easily and without fear of knocking a huge, sensitive backside into something. The sorts of chairs the people of the Clocked-Up Commune prefer mean that it's easy for Taylor to find a suitably comfortable one to settle her currently hefty frame into for the next couple of hours, while you have more difficulty, needing to choose between an uncomfy chair or one that's notably oversized for your slender, shrunken frame.
"I'd like to examine the different types of Infections people here have with my powers while we're here." You say to Jeeves, while you're putting off deciding between comfort and dignity. "Do you think people would have any objections? I'll share what I learn, of course."
"Finding volunteers will be of little difficulty, Lady Panacea." She responds, blandly.
"Great. Would it be too much trouble to ask them to come here? That way I'd be on hand if something happens, rather than wandering around the site." Which is certainly a reason for the request, even if your main one is not wanting to leave Taylor alone. She can look after herself, of course, and anyone thinking that her relaxed posture and unfocused eyes mean she's not aware of what's going on around her is in for a nasty surprise, but still.
"It shall be no trouble. Is there any particular sort of individual you want to start with, my lady? There are four broad sorts of changes amongst our numbers - those like Sire, those like myself, the craftswomen and the farmgirls." Jeeves replies, sounding as through whatever you ask of her will be no more challenging that being asked to fetch a cup of tea.
"From examining Clockblocker, I know his strain has a small chance of giving people the power to time stop people like he can. Is there anyone who can do that still in the Commune and not busy? If not, anyone with his changes who's free will do." You say. You're not really expecting anyone with the Stopwatch Trait to be here, rather than on the scavenging party, it's too useful, but it doesn't hurt to ask, and finishing your study of Clockblocker's strain before moving on to the others makes sense.
"There is one such individual." Jeeves answers after a few moment's thought. "They are a relatively new arrival and still adapting to both their freedom and the changes from their previous Infection being overwritten. I shall fetch them momentarily, but first, permit me to explain the bell system to you and Lady Taylor?"
You nod, and Jeeves quickly runs through what the various cords and bells along one wall do, which is largely carrying alerts to and from various guard posts, though there are a few to call for less urgent assistance as well. Then she disappears out the door, leaving you and Taylor in comfortable silence. You consider checking over Taylor's equipment, to fill the time and give you an excuse not to sit down, but quickly realise that with her having changed things around at lunch, you know everything your powers can currently tell you about her various clothes and accessories. Deciding to try and look as dignified as possible, you settle on one of the smaller seats in the room, a narrow dining chair that manages to feel uncomfortably hard even through the steadily thickening rubber of your panties. Fortunately, you're not sat in it long before a nervous looking Asian-American boy around Dinah's age is standing nervously in the door way.
"Um, hi? I'm Free. Ms Jeeves said you wanted to look at my Infection? It, um, won't hurt or anything, will it? Do you have to do anything, um, weird?" He says, in a worried rush and a rather high voice.
"No, you shouldn't feel a thing, and I'll just need to hold your hand and concentrate for around ten minutes." You answer, waving him in. "Find a comfy seat and don't worry about me reaching, I can float."
Free nods slightly jerkily, and quickly drops into the nearest large chair to the door, and you look him over as you approach. He's fairly small, with a cute, androgynous face, a flat torso and a butt and thighs that seem particularly outsized compared to his hips, being a little below average by the Commune's standards, and therefore head-turningly sizable and shapely for his age by the standards of the rest of the world. Giving him your best reassuring smile, you float over to the armchair and, still in a seated position, take his hand.
You're able to learn about the "Time Stop" granting Stopwatch trait easily enough, and also the related Blocked Clock trait that allows the manipulation of people under its effects, despite them being otherwise as inviolate as any other object effected by Clockblocker's power. The Bell Ringer trait, which lets those with it cause as many or as few of the effects of random amount of "time" to passing to happen to those they stop, is a bit weirder, but the last trait you crack on the strain takes the cake.
"How old are you actually, Free? Or does that question not make much sense, given the age-shifting?" You ask, curiously.
"Eight. Well, actually, actually, twenty but King Clockblocker has been kind enough to keep me younger, so I don't have to worry about body thinking about, um, sex and stuff, most of the day while I, um, recover." Free replies, in the quiet, unsure voice of someone expecting to be judged, and when you just smile gently and hum encouragingly, they continue. "It means I'm still a baby, or a toddler if I'm, um, lucky that day, when I wake up, and I'm too little to help much around the Commune most of the morning, but everyone -err, almost everyone- is really nice about it, and since it means I'm young enough to be more active in the evening than most, I try and pay it back then."
The (probably) oddest trait on the Clockblocker strain is called "Ages Of Man", and it causes those that carry it to regress into babies on the stroke of midnight each day, and slowly age throughout the day, spending the middle portion around the correct age and ending up extremely old by the last hours of the day. Which means the way that almost everyone in the Commune seems to be in their late teens or early twenties isn't just for vanity or the hell of it, but so those with the trait can be young during the day, move into middle age in the evening and only be truly old for a short time before midnight. Of course, having a young base age means they'll be babies and toddlers for most of the night, but since they can sleep though that phase, be children as they're waking up in the morning and pre-teens relatively soon after, they probably consider it a fair trade for not needing a walker to get around by the time they finish dinner.
"Thank you for telling me." You say kindly. "The trait which does that is certainly an...interesting one, although less hard to understand than how the Infection can not only left someone copy Clockblocker's powers, but do other things with them as well. I kind of wish that stopwatch didn't make it so hard to think, if I'd been able to pay attention when Clock used his powers on me, I might have learned more about the way it changes how long things last at least. That'd be really useful to get a grasp on." You sigh heavily.
"Um, Miss Panacea? Would it, um, help if I used that power on you? I, um, need to practice anyway, so it'd be no trouble to move how long some things last if you, um, wanted me to." Free offers, hesitantly.
"Hmm...I certainly wouldn't mind getting rid of the prank sooner, and having Milk Drinker for a few more hours is hardly a big problem." You muse. "Oh, but the prank does help me focus a little, so I should keep it until I've finished looking people over, which could be a while, and I don't want to keep you waiting or bother you again later."
"I'd, um prefer not to wait around, but I've not really got much to do until the scavengers get back, so I don't mind if you get Ms Jeeves to find me later." Is Free's unsure response to your words.
"Well, if you're sure it wouldn't be too much trouble. But I feel kind of bad asking you to go out of your way to help me learn more and getting rid of this prank while not giving you anything in return... You said you needed to practice, right? How about you stop me and practice the other abilities you have now, and then I'll find you later to get the prank's time moved?" You suggest softly, doing your best not to pressure him into accepting with your tone or body language.
"Um, if you really don't mind me doing other things to you...?" Free replies, looking interested but clearly nervous about doing something wrong if they accept.
"I trust you not to do anything too weird while I'm under your power." You say, smiling encouragingly.
"Um, okay then. Now?" Free asks, and you nod. "Five...Four...Three...Two...On-."
Like when Clockblocker stopped you earlier, you're still aware after Free uses their ability on you, but unlike then, your awareness of everything but your clothes and your own body is muted and distant, and no effort on your part is able to bring things into focus. You'd think it would be distressing to have your senses impaired so badly, especially combined with being completely immobile, but it's not even slightly so, and is actually a little...soothing, somehow. Unfortunately, it quickly becomes clear that your powers aren't going to learn anything from the time stop, no matter what you try. Even as what must be the Blocked Clock ability is activated, you don't feel anything from your powers, though you feel it intensely as your hand is gently pulled open, then your body is held and lifted like a doll by small hands. You faintly hear surprised giggles, you're spun around a few times, then you think you're carried across the room. There's a quiet conversation somewhere far away, before you're seated on and against something wonderfully warm and soft, followed by what you think is an arm going round your waist to hold you in place as something(one?) starts gently bouncing you up and down. The motion would be soothing, if it weren't for the fact that ice cubes start appearing in your bra and panties, seemingly dozens every moment, shocks of cold bouncing against your most sensitive skin, the water embracing your nethers and nipples only barely beginning to warm above freezing before yet more ice arrives.
Someone (whose hands are too big to be Free's) moves your hands shortly after you're sat down, so that one is around one of the rubber cups of your bra, and the other is pressed into the front of your panties. The tough yet soft material is already thick enough that you can't feel the pressure of your hands against your skin on the other side of it when they do, although the fact your underwear is increasingly spherical in shape (and full of water) probably has an effect there as well.. You kind of want to find out if you can still feel it if you press harder, but you can't move your body at all, and whoever is posing you seems happy to leave you as you are, except for adjusting your arms slightly to keep your hands in place as your underwear swells rapidly. Your shirt is soon struggling to cover the huge blue cups of your bra, and the size, colour and rubbery nature of both the cups and the straps which support them are no doubt plainly apparent to any onlookers through the strained fabric. The giant orbs held fast to your chest quickly block your sight of what's going on with your panties, but that just makes the feelings from it all the more apparent. The feeling of cold rubber pressed tight around your legs moves down your thighs with teasing slowness, while the same feeling moves up your waist in small, unexpected jumps and you're lifted in your seat by an expanding sphere that also forces your frozen legs further and further apart. The combined effects of the changes eventually move your body from a seated pose to a "standing" one, and push your back away from the warmth you were leaned against, leaving your position on whatever you're sat on precarious feeling, thought the time stop prevents that from mattering.
Of course, it's moments after you think that that the time stop wears off, and you find yourself wobbling forwards, only the arm around your middle keeping you from falling off what turn out to be Taylor's legs.
"You alright there, Amy?" Taylor asks, the concern in her voice not quite hiding all traces of amusement, opening her legs so the bottom of your panties can sit between them and be more stable.
"I'm- I'm good." You stutter, feeling yourself flush from the combination of your position between her legs and the sudden contextualisation of some of what you felt during the time stop as being leaned against Taylor's belly and bounced on her knee making those feelings even more pleasant in retrospect. (Realising your hands are still at your breast and crotch, and Taylor' quiet snicker as you snatch them away doesn't help with the blush.)
"I should get a look at the damage. Is there a mirror around here anywhere?" You say after a minute of half calming down, half enjoying what you can still feel of the warmth of Taylor's body.
"Um, I'm pretty sure there's one in the bathroom, Miss Panacea." You snap your head up at Free's voice, then quickly make your expression as non-threatening as possible when the skittish boy flinches away slightly.
"Thank you, Free." You say with a smile as you carefully float yourself off the chair.
Despite the weight of water and rubber on your chest and between your legs, you're able to rise up with only a little effort (as compared to basically none normally), and while the water sloshes loudly about when you move with anything other than the greatest gentleness, it doesn't threaten to overbalance you, despite causing your underwear to visibly wobble each time it happens. At least while floating. Walking might be a different story, but given that the huge cups of your bra mean you can't even see the ends of your toes, you're not even going try and work out walking with such a wide, heavy bulk hanging off your hips and keeping your legs apart. You can feel Taylor's amusement at the sight you make floating slowly towards the bathroom with your inflated undergarments on display, but she's being amused quietly, so you ignore it.
The sight you see in the mirror is mostly what you expected - your shirt is strained almost transparent by a pair of perfectly spherical, bright blue I-Cups that obscure most of your upper torso, while your skirt is pulled tight over the ball of the rubber at your waist, outlining its shape perfectly and completely failing to cover its bottom third at the front, while from the back your labcoat drapes over an impossible to miss unnatural roundness. The main surprise, given how big and low it feels between your legs, is that the bottom of your spherical panties only just reaches your knees, and is "only" four or so inches across there. Of course, given the positioning of the leg holes and the way the material pushes back if you try and bring your legs together, the stance you end up in when you settle your weight on your feet has your knees well over six inches apart, but feels far more natural than such a wide stance should, and when you try walking, it's far easier than you expected it to be. Oh, you're noticeably slower, waddle ridiculously, and both your bra and panties bounce comically with every step, but the effort involved is only barely noticeably more than normal, the unusual way of moving your legs coming so easily you don't even complete your second circuit of the (small) bathroom before you're not consciously thinking about it, and you can actually jump up and down without being overbalanced. You do fall over testing your range of motion in the end, but only because you flinch back very hard from the sight of two huge rubber balls bouncing in the direction of your face, and the impact with the floor doesn't even register on your ass, such is thickness and springiness of the rubber surrounding it. You're pretty sure that the weight of water alone should prevent such ease of movement, never mind any other issues with such ludicrously bulky undergarments, but when you think about it, your powers read a little of their "nature", and you half learn, half realise that since they were created by a clown's prank power, and impeding movement isn't part of the prank's intent, they simply don't have a significant effect on it, physics be damned.
While you're in the bathroom anyway, you figure you might as well use the toilet, and you're sat down with your panties around your ankles (well, ankles to knees) before the potential problems occur to you. Fortunately, the water inside fails to rush out of the leg holes and all over the floor, and doesn't even get your shoes on socks wet when you pull your feet through the leg holes and leave the panties sitting there like an odd fishbowl. You give serious thought to just leaving them off, but the panties that go with your outfit won't come back until the prank ends, you've no others handy, and the skirt of the cat-girl outfit you're wearing is nowhere near long enough to go commando. Also, an ice cube appears beneath the waistband of your skirt while you're washing your hands, and leaves an sizeable damp spot of the fabric (and puddle on the floor) when after it rapidly melts. You do empty the panties out into the toilet before pulling them back on, though - if you're going to be stuck wearing an oversized basketball, it can at least not be two-thirds full of cold water.
Emptying out your bra as well doesn't occur to you until you're already back in the main room. As you're debating whether going back to do so would look too weird, a new effect of the prank triggers, making you very glad you left the bra alone. With a comical "Boing!" noise, your legs are sent flying even further apart as panties instantly treble in size, while a torrent of freezing cold water fills most of the space inside in moments. You lose your footing from the force of it, but the ball encasing your lower body is now so big that you barely drop at all before it hits the ground. You desperately try to keep balanced as you wobble on (and in) the ball but, inevitably, the excess weight on your chest leads to you falling forwards, hitting the floor bra-first, and bouncing several times, loud, rubber "Boing!" noises filling the air each time,
"Go ahead and laugh. God knows I would." You sigh resignedly at Taylor, who's failing to hide a smile behind her hand, and Free, who's biting his lip to keep from doing so.
Taylor does so unreservedly, but Free hesitates, looking worried, and after a moment the reason why strikes you. "Don't worry, this wasn't caused by you messing with the prank, it was triggered by something I did. And probably should have known would bounce back at me."
Weak as it is, the pun is enough to convince Free you see the funny side of things, and he collapses, giggling, into a chair, and you smile at the sight before floating yourself upright again. The odd rules of the prank are apparent once more, for despite the tight rubber waistband of the panties being above your bellybutton and the equally skin tight leg holes being below your knees and extremely far apart, you can not only walk, albeit with a ridiculous, lumbering gait, but actually feel fairly comfortable despite effectively being forced into a continuous stretch. A thought strikes you, and a quick test proves there's now enough room to draw your legs up inside the panties and kneel inside them, though you can't pull your feet inside, so the pose is a little odd, and probably wouldn't work without the water holding you up. But it does, and combined with your ability to float, offers you a way to look more dignified when moving around. Still silly enough to make Taylor snicker when she sees you hovering over to her chair, ball inches above the ground and feet sticking out the bottom, but better than walking around like a parody of a sumo wrestler.
Positioning yourself against Taylor's chair and finding it a decent enough place to sit, you smile at Free, who's more or less recovered from his case of the giggles. "Thank you for your time, Free. I'll come find you when I'm ready to have the prank removed."
"You're welcome, Miss Panacea. See you later!" Free gives you a wave before not quite running off, in the manner of a child who's be told repeatedly not to run indoors, but is too eager to have fun to actually walk.
Barely a minute passes after Free leaves before a young woman in a French maid outfit enters the room, carrying a tray loaded with snacks and finger foods. "Greetings Miss Taylor, Miss Panacea. Ms Jeeves sent me to provide you some refreshments and have my Infection looked at." She sashays over and smiles winsomely at Taylor. "Miss Jeeves told me you'd need some help eating how about I sit here-." She pats the arm of the chair. "-And I can give you things while you work? I made sure everything I prepared was suitable for hand feeding."
Taylor turns bright red and stutters something unintelligible in response to this blatantly flirtatious offer, which the maid takes as an invitation to perch her ample backside on the wide arm and set the tray in her lap, flashing her panties at you quite deliberately in the process and reducing the objection you were about to voice to splutters.
"You just need skin contact, right Miss Panacea? Because I'll need both my hands, but you can reach my legs easily enough from there. I don't mind you touching them." The maid doesn't wait for you to answer (not that you think you could, right now) before toeing her heels off and using her foot to slowly roll the stocking down the other leg while shuffling backwards along the arm of the chair so that the bare leg ends up mere inches away from your face when she finishes, practically begging you to reach out and touch it. Which you do, almost without thinking. She not only manages to keep the tray steady during this whole performance, but offer Taylor a bite off it, if the way her half-formed protests trail off into very happy eating noises is any indication.
Unfortunately, between the continual teasing motions of her legs and ass, and the irritation caused by just how much flirting the maid manages to pack into feeding Taylor, you do a rather poor job of focusing on the strain in her body and by the time she's using Taylor's bib to wipe the last crumbs from her mouth and swaying back out of the room, you've only learned its name (Timeskeepers) and basic details.
"Wow, that was an impressive display of Useless Lesbian on my part." You mutter. "Taylor, make me feel better by telling me she distracted you so much an elephant snuck up on the compound or something, would you? Taylor? Taylor!" Looking over at her lack of response, you have just enough time to start feeling worried at the odd expression on her face before she jolts into motion.
She pushes herself out of her chair as quickly as her bloated belly allows, only to for her knees to buckle as both hands wrap round her stomach. As you rush round to help, she lets out a moan that's half pleasure, half pain, and falls forward, thrusting her rear into the air as she does so, and giving you an excellent view of the changes that happen there. Her thighs press together as they thicken with even more fat, followed by her hips rounding as they do the same, but both changes are just a prelude to what happens to her butt, which swells and swells and swells with fat, until her panties are struggling to contain a pair of wobbling ass cheeks greater in size (if not shapeliness) than those sported by an average member of the Commune.
A hand on one of those fattened thighs tells you that Taylor will be fine after a minute to catch her breath, and that the additional weight gain was caused by, essentially, a bad reaction between the food she just ate and the transformation caused by her earlier force feeding. The combination of several ingredients in her meal would normally "just" cause her butt to get considerably bigger for a short time, with smaller effects on hips and thighs, but due to the effect she was already under, the growth was greater but entirely caused by the gain of fat, and rather than wearing off in a few hours, will remain on her body until the original weight gain effect ends.
"Urgh, what the hell was that?" Taylor moans, shifting ponderously into a sitting position on the floor.
"Food allergy, basically." You say, before explaining what your powers told you.
"Great. My ass feels like it's the size of your space hopper panties, and it's going to be like that for a day?" Taylor grumbles as she shuffles around so she can use the armchair she was sitting in to pull herself into a standing position.
"It's not quite that bad? Still smaller than Clock's by a fair bit, even if it is pretty huge by normal standards." You reassure her, quickly floating up off the ground so you're not looking up her skirt.
"Yeah, but Clockblocker's ass looks good. Mine probably looks like it belongs on an obese whale." Taylor grumps, eying the armchair and scowling. "I don't even fit this chair anymore! It's bigger than normal, but I'd still have to squeeze my fat ass into it!"
The urge to say something snippy about it being what she gets for letting some big butted maid-hussy feed her like that bubbles up suddenly, and you don't so much suppress it as stare perplexedly at it and give it a wide metal berth until it goes away. You can't think of anything helpful to say in response to Taylor's words though, so you just pat her comfortingly on the arm and help look for a new chair. As you do, you try not to pay attention to fact that this latest expansion of Taylor's hips and ass has apparently taken them past the point where the skirt of her cheerleader outfit will adapt to remain modest on her larger frame, and the hem is now pulled far enough up by the need to stretch out that her panties are clearly visible from behind, even when she's standing still. (And if the urge to stare is more driven by horror at her backside's massively overweight, shapeless current state than the allure of the forbidden, you know better to than to even think of letting on to Taylor about it.)
The two of you end up settling on to a low sofa (which creaks loudly from the combined weight of your panties and Taylor's ass), since it's big enough that even with the amount of space your respective rears take up sitting next to each other, there's still space for a third person to sit on your other side without having too close together. The woman in her mid-twenties who walks in moments after you're both settled strains that idea like her immense ass does her rough leather pants, and her broad, heavily muscled arms and shoulders mean she fills an impressive amount of space despite her only being about your height. Or maybe that's just the sheer force of the scowl on her face.
"Jeeves said you were checking Infections over and she's forcing me to take break from the forge anyway." She states, with unfocused irritation at the world in general.
"Ah, yes. It shouldn't take long. If you could you take a seat and give me your arm?" You say, drawing on your long experience in the hospital to sound professional and not flinch back while shifting up against Taylor so the apparent blacksmith has room to sit down.
As she sits and sticks her arm out, you notice that her leather apron is the only thing covering her upper body, without even a bra for her modest breasts. You're not inclined to ask, but given her general body language, especially the way she idly adjusts and scratches the sizeable package in the front of trousers, you're pretty she was a guy before getting infected, and didn't see her change in sex as reason to change her behaviour. Given that her genitals are still entirely male, despite her curves, you're not sure why she now thinks of herself as well, she, given her attitude, but she clearly does, just like Free was clearly male despite his androgyny and only having a vagina inside his underwear. Which does beg the question of how you knew that on sight, but now's probably not the best time to ponder that. Better to add it to the "later" pile and get your current visitor's strain analysed before their generalised impatience boils over.
The first thing you learn is, despite Jeeves implying otherwise, the same strain is responsible for both "craftswomen" like your current subject and the "farmgirls" you saw working on the allotments, depending on what sex the carrier ends up as. Fully female is a farmgirl, dickgirls are crafters, and herms like Nell blend both. Given that the Clocking In strain has more or less the same hindquarters related effects as the Clockblocker strain, plus Ages Of Man, and given how dramatic the differences in behaviour and appearance caused by the Farmgirl and Wrench Wench traits are, you can see how a group without the advantage of your powers would think they were carried by entirely different stains. The stains other traits are a very useful bunch, at least for someone working as part of an established community. Other than the trait that lets carriers create either high quality farming/gardening or crafting tools from practically nothing, there's one lets those with it bend time when working on a specific task, so hours of work on their part might take only one from the perspective of the rest of the world, and another lets them speed up things like how fast things like plants growing or material setting takes, both of which must be very useful, even with the risks they carry of consequences like exhaustion and dehydration if used incautiously. The ability to quickly and easily modify anything from hand tools to furniture to buildings to accommodate things like unusual body proportions (or say, having paws for hands) is also ridiculously handy - the Infection compensates for things like that, but only up to a (often arbitrary) point, dedicated items to account for changes must make things a lot easier. Even the trait which causes a fairly ludicrous work ethic, would be appreciated by most groups, despite its lack of overt powers.
You don't quite learn everything about the Clocking In strain from the surly blacksmith, who leaves as soon as you're done without asking any questions, or indeed saying anything at all the whole time she's sat down, but you're close to done. You also learn about the potential for a rare trait to develop in some carriers, but not in enough detail to describe it and ask for someone with it directly. The next entry in the well timed parade of arrivals enters before you have time to do more than consider the problem briefly, though, and you turn your attention to greeting them instead.
It's actually two people this time, a curvy dark-haired boy in his late teens dressed like a butler and a blue-eyed blonde pre-teen in dirt-stained denim and flannel whose hands and rosy cheeks look freshly scrubbed. "Greetings, Lady Panacea, Lady Taylor." The butter says, with a low bow. "My name is Samuel, and this is-"
"Hi Dinah's friends! I'm Molly! Is Dinah going to be able to come over and play more? All the other kids wanted to be big and I didn't, so there was no one else my age until Free came, and he needs other kids to play with and help him be not sad." The girl interrupts in a twangy accent, bounding across the room to stand and look at you and Taylor with big, beseeching eyes.
"Ah...maybe?" Taylor says, after the two of you exchange a look to try and work out the answer. "We only woke up from F-Day yesterday, so we don't really know what we're going to be doing yet."
"Aww. I'd hoped you'd know. She said there was a fifty percent chance she could play again, but she didn't know when." Molly throws herself onto the sofa besides you and bounces in place several times. "Is your big balloon as bouncy as it looks? My butt gets really big and bouncy when I'm a little older. It's fun, but I like being a kid more."
It takes you a moment to realise that by "balloon" Molly means your inflated panties, and a couple more to manage to tell her they're not all that bouncy due to the water (and lightly elbow a snickering Taylor). You quickly bring up checking her Infection after that, and while the young girl keeps up a near-continual string of chatter as you do so, she's happy enough to have Taylor responding rather than you, allowing you to finish your study of the Clocking In strain, and learn about it's rare trait. Called "Daily Drops", it has the odd but highly useful ability of causing a location or object altered by the Infection to produce things according to a schedule to do so immediately once a day without disrupting its schedule. From what you've heard so far, things like that are a big source of resources post-F-Day, so it's a pretty potent power. (And it also makes you feel good about the Commune that despite having such a rare, useful power Molly's been allowed to stay a kid.)
Molly springs out of her seat the moment you say you're done, moving to lean on the arm of the sofa and keep talking to Taylor, and you start slightly when you look back from following her movements to see Samuel sitting next to you, the young man having effaced himself so effectively you'd forgotten he was in the room. You're able to decode the rest of the Timeskeepers strain after taking his offered hand, finding it potent but limited. Carriers are not only strongly driven to serve others rather than consider themselves, but are compelled to tie themselves to a location, becoming willing to leave it only in the greatest need. In exchange for that, they become aware of everyone and everything within that territory, able to anticipate their needs and outright teleport to meet them, and also able to instantly put anyone who knowingly breaks the "rules" of their territory into an obedient trance, and you're honestly not sure if you'd consider that a fair trade or not. Certainly, it's not one anyone in your group would want to make. Beyond that, they have literally magical domestic skills, can turn raw materials into finished products near-instantly, whether that means turning food into dinner or raw cotton into a shirt, and also have the same item adapting ability as the Clocking In strain, as well as the Commune's usual collection of butt boosters. The last trait on the strain you grasp answers a question you hadn't properly realised you had, about how the Commune keeps safe at night when so many of its inhabitants will be either very old or very young then. Called "Burden of Years", it can be used to return someone to their "proper" age for a time, at the cost of the user becoming their altered age for a longer time. You don't know how many Timeskeepers there are compared to the other two strains, but you assume there's enough to get a decent number of combatants back to fighting age when needed.
"All done." You tell Samuel, who has remained silent, blank-faced and practically motionless the whole time. "I don't suppose you'd know where Free is likely to be? I promised I'd find him to let him practice once I was done examining people."
"If you will wait just a moment, my lady." He replies, a sharp smile appearing on his face as he raises his hand and starts lowing fingers. After three, you hear a clattering approaching in the hall, and as the last goes down, Dinah bursts into the room, Free a couple of steps behind her, both of them with grass stains on their knees and hands still damp from scrubbing.
"Good timing." You mutter, raising an eyebrow and side-eyeing Samuel, who smile enigmatically back.
"Hi Amy! Are you done with Molly now?" Dinah asks, breathlessly. "Oh, wow, your panties really are huge!" The ten year-old at least has the decency to look (very slightly) shamefaced after blurting that out.
"Hi Dinah. I'm done, but I need to borrow Free for a moment...?" The boy nods when you look at him. "Great. Let's head to the bathroom before you stop me, just in case the prank goes out with a bang."
As you're floating your slow way across the room, you feel a shudder run through you as the continual exposure to the Infection from the air and your clothes reaches the invisible tipping point that cause the Infection in your body to react. The last push is actually from your cat-girl outfit, but the way its strain was consumed means that the changes that happen are more pixie based. Except the very first one, which is the stain in your body undergoing a burst of rapid reproduction that significantly increases its overall level of Infection. The physical changes are relatively minor despite that, your eyes simply turning an amber colour and gaining a faint glow, while mentally you feel some of your ground in sense of "responsibility" when it comes to your powers melt away, along with most of your background worries about being transformed or seeing others transformed. Feeling your thoughts change is more than a little unnerving, but the changes themselves are pretty much just you coming to conclusions you'd probably come to after a little more (Carol-free) time and exposure to the post-F-Day Bay now, rather than later, so they don't bother you much after the initial moments of weirdness. Other than that, you feel three traits settle into your body - the flight power of the Pixie Dust trait gets stronger, you gain a trait from your strain that will cause you to heal even faster, and the last makes you more charming to anyone who can clearly see your face, which will shift to become more attractive in a slightly inhuman, pixie-like manner.
Looking around when your own changes finish, you see that Free and Molly look a year or so older (putting them around eleven and thirteen respectively), Taylor and Samuel are no different, and Dinah is inspecting the restored polish on the slightly longer nails of one hand with a oddly perky expression of puzzlement. When you head over and give her a check up, you find that the hoof on the same side as the hand has the same permanent "cute" style and polish as her fingernails, while her face has shifted in small ways such as wider eyes and more upturned lips so her expression will always be faintly happy or excited unless she's strongly emoting something else. The same change has made her voice naturally more cheery and excited as well, but you honestly can't tell the difference, and nor can anyone else when you mention it, since it doesn't stop her from sounding sad and such if she wants. Her Eyes On Me trait has also been boosted, and is now as strong as it can get, and she's picked up the trait for power adaptation from your strain, which could be prove very interesting, or do basically nothing. You don't have enough grasp on what will inspire changes in Dinah's power, or how big those changes will be, to know which.
After a quick trip back to confirm nothing more subtle as happened to Taylor, you head into the bathroom, where you make sure your stance is as stable as possible before Free stops you. You feel his hand on your face for some time after it starts, but other than that, nothing happens, and it's honestly pretty boring. Nothing feels different when you come out the time stop, but your bra and panties immediately start deflating with comical sounds, water pouring out of them. Having a fairly good idea of the "logic" the clown's pranks run on by now, you refrain from reacting, and sure enough the water all vanishes seconds after the rubber underwear has finished shrinking, leaving the room and your clothes stone dry. The bra and panties are still on (and still rather big and round, just not ludicrously so anymore) but you can feel the fabric of your original underwear underneath them, and after waiting a minute or so to be sure no more ice cubes are coming, you set about taking them off. You have to pull your shirt off to get at the bra possibly, which in accordance with the Infected outfit rules of "Whatever is most embarrassing" causes the whole cat-girl outfit to come off, leaving you in just the two sets of undies. Which, given you're alone in the room, wouldn't be much of a concern.
"Woof! Amy, can you look at this for me?"
"GAH! Vicky! Knock! Bad Girl!" Except Vicky is even better than the Infection and embarrassing timing, and barges in, still on Dean's goddamn back, just as you're working out how the rubber bra comes off, given its lack of clasps.
You feel absolutely no regrets that your startle reflex now apparently involves flashing blinding light at people, given how close you came to flashing your sister's boyfriend in a different way. Dean stumbles back out of the room, aided by the rug in the hall pulling on his back legs, and you slam the door in Vicky's face as soon as you can, engaging the lock as loudly as you can afterwards. Once you're free of rubber underwear and dressed again, you emerge back into the main room and immediately get actual sad puppy eyes from your sister, who cringes and whines like a puppy who's been scolded for the mess on the carpet as you lift yourself to her ponyback eye height and glare.
"Sorry Amy. I thought it was just counting and big words that riding had made go away, but I guess I thinking bad-er than I thought, woof." Vicky says contritely, voice and expression becoming notably more airheadedly sad as she speaks
"You've never needed anything messing with your head before to barge in without knocking." You respond acidly. "Also, I can tell that you're trying to act dumber than you actually are."
"Sorry. I won't do it again, arf?" Vicky offers, voice returning to normal while her expression actually gets a little more vapid once she stops making herself look contrite.
"You absolutely will. Now, what was it you wanted me to look at?" You say dryly, then drop the subject, not wanting to drag things out in front of an audience when you know it won't make a difference to your chances of getting barged in on again few months anyway.
It seems to take Vicky a moment to remember, and before she can actually say, everyone's attention is drawn by the arrival of an out of breath Missy, who give Vicky a savage one-eyed glare before doubling over, bracing her hands on her legs as she breathes deeply.
"Woof, you were following Missy? Why'd you take so long then?" Vicky asks, obliviously.
"Because you were riding on your horsefriend, while I not only had to walk, but unlike you my belly's still blown up from the food and I've got the butt of an overweight hippo to lug around." Missy replies between gasps.
As you dart over to check she's not about to pass out or something, you see that, like Taylor, she's gained several pounds of fat at her hips and thighs, and many more on her ass. Given that she's over half a foot shorter than Taylor and was already broader hipped and bigger butted, the result, while not actually Clockblocker sized, looks comparable on her smaller frame. Unlike Taylor, the skirt of her power suit still covers her whole ass and a good bit of her thighs, and the combined rubber of the skirt and the tights beneath it is thick and taut enough to give the illusion of shapeliness, even if that shape is distinctively pear-like (and it probably feels like being squeezed into a mould).
"Don't suppose you could speed my digestion up or something, could you Amy?" Missy asks quietly after recovering a bit. "The girl who brought me it said the food had a chance to make my butt bigger while it was in my body, but it didn't quite work out right, as you can see, and I'd really like to get shot of it before Clock gets back and starts making butt-envy jokes."
"You're already digesting food way faster than normal, but it won't help in this case. Part of what went wrong means it won't go away until the rest of the weight does. The same thing happened to Taylor, though the hussy who brought the food didn't mention the chance of butt growth." You whisper back, and Missy's eyes dart to the kids in the room, huddled together giggling about something, and she quite visibly doesn't swear aloud.
"Great. That's just...great." The eighteen year-old Ward sighs, defeatedly.
"Why don't you take a break and sit with Taylor for a bit? I'm sure Vicky will make whatever she wants distracting enough to let you commiserate in peace. Or I can just chase everyone out, if you'd rather have more privacy." You offer, not really sure what to do, but hoping the two purple-haired girls will be able to make each other feel better somehow.
"I really should get back to the roof before Aegis decides the correct response to the three of us heading in doors it to patrol three times as hard, but after chasing the dog and pony show down the stairs, I honestly can't even face the walk to the elevator right now. But don't feel the need to make a distraction, just the chance to sit for a few minutes is all I need." Missy says, after a long moment where she gives clear thought to your offer.
While she waddles over to join Taylor on the couch, you turn your attention to your sister, who's still more or less where you left her, astride her uncomplaining mount in the middle of the room. Her tail is wagging softly, and it's not clear to you if her vacant expression is down to her daydreaming, or just how her face looks now.
"Right, what did you need, Vicky?" You ask again, making her and Dean start slightly as you swiftly and soundlessly fly up behind them before asking (which is absolutely revenge for the many, many, times Vicky's done the same to you).
"Arf! What was... Err, there were one, two, three...three things, actually." Vicky says, after clearly thinking hard and counting on one paw. "One, my boobs got a bunch bigger not long ago, can you check nothing else changed?"
Inevitably, your sister's words cause your gaze to move to her chest and get briefly stuck in the even deeper than before cleavage her straining fur-patterned shirt shows off, especially when you're looking down at it. It's testament to how annoyed you were at her barging in that you're just now noticing, given that her breasts are now at least two sizes bigger than they were before, meaning she's gone from borderline D cup sized this morning to DDDD now, and now that you have noticed, even after you look away, their presence is even more of a temptation than usual, daring you to sneak glances and drink in the splendour. To distract yourself, you grab Vicky's raised paw and concentrate for a moment.
"Nope, just the breasts!" You report brightly. Her breasts have also gotten much more sensitive when they expanded, so your words could be considered misleading, since Vicky's only aware of the size change but, well, she's not noticed it yet, so the increase isn't enough to cause problems. It'll just be a nice...surprise...for her later.
"Good, woof! Now, the two thing was... Arf! Riding makes me and Dean dumber the longer we do it, right? It's been an hour, I think, so I want you to help me check how dumb we've gotten, woof!" Vicky says, with disturbing cheer for someone talking about getting steadily stupider.
Or possibly not, since as far as you can tell from five minutes or so of questioning, they're not actually any less intelligent. They've not lost any knowledge that you can tell, they're just more impulsive and distractible, have a harder time keeping a complex train of thought together, and are much less inclined to put in the effort to actually do so. There's some oddness to their thinking, such as Dean not saying a word until Vicky remembers they'd decided ponies don't talk and tells him he can stop playing that game for a bit, or the sheer acceptance with which they view the idea of their thinking getting more impaired if they keep being horse and rider, but you're not sure if that's down to the effects of riding or not.
"Thanks Amy!" Vicky barks once you're done, accompanied by a grateful neigh from Dean. "And the three thing was... I forgot. Can I think for a bit, arf?"
"Sure. But stay still while you're doing it, I've been meaning to check what Infections are in your gear for a while." You answer, grabbing hold of the large rucksack your sister's been wearing for most of the last two days once she cheerfully agrees.
The rucksack turns out to have the same "Carrying Capacity" strain as the other enhanced items meant for carrying things you've checked do, while the belt, perhaps unsurprisingly given the shape of its buckle, has a bear anthro strain, and the bone spear (which hangs tantalisingly close to Vicky's enlarged cleavage in its necklace from) has a strain which inflicts a huge, horny dick and balls on those who catch it, making you rather glad it's unlikely anyone will do so.
"I remember now, woof!" Vicky announces when you're finished and about to tell her what you found. "But I shouldn't ask here. Come on, arf!"
She grabs your hand without waiting for a response and spurs Dean into motion, leading to you being towed through the air like a balloon and back into the bathroom. You'd blame being smaller and much lighter than before for it happening, but this isn't the first time Vicky's done something like this, just the first time it didn't make your shoulder ache when she did. Once you're inside, Vicky immediately reaches inside the rucksack for something, and by the time you've finished shutting the door for privacy, she's holding what you realise after several baffled seconds is the generic-looking strap-on you found yesterday in one paw, and the largest of the egg vibrators on the other.
"Dean and started having fun with this after we got rid of the nasty lizard-wolf things that were charging down the street!" She barks in response to your arched eyebrow, waving the strap-on energetically. "But I remembered after last time we didn't know what it did, so I thought you should check before I rode him with it again!"
"Okay, that's far more information than I needed, and you're washing that thoroughly before I touch it." You say after several long moments of stunned silence, repressing the image of your sister ploughing Dean's plump ass wearing the bland sex toy as hard as you can. "And the egg vibe? Dare I ask where that's been?"
"Oh, we haven't used them yet, arf. I forgot they were still in the pack. But this one got caught on the straps, so I thought you could make sure they're safe too!" Vicky says, tail wagging excitedly.
Sighing in defeat, since you do need to check both items now your powers can get more information from objects, you snatch the vibrator off her paw and send her over to the skink to make sure the strap-on is clean. You confirm what you already more-or-less knew about the eggs from the incident with one yesterday, that only the person who inserts one can remove it, and learn that the generally safe Infection within them would somehow cause the libido of those it carrying it to be under the control of others. The freshly scrubbed strap-on, on the other hand, has an effect that causes the wearer's appearance and behaviour to become the absolute preference of anyone brought to orgasm by it for half a day, and enough exposure to it could pass on a strain that turns them into a generic sex doll that can nonetheless seduce anyone and anything.
Given that Vicky's completely enamoured of Dean's changed appearance due to an effect of his strain and doesn't currently have the mental bandwidth to worry about implications unless they're spelt out to her, you're not surprised that her only response to your findings is to thank you cheerily while putting the strap-on and vibe back in her rucksack, then fling the door open and crack her "reins" to make Dean trot out of the bathroom. And the apartment itself, with Samuel intercepting her at the door, traces of alarm in his professional "Please, follow me, Dame Vicky" before he, presumably, leads her out of the building along a route where she won't break anything. A giggling Molly pulls Dinah and Free out of the door as soon as the sound of Dean's hooves has faded away, but you're reasonably sure it's a game rather than an escape attempt, and it's not like Samuel can't get to her instantly if needed, so you just let them go.
"I should probably get going too." A much better looking Missy says resignedly from the sofa. "It's not fair to Aegis if I slack off too long."
"Hang on a couple of minutes more, at least?" You call over as she starts to heave herself up. "I want to examine your vest and backpack in more detail before I forget."
Missy sinks back down at your words, and you quickly do your examination, learning that the vest unsurprisingly carries a nerdifying strain while the backpack has the same stain as the rucksack (and purse, and suitcase). You're mildly embarrassed when you say you're done, only for Missy to express surprise you didn't want to check the handheld console as well, since you'd completely forgotten she'd brought half of the pair along so you could be alerted to any trouble at Winslow while your were away. Once you're actually done, having learned it carries the same strain Uber and Leet have, Missy starts through the somewhat protracted process of getting her expanded frame off the couch again, and to your mild surprise, Taylor does the same.
"I really hope hauling all this blubber around will get easier once my belly's just 'Fat' rather than 'Bigger than a pregnant whale" Missy grumbles once she's back on her feet, poking the offending body part angrily and causing it to wobble like a plate of jello. "It's not going to be much longer before that part wears off, right?"
"More than an hour but less than two at this point, I'm pretty sure." You assure her.
"Hopefully we won't run into any food that piles the pounds back on to our bellies as soon as it does." Taylor says wryly. "Because that sounds like the infection's sense of 'humour', and even if I knew it would do that, I'm not sure I could stop myself from eating it as soon as I got hungry. I mean, I'd probably get more of it on my face than in my mouth, but you know that'd count for getting fattened up even more. And I'd probably still be hungry afterwards, to boot." Missy looks like she wants to argue about the plausibility of the scenario or her ability to restrain herself when faced with food she knows has side effects, but can't.
Your attempts to come up with a response more helpful than "Hopefully not" are thrown off course as Taylor stretches slightly and her...chest responds by jiggling energetically. It hadn't been obvious against her broadened frame while she was sitting still, but standing it's clear that her bra has inflated considerably - it's only a little smaller than Vicky's new boobs, and the custard filling is clearly a lot more...mobile than breasts the same size would be.
"Clown prank of my own." Taylor says, in response to what you think was a question you missed. "Going to need to do something to get it back under control soon. I hadn't realised it had gotten quite this bad." She takes advantage of being on Missy's "blind" side to give you a look thay isn't so much suggestive as it is explicit, and you blush hotly (and possibly let out an undignified squeak) in response.
By the time you recover your wits, the two plumped up purple-haired girls are making their way down the hall and you hurry to catch up, since you've got no excuse you're willing to admit to for how you got left behind by their unhurried waddle. Once the elevator doors have closed on Missy, Taylor turns to you and smiles.
"You wanted to check everyone's gear, right? Dinah's still in the building, we should go see her now - she might head out again if do something else first."
It's quite clear she's trying to tease you by putting off actually asking for your help with draining the bra again, but you don't rise to her bait. "Lay on, MacDuff" you say brightly instead, with an elaborate flourish of your arm.
Dinah turns out to be on the third floor, in a large apartment that looks like someone was (is?) running a day-care out of it. Only Free and Molly seem to in there with her, and the three are engaged in a high energy game of snap when you and Taylor enter.
"Hey Dinah. Can I borrow your things for a moment? I'm checking all the gear we picked up yesterday now I've got some time." You ask when the current round ends.
"Sure! Which do you want first?" The young girl replies, practically jumping to her hooves.
"The bulletproof vest first, since that'll be easier to take off now you've stood up." You say back, mildly teasing. "Then the headband, since it's got an effect we don't know how to activate."
Dinah swiftly pulls the items you've mentioned off, then wavers for a minute, clearly torn between the "polite" response of waiting on the "adults" in the room and the desire to keep playing, and you wave her back to her new friends with a fond smile. Your inspection of her equipment goes quickly, and doesn't turn up many surprises - the bulletproof vest carries a strain that makes people into soldiers, the geeky glasses can cause minor "geek-like" changes while the whip can cause minor dom ones and the equipment sack has the now familiar Carrying capacity one. Even that the standard Dinah's been carrying around can turn people into "Blessed Maidens" isn't much of a surprise, and you could probably have guessed that the sheep-eared headband's unknown ability is to encase the wearer in protective wool when endangered, given that's also an ability of the strain it grants. You get more of a surprise when you remember that you're also carrying around a couple of things for yesterday and go to check them, only to find you don't need to, your powers having apparently passively analysed them at some point without your noticing. The labcoat carries a strain for the beauty-based equivalent of a mad scientist, while the crossbow (which you don't actually have with you, with you, having left it behind in the guards room) carries Shadow Stalker's, something you didn't really need you powers to tell you would be the case.
As you're giving Dinah her things back, you notice out of the corner of your eye that Taylor, who quickly settled herself into the only chair in the room big enough for her, a large rocking chair in one corner, after you came in, is eying her swelled chest with just the faintest hint of impatience, and you decide to turn her earlier teasing back on her, just a little. "So, what've you been up to, Dinah?" You ask, settling into a hovering seat next to her.
"I met Molly fairly soon after I started looking around the allotments, and she was kind enough to show me round. There are some very odd things that grow from plants, now." Dinah tells you, seriously.
"Oh? Like what?" You say encouragingly. It sounds like the unusual plants in Winslow's rooftop garden might not be so unusual after all, these days.
"Um, well, the bushes that grow things like cheese and bacon burgers or tubs of butter were pretty funny looking, and the trees that make metal fruits and leaves were pretty, but I think the weirdest was probably the vines that grow disposable diapers? They bounced up and down al lot, and the flowers sprayed baby power at anyone who got too close." Dinah answers after a moment's thought.
"We hadta breed those real careful to make 'em that calm. They used to jump up and grab right on to any backside that strolled too close. You hadta cut 'em off the vine to get away, and it took hours for them to die enough to peel off." Molly interjects, and you're bemused to note her accent has apparently gotten much thicker during the journey from twelve to fourteen.
"I'm surprised you bothered. They sounds like a handful, and a pretty embarrassing one if you messed up." Taylor puts in from her corner.
"People were fixing to get rid of 'em as too much trouble, but Ms Jeeves put her foot down on keeping 'em. Too much laundry to do each morning without somethin' to put on people when they were babies - and on the ones who got real old before midnight, too." Molly replies, with an impish grin. "We've managed to get 'em right comfy as well. Lots of folks don't like wearing them, but better than makin' a mess o' your bed, I say. Sides, not like anyone who needs 'em can stop the nanny-types from putting them on when they do."
You shift in place and blush slightly, the talk of diapers reminding you of last night and how you woke up this morning (memories that aren't quite as unpleasant as you feel they should be), and Dinah must pick up on your feelings, as she quickly changes the subject.
"So, I learned a bunch about looking after plants the Infection has done weird things to, but I also learned things about the other groups that live around here. Mostly from people grumbling to each other while working, but everyone was nice enough to answer if I asked them to clarify something. Do you want me to tell you now, or...?" The brunette offers, earnestly.
"Now's good. We might still have to deal with them, after all." You say, and Taylor briefly pulls a face before agreeing.
Dinah stands and moves in front of the large chalkboard on one wall before starting, hands clasped in front of her, back straight and expression schooled into what would probably be calmness if it weren't for her face's new perky cast. Her pose, surroundings and even her tone of voice bring to mind an elementary schooler eagerly delivering a book report, an impression that clashes rather jarringly with what she's actually reporting.
"So, the Merchants are not really neighbours to the Clocked-Up Commune, but their bee-women can fly pretty quick, so they cause trouble sometimes. We probably will not see them today, though, they are only really active in the morning, and if we do run into any, they will probably be 'Too high to function' - they almost always are by this point in the day, apparently. They only seem to want to grab people, and just those with, um, boy parts, but they are, um, not very smart about it? It needs several of them to carry off an adult human, and they never seem to remember that until they have tried and failed to do so single-handedly. They have never managed to take anyone from within the Commune itself, but groups out in the city lost members sometimes before Clockblocker set a minimum of a dozen people in a group. Most of them revived here the next night, but it took days for them to stop being drugged, and they had had their boy bits, ah, 'Sucked off'? Most of them grew back eventually, but a few grew girl parts instead - or as well - and someone maybe ended up with no parts? That might just have been a scary rumour, though. Molly says she's heard it said a bunch, but never who it actually happened to."
Dinah gives Molly (who's been listening surprisingly patiently) a nod of thanks, pauses to see if you or Taylor have questions, and when you don't continues.
"The territory to the north of the Clocked-Up Commune is controlled by the 'Goblin Empire', but they hide all their bases, so it is not obvious, and they have dug out a lot of tunnels to move around in, too. There seem to be a lot of types of goblin, but they are all green, short and really mean - they do not think of anyone who is not a goblin as being a person, just an animal, so they say they have the right to do anything they want to them, and take anything they find anywhere. It is not clear how many of them there are in total, but it must be several hundreds at least - most of them are pretty weak, but they almost never show up in groups of less than two dozen, and often have more. They like to kidnap people and work them to death as slaves, or make them fight for their entertainment, or experiment on them in nasty ways, but when they think they have gotten away with their captives, they tend to start fighting over who 'gets them', and people from the Commune have often escaped or been rescued because of it. It sounds like they fight amongst themselves a lot, actually. Someone called Trainwreck is apparently firmly at the top as 'Emperor', but everything under him is up for grabs. Oh, and they're most active in the city at night, but more likely to attack places rather than people during the day"
You think Trainwreck is the name of a cape from before F-Day, but you can't recall much about him beyond him being active around the Trainyard and something about power armour.
"Free, are you alright with me talking about the group that had you, or would you rather I tell them later?" Dinah asks the thirteen year-old gently.
"Um, go ahead? I can go out if it gets too bad, but I got away, so I should be able to hear them talked about by now." He responds, with clearly forced stoicism.
"Okay. The group that controls the area to the south-west is known as the 'Slaver Elves'. Well, they do not call themselves that, but they change what they call themselves each time the person in charge does, and that can be several times a day, so the people here don't bother keeping track, and Slaver Elves describes them quite effectively. They are not like the goblins, they do recognise those who are not elves as people, they just think they have a right to own them anyway. There are thirteen 'Princes' who are in charge, and they are all very arrogant and nasty - to each other, their soldiers, and even more to anyone who isn't both totally male and an elf. People said they were probably all Empire Eighty Eight before F-Day, but 'believers, not followers', whatever that means? They also sound fairly...cowardly? They do not start fights unless they are very sure they will win, and run away quite quickly if they turn out to be wrong. The leaders live in a big palace that I am pretty sure used to be a fast food place, and they have fields and workshops around it they make their slaves work in. They also have some kind of way to stop most of their slaves from trying to escape, and eventually stop thinking of themselves as anything but slaves, but it does not happen to everyone, and Free never saw them do anything in particular to people before it did, so I think it might be an Infection they catch from something in the area? I'm done talking about them now, Free."
She looks worriedly at the boy in question when she finishes. He looks pale and haunted, but immediately plasters a smile on his face when he realises the attention is on him rather than Dinah, and would quite clearly rather it be off him again, so she moves on to the next group without saying anything more to him.
"To the south of the Clocked-Up Commune is what is known as 'James' Ranch'. It consists of several large fields and a fortified barn and farmhouse. A minotaur named James is in charge, and he has about two dozen other minotaurs as his 'farmhands', plus around two hundred and fifty cow-girls of different sorts. They are all very strong, but not very bright - James and the other minotaurs keep falling for the same tricks in fights, and the cow-girls all seem to have the brains of, well, cows, no matter how human they look. They are sort of friendly with the Commune, they bring things like milk and meat to trade at least a couple of times a week, and do not normally attack when they encounter a group from it in the city, but James is pretty open about wanting to take over the Commune and add everyone in it to his 'herd', he just admits he cannot do so at the moment. He used to be even worse about it, apparently, but a few weeks ago a tribe of monkey amazons from the Docks moved into the area and started causing trouble, which seems to have hit him hardest. Um, I do not know much else about the monkey-girls. They seem to be a Near-Feral animal women tribe like the ones Parian told us about yesterday, but much smaller. They only tried to attack the Commune a few times before giving up, so most of the people who have not gone out scavenging have not paid much attention to them."
"You're leavin' out the best bit! They might all look like big buff naked monkey-women, but they sure aren't ladies between their legs!" Molly says when Dinah pauses for any questions again, grinning widely and making a gesture that makes it quite clear what she's talking about.
"Um, quite?" Dinah responds, prim but puzzled, like she's aping he way she's seen her parents react to similar comments and doesn't really understand it. After a beat where she and Molly seem baffled by each other, the precog moves on.
"The final neighbour of the Clocked-Up Commune is to the south-east, and calls itself the 'Church of the Sacred Boob'. They have big breasts like the Commune has big butts, and they are, well, pretty much totally obsessed with them - having them, showing them off, seeing them, touching them. They are pretty normal other than that most of the time, and they would probably be allies with the Commune, except they sometimes seem to...snap...about the people here having big backsides and normal-sized chests and start screaming about 'Converting the Heretics!" and attacking people. They are apparently very apologetic once they calm down, but that almost always takes killing them for the day. They do not have much access to much in the way of resources, but they manage well with what they have, and are more reckless than the Commune is about going and looking for more, and seem to get 'lucky' more often than would be expected. Also, it sounds like the cathedral they live in can defend itself and them somehow."
Once she's done talking, Dinah gives a little bow and relaxes her posture, then tenses again while flushing bright red as Molly starts clapping loudly and hollering congratulations. You and Taylor are more restrained in your responses, but both make it clear you think Dinah did very well. The part-sheep girl responds to the praise in a way that suggests she's not all that used to receiving it so unconditionally (and isn't uncomfortably familiar to you at all), and fills you with the desire to offer her it more often
"Ahem. I apologise for interrupting, but you wanted to show Lady Dinah the Prism Flowers if you could, Miss Molly? They are just now beginning today's bloom." Samuel's voice, suddenly sounding from one of the apartment's internal doorways ends the continuing appreciation of Dinah's talk abruptly by making you, her and Taylor jump in your seats, and Molly jump out of hers to grab Dinah's hand.
"Great! I was worried they wouldn't before you had to go! Come on Dinah, you've got to see 'em. They're sooo pretty!" A not exactly protesting Dinah is promptly dragged off at speed, and Free quickly bids you and Taylor goodbye before following more sedately.
"Please do not run in the halls, Miss Molly." Samuel calls after her in a rather pro-forma way, before walking over to Taylor and producing from behind his back a covered tray that proves to contain a...sizable...sandwich. "For you, Lady Taylor. Please consider it a token of our appreciation of your efforts on top of keeping watch. I can guarantee to you that none of the ingredients, separately or in combination, are known to cause any sort of transformation."
Taylor makes a half-hearted protest about her having eaten too much of the Commune's food already, but her given her gaze locked on the sandwich the moment it was revealed, you're not surprised the conversation ends with Samuel putting the tray on a side table within arm's reach of Taylor's chair and departing with an "I'll leave you to enjoy, my lady."
"So were you just being polite, or do you genuinely not want it? Because I can remove the temptation for you if so." Your offer is genuine, even if "Removing the temptation" is quite likely to involve eating it yourself...or at least half of it...maybe a third...or less. It's a very big sandwich, okay!
"I don't really want to want it, but I actually am starting to feel...quite a lot hungry again, so I probably should eat it." Taylor answers, a little despondently. "Better something that I've at least been told is safe than me shoving the next vaguely edible looking thing we find into my mouth, right? That does make sense, doesn't it? I'm not just rationalising because it's a very impressive looking sandwich and my stomach's a bottomless pit at the moment, am I?"
"No, that seems sensible to me as well." You reassure her, patting her on the hand for good measure. "So do you want me to see if I can find a fork somewhere around here, or just hold it up for you or what?"
"What to do you...? Oh, yeah. That. Err, just hold it up, if you wouldn't mind?" Taylor responds, blushing a little, but also looking happier about the idea of the sandwich.
Helping Taylor eat the heavily-loaded sandwich proves much less awkward than you were afraid would be the case. You start off floating next to her chair and simply holding the a quarter of the sandwich in front of her mouth for her to bite at, but slowly adjust as the two of you get more comfortable with the idea. You go from besides the chair to "perching" on an arm, to hovering above Taylor's currently ample lap, to actually sitting in said lap, which is a little awkward for actually feeding her the sandwich due to the swollen size of her belly, but warm, soft, and generally nice for the two of you, so you make it work. The feeding itself also shifts, starting as Taylor chomping away mechanically while you pretend to be a very fancy sandwich holder and becoming much more interactive and lightheaded, with the two of you laughing and chatting between you feeding Taylor bites, and Taylor proving that she might not be able to feed herself unaided, but that doesn't stop her feeding you the occasional mouthful. It turns out to be a pleasant, relaxing interlude, and by the time the sandwich is finished, you have no hesitation in using the bib stuck around Taylor's neck to wipe first your hands, then the other girl's cheeks and chins, clean of grease, crumbs and traces of sauce, since you know that from you, at least she won't mind it.
"Huh, that's interesting." You mutter, as your power picks up on something the bare skin on both your legs, then elaborate at Taylor's questioning noise. "The food isn't transforming you at all, but it looks like it is making you a little quicker and more agile until it's digested. I wonder if butler boy knew that would happen or not? It's not all that dramatic, they could well not have noticed the effect. And speaking of, what did he mean about your 'efforts on top of keeping watch'?"
"Oh, I got a bit bored just looking out for approaching Infected, so I started using my powers to help the Timeskeepers out a little by doing things like make furniture move itself out of the way when they were cleaning." Taylor answers, demonstrating by making the sandwich platter slide out of your lap and land gently on the floor. She also sounds far more embarrassed to admit to being extra helpful with her powers than she was when accepting your offer to hand feed her.
"Why do I get the feeling you're understating how much work you did by calling it 'a little'?" You ask, teasingly. "But I thought you had trouble tracking individual Infected you didn't know that closely. Has that changed?"
"No, that's still the same. I think it was something about the room we were in? While we were there, and for a little time afterwards, I could 'see' inside the apartment buildings a lot more clearly." Taylor explains.
You nod in understanding and reluctantly start to rise from Taylor's lap so the two of you can head back to the guard room, only for Taylor to stop you with a gentle hand on your shoulder. "I thought that since you fed me, I'd return the favour before we go anywhere."
"What do you...? Oh, those!" Your question is answered by Taylor lifting her top, freeing the now massive cups of her bra and revealing their big rubber nipples.
"You don't mind draining some of the custard off, do you? There's way too much for you to drink all of it, but hopefully you can at least manage enough that it doesn't look like I've padded my bra with water balloons."
Taylor's questions are a little bit teasing, a little bit genuine, but you're too enraptured by the bounty before you to do more than nod and make an agreeable noise in response, and only even register the faint laugh doing so draws because it makes the canary-yellow mounds that fill your vision wobble enticingly. Laying yourself against Taylor's round, soft belly, you lower your mouth towards one of the teats, and when Taylor doesn't discourage you, latch on and start to suckle greedily. The custard that comes out surpasses last time's by a considerable margin, filling your mouth with warm, creamy ambrosia and sliding down into your stomach with next to no effort on your part. You don't have to think about it at all to keep drinking, which is good, because the blissful taste in your mouth soon spreads to your brain, making it hard to think at all. You just about realise that you've not only drunk far more than you meant to from one cup, but far more than you normally could, but you can't bring yourself to care, even when you feel the warmth filling your belly move to wrap around the rest of your body.
Something about what's happening must be keeping Taylor as distracted as you are, since she makes no move to stop you from completely emptying one cup, and when you detach your mouth and look up, licking your sticky lips, she's looking down at your with a clouded gaze, expression part maternal fondness, part decidedly non-maternal affection. You shifting in her lap to access the other cup is enough to snap her out of, and her eyes widen dramatically as she gasps. "Oh my God! Amy! Don't drink any more! I've made you fat!"
Surprised by her words, since even as distracted as you where, your powers would have alerted you to your body changing, you look down at yourself and experience a moment of jarring dissonance as your eyes tell you your body is now smaller, younger and massively chubby all over, and your powers insist it's not. Then the knowledge of what's going on appears in your brain.
"Clown prank, it's just an illusion." You tell Taylor, annoyed but also rather relieved.
"Yeah, I learned the same thing. After I wailed dramatically." She says back. "Do you still want to finish? I don't mind looking lopsided for a while if you'd rather not look more...all that."
"The illusion will last much longer if I don't finish, though." You think it over for several moments. "I think I'd prefer more extreme for less time. So unless you'd rather I'd not?" Taylor shakes her head and hefts the still full cup up slightly, and you happily accept the encouragement latch on.
The custard is just as wonderful from this side, and you drink it down greedily, unconcerned about the way it spreads from your stomach to strengthen the illusion. You might end up looking like an exaggeratedly cute and tiny, super-chubby pre-teen full of custard for a while, but it won't be for all that long, and you'll be a happy, exaggeratedly cute and tiny, super-chubby pre-teen full of delicious custard.
Wrapped as you become in custard bliss, you notice that there's no more custard entering you mouth as you nurse before you notice that the feel of what you're nursing from has changed. It's far smaller, warmer and softer, and you suck on it hopefully several times, prompting a sharp gasp followed by a high moan, at which point you finally realise that the prank bra has vanished and you're sucking on Taylor's actual nipple. You find yourself unable to muster the appropriate levels of shock or embarrassment to this realisation, and instead find yourself flashing your tongue teasingly across the nipple in your mouth a couple of times before you let go of it with a loud pop. "All done", you tell Taylor cheekily as you look up at her flushed face, licking your lips exaggeratedly and narrowly restraining yourself from offering to give the other nipple the same attention.
Taylor is stunned into stillness for at least a minute, and if the way she absent-mindedly puts you on her hip as she stands after you say you want to see how the illusion looks in a mirror didn't tell you her thoughts will still a bit scrambled, the fact she gets halfway though putting her bra back on while you can't help but see it as you consider your very chubby but highly adorable "new" features in said mirror, then flushes down to her still bared breasts and thunders from the room, would. Your illusory reflection sports a satisfied grin of the sort that looks rather out of place against the slightly cartoonish cuteness of its features, and you find yourself wiping it off your face before you weird yourself out more.
To give Taylor a chance to regain her composure, you experiment with the effects of the illusion a bit, and quickly find that even knowing it isn't real and exactly what's under it, you can't act like it's not there. It's most obvious in the waddling way you walk, since you can't bring your legs any closer together than the illusory thickness of your thighs would allow, and even though that should be far enough apart to walk at least as normally as if you were wearing a tight skirt, you end up walking like your legs are clamped together. But you also find yourself floating to grab things that are in reach at your actual height, but not the toddler-like stature of the illusion, and the height you can float up to is reduced to reflect the illusion's height as well. You can also, somehow, fit in to spaces that can accommodate the illusion, but not your actual size, which is weirdly non-claustrophobic, but probably not something to rely on, given you find yourself suddenly stuck while trying to crawl under a bed the exact same height as the one on the other side of the room you'd already been under, and can't shift yourself at all until your calls for help bring Taylor to investigate.
She giggles helplessly for some time at the sight of you make, with your fat little butt sticking out from under the bed and chubby little legs kicking helplessly, and pats you teasingly on said butt several times before helping. But she gets you out before too long, and promises not to mention it to the others in exchange for you not bringing up the whole thing with about how much you both enjoyed you sucking on her breasts until she's ready to talk about it. It's a discussion you'd prefer to put off until you've had a chance to think about it as well, so you're more than happy to agree. Even with those words unspoken, the air between you is free of tension, and you chat easily as you make your way back to the guard room at leisurely pace.
Even the elevator deciding make you squeeze right together doesn't threaten your shared contentment, and even it deciding it's going to take you up to the roof rather than down one floor only dents it slightly. It apparently did so to pick up Missy, becomes invitingly wide when its doors open, and stays like that until it's underway, at which point it gets small enough you end up sat on a "chair" formed by the pressed together bellies of the two purple-haired girls, since the alterative was to be stuck under them.
"Do you think it's just us outsiders the lifts fuck with, or are they like this for everyone?" Missy asks irritably a little way into a descent much slower than the ascent was.
"It'd explain why everyone who can't teleport seems to take the stairs all the time if it's everyone." Taylor says thoughtfully in response, and Missy makes an irked grunt of agreement.
"Just to check, you don't either see me looking how I looked an hour ago or think 'tiny adorable ball of fat' is how I looked an hour ago, do you?" You say to Missy after several more moments of slow downward travel. "Because I honestly expected questions about that to be the first thing out everyone's mouth when they saw me."
"No, I know something's happened since I last saw you. I just didn't want to be pushy about it if it whatever it was, was embarrassing. " Missy answers, with an easy shrug. "Also, you look ridiculously cute like that, and I was focusing on not pinching your cheeks and cooing, since I know I'd hate that."
"Oh. Thank you, then." You respond, surprisingly surprised by her attitude. "There's no embarrassing story." You half-lie. "It's just a last shot from the clown who pranked Taylor. It's an illusion that'll only last a hour or so."
"Huh. Given I was with her when she got pranked, I wonder if it was meant to hit me? Because if it did the same degree of scale to me on top of the transformation I had already, and I hadn't been aged up, I'd be like, baby butterball until it wore off." You can only shrug in reply to Missy's speculation.
It's several more minutes before the lift finally reaches the second floor, and Missy twists the space between the doors enough she can get out as soon as there's a gap, then does similar things to the space in the hallway, allowing her to get from the elevator to the bathroom of the guard room in about half a second.
"If she needed the bathroom that bad, why didn't she just warp a step down from the roof? Or ask a ninja maid to be let into one of the top floor apartments?" Taylor asks the air, and you can only shrug once again.
The pseudo-sisterly ribbing of Missy's questionable decision making is stopped almost as soon as it starts, Taylor whirling in place to glare through a wall so hard her butt nearly keeps going and spins her right round.
"Trouble's coming." She announces, then continues to Missy; "Head out the back, warp up to the roof, flag down Vicky and Aegis, then stay out of sight of the street up there and be ready to come down hard when I say." The Ward doesn't waste any time with questions, vanishing in a blur of tortured space as soon as Taylor finishes speaking.
Taylor sets off at a jog as soon as she's gone, and you have to hurry a little to catch up after wasting several seconds being shocked by the sudden shift of things from playful to dangerous, then remembering where in the room you'd left your crossbow.
"The illusion won't cause you any trouble in a fight, will it?" Taylor calls over her shoulder as you reach the stairwell.
"No, I just need to fire and fly." You call back, snapping your wings for emphasis, and prompting the inappropriately timed realisation that you've stopped actually noticing their generally ephemeral presence on your back (and the fact you trail glitter when floating, which is probably worse, given how much you've been doing it).
When you reach the atrium of the building, what looks like every fighter still in the compound is there, readying bows, slings, and other sorts of non-firearm ranged weapons. Dinah's also there, whip and standard in hand, face worried but determined, and you spare a moment to feel glad Molly and Free don't seem to have come with her before you turn your attention to Taylor outlining the situation and her plan for dealing with it. You don't like the first part of the plan much, but can't offer a better one. At least you're able to persuade Taylor to let you and Dinah join her in standing outside the closed main gates, rather than her doing so alone. The two of you don't exactly look intimidating, but it's not like Taylor does either, unless the goblins respect sheer bulk. Which probably isn't the case, and seems unlikely to convince them to go away peacefully even if it is. So Taylor can damn well accept you won't let her play bait alone! (And holy shit, this is terrible plan. Why did you agree to let her play bait at all!?)
"I know you're there!" Taylor shouts to the apparently empty streets. "If you leave now, we'll let you go, but any goblin that steps onto the road isn't going to step off it again!"
For a moment, it seems like there'll be no response to her challenge, then war cries from dozens of throats fill the air, and a tide of green pours out to the alleys across the street, the bodies in it too quick and packed together for you to register more detail than "Short, very green and even more pissed off".
"Wait for it, wait for it." Taylor tells herself as the rather pointy looking leading edge of the wave closes to ten, then five, the three meters. "Wait for it... NOW!" Her shout is a accompanied by a blast from her wand's staff form that abruptly renders the front of the wave four meters away, then Missy responds, and that distance becomes "Whatever Vista says it is, bitches". Then Vicky and Dean swoop down in a two person cavalry charge that sends green bodies flying like tenpins, Aegis breathes fire over the back line, Vista makes her battleaxe look more like a threshing machine, Dinah cheers with slightly worrying enthusiasm as she cracks her whip, and you feel rather superfluous as you fire a couple of crossbow bolts into a clump of green that doesn't seem to be being flattened by anyone else just this second.
By the time the gates have opened to release a wave of guards from the Commune, the goblin wave has largely decided to reverse direction, and the Commune's people make short work of the few who either decided to keep trying this charging thing, or were so turned round by Vista's warps they couldn't actually find back. Only three goblins, all of whom seem to have hung back at the mouth of an alley, don't do either, being too busy gaping in shock at what just happened. One's wearing low cut star-spangled (as in, made from flags) robes and a pointy hat strung with corks that says "Wizzard" on it, one's wearing only what's either an extensive collection of body piercings or the results of a tragic accident with a large box of safety pins, and the last is wearing leather pants, no shirt and a lobster on her head. After a long moment, lobster-head throws her hands into the air, sending a large brass orb flying, clicks thumb and fingers together several times in a claw-like motion, then spins and tears off down the street, capering and gibbering while still waving her hands about.
"Don't suppose you feel like doing the same?" Taylor says conversationally to the last two goblins who respond by screaming "FUCK YOU, HUMAN!" in unison, then flourishing crude metal "magic wands" at her.
Taylor casually avoids the crackling beams that shout from the wands, even when they turn right angles in the air on their way to her, Dinah springs out of the way of their rebound of the windows of the apartment building behind you with similar ease, and then things go wrong. The orb the fleeing goblin dropped finishes its rolling in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time, and Dinah's legs fly out from under her as one hoof lands on it rather than the asphalt. The beams twist towards the downed girl, suddenly faster. Taylor through herself in the way at the last second, only for the energy of the beams to arc over her body like lightning and hit Dinah anyway.
You're vaguely aware of the goblin's cackling cutting off in a terminally abrupt manner, but you're too focused on darting over to Taylor and Dinah to pay attention to why. Taylor's panting heavily, her skin is flushed, and she's swaying on her feet, but doesn't look to be bleeding anywhere, so you're worried about internal injuries. At least until your hand makes contact with her skin, and your power informs you that she's not injured at all, just abruptly horny as hell. Helping a pink and rather uncomfortable looking Dinah to her hooves, you confirm that the rays had the same effect on her, but to a lesser degree, thanks to the trait she has that blunts such attacks (and also not having been up to anything that might, possibly, have gotten her libido revved up not long before this fight).
"Are you two alright!?" Vista calls, jogging over with her axe slung casually over her shoulder and her outfit dramatically changed, the power suit having changed shape so that it's now an exact replica of Carol's Brandish costume in skin-tight, rather thin white rubber and somehow made everything else she's wearing but the tiara and eye-patch vanish (though she's still as tall as she is with the boots on, despite not visibly being in heels).
"I feel a bit, um, funny, but I'm okay." Dinah replies, squirming slightly, and Taylor makes an irritated (and mildly frustrated) noise in of agreement, still trying to get her breathing under control.
"Great! One of the goblin's left her, ah, wand behind. Do you want to check it doesn't do something on a delay, Amy?" The object Vista hands you was clearly made by someone taking a vibrator and welding a metal star on to the vibrating part. How this makes it able to shoot horniness beams is unclear, but it does. It seems to be a rather unreliable device, with a good chance of backfiring on the user or just doing something completely unexpected, but it's not going to have any further effects on the two it hit.
"That's good." Missy smiles when you relay your findings. "Now, any idea how I make this thing power down? Tomorrow it'd look...still pretty unforgiving, honestly, but right now it makes me look like Piggot after a psychotic break and feels like a full body wedgie."
You hadn't really wanted to think it, but the Ward is right that nothing but a thin, tight layer of rubber isn't a great look on a body as exaggeratedly out of shape as hers currently is, though it doesn't look awful. It's just...rather unflattering. Before you can offer any suggestions for switching the suit off, though, the clopping of hooves is your only warning before an excited blur of gold sweeps you off your feet.
"Woof, woof! Amy, did you see! Did you! I waited 'till Missy said, and I made the mean-y greenies go flying, arf, and I stabbed the metal-face green-y and made her go poof, and then I picked up all the shinnies they left! Was I a Good Girl!? Is Vicky a Good Girl!?"
Vicky's rapid-fire words are accompanied by her cuddling you to her sizeable chest and bouncing enthusiastically, which rattles your brain quite nicely on its own, but as soon as she releases you, you feel something wet brush your cheeks several times, look up to see a much longer tongue hanging out of your sister's panting mouth (past lips that that look even bigger), realise she's just licked you, and the mental fuse blows entirely.
"You-wha-to-buh-Good?" You babble unintelligibly for several seconds, but the word "Good" is in it, and that's enough to make your sister cheer and toss you in the air several times while Dean prances in place.
"Yay! Good Girl, Good Girl, I'm a Good Girl, woof, woof! Oooh, you have cute little chubby cheeks now! Vicky pinch!" Despite the fact said cheeks are an illusion, and paws not being all that suited for doing so, Vicky does indeed pinch your cheeks. Extensively, and with much fuss made of how cute you look now. Telling her it's an illusion and won't last long just gets her to bark; "Then I enjoy it while I can!"
It's entirely possible your sister wouldn't have let you go until the illusion wore off, but a few minutes in to her cuddling and cooing session, she freezes up with a shudder, and you take advantage of the distraction caused by her Infection transforming her further to slip her grasp and dart away to hide behind Taylor. The transformation itself takes the form of a number of small changes to her face which make it look more dog-like. She doesn't sprout a muzzle or a wet nose or fur or anything else so blatant, but there's definitely a suggestion of all those things in her beautiful features now, and even if she didn't have any other canine features, anyone looking at her face now would assuredly think "Dog". Think "Dumb Dog", probably, as the changes combine with the ones that made her look more vapid earlier to give her the look of the sort of cheerful, happy-go-lucky dog that never thinks of anything more complicated than "Treat!" or "Walkies!" or "Good Girl!". The impression is not helped by the fact that after all the other changes finish, her lips puff up even further, becoming a pair of pillows suitable for a porn star that you just know are going to give her an unavoidable lisp.
You don't change at all, and neither does Taylor, but a look around reveals Missy is now sporting a number of small lilac buds in the hair that brushes her shoulder blades, while Dinah now has her manicure applied to the other side, looks more like eight than ten (though isn't actually younger when you check), having shrunk several inches while getting slightly smaller and cuter all over, has the build of a serious junior athlete and a sense of barely restrained energy about her that drives her to bounce in place on her hooves when she's not darting around with even more enthusiasm than before.
You've been dimly aware of a collection of clanking noises in the distance since the end of the fight, but just as you're all about to head inside, they draw much louder and closer, and you realise they're the sound of the scavenging party returning (quite early) just before Clockblocker's voice rings out. "I just had to swerve round a goblin who thought she was a crazy lobster and the hounds of hell were on her tail! Have you guys been having fun without me?"
You pray for it fervently, but the illusion refuses to conveniently dissipate just before the Ward comes into sight, the cheering people filling the doorway mean you can't run inside and hide somewhere until your group leaves, and Taylor's giving you a look that say attempting to hide behind her will be met with a betrayal at the most embarrassing moment, so you can do nothing but brace yourself for teasing, fussing and the certain knowledge that Clockblocker is never, ever going to let you forget how adorable you look right now.
Items gained:
200 of assorted small valuables
Sheep-Hoof Gloves - A pair of gloves that look like sheep's hooves, created by a clown prank. They no longer have any enhancements, but they're still a bit less clumsy than you'd expect, and there's a certain feeling of potential about them...
Blue Rubber Bra and Panties - A bra and panties that are comically large and round, leftover from a clown's prank and made of thick, bright blue rubber. Expand and contract slightly at random when worn and are completely watertight, despite having no active enhancements, and feel full of potential for an unknown use.
Yellow Inflatable Bra - An a custard-yellow bra with inflatable cups, created by a clown's prank. It retains no enhancements, but the cups can be inflated to a ridiculous degree, and the bra feels like it has a high potential for...something.
Unreliable "Magic Wand" - A wand-style vibrator that can no longer be used for its intended purpose due to the crude metal star welded to its head. Can be used to make a CHA vs DEF Lewd attack at range that does x 3.5 post-defence damage. The damage multiplier decreases by x0.5 with each attack, and recovers by x0.5 for each hour it goes unused. Bringing a target to max LIB with an attack from the wand causes a random additional effect on the target. Has a 25% chance each combat of causing the wielder to gain a random amount of LIB after the fight finishes. Exposure equivalent to a Major enhancement.
Strain: Goblin Weirdo - Eccentric Goblin tinkers who can make all sorts of strange devices, but are even more sex mad than normal Goblins.
2xWeird Device - A strange metal sphere with a number of knobs protruding from it. Can be used once to give everyone within 50 meters a permanent random stat boost and a 33% chance each of gaining a new beneficial Trait (67% chance of being from a current Infection, 33% chance of being random). Also causes 1d5 temporary effects each which may be positive, neutral or negative and last up to a day.
The Clocked-Up Commune's salvaging party has been very successful, so they are willing to do as much duration manipulation as the party wants for free. There's also a party to celebrate the successful run brewing, though, and the longer the party remains, the more likely it is they'll get drawn into things. How much does the party have done?:
[Duration] None
(No changes to remaining duration of any effects, party leaves commune around 16:15, no chance of being drawn in to the celebrations)
[Duration] One change each
(Duration may be removed from one temporary effect on each party member and added to another affecting the same person. Party aims to leave around 16:30, but 25% chance of being drawn in to the celebrations for ~30 minutes instead)
[Duration] Multiple changes
(Any amount of durations may be manipulated. Party leaves Commune some time after 16:30(31d12 x (the number of changes made to the party member with the most) minutes later), 25% (5% for each change on a person after the first) chance of being drawn into the party for at least an hour after all duration changes complete)
Edit: For all please specify how much duration is to be moved, and what in to. Or you can choose to leave it up to chance/Clockblocker's sense of humor.
Spoiler: Duration manipulation targets
What do the party do next now they have finished guarding the Clocked-Up Commune?:
[Next] Remain for the party (Will remain at the Commune until between 17:30 and 19:00. Small Rep gain with Commune, chance of Infection exposure from food and environment, low-medium chance of spanking or other butt-related fetish gain and/or preference changes, high chance of shenanigans, chance of fight with party crashers. Greater control of what people get up to at the party than if they're pulled in while intending to go somewhere else)
[Next] Go elsewhere - Options in the spoiler below
Spoiler: Travel destinations
Taylor's LIB is currently at 84/131. Does she use the Illustrated Guide to Kink with someone to reduce it to 0 before the party does whatever they're doing next? As it is within 24 hours of the last time she used the book, the kink will automatically be Ageplay unless Taylor has the remaining two hours of duration moved by a member of the Commune first.
[Taylor] No
[Taylor] Yes
-] Write in who with (Elements of other kinks one or more of those involved have may appear, but not cause fetish gain, if they are thematic with Ageplay)
[Taylor] Yes, but have the remaining Ageplay duration moved first (Will be Taylor's first duration change if there are any)
-] Write in who with and what kink to focus on (Due to lack of practice, 75% chance of getting chosen kink, 20% chance of a related one, 5% chance of random kink instead. New kink's duration cannot be modified today. Elements of other kinks one or more of those involved have may appear, but not cause fetish gain, if they are thematic with the kink involved)
QM Edit: 26K? Holy hell, this got long on me.
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Last edited: Jun 2, 2021
May 4, 2021 ReportLike QuoteReply
bearblue, Annatar, Vhalidictes and 50 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 2, Part 9 (Afternoon)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: First proper sex scene. Hope it doesn't disappoint.
Spoiler: Rolls
Clockblocker does, indeed, make a great fuss about your "new" appearance. It looks like you might get away with just the squeal about how cute you look and seemingly reflexive cheek pinch the follow him first getting a good look at you, but Vicky barks out an answer to his question of what happened before you can spin it to keep him being restrained. Once he knows it's not just temporary but very short term indeed, a wicked gleam enters the Ward's eyes, and he launches into a one man impression of a dozen fussing grandmothers. By the time a laughing Missy gets back from warping the cycles into the compound and distracts him by asking about moving the remaining time of some of the conditions effecting your group around, you've been, amongst other things, cooed at, cuddled into his bosom, tickled, tossed in the air, and pinched extensively on both sets of cheeks. Your head spinning from you dignity being assaulted so many different ways in so little time, you don't register you're being handed off to someone else until you're already in their arms.
"Everyone keep telling chibi Panacea how adorable she is for a bit, okay? It'll do her good." Clockblocker says, before vanishing into a side room with a couple of people with his strain and all of your group save Dinah and Aegis. The later is missing, presumed patrolling again, while the former looks at you with a impish grin that tells you no help is coming from that quarter, so you look up to meet your fate with resignation.
"Well, aren't you just the cutest little butterball?" Nell says, blinking her blue eyes back down at you.
Vicky emerges, still astride Dean's back, five minutes or so into you being passed around to be fussed over, and you wonder if getting her attention will make things better or worse. Her gaze falls on Dinah before you can decide, and she beams, tongue lolling out and tail wagging furiously.
"Arf, Dinah! Help Wicky and Dean check how dumb they are now!?" She barks. "Amy too cute to ask, arf! I do bad on tests cause just want to cuddle!"
She doesn't give the younger girl chance to do more than nod cautiously before scooping her up and putting her astride Dean's back too, then spurring her boyfriend to trot off...somewhere. You doubt she has a particular destination in mind, and you're not entirely sure she can right now. This also means you're without hope of being rescued from the cooing and cheek-pinching until either Taylor and Missy are done or the illusion wears off. Pouting grumpily about this proves a catastrophic mistake.
(You're not as stuck as all that, they'd absolutely let you go if you made a fuss, or even just asked seriously, but the people passing you around are clearly enjoying themselves, and you...don't hate it? Your cheeks (above and below) are starting to feel a little sore from all the pinching, but having so many people make a fuss over you, compliment you and generally pay you attention without you having to heal for them like a performing seal first is...nice.)
By the time Taylor emerges from the side room looking for you, things are more or less winding down anyway as people are drawn off to help with preparations for a brewing party, and the final holdouts let you go with a last round of coos and (ass) cheek pinches. Taylor is almost back to how she looked this morning, making the ridiculously oversized belly she's still sporting look even more so, and she turns out to be looking for you in order to ask about said belly.
"Should go away in...half an hour or so? It's general sense of how long the Infection will keep sustaining the effect for, not countdown, so I could be off by a bit, but there's definitely less than an hour yet." You report, your hand lingering on Taylor's once again dainty cheek as she sits in a chair, the last of Clockblocker's followers in the room standing ready next to her.
"Not worth bothering with, then." Taylor says to Clockblocker, who nods. You go to find your own chair, only to be gently pulled into the purple-haired girl's lap, her arms warping around you.
"Righty-o." He chirps, waving the woman who would have stopped Taylor out with a smile. "I'll get Missy's little crying problem moved, then go make sure the party's up to scratch. Unless either of you think you can persuade her to keep it as a charm point?" It's not a serious question, and Clock just laughs at the identical snorts of derision he gets in response.
Missy barely even blinks out of the stop she's under in her own chair before she's stopped again, and Clockblocker only has to concentrate for a few seconds afterwards before he's leaving with a wave. Pulling your gaze away from the attention grabbing sight of his backside, you run an eye over Missy. Like Taylor, she's slim again except for her belly, letting you see that her natural build at eighteen is petite, but in incredible shape. Her bust and butt look to be, like yours, on the small side of average, while her hips are noticeably wider and curvier.
You lean back against Taylor while you wait for the Ward to come out of her last stop, more than happy to just cuddle in silence for a bit. The illusion wearing off makes the fit a little less comfortable (though you're almost small enough to make the soon to go away belly the only issue), but you don't particularly want to get up, and Taylor doesn't make you, so you don't, just shift to be more comfortable.
"Um, Amy?" Taylor asks, a little hesitantly shortly after you're back to normal. "I was wondering if you'd look at the kink guide book with me? Those goblin wands left me...pretty wound up, and I'd rather take care of it while we're safe."
"Sure." You answer easily, an ask a question of your. "But why the book? I can think of...okay, actually, the book probably is the more interesting option. But we could definitely take care of it more...traditionally while we're here. You probably wouldn't even need to ask to get some privacy for a bit."
Taylor blushes far darker than you'd expect from your mildly personal question. "Not here. The Timeskeepers know everything."
"Ah. Break out the book, then." You say faintly, trying not to think about the consequences of that, given how horny Infected are.
"It's still in Missy's backpack. I didn't want to ask her to take it out in front of everyone." Taylor says, looking embarrassed.
"Good call. Clock would have been insufferable." You respond approvingly, and settle in to finish out the wait.
"So that's why you said we should get the last time on that zapped off." Missy says knowingly a few minutes later. "I'd wondered, it wasn't obvious or annoying to wait out, like the fat or the bibs or the other stuff. What did you want to go for instead?"
"I figured Amy and I would look through and choose something that looked...interesting but not too weird?" Taylor offers, a little shyly, and you nod you acceptance of the idea.
"Fair enough. Maybe make sure to open it well past the 'A's' though? It'd be a waste to add a couple of hours to your milk hunger and get stuck on ageplay again." Missy teases, fishing the large book out and handing it over.
Unfortunately, the book proves too hefty to fit in Taylor's lap alongside you and her expanded gut, and ends up falling to the floor before you can do more than open it.
Missy retrieves it as you and Taylor reluctantly stand, her eyes flicking to the page it landed on. "What's going on here? Oh, polyamory. Huh, I thought that was more a relationship/lifestyle thing than a kink."
"I'm pretty sure as far as this book is concerned, any kink can be a lifestyle, so why not the other way round." Taylor says somewhat distractedly as she reaches out to take the book, her eyes wide at whatever's on the page.
"I think polyamory is one of those things where if it's a kink or not depends on who you ask." Whatever you call it, it doesn't generally result in embarrassed people turning up at ER, and you've never cared about it enough to try and get past Carol's overzealous net filter to research it, so your knowledge of it is limited. Your efforts to dredge up more are derailed when you float up to see what has the two taller girls so interested, and your brain is promptly occupied by trying to work out what's going on (and where) in the glossy image of tangled bodies that takes up most of the page.
"Makes sense." Missy mutters vaguely, then several seconds later, her eyes widen. "Wait, we've been looking too long! We need to turn-!"
"I'm so sorry you got dragged into this." You tell Missy before you get out of the older Ward's car. "Not that I mind getting a lift rather than taking the bus or being flown Air Vicky in this dress, but you shouldn't have had to give up your evening."
"Eh, I didn't exactly have gripping plans, anyway." She responds with a shrug, straightening her long purple pigtails. "And I...don't really get it, but I can at least sort of see why your Mom wanted you to have a chaperone slash bodyguard on your first date. Although less so given said date is Taylor. You'd think she'd trust her by now."
"Oh, I'm pretty sure she doesn't think this is a date, given I haven't gotten an earful about getting into a relationship with a 'Master', yet." You tell her, with as much snark as possible.
"Dinner and a movie dressed like that, and she doesn't think it's a date?" Missy raises a delicate brow. "And wait, haven't the two of you hung out a bunch of times before now?"
"Vicky was 'chaperoning' those times. From a distance. With her tongue down Dean's throat. And since I didn't say to Carol 'Taylor and I would like to go on a date on Friday', it can't possibly be one, because if it was, I'd have made a decision about my life without seeking her permission in triplicate first." Missy laughs, high and tinkling like bells, then the two of you get out and head for the theatre.
Taylor looks like a princess in her dress (but then, she always does), ignoring the stares at the white flowers growing at her temples with hard won confidence. The two of you walk in to the theatre hand in hand, Missy following with a fond smile on her face after the obligatory ribbing about sap is done with. The movie is quiet enough that you and Taylor can snuggle up together in a row of your own, while Missy lounges several rows back and abuses her powers to steal popcorn and mock the fight scenes without anyone else noticing. The restaurant you eat at is crowded enough that Missy doesn't want to take up a table of her own, but the three of you are famous enough in the Bay that the staff don't even bat an eye when you ask them to add a chair to your and Taylor's rather than send her off to find a fast food place. The Ward doesn't even need to use her powers to make things feel cosy, rather than cramped (just to ruin the day of an E88 thug who makes a hilarious face when he realises he tried to hold up a restaurant with Vista in it), and you finish the date in an excellent mood, helped by Missy driving Taylor home as well, so you get to kiss her on her porch (to dual wolf-whistles from Missy and one of Taylor's moms).
Missy proves to be a cheerful enabler for you and Taylor continuing to date, especially once you realise that "Going over to Missy's to study" is something Carol will accept without (much) question as an afterschool or weekend plan when you're not expected to be at the hospital. If she'd still agree if reminded the Ward has her "own" apartment is another question, so you don't, and spend more than one afternoon alternating study, video games and making out with Taylor on her couch, and never once see...whichever Protectorate member's name is nominally on the lease. You go on dates to other places as well, of course, and over time Missy's presence on them becomes less a chaperone, and more...
"I'm so glad you're younger than me." You moan to Taylor, while the two of you wait at her kitchen table for Missy to get in from Ward duties. "It means my type isn't entirely 'older sister figures'. Just, you know, two out of three."
"Missy is either really good or really bad at the older sister thing. I think even Sophia had a slightly confused, slightly terrified crush on her. Certainly after she got her ass kicked into juvie, she did, going by that letter." Taylor shudders, and you're distracted from weighing up if you want to know or not by the door opening.
Missy is surprised but happy to find the two of you waiting for her, though it slides into worry when you seriously ask her to sit down so you can talk.
"So, Amy and I were talking about our relationship, and, ah, taking things further, and while we were trying to decide if asking to, ah, borrow your spare room would be weird or not, we realised that...we realised that for pretty much all of the time we've been actually dating, you've been there too. So, we were thinking, err, we were wondering..." Taylor trails off, blushing, after a display of calm that would be slightly more impressive if you didn't know what the distant buzzing the whole time meant.
"We've basically been dating you too, and would you like to make it official?" You manage, ripping the band-aid off before going bright red.
"You're serious?" Missy whispers, and you both nod. "Well, some of my dreams feel a hell of a lot less dirty now." She says more loudly, breaking into a grin, before turning more serious. "We'd have to be pretty discrete in public, though. The Youth Guard, for example, would have kittens at even the hint of a story about a female Ward Leader being in a relationship with two younger girls, even if you're both sixteen now."
"Probably not all that discrete." You say, drily. "Given how few people have noticed Taylor and I are dating, I'm pretty sure we'd have to be caught on camera making out before the penny dropped. And maybe not even then."
"And, really, given how we've been acting up to now, if no one's said anything to you already, they're probably not going to. You'd think an organisation led by Legend would be more aware lesbians exist, but I'm pretty sure Assault's making a game of seeing how many tabloid photos of the two -or three- of us he can hold up while giving me a thumbs up and winking exaggeratedly before someone else notices." Taylor offers, more than a little exasperated.
"True. In that case, which of my two new girlfriends do it get to kiss first?" Missy concedes, smiling widely and making exaggerated "grabby hands". You laugh, and dart over to press a kiss on her lips while Taylor's still unfolding her stilts.
Having been conducting your relationship largely around Missy's availability anyway, involving her officially, takes very little effort. You start spending a little more time at her apartment, when Taylor's on duty and she's not, so you can spend time with her alone, and she and Taylor do the same (or possibly go to Taylor's house) when you're at the hospital. In public, the only real change is that Missy holds both your hands more often, and walks beside you rather than behind most of the time. Assault seems to pick up on the change, but, apparently just says "It's about time you noticed", and as far as you can tell, he's the only person in the Bay who does. In private, things take a little more working out, but you quickly find yourself going from resigned that your small stature means you're nearly always the one sandwiched in the middle of hugs or passed between laps to wishing, for the first time, that you were a little smaller. Taylor and Missy making out while you're between them looking up is hot, and you're just a little too big for them to do it spontaneously.
Adding Missy to things means it takes a little longer for things to reach the bedroom than you were planning when you first brought it up with Taylor, but when you get there and find yourself alternating between licking two pussies, one with blonde hair above it and the other nothing but silky smooth skin, tipping the balance of the tongue fight going on above you as you do, you don't regret the delay at all. Even when your two lovely girlfriends decide the appropriate "punishment" for your interference is take turns almost getting you off before switching who's eating you out with exaggerated slowness.
A little while after that first encounter finds you naked on your hands and knees, leaning down to suck and lick and nip and tease at the nipples of Taylor's small breasts while she uses the fingers of one elegant hand to ensure your raised pussy is very ready for the "surprise" Missy's going to "take" your virginity with shortly. Her breasts and hand are distracting enough, and your cunt eager enough, that when Missy finally gets involved, you don't register it until a hard plastic shaft is past your lips and pushing deeper inside you. Looking over your shoulder, you see the older girl wearing a strap-on long and thick enough you want to protest there's no way it will fit, but Taylor pulls your head back round and silences you with her tongue before you can, leaving you with no option but to mewl increasingly desperately into her mouth as Missy gently works her toy further and further in. Once you're fully impaled, Taylor helps Missy sit you up in her lap, then sits back and fingers herself with increasing vigour as the other girl grinds against you from behind, coxing you into your first climax from a "dick".
You're fuzzily surprised when she doesn't pull it out afterwards, but too awash with pleasure to object, until the sound of straps being adjusted is followed by the feeling of straps on your own body, and you look down to realise the harness for wearing the strap-on has somehow been converted to one keeping it inside you, securely enough it doesn't budge even slightly when Missy gives it a testing tug. Your attempt to ask what's going on is barely coherent, and not even that after she does something that makes it start vibrating softly. "Good. Nice and snug. You won't be able to take that off, Amy, but if you're good and keep worshiping Taylor's breasts like they deserve so I can slide into her as easy as you when I get back, I won't leave it on all night." You're ninety percent sure the older girl is just teasing you, but the last ten percent has you practically jumping on Taylor, who laughs and allows herself to be moved onto hands and knees while you attend to her breasts with hand and mouth.
You're far too busy to track what Missy's doing, but you know the moment she puts the other strap-on into Taylor, as the one still filling you pulses and ripples, feeling like it's being inserted all over again, even bigger. You don't get to watch as Missy brings Taylor to orgasm on her own shaft, as every movement she makes is replicated by the one inside you, and the two of you end up cuming together. By the time you get your wits back, Taylor's strapped into her own harness, and something is stopping you from moving your crotches more than six inches or so apart (and trying gets all sorts of responses from the objects inside you).
"Is...is this a tinkertech sex toy? Seriously?" Taylor asks raggedly when Missy reappears, holding a third strap-on.
"Yep! I gave Dragon some relationship advise, and now I'm a product tester! Told you I had a surprise." Missy answers brightly, then perches herself on the edge of the bed and starts working the head of the toy in her hands inside herself, making you and Taylor moan at the sensations from your own. "Now, this is the first time the three-person model is seeing use, so we need to test it thoroughly, okay? EEP!" Once the older girl has her own harness secured, you and Taylor waste no time in pouncing, and, as requested, testing things thoroughly.
(They prove to be great fun, and mostly reliable. Even the time the control for who can take them off who malfunctions and you all have to spend an uncomfortable week not letting on you're stuffed full of them is pretty enjoyable, in hindsight.)
Other than Missy sporadically producing a new high-tech toy, you also experiment more traditionally, such as finding that Missy isn't as interested by either sucking on nipples or having her own sucked as you and Taylor, but being called "Big Sister" in the right context and tone of voice makes her shudder deliciously. Especially if she knows you and Taylor are wearing normal, or sometimes slightly childish underwear instead of lingerie. Outside of the bedroom, things go pretty smoothly as well, with more problems coming from families and the need to be "well behaved" in public than anything between the three of you, and soon you've passed the anniversary of what turned out to be a first date with an additional person than the one you were expecting, and are looking eagerly forward to the anniversary of when you made that arrangement official.
"Anything you'd like to add to what you told me this morning?" You ask Taylor archly once the book's visions end, leaving only (often very explicit) memories behind.
"No! I swear it wasn't like that before! The closest was me walking in on Missy masturbating and getting "The Talk", and I repressed that in the illusion, never mind reality." Taylor answers, desperate and blushing.
"Thanks, I'd almost repressed that too." Missy mutters, slamming the book shut and practically throwing it into her backpack. "Speaking of, I vote we do the same for the elephant in the room and go check out the party Clock insisted on inviting us to. He promised booze, entertainment and people being dumbasses due to both, which sounds like just the trick for putting some space between us and that." She heads to the door, then pauses. "Not that I totally object to the bits with the two of you in them, but we should definitely take the time to think separately before we even talk about if something like them could happen outside a fantasy."
She doesn't wait for you or Taylor to respond before sweeping from the room, heels clicking sharply. The two of you share a long look before following, enough to assure each other that not talking about it isn't going to lead to things festering between you. Like a dream, the immediacy of what you experienced is fading now that you're "awake", and it's clear that trying to talk things through now will just make things more confusing later. Still, what sticks with you as you make your way towards the sounds of celebration isn't any of the sex, but two kisses, one on a porch, one at a kitchen table.
The Party is committed to sticking around and enjoying the party for a bit, but how long exactly will that be? (Choose One):
[Leave] 17:30
(0 extra Commune Rep, 1 shenanigans rolls per character, 2 chances for a fight, Party option Effects rolled once. Full food needed for dinner, no exposure roll from food at party. No effects on next action)
[Leave] 18:15
(2 extra Commune Rep, 2 shenanigans rolls per character, 3 chances for a fight, Party option Effects rolled 2 times. Half food needed for dinner, 1 exposure roll from food at party. Boardwalk will be closing up, limiting options. ~1 hour left to take actions before it gets dark)
[Leave] 19:00
(4 extra Commune Rep, 2 Clockblocker Relationship, 3 shenanigans rolls per character, 4 chances for a fight, Party option Effects rolled 3 times. No additional food needed for dinner, 3 exposure rolls from food at party. Boardwalk will be closed for the night. Actions/travel started in twilight (More difficult/higher risk of trouble))
The Spanking Oar the party found earlier would no doubt be appreciated as part of the celebrations, but it's likely the party will find it used on their asses as well if they make it available. Should Missy go fetch it? (Choose One):
[Oar] Go Get It
(Missy -4 WP, 5 Commune Rep, 5 Clockblocker relationship. Increases Gains from all Party options tagged Spank by 50%, but adds a high chance of extra libido gain, temporary butt growth and sensitivity and temporary spanking fetish gain to their Effects. 20% chance per shenanigan that a spanking with the oar will also occur)
[Oar] Don't Fetch
(No effect)
Finally, what do people actually get up to at the party? (Pick two per character. To chose the same option twice, add "x2" to the second instance):
(Getting drunk or on a sugar rush will effect shenanigan rolls until it wears off, but won't cause any stat penalties or increased risk of harm, even if you get both)
Spoiler: Options
[Amy]
[Amy]
[Vicky]
[Vicky]
[Missy]
[Missy]
[Taylor]
[Taylor]
[Dinah]
[Dinah]
QM: Dean will do what Vicky does, at least in part because he's not going to have the brains to think of not following her until 18:30 regardless. Aegis will spend the whole party up on the roof doing his best Batman impression, unless a shenanigan roll gets him dragged into things.
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Last edited: May 8, 2021
May 8, 2021 ReportLike QuoteReply
Annatar, Vhalidictes, Midnight007 and 41 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 2, Part 10.1 (Afternoon to Early Evening)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: So this update is very late and very big. Because I am an idiot, and it took me multiple times to realise that updates keep taking ages to write because I have so many things to cover in them, despite this being why I originally planned for short updates! It's also been written in chunks and out of order as inspiration struck, which I think I've smoothed out, but let me know if anything is repetitive or jarring.
Minor housekeeping note, I've changed the name of the Midnight's Bell trait to Ages Of Man, since it fits better and I thought of something that Midnight's Bell will suit better. Also added "opening hours" to the locations tab where relevant.
Spoiler: Combat Rolls
Spoiler: Amy
Spoiler: Vicky
Spoiler: Missy
Spoiler: Taylor
Spoiler: Dinah
Spoiler: Hourly Rolls
You'd expected the party to be set up outside, on the paved part of the space enclosed by the buildings, but the outside area is quiet when the three of you get there, and near-empty except for a few small groups of Farmgirls, swiftly filling handcarts with the "fruits" of various plants and erecting rather sturdy looking temporary enclosures or netting around parts of the allotment.
"This way to the party, my ladies." Samuel's melodious voice announces from the doorway you just came through as you're wondering what's going on.
Once you've all finished jumping, he leads you back inside and, by moving the hands about, reveals one of the clocks on the wall conceals a hidden door, behind which is a narrow, ill-lit staircase down. The stairs lead to a much brighter but still cramped corridor, one just wide enough for two broad people to walk side by side without touching. Or, looked at another way, just narrow enough that all but the smallest-assed inhabitants of the Commune can't avoid brushing butts as they pass each other in it, and most of the people you encounter as Samuel leads you on through the tunnel seem in too much of a hurry to bother trying, their butt cheeks bumping with various degrees of force against the feminine looking young butler's own. Fortunately, with Taylor and Missy back to their normal weight, their still bloated bellies stick out more in front of them than to the sides, so the three of you are able to avoid contact easily enough, even when the corridor is narrowed by the randomly placed concrete butts jutting out of the wall.
After a sharp turn, a shallow upward slope that seems far too long, and another sharp turn, Samuel stops in front of a particularly large wall-ass and, with a faint resigned expression, gropes the stone cheeks in several places before pushing them apart to reveal another set of dark stairs. Those stairs emerge just off a noticeably fancier lobby than the one in the middle building, and while the route and distances don't really add up, it quickly becomes clear that you're in the "top" building of the Maxwell Heights complex and equally quickly that a very enthusiastic party is happening nearby. You think the walls actually shaking with the force and volume of the beat as you get closer.
You're not sure if the large room the music is coming from is something that was here before F-Day or not. On the one hand, it seems far too big and fancy to have been built into even a relatively upscale apartment block. On the other, it doesn't fit with either the general, ah, aesthetic of how the Infection has changed the buildings in the complex either (no butts, and only the one clock), and while the inhabitants of the Commune quite clearly like to party, if they'd made this room to do it in you'd expect a less...posh...design to it. The music, the lighting and the heaving dance floor all call to mind a busy nightclub, but what you can see of the actual room (which isn't much, admittedly) is more ballroom-like. It's also a little thicker with Infection than most places you've encountered in the Commune, though that might not mean anything - the guard's room you and Taylor spent most of your time in had similar levels of Infection, and that was pretty much as it was pre-F-Day. Turning to ask Samuel about the room, you find having delivered you to the party, the suit-clad young man has vanished back into the butlerterian ether. Or possibly gone to serve drinks at the bar across the room. You can't see it clearly through the crowd and don't want to make yourself obvious by floating up to get a better look.
The three of you pause on the threshold of the party for several long moments, Taylor clearly as unsure about venturing into the noise and confusion filling the room as you, while Missy is harder to read, but you think she's surprised by the sheer loudness of it all. Or having an uncharacteristic fit of nerves about joining in. You don't get a chance to ask, as she takes a few cautious steps further inside, and is promptly accosted by Dennis, who says something you can't make out from even a few feet away, gets a tentative nod in response, and whirls his fellow Ward off into the press of huge heaving butts, where you quickly lose track of both of them. You do spot your sister as you're looking though, head and shoulders above the knot of dancers around her, arms waving wildly in the air and tongue lolling out as she pants happily. Her pose and the way she slowly turns in place suggests she's still sat on Dean's back, though you can't see so much as the tip of the pony-boy's tail through the wall of asses surrounding Vicky.
Through expressions hand gestures, and a little shouting over the music, you confirm that Taylor's no more interested in braving the crowded dance floor than you, so the two of you drift over to the wall. Hugging the wall and watching other people party is less awkward than normal with Taylor to do it with, but no less boring. Even the sheer number of sizable and shapely backsides being shaken on the dance floor does little to make it more enjoyable - partly because it's too dim, busy and loud to really appreciate any of them, but mostly because ogling strangers while standing next to Taylor just feels wrong, somehow. If you could talk about particularly impressive and/or revealingly clothed asses to Taylor without having to more-or-less shout in her ear it could be a shared thing, which would be different, but you can't, so it just makes you feel guilty. The volume of the music also makes sharing your usual fallback at parties, making sarcastic comments to yourself about the various dance drama, impractical. Which is a shame, you can see the signs of high-quality teenage drama (despite the average age of people on the dance floor looking to be early twenties) brewing in several places, but being barely able to hear yourself think means you can't even keep yourself amused doing it, so when Taylor grabs your hand and stars tugging you somewhere you happily let her do so, despite having no idea where she said you were going.
Skirting the edges of the room, you make it around to the far side from where you entered without incident, other than having to dodge a conga slash can-can line. There Taylor pulls you through an open door partially hidden behind a curtain, leading into a corridor with several small rooms on it, most of them empty but a few of them sporting card games of varying types and viciousness. None of them seem to be Taylor's destination, and while the corridor is much quieter, so you could ask where you're going, but you trust the taller girl enough to let it be a surprise. You could also let go of her hand, since there's no longer any danger of being separated by a crowd, but...you don't want to. Taylor's hand is soft and warm and the gentle contact's nice, and she seems in no hurry to let go either, so you see no reason not to just...keep holding her hand as you walk along. Well, maybe one reason – you get so caught up in enjoying how it feels and daydreaming about holding Taylor's hand in other places you completely lose track of your surroundings until a sudden blare of music jolts you out of your pleasant daze (and makes you jump halfway to the ceiling with a yelp).
Taylor lets the door she'd just pushed open swing shut, muffling the music almost completely, and doesn't snigger as she tugs on your hand to bring you back down to earth. Very conspicuously doesn't snigger, managing to fit more teasing into a few seconds of silence and a bland look than Vicky could in five minutes of exuberant chatter. Heading through the door when Taylor opens it again, you find yourself in a large room that looks like it belongs in an elementary school or some sort of kids club, with bright decor and sturdy plastic furnishings that have been pushed somewhat haphazardly to the side to make space for a small(-ish) group to dance along to a rather different sort of music than what's playing downstairs. They're doing the hokey-pokey when the two of you enter, most of them wearing the not-quite embarrassed faces of adults who don't want to admit they're having fun doing something so "childish" as the hokey-pokey. Other than Dinah, who's easy to spot as by far the shortest and youngest in the room, and Free, who's clearly next youngest despite being a very lanky fifteen year old now, the only person dancing without reservation is a very pretty and ah, well developed blonde girl of seventeen or so it takes you longer than it really should have to recognise as Molly. Partly because even knowing about the effects of Ages Of Man it's a little hard to connect the twelve year old you met just a couple of hours ago with the young woman before you now, and partly because of what her now bountiful ass does every time the song calls for "shaking it all about" and the derailing effects it has on your train of thought. Not that everyone in the circle bar Dinah doesn't have at least a Dean-grade booty to shake when it's called for, but Molly's is by far the biggest, bounciest, and most enthusiastically shaken. Possibly because every time she starts doing so, all the other dancers (bar Dinah) take a moment to remember what they're meant to be doing.
Caught up in the dancing, Dinah hasn't noticed your arrival, but you're sure as soon as she does she'll stop to check if you want anything from her. Which you don't, at least not urgently enough to interrupt her when she's having fun, so you gently tug Taylor's hands and move the two of you away from the door and off to one side. Your new position makes it unlikely the younger girl will notice the pair of you until she decides to take a break from dancing on her own, and also (entirely coincidentally) lets you discretely raid one of the groaning buffet tables, filling a paper plate with small cakes, cookies and other sweet treats for you and Taylor to share while you wait. You find yourself surprisingly disappointed that Taylor is fully capable of feeding herself again, and you're honestly not sure if it's more because it means there's no excuse for you to offer feed her morsels (and be fed them by her in turn) or because she has to let go of your hand in order to eat and hold the plate at the same time. Although, thinking about it more, if weren't for the first, she'd only need one free hand to hold the plate, so the second wouldn't be an issue, so you guess it comes back to the first in the end. It's not disappointment enough for you to regret getting the plate though – the snacks are really good, and, based on the notice/warning on the wall over the table, guaranteed by wrath of Jeeves to be side effects and prank free.
Several songs go by, each with their own dance that Molly enthusiastically leads everyone through if they don't know it, and there's no sign the music's going to stop anytime soon. "Another?" You ask quietly, nodding to the plate, now bare of anything but crumbs.
"Best not. Don't want this thing to be permanent, after all." Taylor says after several moments of obvious internal struggle, with a nod of her own towards her currently expanded belly. She's...probably right. Anything that tastes so good is probably very fattening, after all. So you don't argue, even though you want to. The pair of you can't help but sneak glances towards the buffet throughout the next few songs, though.
Fortunately for your ability to resist temptation, there's a break in the music not too long afterwards, and the dancers descend on the tables like a horde of locusts. Dinah doesn't spot the two of you standing off to the side until she already has a plate full of party food, but as you predicted hurries right over when she does, followed at a little distance by Free.
"Hello. Did you need me for something?" She asks, and even refrains for eating any of the (surprisingly biased towards healthy options) morsels on her plate while she waits for a response.
"Just to give you a quick check and make sure there's no side effects from the blast earlier." You say, lightly. "And I guess to see how bad my sister and Dean had gotten earlier, but that isn't urgent, you can eat first."
Dinah looks a little uncertain, but can't resist the delicious smells coming from the plate in her hand for long, and sets to it with a (very neat) will. You quickly confirm there's nothing lingering from the goblin's attack, and that she's not picked up any new traits since you last checked, but you keep your hand in place for a little longer, just to confirm that some of the food isn't quite as side effects free as claimed and is temporarily increasing her agility and endurance by a small amount. It's not, you think, a deliberate deception. The increases are small, and if whatever food or combination of foods that causes it are common parts of the Commune's diet, they may well just not know.
Of course, as soon as you think that, she eats a couple of pieces of fruit with an effect you'd think they could hardly miss, gathered Infection spreading out from Dinah's stomach and settling in her butt, hips and thighs, all of which promptly expand. Not by much, but the young-looking ten year-old's lower body goes from childishly flat to possessing precocious curves. Only tiny ones, entirely hidden by her dress, but unmissable to your power. And Dinah herself, if Taylor having to catch her plate as her hands fly to her backside (and then away like they touched a hot stove) is any indication.
"Dinah? What's wrong?" Free asks worriedly, stepping closer.
Blushing brightly, Dinah seems at a loss as to how to answer the question in public, and you quickly take pity on her. "I thought the food in here as meant to be side effect free?" You ask mildly.
"It should be?" The teen responds, sounding honestly puzzled.
"Coulda sworn it was." Molly says with a frown on her face, having hurried over. "What'd ya eat when it happened?"
"Um, it was the little peach-coloured fruits with the pink spots, I think?" Dinah answers, looking to you for confirmation.
"That's mighty odd. Ah eat those all the time, and they never make my butt grow. Pretty sure it's tha same for everyone." Molly says, inspecting several of said fruits on her own plate, which look a little like large, smooth and oddly coloured strawberries.
"Can I use my powers on you while you eat some of those, Molly? I might get an idea what's going on." The now-tall blonde nods immediately, and you place your hand on her arm as she pops three of them in her mouth with the other.
"It didn't have to be all at once." You mutter, looking away as she chews, cheeks bulging. At least you can see what happens without your eyes. "It looks like they don't do anything if the person who eats them is already more than a certain amount of curvy. Not sure how much, but I think it's pretty low."
"They do not have any other effects, correct?" Dinah asks, and you nod. "Then I will eat the rest of mine. They taste rather nice, and we can probably find out the limit that way."
You, Taylor, Molly and Free all exchange looks, but the expression on Dinah's cherubic face shows nothing but innocent curiosity and appreciation for the flavour as she daintily eats the five bits of the fruit she has left. You have to move back into skin contact with her to track the effects, which remain obscured by her cheerleader's uniform, and reach their limit after only two more pieces, the growth only a little beyond what already happened.
"Well, that explains it. Nothing would happen if I ate these, never mind anyone who's been living here for a while." You inform the others, and Free and Molly look relived. You almost continue on to say that Taylor's the probably only person left in the building they'd have any effect on, but your common sense wrestles the words back down your throat before you voice them.
"Makes sense, ah guess. Knew there were some dishes folks could cook up that didn't make ya grow if ya were already so big, didn't think it could be the same with just the ingredients." Molly says, then looks thoughtful. "Can you tell what bits o' food 'll do without someone eatin' em first?"
"Not really. From what I've seen, most things only do something when mixed with other things. And for things that don't..." You grab one of Molly's not-strawberries, and she mock scowls. "...Nope. I can tell it does something, but even knowing what, I can't read it more than vaguely off the fruit itself. I think the relevant bits of Infection aren't active until it's eaten."
"So, I should be careful about what I eat?" Dinah asks, with mild concern.
"Probably not worth worrying about it for the stuff in here, to be honest. It's only effects that wouldn't trigger for anyone in the Commune there's a risk of, and they'd be minor by definition. Oh, and stuff like making the eater more agile, there's a couple of combinations that do things like that and haven't been picked up on, but I couldn't tell you all those, not without spending the rest of the party studying people as they ate, and maybe not even then." Would even that do it? You're not entirely sure. If stat boosting meals were as common as they seem in the Commune's menu, you'd expect to have noticed when you were studying people earlier, but it's possible that without a baseline to compare against, short term increases don't stand out to you...?
"Which would be a waste." Taylor says, firmly, pulling you out of your speculation. "But if you're worried about what you eat, Amy and I went through pretty much all of the sweet selection with no ill effects." She winks exaggeratedly, prompting remarkably similar shy giggles from Dinah and Free.
"I will keep that in mind." Dinah says solemnly. "But first, you said you wanted to hear about the checks I did with your sister, Amy?" You nod. "They...well, they did not go to well, but it was more a matter of focus than anything else. As far as I could tell, neither of them had lost any knowledge, but, they were not particularly willing to use it if they did not have to. Dean appeared worse that Vicky, but I think...I think he was not actually worse, it was just...they were both thinking more like the animals they have traits of, and horses make less noise than dogs and are not as...playful? So Vicky could be persuaded to try and come up with an answer, eventually, but Dean could not." Dinah continues in this vein for a little while, with the upshot being that the two of them are much closer to level of very clever and well trained animals than people. Or were. It's been a while since then, so for all you know Vicky's got the brain of a ditzy show poodle by now.
"Interesting. I guess?" You say once she's done, shrugging. "Thanks for checking them out, and for letting me know. I mean, not sure what I'll do with the knowledge my sister's let her mind mush down to that of a bright show dog, but better to know?"
Dinah looks about as unsure as you feel about the situation, but is distracted from considering it when Molly presses a plate of cake and cookies on her, all but stuffing one in her mouth when she looks like she wants to ask for permission before eating any of it. Molly and Taylor have a conversation solely in eye movements and micro-expressions after that, and you can follow it well enough to join in saying goodbye and leaving the room afterwards without prompting. Hopefully without the two of you there, Dinah will be able to relax and not worry about...you're not sure, honestly, but at the very least Molly will have a much easier time getting her enjoy herself rather than focusing on you if you're not in the room.
Back downstairs, the main dance floor is just as loud and busy as before (with Vicky and, presumably, Dean still in the thick of it), and you and Taylor drift around the edges of it, heading for a set of doors on the far side that people seem to be drifting in and out of in large numbers. Once you get there, it turns out to be full of buffet tables, just as loaded as the ones upstairs. You're not all that hungry, but it's much quieter than the other room, so you and Taylor grab a plate of nibbles each as an excuse and find a couple of chairs to watch the party from.
Neither of you say all that much, and most of what's said is just comments on the food, but it's a nice, comfortable sort of quiet. You're not sure when it happens, but you look down at one point to find you're holding hands again, and you can't help but admire the way Taylor's long pink nails look, especially with your brightly coloured ones between them. When you look up from doing so, Taylor's looking at you, a soft expression on her face. You feel your cheeks pink, but when you start to unlace your hands, Taylor squeezes yours slightly, so you leave them as they are and go back to watching the room.
"Could you look after this for a few minutes?" Taylor asks a little later, holding out her plate. "Thanks. Back in a little bit." She says, standing, after you take it, then heads off...somewhere...at a slightly hurried pace, leaving you feeling mildly puzzled.
"Clock! What the hell you'd put in this!?" Missy's annoyed voice carries over the sound of the crowd after Taylor's been gone a minute or so. You look towards it, but can't see what's going on through the press of bodies, even after standing up, so you move towards the glimpses you get of Dennis' bright hair.
"Nothing! ... That's what I thought, anyway. ... Are you really that bothered by the boost? Or the belly going bust?" Dennis starts mock indignant, then various degrees more thoughtful.
"It's...alright, I guess. But not everyone wants a hippo-butt like yours! And anyway, I didn't know it was going to do that. It felt like you'd put some kind of super-laxative in it or something."
"So you're saying our curves are bulls-OW!" At the sound of a palm meeting the back of a head, quiet laughter ripples through the crowd. It also presses together as people move to discretely watch the floorshow, and you find yourself squashed between backsides on all sides.
"Don't reach for puns like that, Dennis. I'll hurt yourself."
"How much have you had to drink? It's you'll hurt yourself."
"Not in this case."
The two Wards keep bantering cheerfully, but you ignore it in favour of getting free of the crowd without either getting crushed, dropping the plates or faceplanting in someone's ass. By the time you do, Missy and Dennis are leaving the room, and you only catch a glimpse of them before they're out of sight. The glimpse does tell you Missy's now sporting a lower body that would normally be respectably curvy, but here and now is matched by half the guys. The less curvy ones.
"Are you okay? You look a little...red." Taylor asks when she gets back, literally just after you've sat back down.
"Fine." You grouse, handing her plate back. "People just need to watch what they're doing with their oversized butts. Oh! Your stomach's back to normal size!" And if there were several moments where you were trying to work out what looked different about her without realising that, Taylor doesn't need to know.
The two of you go back to watching the party go bye, but before you can settle into the same comfort state as before, Jeeves appears abruptly, asking for a quiet word.
"Do you know where Lady Vista has gone? The lookouts have spotted a Giant Feral approaching, and her aid would be invaluable in allowing our fighters deal with it relatively safely." Both of you have no idea where Missy is if she's not in somewhere the maid can find her, and saying so makes something that could almost be frustration appear on her face for a brief moment. "Rats. She used her powers to leave a few minutes ago. Typical timing, really."
"She was with Dennis when I last saw her, and that can't have been much before that. Hopefully he knows, and didn't just annoy her into warping off." You offer. It's probably not the later, given their mood, but it's not impossible Dennis managed to stick his foot right in it in less than two minutes.
"I will check with Sire, then. In the meantime, would the two of you be willing to aid our defences?" Jeeves asks, in a tone that might be pleading on someone more emotive.
"Of course. Where should we go? Taylor answers, near instantly.
"Lord Aegis will hopefully be in the foyer of this building when you get there. You and he will be better able to decide how to apply your strengths than I." Jeeves says, then simply vanishes, without any of the usual efforts to be out of line of sight first.
You and Taylor exchange worried looks, then waste no time in heading for the front of the building. Irritatingly, there's no sign of Vicky and Dean in the main room as you pass through. Because of course some kind of giant monster would show up when people weren't conveniently available to deal with it.
Aegis is just landing outside the doors when you enter the lobby, and Taylor nearly smashes through the automatic doors getting to him. "Given Jeeves called this a Giant Feral, I assume we don't want it smashing at the walls?" She asks.
"I'm not sure how much most of the fighters here will be able to do to it without that height of the walls, but...it'd be better if we could stop it before it reaches them, yeah." Aegis answers, looking mildly worried.
"Right. Can you carry me without straining yourself? It'll be quicker than going all the way round." Taylor says, walking over to the edge of the rise the back building is on and looking out over the Commune.
You follow her, and consider the zigzagging path down the slope and the way it curves around the outside of the gardens. Flying would be a lot quicker than taking it, or the tunnels, assuming you could even find your way back into them, and it's not like you could carry Taylor. But you don't like the idea for some reason.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, no trouble." Aegis says after a moment, looking a little surprised.
"Good. Let's go then." Taylor states, then looks mildly irked when he sweeps her into an, admittedly appropriate, princess carry before taking off. You follow, holding back an inappropriate whoop as you skim quickly down the hill, then rising a bit so you're well clear of the plants as you shoot across the courtyard.
The walls of the Commune are higher than you can fly yourself, but you're light enough Aegis can pretty much just tug you along as he takes Taylor over. Your aerial shortcut means that the Giant Feral is still towards the far end of the long northeast street leading up to the Commune when you clear the walls, but you can tell even at this distance that its slow, lumbering, advanced is targeted, heading towards the Commune without distraction. While you wait for more fighters to arrive, you take the opportunity to study the approaching Infected. It looks like someone put a gorilla and a hippo in a blender, with six trunk-like legs, a bloated, lumpy body and an undersized head dominated by a huge mouth full of mismatched teeth. The front two legs are much longer than the other, raising its head and shoulders above the rest of its body, twenty five-ish feet to the rest's twenty. Its broad body is something like half again as long as it is tall, and you can't be sure, but it looks like there's a long, thick, tail dragging behind it.
"Oh good, it's just a small one." Aegis says, sounding relived, and you give him an incredulous look.
"A small one? What's a big one, in that case?" You ask archly, narrowly beating Taylor to the question
"About...twice the size all round? Also, more limbs. And heads. And other bits and pieces, generally. Plus, probably no tentacles on this one, which is great. Those are a pain." Aegis answers.
"...Right." You say, once it becomes clear following a long, disbelieving pause that he's entirely serious.
"Any weaknesses?" Taylor queries, studying the approaching beast in the evening light.
"Nothing shared." Aegis says, eyes flashing through a number of odd colours as he squints at the Giant Feral. "And nothing I can pick up on. If it really doesn't have tentacles, it might not be able to handle things on its back well, but depends on what it can do with the tail. Definitely don't assume that it'll be slow in a fight, though. It looks like it won't be brilliant at turning, but I wouldn't want to bet on that. And there's not really enough room to take advantage, anyway."
"I'd say we should try tripping it, but unless the Commune has a bunch of anchor chain lying around, I've no idea what would be tough enough to do it." Taylor says, half to herself. "Amy, do you think you'd be able to do something to it with your powers?"
"Maybe?" You respond doubtfully, not terribly comfortable with the idea of clinging on to something so huge for however long it took to use your powers to shut it down. "Very maybe. I've no idea how long it'd take to have an effect on something that big even without the Infection making things more complicated."
"Then I guess we start with aiming for the head and go from there?" Taylor suggests, then looks thoughtfully at the storage form of her magic wand. "Aegis? Do you think getting in its face will get it to stop advancing? Or charge forward? I think we're going to need to buy time for the Commune's forces to get in place."
There are armed and armoured people gathered on the wall behind the three of you, probably the on-shift guards, but there's not many of them, a dozen at most. The sounds of activity floating over the wall suggest a great many more are getting ready, but slow as the Giant Feral's advance looks, it's still covered almost half the distance to the Commune in the short time you've been watching.
Aegis pulls a face and shrugs. "Risky. And no idea. They're not all that predictable. But it'll reach the walls before they're ready for sure if we don't do anything so it's probably our best move. I'll-."
"AWWOOOOO!" Whatever self-sacrificing idea Aegis was about to offer is drowned out by loud howl echoing off the buildings (accompanied by a shrill scream), followed moments later by a loud BOOM as something crashes into the Giant Feral's torso hard enough to make it skid several dozen feet down the street.
"The sad thing is, I can't tell if the animal brain has made her tactics worse or not." You sigh, looking at Vicky trying to pull the spear her "mounted" charge has embedded in the beast's chest free. Taylor and Aegis don't reply, being too busy rushing to get into combat range before the monster recovers.
The giant takes several seconds to shake off the shock, then apparently needs several more to work out what to do about the small thing now bracing four hooves on its skin while his rider tugs hard at the spear's shaft. It's response of "slowly lower head, roaring madly" Doesn't have the result you think it hoped for, as a high pitched cry of panic precedes a whip flashing out from the small form you'd not noticed sitting in front of your sister and in to its mouth. Where it knocks out several table-sized teeth. Then, as it rears up in pain, a barrage of lasers from Taylor blast out several more. The bolts you fire as you flap frantically to catch up don't further abuse it's mouth, but only because they somehow end up in its eyes. You're pretty sure they're more like really annoying bits of dust than actually damaging, but the creature doesn't seem to enjoy the whole experience, and starts thrashing frantically, looking like it wants to hold its face, but can't move right to do so.
Focusing on its head lets you keep the Giant Feral too distracted to advance on the Commune, but after several minutes, you don't seem to have made much progress towards actually injuring it, and it doesn't seem inclined to retreat. You've forced it further away, but not all that far, and only though sheer force on Vicky's part. Given how madly Dinah, whose shrieking switched from terrified to excited as the fight wore on without her falling off, has been cracking her whip at it, you're pretty sure its obedience effect isn't going to kick in any time soon, and, from what she's muttering, Taylor isn't having much luck asserting control over it with her powers either.
"Look out!" A shout from Dinah makes you look away from the massive leg you were considering the risks of grabbing at the knee, and you see Dean galloping rapidly through the air to avoid the Giant Feral's huge tail, which is arched up and swinging through the air over its back with the force of a speeding truck.
It's also, you see when Dean moves back in front of the beast and it stops swinging, not a tail. Your mind rebels at what it is for several moments, but eventually you've got to concede that it is, in fact, a giant furry dick, foreskin pulling back to reveal a bulbous, glistening tip. You have to fight very hard not to throw up the party food you ate earlier at the sight. And then again, moments after you succeed, when a vision of catastrophe strikes you.
"Don't even think about charging that, Victoria!" You call up to your sister, getting a disappointed whine back that tells you you've narrowly averted disaster. Or at least disgusting.
"That's...probably a weak spot. But I really don't want to." Taylor half-whines as she looks up in revulsion.
As she raises her staff to fire anyway, space seems to twist behind the monster, and then there's a sound like the world's largest meat cleaver hitting, and its latest bellow of rage trails off into gurgles, then a death rattle as it collapses like a felled tree, kicking up a great cloud of dust from the street. By the time it passes, Vista is standing in front of you, inspecting the enormous corpse and the great hard-light blade of her axe with satisfaction. (It might be a coincidence that her positioning means anyone looking towards the fallen monster will also get an eyeful of her definitely expanded backside while her suit's in its skin-tight combat mode, but you doubt it.) As Dean and Aegis land next to your, she turns and grins widely at you all, dismissing the blade.
"Looks like I got here just in the nick of time!" She says, enthusiastically and not quite a shout, spreading her arms and posing dramatically. Which shows off very emphatically that her belly is back to normal size too, and her athletic form looks very good from the front in skin-tight rubber as well. "What does that make me?"
You and Taylor give her matching blank looks, having no idea what response she's fishing for and Dinah looks politely (and very cutely) uncomprehending of her words, while Vicky and Dean look like they're not really comprehending words in general right now. Aegis rolls his eyes so hard they go white, and mutters something like "Should never have let you watch that", prompting the other Ward to pout at him, fluttering her eyelashes soulfully.
"It makes you the big damn hero, Vista!" Clockblocker's cheerful voice comes from the direction of the Commune, and you look over your shoulder to see a the walls lined with people and a large group arrayed in front of the doors, most of them looking utterly stunned (and a certain portion of them rather queasy). You can't be sure, but you're pretty sure the average ass size amongst the group, much like the average age, has gone up slightly but noticeably since the end of the scavenging expedition.
"See? Clockie gets it!" Vista says, warping the space away so she can throw an arm over her fellow Ward, as the shock wears off and people begin to cheer.
Clockblocker doesn't let it go on for long, thought. "Alright! We can toast to the big damn hero back at the party, but let's get as much as we can off this before it breaks up! Guards, good response time, harvesters, time to haul ass, it won't last long!"
Looking the remains of the Giant Feral over, you see a large amount of the severed penis has already dissolved (starting from the cut, unfortunately), while the rest of its body is still holding together, but looks...tentative, somehow. Like a strong wind will blow it away. Flying over to place a hand on a leg and see if your powers can still get anything from the Infection in its body, you feel something like a shock pass from your hand to it, and the whole corpse suddenly becomes more...real.
After several puzzled moments, you remember about the very first Trait you picked up yesterday. "I can keep it intact for a while." You shout over to Clockblocker and the first group of people approaching with tools and intent expressions. Then you focus a bit, and continue. "But not a long while, so probably still hurry?"
You get cheers back, but don't pay them much mind, already concentrating on what your power is telling you. The Giant Feral is mostly dead, but big enough for bits to remain slightly alive for a while. Without Natural Predator's effect keeping it from dissipating, even those bits wouldn't be enough for your power to work with, certainly not in the time available, but with it... You think at first it's not working, when you don't have a strain profile begin to build in your head, but then the patterns in what your power is reporting become clear. There's no "Giant Feral" strain responsible for things like the creature you just fought, nor any traits, at least technically. There are a number of things quite like traits, but they're not compatible with "ordinary" Infected, and they're subtly different in various other ways as well, the most significant of which is that rather than describing what changes will happen, they sum up the changes that have happened. At least after the Feral carrying them made the transition to a Giant Feral. Or rather, Ferals. You think. Giant Ferals are the result of a large number of Ferals with different strains combining into a single Infected, and it's not clear to you how much of their individual consciousness remains afterwards, at least in part because you've only examined the one fully Feral Infected, so you can't be sure how much consciousness they have in the first place. You're also not totally clear how and why the merger happens in the first place, but it definitely requires a large number of Ferals in a small area, carrying a number of different strains - four or five minimum, assuming you're right that this one was weak because it was only formed from a small number of strains. Not that you're totally sure it had five strains, with the way they've been shredded and mixed up together, but it seems likely. And if more strains means a stronger Giant Feral, then the way they're blended would explain why the stronger ones Aegis described seem so...pieced together.
You finish your study of the Giant Feral in time to watch the last of the...harvesting? Processing? Of the beast's remains. Which basically involves people who you'd guess from their looks have the Clocking In strain approaching it with various tools, then seeming to briefly blur themselves and an area around them, after which there's a pile of fur and hide or meat or bone or odder things next to them, then they step back to drink and eat quickly while the pile is taken away. In the time you've been focused, they've rendered pretty much everything but the leg you were touching down to little more than a skeleton. A quick conversation with Nell, who seems to be in charge, reveals they've gotten enough off the rest to not worry about the last leg, so after a minute or so longer for the last round to finish up, you let go of the leg and step back. It starts to dissolve immediately, but you think that's more down to the rest of the body being pretty much broken down already when you let go, rather than just you letting go.
Other than Taylor and a few guards, everyone who wasn't working on the corpse seems to have headed back inside and (presumably) back to the party, and those who were are quickly packing up to follow now that it's done. As you cross the foyer to do the same, however, Nell asks you to take a look at something they found, something they've never seen before. Which doesn't necessarily mean much, they've not exactly killed a lot of Giant Ferals, but this is strange enough that Nell is definitely going to take advantage of your ability to analyse items before she lets it inside the Commune.
It's an irregularly shaped chunk of amber about the size of an adult man's fist, utterly covered in detailed carvings of animals and pulsing with faint orange light, regularly as a heartbeat. Which is appropriate, as it's a heartstone. A "Lesser Animalism Heartstone", specifically, not that that means much to any of you before your powers tell you about its (fairly potent) effects. Firstly, sleeping in the same room as it for four hours permanently makes those who do some or all of stronger, faster, tougher and more perceptive, at the cost of making them less able to think and communicate, and quite possibly more animalistic in behaviour and appearance, until they sleep outside of its light. Repeated activation the stone's effects without sleeping elsewhere in between increase the potency for both good and ill, and can possibly lead to permanent transformations if done enough times. The heartstone's second power is a "Blessing", activated by touching it and focusing of fifteen minutes, and it makes those under it larger and more animal-like in body and mind, bolstering their physical capabilities and perceptiveness at the cost of their other mental faculties. The effect would last for three hours, but can be stacked, making it stronger (to a point) and longer lasting (potentially indefinitely), though keeping it up longer than a day risks permanent consequences, which would probably be the transformations "sticking", though you can't be sure. You also get the impression it can be used with a Lair somehow, but can't work out how or what the effects of doing so would be.
"Sounds a mite risky a thing to keep around." Nell says thoughtfully after you tell her and Taylor what the stone does. "Folks ain't always that good at judging how far's too far 'specially when getting power's involved."
"Hmm. I can see how it could go wrong, but I think it's too useful if used right to lock it away or destroy it or whatever." Taylor counters, eying the stone considering.
"I don't think destroying it is an option." You put in. "Maybe if Vicky hit it really hard, but I don't know if that would make it blow up or something. Just leaving it lying around or whatever wouldn't be a good idea, though."
"Y'all can have it if you want then." Nell offers, a little unsure sounding, before she scowls and continues more confidently. "Yeah, for sure. Some folks might complain, but if they didn't want me making calls like this'un, they shouldn'ta given me tha' job, and my call's this rock ain't something we should keep around. Might ha' ta give you less of a cut of the rest than you earned to quiet the bellyachin', though." She finishes, rubbing the back of her head embarrassedly.
"That's fine." Taylor says after you exchange a glance. "We don't have all that much use for most of it at the moment, anyway. Might have needed the meat to keep me and Missy fed tonight, but since you guys fixed that up... Honestly, we don't need anything more."
"Ya might not need anythin' from it, but ya deserve some." Nell replies, sternly. "Ya'll brought that beastie down before we could even start trying and Miss Panacea helped us get pretty much everything we could off it."
She and Taylor continue to go back and forth on the subject of rewards, but movement in the corner of your eye pulls your attention away from the good natured debate. You don't see anything at first when you turn to look, but just as you're beginning to think you imagined it, you spot something shift in the shadows under a table that was previously stacked with monster hide. You can't tell what it is, exactly, but it's too large to be a rat or something, and something about it puts you on edge. Which means when you move closer and it suddenly shoots towards you, you jump into a sort of floating handstand, slamming your hands down on it. It bucks in your grip, and withes in a disconcerting way for something made of what feels like bone. Your power promptly inform you it's an Infected item (no duh), and that it's tying to insert itself into your vagina. Or mouth, or ass, but preferably vagina. Given it's a phallic looking object about the size and thickness of your leg, this knowledge prompts you to grasp it even tighter, and as far away from your body as possible, and also call for help. Amazingly, it doesn't break free before Taylor and Nell are there to help hold it in place, and you're able to turn your powers loose on it properly. They can't tell what it does, other than stay inserted in a victim for quite some time, but they can work on it, despite it not being alive in any real sense, so you try to knock it out. Which seems to work, even if it dissolves immediately after it stops struggling.
"Tha' hell was tha'?" Nell asks, panting, afterwards.
"Some kind of...Trojan horse thing? I'm pretty sure it came from the Giant Feral's body, then hid itself until it could surprise someone and, ah, insert itself. Not sure what'd happen after that." You answer.
"Probably nothin' sneaky, given the size of it. Any lass with that in 'em 'd look like they were stuck on a spit to roast!" Nell says, wide-eyed. "And as the lass likely to be here on her own soon enough, thank you kindly for spotting it before I ended up with a fourth leg."
"Wouldn't it be a third leg?" You check as you speak, but you're pretty sure she's only got the regular two.
"Nah, already got one of those." When you look puzzled at her answer, Nell points at her crotch and waggles her eyebrows meaningfully, then laughs as you blush. "Anywho, you might want to get right side up again, 'fore your friend's eyes get stuck."
At which point you realise that not only are you still holding a handstand pose in a skirt, with predictable consequences, but your relative heights and locations after dealing with the giant-sized dildo means Taylor's reddening face is about three inches from your ass. Feeling your cheeks start to match hers in colour, you quickly move away and flip to be feet down again, stammering apologies and, after several moments, getting equally stammered ones back.
You could probably work out how to get into the tunnels now you're not in a hurry, but instead you and Taylor take the outside path, walking hand in hand past the allotments in the courtyard and then up the surprisingly decorative path to the top of the rise the back building is on. It's possible that if you'd hurried back, you could have avoided the somewhat out of hand situation you found in the ballroom, but then again, maybe not. And everyone involved bar Missy and Vicky was, at this time of day, an actual adult of at least twenty-something, so if they decided to start spanking each other senseless (literally in some cases) on the dance floor, that's not exactly your fault, and who's to say it wouldn't have happened anyway, even if Missy hadn't been away when the Giant Feral was sighted because she was fetching the Spanking Oar from Winslow. Certainly not you.
Not that you realise that's what has people's attention at first. You notice the quieter music, relative lack of dancers and the large, cheering, group near the back windows, of course, but you're more focused on Dean, standing of to the side with a placid expression on his long face. Alone. Without Vicky on his back.
"Where's Vicky?" You ask, looking down into dull eyes, in a face that's the picture of "the lights are on but nobody's home".
Dean gives a horsey snort, and the way he looks at you makes you wonder if he even recognises you, let alone understands the question, but eventually says "Food", with a head toss that might be in the direction of the buffet room.
He doesn't elaborate further, and further talk/questioning reveals that he doesn't really follow any sentence longer than a few words, never uses more than one to respond, if he does, and can either no longer do things like basic addition or just doesn't want to for you and Taylor. You honestly can't tell if he's in a bad mood, no longer interested in...pretty much everything, or near-totally uncomprehending of it. The sound of barking gets his attention instantly, though, and you follow his gaze to see a trio of maids approaching with buckets, Vicky bouncing around them, loudly cheerful. Around their legs, specifically, because your sister is scampering around on four paws as easily as if she was born that way. Her shoulder and hips look different, you think, and so do all four legs... Starting with the fact her arms are so leg-like at the moment you forgot she has arms, not forelegs. You don't get chance to study the changes in detail, though, because as soon as she sees you, Vicky bounds towards you, and you find yourself knocked to the ground, part-pinned beneath warm weight while something wet brushes energetically over your face and your name is loudly, rapidly barked.
You sister is lying on you and licking your face, you realise distantly, most of your brainpower deadlocked over whether this is the best or worst thing that's ever happened to you. She doesn't seem inclined to stop, either, and doesn't even notice when what you think is Taylor's arm tries to push her off. (Un)Fortunately, her attention is diverted after what's either an eternity or thirty seconds when one of the buckets is set down with a clunk nearby and she leaps off to investigate.
By the time you're on your feet and wiping your face with a maid-provided towel, all the buckets are on the floor, and Dean has his face buried in one, while Vicky is poking her nose inquisitively at all of them, despite having seen them being prepared.
"Vicky? Why is Dean's butt red? And bigger?" Taylor ask, sounding like she's not sure she wants to, but feels she has to. You've been doing your best not to look at Dean's not particularly covered up ass, or even near it, but you can't help but do so at Taylor's words, and it is indeed rather red and noticeably larger.
Vicky's ears prick up and she looks blankly towards Taylor for a long moment, then looks at her boyfriend's ass for several more before something vaguely like understanding appears briefly on her face. "Missy do oar trick! We help!" She barks, looking inordinately proud of this and wiggling her own backside, which looks substantially more sizeable under her skirt when you (unavoidably) inspect it.
"Should that sound worrying?" Taylor asks you quietly as Vicky finally decides on what bucket to eat from, and you shrug in response.
Two of the buckets, including the one Dean is eating from, contain what look like the vegetable scraps from making the food for the party, and two contain what you're pretty sure is the bits of food that weren't suitable for serving, all thrown together in a way that looks mildly disgusting to you, but doesn't stop Vicky from attacking it eagerly. The last two, the largest, prove to be entirely full of beer, something you don't notice until your sister's already lapped up half of one. Not that it matters if she gets drunk, you suppose. She can barely add two and two and can't be bothered to try already, it can hardly make her any dumber or more scatterbrained.
Watching your sister and Dean eat like animals out of buckets isn't all that interesting (or pleasant, despite something in the mix growing Vicky's ass until her skirt is strained tight across it), so after admonishing Vicky to be good, you and Taylor head off across the room to see what's going on there that's keeping so many people's attention on something other than dancing.
As you get closer, it becomes clear that the continual cheering you've been hearing is people counting from one to ten, excitedly and repeatedly. A break in the shouting accompanies one in the crowd, and several people wander though out, looking rather out of it and in most cases touching their asses in various mixes of pain and wonderment. The two who aren't touching their own asses are touching each others, and that pair of embracing men are clearly heading for the doors, even if they pause to make out. Repeatedly. The others variously head for the dance floor, join the crowd, or get back in to what you now realise is a line. The crowd is too tightly packed to tell what it's crowding around, but it's easy to float yourself up to look over their heads, letting you see the small empty space and the row of nine people in it, kneeling with their backsides in the air and anticipatory expressions. As you watch, a woman hands the wooden paddle you found in the cache to the person at the front of the line and takes her place in the row, looking even more eager than the people around her. The person now holding the Spanking Oar steps forward, picks out someone in the row apparently at random, then without ceremony smacks the oar hard into their presented rear, to a shout of "One" from the crowd. They keep hitting the same person until the count reaches ten and the targeted butt is slightly but unmistakeably bigger, then switch to someone else, and in this way quickly work their way through the whole row, after which they count nine more people in from the queue, and off the oar, and kneel to be spanked themselves.
"At least they're enjoying themselves?" Taylor offers in a baffled voice after you've watched this cycle repeat a couple of times and seen someone with a particularly enormous ass not quite split their pants when it grew and then be bundled off by butlers when they looked about to start masturbating there and then afterwards. The crowd cheered this sequence of events vigorously, and you're honestly not sure which part was responsible.
"I guess?" You say, looking around. It's hard to be sure, given the average ass size of people in the Commune, but you get the impression a fairly high percentage of the people in the room have backsides considerably larger than they did an hour ago, and you don't think the food is the main culprit. The people staggering more than dancing and couples making out in not exactly discrete places are probably more down to the free flowing booze, at least. (Even if the Oar has no doubt contributed to the general increase in levels of horniness in the room compared to earlier.)
You also spot Missy and Dennis at the bar, Missy on a stool in front of it and Dennis digging around behind it, so for lack of anything better to do, you and Taylor head over to see what they're doing. "-not saying I don't get why you'd want to party, but given the whole supplies thing, I'm kind of surprised how much food is getting dished up." Missy is saying as you get in earshot.
"Eh, food's not really the issue, the allotments do pretty well there. Grabbing more variety is good, but it's other stuff we're short on. Running out of soap stinks." Dennis answers, voice muffled by the cabinet he's got his head inside. His position, and even more strained looking shorts, makes it readily apparent that his backside is even more massive than it was earlier, but it doesn't seem to be slowing him down any.
"Variety like more types of booze?" Missy asks dryly, waving a hand at the collection of differently shaped and coloured bottles on the bar top as Dennis makes a triumphant noise and straightens carrying several more to add to it.
"Nah, there's a wholesaler or something about halfway down the block to the south. If we couldn't get that far a couple of times a week even with all the beer you can carry away on offer, we'd have bigger problems." Dennis says with a grin, then spots you over Missy's shoulder and grins widely. "Ladies! You're just in time! Care to join my comrade here in losing your drinking virginity with the ultimate clocktail?"
You almost say no reflexively, but then you remember that your main reason for staying well away from booze at parties - Carol's reaction should she suspect you've so much as stood too close to spiked punch - is no longer a factor.
"Offering alcohol to minors? For shame, Clockblocker, for shame. What kind of example is that for a Ward to set?" You say scoldingly, managing to keep a straight face for about half a second after you finish, then breaking into a grin to match his. "You know what? Why the hell not? Hit me."
"It wouldn't by the first time I've drunk. Unless you mean drinking alcoholic unicorn puke, rather than beer." Taylor says, pulling a slight face and eying the glasses Dennis is beginning to add layers of coloured liquored to dubiously. "I wasn't a fan."
"Oh, trust me, this will taste much better than beer." Dennis responds, flourishing the current bottle and nearly dropping it.
"Well...alright then. But I reserve the right not to finish it if tastes as sickly as it looks." Taylor says, taking a seat on a barstool and nearly making Dennis drop another bottle as his eyes flick towards her long legs and get stuck. Normally you wouldn't miss the chance to rib him over that, but for totally unrelated reasons, you misjudge where the stool you're settling on to is and have to flap your wings undignifiedly to avoid ending up on the ground.
"So, Missy. I see the Clocked-Up Commune has an oar remarkably like the one we found this morning. It seems very popular." Taylor says, conversationally, as the complicated cocktails are created.
"Ahahaha?" Missy laughs sheepishly. "Yeah, it, ah, came up? And Dennis pretty much begged me to fetch it, and I guess I took it out of the backpack at the wrong moment? There was a lot of attention and it was pretty much demonstrate on Vicky before she demonstrated on me, and I didn't have a lot of confidence on her controlling her strength? After, she insisted I do Dean too, and then, well... I could have done without a certain person who shan't be named but likes clocks smashing my ass with it as I walked away, though." Irritation at Dennis seems to help Missy regain her composure in the face of Taylor's impassive interrogation.
"And I'm sure you didn't enjoy taking a paddle to my sister and Dean's asses at all." You snark at her. She splutters and makes a series of funny faces, but before she can either manage a response or you can think of a way to tease her further off balance, Dennis sets a full to the brim glass down in front of each of you.
"Really needs a little umbrella and some fruit to tie it off, but needs must. Presenting Clockblocker's Clock Off Clocktail." Dennis picks up his own neon rainbow in a glass. "Best drunk like so...three...two...one...CHUG!"
Dennis is bizarrely charismatic when he wants to be. That and very good at getting people to go along with things they should know better to do. That's the only way you can explain deciding to copy him, lifting the glass to your lips and tipping it back to swallow as quickly as possible. Unlike the huge-assed Ward, you only manage about a third of it before you have to stop, to breath and process the mix of tastes flowing over your tongue.
"Not only no but hell no." Taylor says, desert dry, as she takes a small sip from her own glass that doesn't even get through all of the red first layer. On your other side, Missy hasn't managed to down the whole thing already like Dennis, but she's still working through it, and you start drinking again in order to catch up as Taylor continues. "You should probably drink the rest-. Never mind. The only thing these two are likely to be 'clocking off' now is consciousness, you realise?"
"Nope! It has been tested, and it is impossible to pass out due to drinking these!" A...voice...says, either close by or far away. You can't tell, it keeps moving. "Or throw up. Forget how to work a door or count your own fingers, sure. Stare giggling at your own reflection for half an hour or piss yourself or think you're a light fitting for a bit or stuff like that, also rare side effects. But I swear there's no risk of actual harm. Just...very relaxed drunkenness."
"Very relaxed? That's why Missy's pretty much vibrating in place, then?" Taylor's wonderful words fill your ears as you reach the bottom of your glass.
"That's...ah-ACK!"
"Clocky! Let's Dance! Show me how to shake my booty!"
A gentle hand grabs your arm as you try to follow the knot of space where Missy was a second ago, and you're pulled away from it, over your own stool and then into a lap, where the hand turns into a firm hug. "Let him reap what he sowed. Stay with me?" You nod at Taylor's soft question, and feel a chin rest on the top of your head.
"Okay, we're going to need to move somewhere more comfortable that a barstool." Comes...a bit later? "But first, can you tell with your powers that you're not in danger of like, alcohol poisoning or something?"
Your powers dutifully report when you think about it that there's a massive amount of alcohol in your stomach and moving in to your blood, but thanks to the Infection, in it and you, there's no risk of it damaging you, which is good. That same Infection might also be why you got drunk so quick, which is less good, but you feel fuzzy and happy and nice and soft around the edges, so it's not too bad if so.
"I'm good!" You chirp. "And I'm not drunk you know?"
"Oh, really?" Taylor's totally laughing at you inside her calm voice, but that's fine.
"Nope! I'm totally wasted!" You can't help but laugh at your own joke, which is trashy, but it gets a startled laugh out of Taylor, so it's fine.
"I never would have guessed. Come on, let's grab some chairs." But you're comfy in Taylor's lap! She cruelly stands up regardless, even when you latch on to her like a koala. But you're light enough and small enough she can just walk with you like that even while still holding her glass, so you guess it's fine.
You kind of miss what happens next, but you're sitting on a Taylor who's sitting on a comfy chair, so its fine. It's a comfy chair sized for Commune butts, so you could probably sit next to Taylor in it, but you'd be squeezed in tight, so it's not like you'd be less in contact doing that, so you don't see why you should. Instead, you lean back against her, rest your head against her shoulder and watch the dance floor.
There's more people there now, but still much less than earlier, so you can see individual people rather than a mass even though your vision is kind of swimming a bit. Loud, appreciative howls draw you attention to Dean doing some stupid, prancing four-legged dance, flaunting an even more oversized sissy ass than he had before at your sister, who's panting as she watches, tongue hanging out and probably drooling. You consider shouting...something...but getting close enough to be sure they hear you is too much effort and too much leaving Taylor for something that'll be ignored anyway. To distract yourself, you go back to watching Missy dance with massive enthusiasm and minimal skill. Dennis has managed to avoid injury, at least, even if his smile is a little...fixed.
As you watch the dancing, a realisation steals over you. "My butt's too small." You say, and Taylor makes a startled noise for some reason. "I mean, it always has been, and I've just kind of dealt with it, because what can you do about that? Without surgery. Or my powers. But they don't work on me. And surgery would be a pain in the ass. Literally ahaha." You don't actually mean to laugh, but you kind of can't stop for a bit. "What was I... Oh, yeah! I was thinking to myself. 'Amy' I thought. 'Amy, this is a whole new world. A world where if you want a big butt, you can go and get one'. And I'm totally gonna do that! In a minute. When I think of how."
Taylor makes a totally unjustified sound of disbelief, but before you can come up with a totally awesome idea to show her, hands tug you off her lap. "Me too!" Missy shouts above your head. "I wanna bigger butt too! Come with me to get one!"
"Yours is loads bigger than mine already." You point out, digging your heels into the air to stop the Ward from dragging you off.
"Well, yeah, but it's not big, is it? Just look at everyone!" Missy lets go of you to wave at the room in general, and looking around you have to concede that despite her backside being pretty large now, it's still the third smallest in the room by a considerable margin.
"You're right!" You gasp. "But how are you going to get a bigger one?"
"The oar, duh! There's not even much of a queue now!" Missy grabs you again, and starts moving towards the still cheer counting circle, almost overbalancing on her huge heels when you don't resist this time.
"I should stop this. I really should." You hear Taylor sigh. "But I'm weak, so I'm going to pretend it's a learning experience about being drunk." You're not sure if she's talking to herself or not. But she says it pretty loud.
"Don't be silly, Taylor!" Missy calls back. "I'm not drunk."
"No, you absolutely are." Is shouted back as Taylor stands to follow.
"No I'm not! I can't be! Being drunk sucks, and it makes people all shouty and angry and unreasonable and nasty and never happy about anything. But this is great and I'm having fun with everyone. So I can't be drunk!" Missy explains, and you nod along with her logic. Even if you're pretty sure that Vicky's been drunk before and none of those things.
Taylor holds up a finger, opens her mouth, pauses and sighs, lowering the finger. "There's no way this conversation will be productive right now. Let's revisit it in the morning, when the hangover will be on my side."
You and Missy get in the queue, and it's not long at all before you're at the front, and then kneeling side by side on the floor, butts thrust out. You're pretty sure the woman doing the spanking leaves the two of you for last deliberately, but the watchers cheer extras loud when she starts Missy's spanking, so it might just be a showwomanship, even if the anticipation is awful. The paddle of the oar sounds very loud when in smacks against the rubber of Missy's skirt, but the purple-haired girl bites her lip and doesn't make a sound until the tenth one, and her cry then isn't exactly a pain one. But then it's your turn, and unlike the currently older girl, you can't keep yourself from gasping in pain as the first blow hits your rear, even with your skirt and panties in the way. It's not even all that hard, and you're pretty sure you're getting less powerful blows with longer pauses between them than anyone else, but even though it stings more than hurts, you can't not make a sound at each blow. You can't even really pay attention to what your power is telling is happening to your butt as it gets slightly bigger and more sensitive with each blow, the sensations are too distracting. And even by the last blow, none of them are pleasure rather than pain. Well, maybe a tiny bit on the tenth, but not really, not enough to notice in your voice.
Being last does mean that you don't have to keep kneeling there and not rubbing your abused backside while other people are spanked at least, and soon you're standing next to Taylor outside the circle.
"Well, do you feel better for having done that?" Taylor asks sarcastically."
"No." You whine, trying not to be obvious about blinking the tears out of your eyes. "My butt hurts, and it's barely any bigger. Not like Missy's." You're pretty sure, and a quick brush of your hand against her skin confirms, that you and Missy's butts grew by the same amount proportionally, it's just Missy's ass was already larger in an absolute sense, so the same amount of growth equals a very large butt for her, while yours is merely modestly sized, just above average rather than on the small side, now.
"Well, don't expect me to kiss it better- Where are you going, Missy?" Taylor looks towards her fellow red-eyed girl, who's abruptly stopped feeling up her own backside and started walking purposely away.
"Another round. It's not big enough yet." You can't help but stare after her as she goes. How on earth can anyone want to go through that again right away, even if they get a bigger butt out of it?
Missy gets to the front of the queue again very quickly, most people who want a turn with the Spanking Oar having apparently had one, and receives another ten spanks, with noticeably less composure than the first. Even if she seems closer to creaming herself than crying. She has a little difficulty standing when the round is done, her wide hips and now-huge butt pulling her rubber skirt tight enough it requires a little adjusting to. And just adjusting, if she doesn't want a rubbery wedgie.
Missy is looking between her butt and the rest of the room like she's trying to work out if it's still third-smallest (maybe-probably, but it's a close contest, at least), and you can't help but eye it jealously and compare it to yours... You're kind of wondering if another round with the oar would be so bad, Missy is probably thinking similar thoughts, and Taylor can clearly tell, as she claps, then takes both your hands.
"Right, let's go see what somewhere else in this party has to offer, shall we?" She says, in a tone which brooks no disagreement. And gets none.
Taylor leads the two to the same corridor you went down earlier, which is now busier and has games other than cards being played along it, some of them quite loudly. Some of them, like darts, beer pong and paper football are ordinary enough, but others, like one involving time stopped Jenga block towers you can't figure out the rules of, are rather weirder. And in some cases, impossible for people without certain abilities to win at. As you find out when you and Missy join a speed jigsaw puzzle assembling game in one room and the rest of the teams become time warped blurs and finish before the pair of you are even a quarter done. In retrospect, all the other players looking like they'd been on a farm or in a workshop recently was probably a warning sign, and explains why Taylor didn't want to play.
You get a certain amount of time to consider this, as the last placed team has to pay a forfeit, and given the choice between a spanking, being time stopped and posed, or drinking some highly questionable looking shots, you choose the time stop. As it was when Free stopped you, you're aware, but everything that isn't your body or clothes is faint and far away, so while you can tell you're being briefly touched and moved around, you can't get much of an idea to what end. It's doubtless embarrassing, of course. The fact someone gently adjusts your face at the start so that your jaw is gaping slackly open and your tongue hanging out of it guarantees that, even before they mess with the position the rest of your frozen facial muscles are in until you're wearing an expression that you can just tell is "complete drooling moron", capped off by sticking your fingers up your nose. In a typical example of Infection irony, as you're spending however many minutes making an idiot face at the world, you feel the Infection from your Pink Labcoat surge repeatedly, trying and failing to get purchase in your body. The adjustment of your pose continues for a bit, then you're left alone, possibly in contact with someone else, and nothing else notable happens for the rest of your time stopped.
You realise you can move again after everything gets loud again. You can't move much though, because you're sat on a stool and a still frozen, um, cute Ward girl, is in your lap, so you're stuck under her newly giant butt. One of her hands is holding your hand so its fingers are in her mouth, too, so you can move even less. Her being stopped still means you can't feel the drool at least. You're drooling too, you notice after a bit, because you're still making the stupid face that you were made to, and you kind of think you should stop, but not why. Or how not to make a stupid face. Maybe because you are stupid? The super big shirt you're both wearing says, um...I'M...um...WITH...err...STUPID, and has a bunch of pointy up things, so obviously you're Stupid. Or your friend is. Or both. You think both, even if that must be confusing to both be called Stupid. But it must be true because your powers tell you the person wearing the shirt gets to be stupid. Oooh, you've got, um, one, two, um, three, err, four! Four hats on too. They're tall and pointy and have big red D's on and they make your brain not work hard. And you've got four and Stupid just two, so your brain must be working four times as not hard. No wonder you feel so good! All the people looking at you must feel good too. They're laughing so much! Except pretty purple hair girl. She's not laughing and she's coming over looking angry...
Moments after you think that, if you can call what you were doing under the influence of the Infected Dunce Caps thinking, they unknot themselves and slide off your head towards the floor, only to be caught by Taylor hurled with unnerving (impossible, really) force and accuracy at the gaggle of Farmgirls laughing the loudest. They don't hurt, they're still just cardboard after all, but combined with Taylor's glare they're enough to make them flee the room and the rest of the onlookers shuffle guiltily until someone pushes through the crowd and takes the caps off the still frozen Stupid, then helps Taylor take the tent-like novelty shirt off you both. You pointedly wipe the fingers that were stuck up your nose on it, and then your freed hand, which doesn't actually need it since Missy's still frozen, but it's more restrained than what you want to do, which is burn it.
The time it takes for Missy to unfreeze is spent with Taylor and her helper, a dark complexioned individual you can't even begin to tell the sex of despite an ass the size of a beanbag chair, standing in front of the two of you radiating disapproval, such that the room has quietly emptied out by the time you're no longer squished under Missy's enlarged rear end. After that, Taylor's new..friend? Partner in terrifying? Gives you a little more details about the Commune's favourite party games, so you can avoid any others it's flat out impossible for you to win at. And possibly more importantly, which people are likely to take a joke too far. Because looking stupid/acting silly as a penalty is one thing, being rendered so dumb you forgot how to speak and didn't notice is another.
Which isn't to say you don't end up being stopped several more times, but you...well, you don't win a lot, but you don't come last much either, and when you do, the results are less humiliating. Coming out of a stop for loosing at a card game (that you may have been too drunk to follow the rules for properly) to find you're several feet off the floor, having been posed as "cat climbing the curtains" is startling, but you float instinctively, so the worst thing about it is the yowl of shock you make on realising your position. You also the lingering urge to meow for several minutes, but that fades soon enough without you giving in to it (you think), and during the stop your Cat-girl Outfit boosted your dexterity and charisma a fair bit while not infecting you, so you think it's a net positive all in all. The rest of your losses are even less consequential than that, bar one.
You and Missy take advantage of a rare last place on Taylor's part (at dominos, of all things) to join a game of beer pong and promptly get totally thrashed. (Possibly Missy should have taken her eyepatch off first, though it's not like you did better). You don't get any new Infections while stopped, but your existing one stirs into action. It gives you a trait, but it's the one that will make it much less likely you'll end up finding guys attractive, so it's an unambiguous positive. And the Infection strengthening itself isn't particularly bad, given that you don't pick up the shrinking trait when it does. But then it concentrates in your head, and you feel it shift with agonising slowness (although, given how good it feels, agonising might not be quite the right word). First your ears turn pointy, then they grow slightly bigger and much longer, to the point they'd push through your hair if it wasn't in pigtails and the ends extend backwards off your head by at least half an inch. After that, you feel your eye sockets expand and your eyes grow within them, not massively, but enough to leave them clearly bigger and taking up more of your face than a human's ever do, a subtle inhumanity that's enhanced when a further change washes across them and your power informs you the faintly luminous amber of your irises has spread completely across your eyes, with no trace of whites or pupils left. The changes to your eyes are followed by your mouth and lips getting smaller and (hopefully) cuter, while the teeth inside all get slightly but significantly pointier, leaving you with a mouth full of sharp little teeth. To finish off, you feel the bones in your face shift, leaving your with a pixie-like delicacy to your features, which also become absolutely, utterly symmetrical, down to the patterns of the freckles that highlight the unnatural flawlessness of your skin by being patterns, currently clearly forming hearts and stars, though they can apparently rearrange themselves. To top it all off, that apparently wasn't the last thing the Infection had in store, as you feel yourself painted with a band of sparkly pink "eye shadow" that runs from past your eye on one side, across the bridge of your nose to past the other eye, where in ends with a curling flourish. And while this particular design isn't permanent, you're apparently going to be waking up each morning for the rest of your life with some sort of bold eye makeup in various shades pastel and/or sparkly.
(You won't notice until later, when you're sober, but the makeup isn't the end of it, Infection tweaking things subtly in your brain and leaving you with noticeably reduced impulse control. Still more of it than Vicky, though, just enough of a reduction to be "hidden" in the general effects of drunkenness. Unless the impulse is about using your powers on the Infection, then you might be about as impulsive as Vicky. Certainly not worse. Definitely. It's impossible you could ever be more impulsive than your sister.)
From how you're positioned and what's going on unfreeze, you think you and Missy were used as living stands for something, probably an empty beer keg, but something went wrong when Missy came out of the stop. Or possibly before. Either way, you can see the distinctive floral shorts your beer pong opponents were wearing sticking out from under a large barrel that's lurching around the room, people (Missy included) seemingly more interested in laughing and/or smacking the gargantuan asses also sticking out from under the barrel than helping get it off.
You take advantage of the lack of attention on you to slip out of the room.
You don't go far, just to the end of the hall, where there are bathrooms, and you lock yourself in one and examine your changed face in the mirror. It's not that it's ugly in any way. It's quite the opposite in fact, with your features now being, if anything, too pretty. Not because you don't look like you, or anything like that, you can still recognise yourself and so could anyone with any familiarity with you. But there's an unnerving perfection to your face now that the blatantly inhuman appearance of your eyes and ears emphasises rather than detracts from, resulting in a clearly unnatural beauty that on someone else would be attractive and maybe a tiny bit unsettling, and on you is...just unsettling, you guess. You're uncomfortable, and you can't really put your finger on why.
"You okay, Amy?" Taylor's voice asks, and you whirl to see her leaning against the door, her hair now falling almost to the floor, like a slightly curly purple cloak.
"I'd swear I'd locked that." You say, not entirely as a deflection.
"You did. Are you alright?" Taylor shrugs dismissively before repeating her question, crossing the small room to take your hands in hers.
"Eh, pretty much." You say, focusing on her hands to avoid her eyes and noticing as you do that both her hands now sport perfectly manicured and polished nails over an inch long. "It was just...not exactly a shock? Not sure what to call it. I'm not unhappy about how my face has changed, just...weirded out, except not really?" You blow out a disgruntled puff of air. "I'm really not explaining well. I think I'll be surprised by how my face looks for a while, but more because it's changed at all than how it's changed... Well, the changing freckle patterns and eye shadow possibly excluded. But that'll be if they change in annoying ways, not that I dislike the idea of them. I mean, always having bright, fancy eye makeup wouldn't be something I'd pick, but I can put up with it, and if I have it, it changing everyday is probably better than it being the same for the rest of my life."
"That's okay then." Taylor says when you finish rambling, with the ghost of a smile. "Do you want to head back to the games? Or go somewhere else?" She lets go of your hands, gives you a hug so brief you could almost swear you imagined it, then rests and arm over your shoulders.
"Back to the games. I'm actually getting to play this time." You answer instantly. "This is a lot more fun than the games at the parties Vicky drags me to. I'm not just standing around watching drunk people them fuck up, here."
You could almost swear you hear Taylor quietly say something like "No, you are one of the drunks screwing up", but you're looking at her lips when you hear it, and they're not moving.
The two of you follow the sounds of Missy's laughter to what turns out to be the largest games room, sporting several ping pong tables, some of which are even being used for ping pong, a very high energy table football tournament, and various pool tables, around one of which several people are learning not to bet against Vista at making trick shots. Or possibly some poor fool actually challenged her to a game and she's in to the "complete domination" portion of things. Not that many people know Brockton Bay's (usually) youngest Ward is a terrifying pool shark even when not using her powers, but she does warn people. She doesn't usually get believed but she (and the other Wards) warn them. You think, from the glimpses you get of the Ward as you and Taylor head that way that her appearance has changed, but between the tight packed crowd and the amount her bodysuit covers, you can't be sure, except that her hair is clearly longer.
You get distracted from getting though to Missy by a vaguely familiar voice calling you and Taylor over to try your skill at...something. It involves trying to hit ping pong balls into an array of cups to earn point. Or earn forfeits. You'd love to blame misunderstanding the complex rules for why you follow Taylor's respectable score with landing all five of your balls in the large central cup (which is nearly a bowl) and earning a time stop forfeit, but you knew that's what that one was, at least. You just messed up. And got a tiny bit unlucky with one ricochet. Nothing significant happens on the Infection front during your forfeit, and other than being picked up at one point near the start, you seem to be left alone in terms of posing and such as well. When you unfreeze, and take the lampshade someone stuck on your head off, you see a sizable crowd surrounding something in the centre of the room, with most of the furnishings (and a couple of other time-stopped people) moved to the side to make room for them all.
Rising into the air to get a view, you see that the focus of attention is a small table with two stools either side of it. Missy is sat on one, wearing nothing but sheet wrapped around her as a barely adequate toga (which makes it clear she's all over paler and more slender) and looking mildly impatient, while the other is empty. Spotting Taylor's tall form in the press, directly behind the Ward, you float over and, impulsively, drop onto her shoulders. She doesn't startle, just rolls her eyes at you and asks "Must you?" in a longsuffering tone as you try and get settled.
"I must." You answer cheekily, and she rolls her eyes again before taking hold of your legs as you conclude you're too tall for resting your chin on the top of her head to be comfy. So you put your elbows there instead, and cup your chin in your hands. "So, why's Missy in a bed sheet, anyway?"
"Some guy challenged her to an arm wrestling contest and said her gear was cheating." Taylor says, deceptively mildly. "I think he was building up to convincing her to do it naked, but then Jeeves showed up with sheets. And said it was only fair he compete in one too. That uniform of his shouldn't take this long to get out of, though. Maybe he's gotten scared and run off."
Taylor raises her voice on the last sentence and a mid-sized group standing behind the unoccupied stool, all relatively small butted and dressed in a way you can only describe as aggressively manly, jeers angrily (and drunkenly) in response, only to wilt as she and Missy don't so much glare as radiate utter distain at them. You debate whether sticking your tongue out at them would ruin the aura of coolness your friends have going, but before you can decide the crowd parts to admit a scowling man in another bed sheet toga, followed by Jeeves. He looks vaguely familiar, though you can't recall where from.
"I was going to be nice and just make you dress like the little girl you're trying so hard to pretend you're not when you lost." The man sneers as he sits. "But now? Now you're going to spend the rest of the evening as a fucking baby brat. I'm going to break you over my knee, then put you over my knee, and-."
"Yeah, yeah, tough guy." Missy interrupts with a yawn as she put her elbow on the tabel. "You've given me the spiel already. Are you going to just keep yakking, or finally put your money where your mouth is?"
The man reddens and scowls more deeply, but positions his arm on the table. They clasp hands, and both of them tense in preparation as Jeeves begins a countdown. The contrast between Missy's hand, slender, smooth skinned and elegant, and that of her opponent, blocky, bulky and rough, is dramatic, and neatly encapsulates the differences between the two, but Missy doesn't seem worried about the size difference. Her foe might have mass, compared to her slight form, but he's not that big in absolute terms, and the skimpy togas make it clear he's not particularly in shape, unlike the athletically toned Ward.
The first bout is a tense back and forth, with much grunting and straining from both parties, but bends evermore in Missy's favour as it goes on, and you cheer along with (most) of the crowd when the purple-haired girl finally forces her opponent's hand into contact with the table. He looks mulish, and mutters something about getting lucky, but you can see him trying to subtly massage his arm and hand before the next round. The second bout is nowhere near as close as the first. Oh, he puts up a fight, but Missy is clearly in control from the beginning, and his arm hits the table far sooner than last time.
"With two rounds in her favour, Lady Missy, has won." Jeeves announces once the cheering (and booing from her opponent's few supporters) has died down. "Lady Missy, please name your-."
"No way! That was just- just a fluke, is all! Double or nothing on the last round!" The man blusters, drawing a withering scowl from Jeeves for interrupting.
"Lady Missy?" Jeeves asks, and the girl in question narrows her red eyes before nodding decisively.
"Sure. Why not?" She responds confidently.
The third round shows she had every reason for that confidence. She keeps her arm in place, looking utterly unruffled as her foe strains furiously to move it, and then, without visible effort, slams his arm down. The crowd goes wild, hollering both "Missy!" and "Vista!" along with chants of "Cham-pi-on!" and similar, and you nearly fall off Taylor's shoulders as you add your own waving and cheering to the commotion. Someone's even found some sparkly confetti to throw and it's filling the air around Missy like a shiny blizzard. Mysteriously though, none of it seems to be landing on her. Or on you and Taylor, when the tall girl walks forward to clap her fellow purple-nette on the shoulder and offer her own quiet congratulations.
"Now, Lady Missy, if you would like to name your conditions? What 'Double or nothing' meant was not specified, so would you like to add two more, or dictate Jackson's clothing and role for the next few days, rather than just the evening?" Jeeves asks once more, the faint ghost of a smug smile on her face.
Missy opens her mouth to reply, but is cut off by her opponent coming out of his funk at losing with a bellow, standing and screaming threats, insults and accusations of cheating. He looks about ready to lunge at the Ward, and you're eager to how badly that goes for him, but before he can, Jeeves steps in front of him.
"Jackson. You are breaking the rules." She states, softly but firmly, and horrified realisation flashes across his face before it goes slack and he stops moving or speaking. His toga flutters to the floor, having come loose at some point, but he doesn't react at all to being exposed to the room, just stands there like a robot that's run out of power.
"Well, first off should be something that covers that up." Missy says, gesturing at Jackson's bared dick and balls before pointedly averting her gaze. "I don't want to see it, and no one else should have to either. Other than that...making him dress like a little girl is an insult to little girls everywhere and he doesn't deserve to be a cute frilly princess... He can make himself useful and be a maid. I don't know what you've got for that, but hopefully something he'll find super girly and embarrassing?"
"I know just the thing, Lady Missy. I'll go and fetch it now. Jackson, go stand in the corner facing the wall until I come back." Jeeves commands, and the man in question obediently does so as she leaves the room.
"Want an Infection check while we wait for her to get back?" You ask, floating off Taylor's shoulders to land cross-legged on the table in front of Missy.
"Sure." The Ward answers, holding out a hand with a smile that shows a flash of fangs behind her lips, which are now a deep red colour.
Missy's undergone a fair number of transformations in the last hour or so. Beyond the mostly cosmetic changes to her mouth, the lengthening of her hair to her mid-back and the temporary expansion of her lower body, the obvious ones are that her skin is now pale and velvety across her whole body, rather than just the upper part, and that body is ever-so-slightly smaller, slighter and more elegant all round. Even in total, the changes to her bone structure are pretty minor, she wasn't exactly heavily built beforehand, but none the less they mean that even as athletic as she is, the first word that comes to mind when anyone looks at her is absolutely going to be "dainty". Which you can't imagine Missy's all that thrilled about even if eighteen year-old her is more chilled about her appearance than twelve year-old her. But she doesn't seem upset and the moment, and a crowded room like this is hardly the place to bring it up, especially given the amount of people ogling the Ward in her not all that concealing sheet with various degrees of subtlety or just looking between her and Jackson while awaiting the next round of the drama.
"Lots of subtle stuff. Remind me to tell you about it when we've not got an audience." You say instead, noting before you focus your attention on said subtle stuff that Missy's hands are now very slightly oversized compared to the rest of her, like she's not quite grown into them. Though in this you've no doubt the opposite will happen soon enough.
The subtle changes run from the helpful - her hair is also much easier to care for and style after growing and she's gotten some short term physical boosts from food - to the complicated - she's picked up four Traits from her Vampirate strain and one from her Princess one - to the you have no idea - something, possibly more than one thing has changed in her brain but you're not sure what - to the kind of unexpected - she's picked up a whole new strain off her backpack. You focus on the last first, since it will take the longest, and have just started to make progress decoding the Carrying Capacity strain when a dripping wet Vicky bursts into the room, only not tripping herself up with the Spanking Oar she's awkwardly holding in one paw because she's flying, not actually running on the other three despite what it looks like.
"Amy! Spank Hard, Arf! Quick!" She says as she swoops over the crowd and "lands" in front of you.
"Whu- Why?" You reply, wittily, trying not to get drawn into her deep, bouncing cleavage and the water running down it.
"Need to win contest! Need even bigger butt! Quick!" Is the barked, not particularly clear explanation. The clarity is not helped by her spinning around and shaking a backside you're pretty sure is even bigger than the last time you looked at you.
"You mean you need your butt to be bigger, right Vicky?" Taylor asks, and your sister nearly knocks the table over nodding. "So you want to be spanked with the oar to grow it. I'd be happy to do that for you."
You kind of want to object, either so you can do it yourself, or because there's something subtly scary about Taylor's expression, but contemplating actually doing it yourself locks your brain up a bit, and by the time you can focus on reality rather than fantasy, Vicky is hovering in mid-air in front of Taylor with her skirt up and panties down at the back, and you can't say anything about that. Literally. You try and all that comes out is little whimpers. At least Missy seems to be in a similar state?
On Taylor's part, the spanking that follows is fast, hard, and apparently as dispassionate as it is thorough, though you're pretty sure she's cheating with her powers there, even if you're too distracted/focused to look around for the signs of her doing so. On your sister's end...she's entirely unsubtle about enjoying it from the very first blow, panting, whimpering, whining and howling as her tail wags like a propeller above an ass the gets ever more extremely sizable as the lengthy spanking goes on. If she feels any pain or concern about the show she's putting on for the cheering audience, it doesn't show past the mindless pleasure on her face, and she doesn't give the slightest sign of wanting it to stop.
You don't know how many blows Taylor lands before she announces she's finished, but if the counts from the crowd are in anyway close, it was around a hundred. Despite this, there's no sign of tears in your sister's eyes as she pulls her clothes back into straining place, and she thanks Taylor cheerily before taking the oar off her to return and bounding from the room, every eye in it following the movement of her massive ass as she does so.
"That was far too hot." Missy mutters, and jolts sharply at your own muttered agreement. "Can we forget I said that and go back to my Infection?" She mutter-whines with a blush, and you giggle but agree.
Your powers finished with Missy's new strain while your conscious attention was on the spanking, and you review what you've learned. The Carrying Capacity strain is weak and weird, but technically rather useful. It is, unsurprisingly, based around carrying things, but in a rather weird manner. What you'd think of as its "main" trait, Intimate Pocket, allows those who have it to store items inside their bodies, where they're effectively invulnerable and unreachable to anyone else, with the only external sign being a very slight expansion of the body part the items are stored in. There are two limitations to this highly useful ability, however, one general and one strain specific. The universal one is that items must fit in to some kind of "entrance" near the storage location, which doesn't have to be an actual opening - you think putting something between big enough breasts would work - but still puts fairly sharp limits on the size and shapes of item to be stored. Two of the other parts of the Carrying Capacity strain provide ways round that limitation, but at the strain specific cost of having all such effects apply only to a single location for a given "case" of the strain (unlike many strains, someone can get it more than once, though only once they've picked up all the traits). So in Missy's case, she's already picked up the Intimate Pocket Trait, but it only applies to her ass, and so will any other traits she gets from it. Which probably wouldn't be too onerous if her current ass size was her actual one, her current cheeks are big enough to hide small objects between them, but since it isn't... Even knowing the effects of the pocket trait will keep things free from...contamination...you're not sure you'd want to handle anything she's stored until it's been washed. The strain also has two other parts, one of which basically encourages people to use its effects by making them weaker and more hollow looking if they're not storing anything, and making them healthier looking and able to develop themselves better when they are, while the other is just a straightforward boost to carrying things. Which may end up resulting in some oddities given it will, as noted, apply solely to Missy's ass.
All of this definitely needs explaining to Missy at some point but, again, not in public. Or around anyone else, really. (Except maybe Taylor, but only if you want to tease Missy at the same time.) So for now you just tell her she has a new strain and give her a very abbreviated description with the promise of details later. You're distracted briefly from moving on to her new traits by the sounds of shouting in the hall, a number of people accusing each other of...something to do with custard? And woopie cushions, possibly in combination, possibly not. There's just enough chatter in the room to drown out the details, and the arguers move away quickly enough that by the time it mostly dies down in favour of listening they're mostly out of earshot.
Missy's new Trait from her Gothic Flower Princess strain is Excuse Me Princess, which straightforwardly makes people much less likely to raise objections to those with it doing sexual things, even if they normally would, such as if they were giving or receiving a blow job in public. It also makes it less likely people will try to start or join something sexual with the carrier without the carrier's invitation, although you don't think the effect is particularly strong. Certainly less so than the one Dinah's Loli's Are Not For Lewding Trait provides. Missy's new Vampirate Cabin Girl Traits are a little more complex, but not massively. Eager Pupil boosts the speed at which she learns and becomes loyal to her teachers, Power to Potential works about as you expected when you first learned about it, and Dhampir...could have quite complex results, but the mechanism is simple - there's a chance each night Missy will develop a new vampire-like strength, usually but not certainly with a thematic weakness, and possibly some corresponding transformation, if she doesn't have something fitting already.
You give Missy the names of her new Traits, but any explanation you could give in public is pre-empted when Jeeves returns and orders Jackson to stand the middle of the room, hands covering those bits of him you have no interest in seeing. She's accompanied by another woman in a maid uniform carrying a bundle of cloth, and while Jeeves' face is mostly blank, her companion looks cheerfully anticipatory, a mood that soon spreads to the rest of the room (which is still crowded with people who've apparently been sticking around to see the fate in store for Missy's opponent). Jeeves tells Jackson to cooperate as they dress him, then holds out what looks like an ordinary pair of plain pink panties. Once they're on, however, they shift from cloth to slick plastic, and cling so tightly to his skin you can't see even the tiniest gap between them and it. Jeeves has Jackson move his hands away, revealing the front of the panties now includes a rigid, cage-like structure around his genitals, one which seems to compress itself as you watch, until the budge in the front has gone from on the respectable side of average to something that might, generously, match what Dean now sports. The back of the panties also changes while this is happening, the shape of the plastic encased ass shifting from large but clearly a man's to one slightly smaller, but much more androgynous in appearance. The rest of the clothes Jeeves brought have similar effects when worn, and the end result is, from the neck down, a dainty figure that could be either male or female in a shiny, plasticy and utterly skin-tight pink maid uniform. His head, however, is unchanged, beyond the addition of a long blonde wig with a frilly headband and ribbons sewn into it, and the contrast has more than one person laughing as Jackson is made to pirouette in place and show off.
"We've yet to manage a working piece with the same temporary effect for the head, unfortunately, but I hope this meets your expectations, Lady Missy?" Jeeves asks, radiating faint satisfaction. Which becomes notably less faint when she's informed between giggles that it very much does. "Excellent. Do you wish to take the Oar to him yourself, or would you prefer someone else do it?"
"Eh, he said if I lost he was going to spank me so I 'couldn't sit down for a week', and that seems like more effort than I can be bothered spending on him, so I'll start things off, but after that anyone who wants to can have a go." Missy says, after a moment's thought.
"Very good. Your oar, milady." Jeeves says, not quite smiling as she produces the Spanking Oar from...somewhere and holds it out for Missy to take. "Jackson, bend over that table and hold your skirt out of the way. You can wake up once the first blow lands, but don't speak, move or resist until everyone who wants to has spanked you."
Missy stands and grabs the offered oar with a smile, takes a moment to line up against her defeated opponent's presented ass, then swings hard. The loud impact of wood on plastic echoes through the room, and a quiet cheer goes up, drowning out whatever noise comes from Jackson's mouth as he snaps back to awareness. The gathered crowd counts each blow Missy lands off with a cheer, accompanied by mocking jeers towards Jackson. She's just landed the tenth strike, shaking an already noticeably larger backside considerably, when the enthusiasm she's putting into things proves too much for her improvised toga and it slips loose, falling into a puddle at her feet. Her back is to most of the room, and the fall of her purple hair further obscures her upper body, but her huge ass, smooth and white (except where it's rosy red from spanking across the seat) is on full display, and wolf whistles, cries of "Whooo! Full Moon!" and similar fill the air. Pale as she is, Missy's blush is practically full body and drops the Spanking Oar as she instinctively covers her front, but then a resolved expression appears on her face and she gives the room at large a coquettish look before bending to retrieve it and her sheet with a deliberate shake of her ass. She smacks Jackson's ass twice more in quick succession with the oar, to enthusiastic cheering, then wraps the sheet hastily around herself and turning around.
"Guess I should get dressed again." She says with a laugh, seemingly unruffled despite her cheeks being nearly the same colour as her lips and eyes, and laughs again at the disappointed chorus that greets her words. "Who wants to go next?" She asks, then throws the Oar into one of the wildly waved set of hands in the resultant commotion.
There's a commotion around the new holder of the oar - Something about a blindfold? - but Missy ignores it in favour of collecting the backpack from next to her chair. You're not sure if she flashes her ass at you deliberately as she does so or not. Or rather, you're sure the baring of butt was deliberate, but not if it was aimed at you, Taylor, both, or just anyone who happened to be looking when she bent down. The exaggerated sway of her hips as she leaves the room makes it very clear she's feeling flirty, but generally or specifically, you can't tell.
By the time Missy's gone and you've recovered from her teasing exit, the chance to spank her former opponent has moved into the centre of the room as a new game, and one of interest to most of the room, based on the size of the queue by the time you pout Taylor into joining. The player is handed the oar, blindfolded, spun around inside a ring of cheering onlookers, then allowed to swing for Jackson's rear. There's some sort of scoring system, based, you think, on how many attempts it takes to land three blows and where and how hard they land on his backside, but no one's taking that part particularly seriously, and every hit is cheered by the watchers equally. Even it that hit is to someone else's ass entirely. At least some players seem to be trying to score as many "accidental" hits as possible while still getting Jackson, and the number of people in the circle watching over their shoulders to better present their asses as targets grows rapidly once someone has the idea. The circle also gets closer and closer, to each other and the player/target, as time goes by, eventually forcing the scorers to stand on tables to see what's going on.
You, on the other hand, can just float up to see what's going on despite the press of the crowd and get to watch as Jacksons ass swells from being merely quite large to increasing heights of immensity, each massive round cheek encased and perfectly displayed by the plastic of the panties containing them. You also see Jackson's expression change in tandem. It starts as a mix of anger, humiliation, pain and reluctant pleasure, but the reluctance quickly leaves the pleasure, which proceeds to steadily eclipse the rest of the emotions on his face until nothing shows but the pleasure from each blow, a tiny thrill of pain and desperate eagerness for the next strike, if it's too long in coming.
"Please make sure you take the Spanking Oar with you when you leave, Lady Taylor. It is...too suitable for our community, I think. It can already be a trial for us not to...overindulge in spanking and being spanked and leave ourselves vulnerable, and while the Oar reduces the consequences, it does not eliminate them, and it makes it harder to refrain even when it is not involved. ... Also, the resulting...sizes...are far beyond what we thought were the maximum, and accommodating them long term would require...considerable work."
"I understand. I'll make sure it comes with us. I might need a little assistance getting it away from whoever has it when we leave though, since we'll probably be leaving before the party winds down."
A quiet conversation catches your attention as you lower yourself from your most recent look, and you see Taylor and Jeeves speaking. Despite how busy the room still is, there's a clear bubble of space around them, and you're pretty sure no one else can hear what they're discussing. Given the, ah, enthusiasm with which the Spanking Oar has been received at the Clocked-Up Commune, you can see why Jeeves would prefer it to be here one night only, and given Taylor's the only one of your group who's not drunk, animal-brained, or a sugar high ten year-old, you can see why she would approach her about it rather than anyone else.
As Jeeves and Taylor are wrapping up their conversation, there's a commotion near the door, and your position over everyone's heads lets you see Aegis has just come through. He has Missy and Dennis tucked under each arm, glassy-eyed and giggling (and pawing ineffectually at themselves through their clothes), but more attention-grabbingly is absolutely dripping with...quite a number of things. You can pick out water, custard, jello, whipped cream (or possibly shaving cream) at a minimum, but there's probably more. He also lists notably to one side as he makes his way through the room, gaze locked on Jeeves. And is trailing several feet of rope behind him.
"I'm told you're the one to talk to about getting my clothes cleaned." He says, very loudly in Jeeve's general direction, and you can smell booze on his breath despite him stopping several feet away. "And also getting water to help me deal with this one's-" He shakes Dennis "-cocktail of bad decisions. And also what suitable punishment for the two of them for...all this...is." He finishes, somehow indicating his state with his shoulders.
"Of course, Lord Aegis, I am at your disposal." Jeeves says with a curtsey, while another Timeskeeper appears behind Aegis and places a towel under his hovering form. "Punishment first I think, since we have a convenient audience. Please, tell me what happened. And was this inside, by any chance?"
"No, up on the roof. Clock brought me a drink, and while my eyes were still watering from his idea of a 'low alcohol cocktail', Vista warped the course in place. I'm honestly not sure how many snares I set off, but I caught them in the end. They're a little out of it at the moment, I hit them with the wrong thing when I caught them, but it'll wear off soon. Ish. Probably, I may have overdone it a bit. But it wears off straightaway if they cum." Aegis reports, voice going vague for a moment before he seems to snap into awareness (and at least somewhat closer to sober).
"Well, in that case, we happily have the ideal tool for an appropriate punishment on hand." Jeeves states. "If I could have the Oar for a moment? And a clear space. Just use a hand for a now to keep him happy. Lord Aegis, if you could deposit the miscreants here? Fifty spanks each should be sufficient, I think. Shall I administer them, or would you rather do it?"
"I'll do it for Clockblocker, at least." Aegis says after a pause and accepts the Spanking Oar when it's held out.
Missy and Dennis are lain on the floor with their butts in the air and towels carefully positioned under them. With more giggles and vacant eyed stares they immediately start grinding themselves fumblingly against the floor, but still stay more or less in the poses they're put in despite a pause to wipe the worst of the mess off Aegis' clothes before he starts. The crowd seems as happy to see their leader spanked as they were Jackson, enthusiastically counting along as Aegis begins. The general air is less mocking though, and the closest thing to a humiliating taunt are various shouted bets about how may strikes it will take before Dennis...blows his load, as it were. It turns out to be twenty hard strikes of the paddle across his increasingly ample ass cheeks before he bucks in place and his giggles turn into a loud moan, then he lifts his groin of the ground so his hands can rub at the bulging front of his shorts with purpose, rather than seemingly random flailing of before. Which quickly results in more moans, and a large stain appearing on the front of said shorts.
Dennis settles back in to place, hands at rest on the floor, and is silent but still empty eyed for a long moment. Then he blinks sleepily several times before looking over his shoulder at Aegis, expression not eager, exactly, but clearly anticipatory. "Why've you stopped? I've got another thirty spanks to go before Jeeves is satisfied. And put your back into it. No more of those little love taps."
Aegis lets out a startled laugh, but raises the oar, and obligingly swings even harder for number twenty one. The rest of the spanking is accompanied by showman-like commentary from Dennis, which hardly pauses even as he cums at least twice more. His good cheer remains un-dented all the way to the end, and even afterwards, when his legs decide abruptly that they not interested in hauling his now ridiculously sizable ass around just now. Despite a hard landing on what must by now be an extremely sensitive backside, he just laughs and scoots himself away from Missy on his butt.
Aegis wavers for several long moments, but ultimately decides to spank Missy himself as well, though he ends up starting again a few blows in after Dennis heckles him about going easier on her than him, when she's got the thicker clothing to hit through. Which you're not sure is actually true - the material of Missy's rubber skirt was thicker than Dennis' denim shorts, but the size increases her lower body has undergone have left it decidedly stretched looking, and from what you remember of the outfit, despite looking like there are stockings under the (normally) knee-length skirt, they actually just join to the bottom of it. And you're not sure it's possible to wear panties under it. And if it is, that Missy is. She may not have wanted to go through the clothes you found for some, given the state she was in when she changed into the suit.
Unlike her fellow Ward, Missy doesn't climax early on, and in fact remains glassy-eyed and giggling all the way to the end, her attempts to pleasure herself somehow getting even less directed and likely to succeed as the spanking goes on. After the fiftieth spank has landed and Aegis begins to steps back, Missy demands in a shaking but commanding voice that he "Finish it! I'm so close! Don't you dare leave me like this!" Aegis looks unsure, but Jeeves steps forward and obligingly swats her now gargantuan ass several times with her bare hand, making it shake in its tight rubber confines and triggering a series of moans from Missy as she rubs, hard and frantic, at the front of her rubber skirt.
When her moans die down, Missy looks muzzily around for several seconds, then looks shocked. "I have to go, right now, for no particular reason." She announces, then, before anyone can react to her words, space twists around her in a particularly eye-watering fashion. It fades away moments later, leaving no trace of her but a dry towel on the floor.
"Given how many people are in here, I think that might be the most impressive thing I've ever seen her do. And she practically cut a giant monster in half like, half an hour ago." Dennis says into the silence that follows.
"...for no particular reason." You snort, which quickly turns into a giggle, which becomes many more as you think about Missy's words and the expression she had as she said them. You're dimly aware of Dennis and Aegis leaving with Jeeves to get cleaned up, but can't bring yourself to pay much attention to it, or the attention of the room turning back to Jackson, still awaiting further spanking. You're too busy keeping yourself from falling to the floor with laughter. The whole thing just seem stupidly funny, for some reason.
In the end, your extended giggling fit leads to Taylor pulling you from the line for "Spank the tailbone on the Jackass" and out of the room to "Calm down" (by which she clearly means sober up). Which you want to object to, since it's nearly your turn and you've not gotten to use the Spanking Oar yet this evening. And you're hardly drunk at all anymore. But you're still giggling too hard to say anything, then the feel of her hand in yours distracts you, and by the time you remember you had something to say again, you're already sat next to her in a comfy chair somewhere dark and quiet and there's no point to it. Also, she's gently stroking the extended length of one of your ears with her tips of her long nails, and the shivery feelings it causes make you forget what it actually was you were going to say. Especially since even that small contact is enough to produce little flashes of information about the non-obvious results of the "time" jumps on her Infection. Or maybe that's from her long hair falling over you like a blanket. Whichever. Either way, you need more contact to get the full story so your powers stop prodding you, so you lean against the taller girl more heavily, and use the contact between your cheek and the silky skin of her arm to study her body.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given her good showing at the games, not much has happened to Taylor - no new Infections, and her changes are all the result of the natural progression of her Magical Princess Infection. Beyond the physical changes, her Rapunzel-like has gained the same easy care and styling effect as Missy's, her long nails have the same quick growing back one as the other hand, and she can keep a handle on her arousal a little longer. She's also picked up a trio of traits - The hybridisation promoting one from your strain, the charisma boosting Airs of Nobility and the subordinate creating Kneel Before Me. Not the last will do much at the moment, since it activates when she spreads her strain to someone, and her only current one can't be spread. Something Taylor's quite happy to be reminded of when you tell her about the new Traits, along with being relieved to learn it's much less likely that Airs of Nobility will change her behaviour, thanks to Identity Resilience.
You stay snuggled up to Taylor in silence for several minutes, the other girl idly playing with your hair and ears, then she speaks, sounding a little uncertain.
"Amy? Would you be able to use your powers to swap some of my changes around?"
"Sure!" You chirp back brightly, lifting your head to look at her. You've not have much chance to play around with that yet, so you're more than happy to do so. "What did you have in mind?"
"I'd like these-" She flicks her inch plus nails out in front of her. "Back to their normal length. Err, their new normal length. A little longer than I used to have them was one thing, but this long is kind of annoying now it's both hands.. And, if you could turn them into, um..." She trails off into a mumble you can't understand even this close to her.
"You know they'll probably come back sooner or later, right?" You ask, not wanting her to have the wrong idea.
"Just getting rid of them for now is fine. ... I kind of care more about what they get turned into than them being gone." She responds with an adorable little embarrassed scowl.
"Fair. But you're going to have to say what you want a little clearer then. The big ears don't actually make my hearing any better." Making her say it isn't just teasing. You've got a pretty good idea what she wants, based on what you know about her and how she's acting, but it's better to know exactly before you start messing with her body.
There's a long pause, then a rush of words. "I want actual curves. Not, like huge, or even as big as your sister was before, but just, you know, a better figure all round than a ten year old." A deep (and deeply cute) blush spreads across Taylor's face as she speaks, and you can't help but smile at it.
"Definitely doable!" You say, floating out of her embrace and spinning in the air to face her, then giving her a once over through the resulting glitter. "Okay, could you take your gloves off and stand up? It'll be a bit easier if I can see what I'm working on clearly."
Taylor looks uncertain for a moment, then pulls one glove off and puts it down on the arm of the chair. The second she lets go of it, there's the sound of rustling cloth and a sense of sudden movement, then Taylor's on her knees in front the chair, having apparently been pitched out of it when her dress, other glove and trainers took themselves off. That her outfit could do something like that when she took part of it off had slipped your mind, but it does offer you an excellent view of what you're going to be working on, so after a second to admire the sight of Taylor's long, lean form in just a bra, panties and knee socks, you land in front of her and take her hands.
"Not quite what I had in mind, but it works! Ready for me to get started?" With Taylor on her knees like this, your eyes are more or less level, and you can see the faint glow of your amber eyes reflected in her red ones as she swallows slightly, then nods.
You've had enough contact with Taylor in the past little while that, combined with touching close to the transformed body part, it's easy to separate out the bit of the Infection designating much lengthened nails and ready it to change at your command, but you're less sure about aiming the change where you want. You need skin contact near there as well, but your hands are occupied...
"Amy? What are you doing?" Taylor asks, slightly high and breathlessly.
"Needed more skin contact." You answer, voice slightly muffled by the fact your head is on her chest, only not between her breasts because she doesn't really have beasts for it to be between. Yet. But you need to set up a little more first. "Put your hands on top of mine when I say, okay?" You let go of her hands and move your own down, placing them just above her narrow hips and cupping the (currently) mostly non-existent curve of her butt. Her panties stop you from touching the skin there, but it feels like it will work, so you give the word to move her hands. She makes an odd noise but does so, and once her hands are covering yours you can just tell everything is lined up to do what you want, so you mummer a quiet "Starting now" and begin.
Taylor's nails instantly shrink back to the half centimetre or so the changes to her hands left them when you will it, and you feel the Infection flow from her hands and through your to her ass, which immediately begins to plump and soften under your hands. As her hips also begin to round, you feel the remaining Infection flow up her body and soft breasts swiftly blossom either side of your head in response. They don't get all that big now, barely becoming B-cups, but you're pretty confident this isn't their final size, and they're guaranteed to remain perfectly shaped and perpetually perky no matter how large they end up. Down below, meanwhile, she now sports a modestly round little set of hips, made a wider by the slight, soft padding that permanently banishes the possibility of said hips being called "bony". Said hips are also perfect size to complement the growth of her butt from near-flat and unremarkable to a modestly sized regal rump-cushion, which is perky, shapely and sinfully soft and will remain so forever and ever amen.
"Hope you didn't really want an ass you can bounce quarters off." You say, pulling your head away from Taylor's breasts and taking a moment to appreciate how she fills her bra now before continuing. "Because apparently the 'Perfect Princess'' ass is eternally soft and squeezable." You virtuously refrain from squeezing said ass to illustrate your point, but since Taylor's hands are still on top of yours, when she wonderingly does so, you get a good feel anyway.
"Is that- Is that why it ended up growing so much more than my boobs?" Taylor inquires, somehow managing to sound dry and thrilled at the same time.
You concentrate for a moment. Noticeably unbalanced growth seems...odd...for her strain, now that you think about it. You can't tell exactly what the final results of her transformations will be, but you can get a general sense, and that says her curves should be proportionate... "I don't think so? It feels a bit like...something made it grow more for the same amount of transformation? The end result will be the same, it'll just take less steps to get there.
"Huh. Any idea what?" Taylor asks, finally ceasing to feel up her own ass with your hands as well as hers.
Your reply is delayed as you give her a cheeky wink and squeeze once more before you pull your hands away, which prompts her to pinch your ass in reply, so you respond by lightly tickling her hips, so she retaliates with tickling of her own and you retaliate to her retaliation... A tickle(/mild groping) fight inevitably ensues. The effects of your earlier run in with the Spanking Oar mean you've both got about the same amount of butt to aim for, but despite the greater target size offered by Taylor's hips, it quickly becomes apparent that even the slightly boosted sensitivity of your ass is a significant weakness here.
Thankfully, Taylor has mercy before you end up needing new panties.
"I think it's something about this place." You mutter, as the two of you lay stretched out and panting on the floor some time later. Your outfit is kind of a mess, but you don't have the energy to straighten it right now, even though you're pretty sure your flashing your ass for anyone who sticks their head in the door. Even lifting up your head to check if you imagined Taylor's panties being askew and baring one cheek of her extra-perfect butt or not is too much effort.
"Something about this place what?" Taylor mutters back, half reaching for the dress still hanging off the chair before giving up.
"Made your butt grow more than your breasts." You answer. "I think there's something about this territory that boosts butt growth effects. And probably hips and thighs, too. It seems-"
"BAD LITTLE GIRLS GET SPANKIES!!!" A shout cuts you off, and you've just recognised the voice as Vicky's when hard wood strikes your ass, hard.
Your sister's assault on your defenceless ass is considerably faster and more forceful than the swats you took in the hall earlier, and winded as you are, you can do little but lie there, gasping in pleasure and pain and listening to Taylor doing the same besides you. It goes on a lot longer, too. You try to count the strikes, but with each leaving your ass more sensitive than before, it quickly reaches the point where each blow scatters your thoughts completely from the sheer sensation of it, and soon after, the point where you can't even begin to gather them again before the next lands. Other than the shock and the thrill of impact, the only thing you can truly notice is the greater weight and motion of your rear after each hit as the Oar's power swells it bigger and bigger, your power almost gleefully reporting as it goes from being a merely modest size to a bit big, then through large to very large and finally, ending up what can only be called as "Huge" when Vicky finally winds down her spanking.
As you lie there, blinking tears from your eyes and trying to get your breath back so you can ask your sister what the hell, you feel the soft pads of paws on your skin, then fabric moving against as your panties are tugged back into their proper place. They still somehow cover the whole of your huge backside, but they feel at their limits to do so, stretched tight across your ass and ready to burst apart at a too sharp movement. Your similarly straining skirt is pulled back into place as well, then there's a soft pat against your butt. You think Vicky says something about "Bad bum covered", but you're too distracted to be sure. A little because your ass is highly sensitive now, so even that slight touch causes some...intense feelings, but mostly because the pat reveals something terrible about your expanded rear.
It jiggles. It jiggles a lot. it jiggles especially a lot when someone (or something) hits it. Grown from a small, unremarkable ass to its current magnitude by the power of the Spanking Oar, it is an ass that knows it has only one purpose, and that purpose is to be spankable. So while Vicky and Missy have an underling athletic firmness to their butt cheeks even at their current sizes and Taylor's transformation means hers will remain perfect pillows no matter how big they get, yours are a pair of big fat targets, only barely contained by your clothes from wobbling all over the place to entice onlookers into giving them a smack. You've got your earlier wish for a bigger butt, but at what cost?
"Oops! Sorry Amy!" Vicky's voice, and the feeling of something soft brushing against your ass pulls you from your thoughts. Pushing yourself up and partly turning to look, you see that Vicky is standing on all fours across you, apparently to straighten up Taylor's underwear. And her pose, combined with her big boobs and your just expanded butt, mean said boobs and butt touched each other when she moved. And you moving has just caused even more butt-boob contact. Your brain skips several tracks, and you let yourself collapse back to the floor, to better bury your face in the carpet until you stop blushing, a strange mix of groan and scream strangling from your throat as you do so.
"There, there, arf. Amy and Taylor not Bad Girls no more." Vicky says shortly after, patting you comfortingly. On the butt. "Hee Hee. Amy's got a jello bum." She giggles, dropping any pretence of comfort in favour of poking your ass to see it wobble until you smack her paw away and flip over to glare at her (shivering slightly as you land a touch too hard on your sensitive backside).
Since you last saw her, the curves of Vicky's lower body have gotten even bigger, immense hips and thighs supporting and framing an ass that's gone from the already gargantuan size Taylor's spanking left it to a truly ludicrous one. It's so big that as she settles into a knees bent, arms straight crouch that puts all four of her paws on the ground, she's also effectively sitting, because her butt reaches all the way to the floor. You sister ignores your glare, staring back with empty-headed canine happiness, tail waving and tongue lolling.
"Why the hell would you burst into a room and do that?" You growl out, sitting up and glaring more fiercely, to no greater effect.
"Amy and Taylor go off from party and play naked games together, woof. Is Bad Girl thing, and Bad Girls get punished with spanks. Or have bucket of water thrown on them, but I no have bucket, woof." Vicky answers, cheerfully straight faced.
You and Taylor both begin to shout/splutter denials to what she just implied, but you quickly find yourself distracted from doing so, firstly by the spectacular sight of Taylor's upsized ass under the now rather tight skirt of her uniform when she moves to stand over the crouching Vicky, and secondly by the realisation that your sister's "explanation" included a reference to something you did to her and Dean once at a party. Some time ago. Something there is absolutely no way she could/would think of as a reason to do something, especially something complex like spanking someone as a "punishment" if her brain was still in the animalistic state it was in when you checked after the fight with the Giant Feral.
"You bitch!" You shout, jumping up and running over to smack your sister several times on her oversized rump. "You're just fucking with everyone with the dumb dog act, aren't you?"
Vicky giggles. "Maaaybe. Maybe Big Sis just see Amy jelly of big bums, woof, so Big Sis help."
"What about this is helping?! My ass stings like hell, is stupid sensitive, and even though you've turned it into a huge target, it's probably still one of the smallest in the building if how fat yours has gotten in the last hour is any indication!" You bellow, smacking hard enough at said ass Vicky's force field nearly kicks in, while Taylor stares open mouthed, a complex expression you're too annoyed to read on her face.
"Ohhh! I see what wrong. Amy no happy still, woof, but I know how fix! I borrow girlfriend for bit, Taylor!" Vicky seems unconcerned by your attacks, smiling as an exaggerated look of "comprehension" slowly appears on her face, then uttering words that short circuit your brain and freeze you in gaping shock.
Before you can even begin to recover, Vicky grabs the Spanking Oar in her mouth, then spring up onto two paws, bundles you easily under one arm and dashes out of the door. Taylor follows with a yell after several seconds, but has a hard time keeping up through the corridors even before your sister takes fight, and shortly after that sets off a tripwire or something that Vicky went right over, ending her pursuit in a blizzard of silly string and confetti. You, meanwhile, are too busy trying not to throw up from all the rapid motion to object to being carried off by your bitch of a sister, or even appreciate being this close to her (even more) incredible ass. Closing your eyes helps a bit, but means you completely lose track of where you're going, and it comes as surprise when you're suddenly dropped to a softly carpeted floor.
"Safe now!" Vicky barks, casually lifting a sofa one-handed to block the door of whatever room you've ended up in. "Now make Amy happy!"
"Make me happy, how exactly?" You ask, standing and eying your drunken sibling suspiciously. Her ideas for cheering you up tend to be more than a bit suspect, even when she isn't in full blown stupid party animal mode.
"Make butts match!" She replies, beaming brilliantly and vapidly, her tail wagging so enthusiastically her whole giant backside shakes with it.
That movement, and the vision of yourself with an ass of similarly spectacularly size, distracts you for several crucial seconds, which Vicky uses to pull you down onto the sofa and across her lap. It takes several more equally crucial seconds to get past the pleasure of being in such close contact with your sister to realise what the pose implies about how she's going to make your butts match, and the brushes of her paws against your currently highly sensitive rear as she pulls your skirt up and panties down turn the protest you'd meant to voice into a series of needy whimpers instead. Vicky picks the Oar up in an awkward looking one handed grip, paw just above the head, then brings it down against the side of your ass, repeatedly and rhythmically. Only gently, barely swats, but that just means the resulting sensations are mostly pleasure, with just a little pain to give it an edge, and the combination quickly washes away your half formed desire to protest, leaving you to luxuriate in the feelings and the slow expansion of your backside.
The very slow expansion of you backside. It turns out that when used so gently, the size and sensitivity boosting effects of the Oar are much reduced. Two things stop you from simply shrugging and letting Vicky keep going as she is until either your ass is up to size or she gets bored. Firstly, her strikes may be soft, but she's landing them all in pretty much the same spot, which is already beginning to smart, and you'd rather not end up with a giant bruise on the side of your butt. Secondly, the effect of the Oar that makes those hit with it like being spanked more is not lessened by weak blows, and you'd really rather not have an all consuming obsession with being spanked for the next few days, thanks.
"Harder." You tell Vicky, somewhat indistinctly, and get a puzzled dog noise in return. "You need to spank me harder." You mean to explain in more detail, but apparently what you've said is enough, since the blows against your rear immediately pick up strength and speed, and what comes out of your mouth is...not what you intended.
"OH YES! That's it! Harder!! I'm such a naughty girl!! Punish me HARDER Big Sister!!!!"
QM: To be continued...
In like five minutes, or however long it takes me to format the second half. I'm splitting it to make it less of a monster to read, and also to reduce the odds of the post editor trying to get in the Halloween spirit by killing me.
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Last edited: Oct 21, 2021
Oct 20, 2021 ReportLike QuoteReply
Annatar, Vhalidictes, Midnight007 and 36 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 2, Part 10.2 (Afternoon to Early Evening)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
You cry and you beg and your squirm in your sister's lap as the spanking goes on and, but the one thing you don't do is ask her to stop, even as pleasure turns to pain and back to pleasure again. You can't, and the one thing that seems worse to your sensation washed brain than the spanking continuing forever is it ending ever.
It's fortunate, in the end, that Vicky blocking the door turns out to be pointless - it open outwards. Which meant Taylor could throw it open and hurl a bucket of ice cold, (and glittery, for some reason) water over your sister to bring a halt to the paddling session. You were never going to do so, and Vicky was too drunk and thoughtlessly enthusiastic to stop while you were "encouraging" her to keep going, even once your ass not only matched hers in size, but exceeded it considerably. You're now sitting in an armchair, not quite sure how you got there, while Taylor angrily berates Vicky somewhere in the room. You feel like you should be paying attention to that, but your rear end is now so impossibly oversized that even the extra large Commune chair is barely big enough, and ridiculously sensitive enough that every slight shift causes distracting contact with the sides or seat.
It doesn't help that your skirt and lab coat have responded to the enormous growth of the backside they previously covered by getting smaller, so you're now wearing a micro-skirt that's just long enough not to be utterly pointless at the front like it is at the back and a coat that might be a whole (and wholly inadequate) four inches longer. Your panties are equally little help - you're not sure if they've actually turned into a thong, or if your ultra huge butt cheeks have simply swallowed them up so completely they're effectively one, but either way, your current expanse of ass is something like 95% bare, which isn't a good combination with its current massive sensitivity. You've already had to (carefully) fish the fake tail attached to your underwear out from behind you before the soft, ticklish, feel of it gave you some kind of fur fetish to go with your current desire to interrupt Taylor's scolding of your sister and get her to spank you until your whole ass is too sore of you to sit down, rather than just the one smallish part of it that's currently bright red and tender. (Well, smallish given the impossible immensity of it - you're pretty sure it's the size of your entire ass an hour ago, despite it now only being part of the side of one cheek)
You're not quite sure which her you mean there, and the part of you that gleefully offers "Why not both?" as a solution is not helping.
To distract yourself before you say something you'll both enjoy and regret immensely, you carefully float yourself out of the chair, and even more carefully put your weight on your feet. You still feel rather weak at the knees, and the room seems to swim slightly around you as you "stand". Which is confusing until your power helpfully reminds you that your blood alcohol level is still "Way too fucking high", even if the various Bell Ringer uses you underwent earlier have moved you past the utterly plastered stage. You should probably drink, like, all of the water soon, actually. But first, walking with the butt of an extremely spankable elephant without falling down.
Which turns out to not be difficult at all. You were afraid that with pretty much nothing to constrain them, your ass cheeks would bounce around like spectacularly oversized basketballs, but while they react exaggeratedly to all but the smallest movements and neither you nor anyone one that sees you could miss how mobile they are, they're not threatening to knock over anyone who walks too close to you or clapping together like cymbals with every step. And though its motion plus far greater bulk results in being constantly aware of your own butt in a way your weren't before, it's not...obtrusive? Weird?..like you'd expect it to be. You can't forget that you've got an impossibly huge, sensitive and jiggly backside at the moment, and it's not like you can't remember what your ass was like an hour ago, but once you stop sitting around over thinking it, the feeling of it rapidly becomes "normal". Something noticeable but not remarkable, any more than feeling something in your hand when you pick it up is remarkable, or feeling your wings flapping as you move through the air is odd. You have to adjust how you stand and walk somewhat, of course, but it's easy, almost instinctive to do so, taking even less time than it did for you to start moving comfortably in your massively inflated panties earlier.
There's clearly some Infection bullshit going on even beyond allowing for such rapid adaptation at all, of course. Your ass cheeks must be individually about the mass of your torso, but the effort required to haul such a weighty ass around is barely noticeable. You might tire a little quicker than would with your normal sized ass, but not enough to matter, unless you try to run a marathon or something. Which could be because of your weight being so much less than it should be anyway, but you don't think it is. You're pretty sure that the Infection just doesn't see why having an ass of physically impossible size should be a problem. You do get the vague, ominous, impression there's a point where this will stop being the case (and your ass is rather close to that size), but no details as to what happens if someone's butt gets so big as to cross the line.
Of course, just because you can walk (more-or-less) normally and do so without wearing yourself out halfway across a large room doesn't mean you won't face some issues getting around. Doorways, for example, might pose something of a puzzle until this wears off. You'll be shocked if there's less than six inches of butt either side of your skinny hips now (and not surprised if there's more), and you can't just turn sideways to get through doorframes either, because if there's six inches of ass to the side of you, there's fifteen or more behind you. You know, instinctively in a way that has nothing to do with your powers, that the Infection means you won't be unable to get into most places, or even seriously troubled in doing so, just because of the inhumanly large size of your ass, but that doesn't mean you won't be inconvenienced doing so. Especially if it would be funny. Such as needing your butt pushed through a narrow gap, or a door swinging shut onto your ass because it's so big you can't actually reach far enough to hold it in place and go through at the same time. The latter seems depressingly likely now that you think about it, so you're pretty sure you can consider it an achievement if you make it through the twelve hours or so before your butt returns to normal size without having a closing door bounce repeatedly off your ass and drive you to tears. Or creaming your panties. Or both, but the later seems more likely, giving you're having to fight off the perverse urge to let it happen deliberately, just so you can see what it feels like.
There are no mirrors...wherever this is...but there is a large window, and while it's not dark outside, it's dark enough you can see your reflection relatively clearly. From the front, your ass looks more than a little ridiculous on your short, otherwise slender frame, extending much too far to the side and down your thighs. And from behind...well, anyone with any love of asses at all is going to be too distracted staring to think about how stupidly outsized it is on you. It should look massively unnatural, given that it's seriously out of proportion with the rest of you, far bigger than a human's ass could normally get, and perfectly rounded in a way that shouldn't be possible without artificial aid, but it doesn't. It somehow manages to look almost entirely natural despite its impossibility, and the way in which it doesn't is the way it manages to radiate that this is an ass its bearer has chosen. Look at me, it clearly states. I am the ultimate spankable ass, and I'm like this because the person I'm attached to wanted so badly to receive the ultimate spanking her ass couldn't be anything but the most spankable thing in creation. Or maybe you're projecting a bit. You should probably check that.
"Hey, you two!" You call, prompting the cringing dog-girl and scolding princess on the far side of the room to look over at you. "What's the first word that comes to mind when you look at my ass? Don't think about it, just say it straight away."
You turn slowly (because doing so quickly might make you fall over, and not at all to be teasing, of course) to present your backside for inspection, and the responses come before you've even finished. "Spank!/Slapable." Vicky's response is brainlessly cheery, while Taylor seems embarrassed to have said what she did, but the results are conclusive - You've got a super spankable butt.
"Thought so." You sigh, looking over your shoulder at the pair and resisting the urge to shake your ass a bit and see if either's eyes follow the motion. "I'm going to have the entire Commune wanting to smack my ass, aren't I? ... Dammit, that shouldn't sound appealing!"
It really shouldn't. The idea of people, strangers, wanting to touch your ass at all should be uncomfortable, if not outright disgusting, but it's...not. Sort of. You still don't like the idea of someone uninvited groping your butt, or squeezing it, or otherwise touching it in a gentle or extended manner... But if everyone you saw for the next half day decided to give your rounded rump a couple of hard smacks... It'd be degrading and humiliating and you'd want to protest... But you'd love it, secretly if not openly, so your protests would be at best half-hearted, and quite possibly come off as clearly intended to be encouragement rather than discouragement.
You're pulled out of thinking about it by the sounds of paws on carpet, then a soft whine from near the floor, and you look down to see Vicky on all fours, looking up at you with literal sad puppy eyes, ears flat against her head and tail drooping low.
"I'm sorry Amy. I should have asked before using the Oar on you, and not just asshumed." Vicky's words are slightly slurred and accompanied by a multitude of sad dog noises, but completely absent the brainless enthusiasm she's been affecting.
"Yes you should have." You reply coolly after a long moment. "The first time I can accept as a joke, but the second... You didn't give me enough time to realise and say no before starting, and after you did, I couldn't. The Oar made it too enjoyable, too intense for me to have first thoughts, never mind second ones. And I think you were too into not thinking to say to yourself 'This has gone too far, I should stop', weren't you?" Your sister whines and nods. "And now, not only do I have an ass bigger than my torso, never mind my head, until morning and not only is it stupidly sensitive and impossible to cover and going to invite everyone who sees it to spank it, because of the Oar, I want them to! Like, if I get hit by it a few more times before this wears off, there'll be...bad results...and well into tomorrow if I do, but it's still an effort not to ask you or Taylor to take the Oar and spank me senseless with it. I didn't have a spanking fetish before and wouldn't have wanted one if asked, but now I'm stuck with a major one, and a butt designed to make it far too appealing an idea."
"In that case, I'll remove the temptation." Taylor says briskly after a long pause, picking up the Spanking Oar with a deliberately blank face. "Amy, I'll send someone along with some water, drink it before you come back to the party. Vicky, don't forget what we talked about."
"Have them bring an ice pack as well!" You call after her as she leaves the room, ankle-length hair flaring behind her like a curly purple cape. Vicky, meanwhile, whines again, and starts grovelling apologies.
Between the various doggy noises, drunken stumbling over her words and slightly frantic pace, you can't really tell what your sister's actually saying, but the tone is clear, so you don't interrupt. (And try not to openly enjoy the view down her cleavage her "sad dog" pose gives you.) She finally winds down with "...and tell me what I can do to make your ass better." It's clear she doesn't intend any innuendo, but it's still a mighty struggle not to tell her to "Kiss it better". And also to not ask she spank it better. Which, once you've fought it down, does give you an idea of at least part of what you want as an apology.
"Well, firstly, never spank me again, with the Oar or otherwise, unless I say you can first. Not even one hit as a joke." It's hit and miss if your sister will actually remember you've asked her not to the next time the opportunity for a spanking related prank comes up, especially since she's drunk enough she legitimately might not remember this whole...everything...come tomorrow, but it should spare your ass for tonight, at least. Although... "No, wait. Until tomorrow, don't spank me unless Taylor agrees." That should prevent any alcohol and/or temporary kink fuelled bad decisions.
"Okay! And secondly!?" Vicky barks in agreement, tail and ears perking up at the prospect of forgiveness.
You blink, realise you hadn't actually thought of a second request when you started speaking, and are saved from having to come up with something on the spot when a maid enters the room carrying a silver tray with a bag of ice, a large jug of water, a glass and plastic bowl. Which you're pretty sure is kid's crockery, repurposed to be a dog bowl for your sister. Possibly because of the paw and bones pattern. Vicky eyes it dubiously after the maid fills it and sets it down in front of her, but doesn't say anything until the woman has set the tray down and left (and you've started on your second glass of water).
"Arf! Can I have the glass when you're done, Ames?" She asks, turning puppy dog eyes on you.
"Nope!" You respond cheerily. "You chose to keep acting like a dumb dog after you didn't need to, deal with the consequences." Vicky mutters something about how she hadn't been doing it deliberately for that long, but lies on the floor and starts lapping at the water without further complaint. You try not to pay too much attention, lest her long tongue give you (even more) horny ideas.
By the time you've finished your glass and drunk half of a third, your sister has mostly emptied her bowl, and you put the glass down and pick up the ice pack. "Secondly, since it's your fault I've both got a sore ass and there's no comfy seat in the room big enough to fit my ass with room to hold the ice pack against it, I want you to let me sit in your lap until it feels better. You owe me 'feel better cuddles', as well as making up for me not being able to use chairs for the rest of the evening." Vicky nods enthusiastically, and quickly moves into a cross-legged sitting position, patting her lap with a paw invitingly.
You quickly float yourself into your sister's lap, but plan "Vicky Cuddles" runs into an immediate issue - you don't fit. Even with your sister's super curvy hips and thick thighs making said lap, your enormous ass is too much for it, your buttocks overflowing to the sides, as well as pushing you too far forwards to lean comfortably against her body, and worst of all, leaving you way too high up for your head to "coincidentally" rest at boob height. After a day or so, you've gotten used to your new height, but you want to enjoy the perks of being huggable sized, dammit! Also a problem is that the size of your butt and the position of what's only not a forming bruise due to the Infection's effects on injuries and healing means you can't actually hold the ice pack in the right place without hunching sideways weirdly. And possibly more elbows than you have. That, at least, is easily enough dealt with by Vicky offering to hold it for you. But even having one of your sister's paws resting on your backside as she holds the ice pack against it can't overcome the discomfort of having your ridiculously sensitive ass partly squeezing into the gap between Vicky's legs, partly overflowing them on the outside. Even with the extra padding on her thighs at the moment, it's pretty uncomfortable to have your butt pressing into her legs like it is (and that the "padding" is more hard muscle than soft curve doesn't help). You find yourself squirming involuntarily to find a better positioning, with little luck. And then forcing yourself to stop, as "squirming in Vicky's lap" rapidly threatens to become "grinding against Vicky's lap", because your ass is basically a giant erogenous zone at the moment.
Fortunately, this time, your sister notices your discomfort in her hold without you having to say anything. "Guess I really did overdo it, arf? Float up a bit will you? I want to try something."
Bemused, you do so, restraining a whine as Vicky lets go of you. And then an entirely different sort of whine when she latches back on, having used her powers to lift herself up. It could be the way her legs are now loosely around your waist, immense thighs resting atop your ass. Or the fact she's using one of said thighs to hold the ice pack in place. Or that the only reason her ludicrous ass isn't squashing yours into the floor is that she's using her powers to stay in the air, so there's only a little weight against it. Or maybe it that her arms are over your chest as she embraces you. Or that the result of her position is that when you lean back, your head nearly vanishes into her cleavage. Or all of them. Probably all of them, if you can chase down enough brain cells to appreciate the whole thing at once.
"There we go. All snugly and hugging little Amy's big butt boo-boos better, woof." Vicky announces in a teasing tone of purely big sisterly mockery.
"Big talk from the big sister who's boyfriend fucked her a big bimbo butt while she was being a barnyard basic bitch." You grump back, familial irritation working wonders to get your brain going again.
"Yep! Is it still buttsex if his dick doesn't reach the hole? Or is it the ass version of a titjob?" Your sister barks back, cheerful and shameless.
"I don't know and I don't want to know." You growl back. "But you'll have the chance to do it a bunch more - you've added some kind of butt boosting strain to the bimbo-dog one, and the end result of that will be an ass to rival Clockblocker's. I think. I'll tell you once I've finished looking."
Vicky whines a bit for you to tell her more "...now, you can't just leave me hanging on that, Ames", but stops after you blindly smack her sensitive rump a few times.
The Butt Booster strain is a bit odd, in that it always forms a hybrid strain and has random effects when doing so (plus won't do anything until it can form a hybrid), but it's easy enough to understand, even with the distraction of your sister resorting to aggressive cuddling to try and get answers quicker. There are three Traits your sister will get from it, ultimately. She's already picked up one, the Junk In Trunk one the Commune strains have, so her soon-to-be-future of wandering around on all fours is going to involve showing off a big, barely concealed bottom, and her other two potential Traits will take advantage of that. One will let her use her ass to temporarily turn people into drooling morons, the other will let her prevent them from noticing anything but her butt, and both will allow her to steal some brains/perceptiveness respectively from her victims in the right circumstances.
Vicky is unconcerned by how big her backside might end up when you report your findings, and more than happy to hear about the potential powers she'll gain, lunching into a story about how she didn't need any special abilities to cause mindless drooling and staring earlier at the party, so how much better will she be at it when she has them?
You let it wash over you, not quite sure if you're happy or annoyed that your sister is not only apparently unbothered by her current and future bimbofication, but practically embracing it. Given that it's almost certainly unavoidable, you should probably be happy, but, well, her eagerness to turn her brain off is why you're going to be spending the rest of the evening resisting the urge to get spanked insensible and/or immobile, and while the cuddles help make up for that, you're finding that you're still rather irritated about it. You want some actual payback. Something like turning Vicky's stupid "matching butts" idea back on her, so she has to deal with an impossibly huge ass for the rest of the night, too. Even if the Oar was here, you couldn't use it to do so, of course. Not so much due to the hypocrisy of spanking her without permission after your complaints, but because if you got hold of it, you'd be more likely to use it on yourself than anyone else. But you've been in contact with Vicky's skin for a while now, and it occurs to you she's got a couple of small transformations she won't notice changing, given she's still under the effects of the doggy treats she decided to scarf down earlier...
You're not quite as focused as when you altered Taylor's changes, and you can't really move your hands to help without making what you're doing obvious, but you manage to grab the bit of Infection giving your sister canine body language after a couple of attempts, and redirecting it is easy enough. Vicky's rambling story (which you're pretty sure is now nothing to do with this party) breaks off as she shivers, then shifts her position to accommodate her hips widening to truly gargantuan sizes while her ass swells significantly to the same impossible proportions as yours (and a far greater actual size). Before you can appreciate the changes however, you need to do something about the dog noises transformation, which you've semi-accidentally gotten ready for input to change. Using it to balance out your sister's proportions a bit seems the best idea, and doing so has the unexpected benefit of zapping away what little hesitation she has about showing her boobs off. Which is handy, given said breasts grow to at least a H-cup, so not showing them off would be...challenging.
The size increase also results in your head getting entirely engulfed by boob, but Vicky fishes you out before you suffocate, so you're counting that as a benefit as well.
"Arf! Was that a little early?" Vick asks while you're lying with your head in her lap, getting your breath back.
"Don't think so." You lie, glad of her huge boobs not just for the view, but because they mean she can't see you utterly failing to keep a straight face.
You're not quite sure how it happened, but you must have messed with your sister's dog eyes transformation somehow. Not only has it ceased to be merely cosmetic - she's lost a little colour and distance vision in exchange for much greater peripheral and motion vision - but the dog-like changes to her face have spread. Your powers report her nose is now cuter and softer, as well as black and wet and more sensitive (in both senses of the word), while her teeth are all-around sharper and more carnivorous in nature. But that's not what has you smirking. Your sister's voice has changed, becoming a touch higher and a whole lot more brainless in tone. What she says or how she says it isn't effected, but unless she puts some serious effort in, anyone hearing her speak from now on is going to be listening to the voice of a total airhead. Between her new voice and her changed face, she could be doing calculus out loud and onlookers would still get the impression she's the sort of person who struggles to add two and two without counting on her paws. It also sounds pretty much exactly like the voice she used when she was acting the part of a dumb dog (which was in turn a match to her voice when she did have the brains of a drunk Labrador), which is probably why she hasn't noticed it yet. It's certainly why you don't feel bad about unintentionally speeding up when she got stuck with it permanently, she really was tempting fate(/the Infection) there.
Reluctantly, you get up after a minute or so to get some more water, and after refilling your glass empty the jug in the bowl on the floor. "Drink up." You instruct your sister. "You need to stay hydrated, given how much booze you've had." She whines a bit, but starts drinking. Quite deliberately, you wait until she's almost lapped up the whole bowl to say. "So, was drinking doggy-style rather than picking the bowl up and sipping just you having an even bigger blonde moment than usual and not thinking of it, or do you actually enjoy acting like a house pet?"
The first part of your teasing provokes a pout that's particularly impressive, given your sister's puffed up lips and the natural advantages she has to looking like a kicked puppy now, but the second... Well, it mostly produces an even bigger pout, but just for a moment, when it first registered, Vicky looked...intrigued? Tempted? Agreeable? You're not sure quite what the flash of emotion was, but you're sure of what it meant. She does want to be a house pet. Or something like that. Your first thought is that it's a reaction to her changes, a way of coping, but on second thought...what if she's coping so well because she already liked the idea of being a pet? She's always liked being praised and told she's a good girl for showing off her "tricks", whether that's playing sports, or getting good grades or beating up criminals. And while she's willing to put effort in and show initiative at things she's been told to do, it's impossible to deny that if she can manage without serious thought in the process, she will. There's also that the things she shows off are things Carol has pushed her to do, but that's probably more down to Carol being controlling than anything else. Unless it's because Carol's so...Carol that your sister had petish inclinations in the first place...? It sort of fits, but you're both too drunk and, once you remember the...accessories...found around Carol's office, nowhere near drunk enough to follow the idea all the way through and double check it holds up.
"Hehe, Amy your bum's bright red, arf!" Vicky giggles, breaking you out of your thoughts.
"And whose fault is that?" You snap back, reflexively, before you remember that after Vicky's repetitively placed spanking, only one small part of your butt was red, a particularly deep, almost bruise-like shade of it.
That's not the case now. While the ice pack was held on it, the area Vicky hit has gone from seriously sore and deep red to merely rather tender and light red. Unfortunately, this isn't solely down to the cold and Infection-boosted healing. Or even mostly down to them. Instead, from the feel of your ass and what you can see of it, it's like the consequences of the spanking have been spread out across the whole thing. Which is...actually kind of annoying. While the pain is lessened to the point it's more discomfort than anything else, your skin is tender and sensitive enough that just the brush of air against it as you move results a sting of not-quite-hurt, and sitting down... It's not actually unpleasant is the thing, even if it's a little uncomfortable. Rather, it's almost, but not quite pleasant, the raw feeling of your ass against the floor a continual reminder of just how much your ass has been spanked in the last hour. It triggers shivery feelings that aren't exactly embarrassment, of how right it is that a naughty girl like you has been spanked so much. You're pretty sure they're caused by the induced kink, but not actually sure, sure, which is more than a little disconcerting. Similar feelings apply to the visual condition of your ass, which is very red, and makes it very clear how thoroughly it's been paddled recently, and combined with its total lack of concealment means everyone is going to be able to tell you're a bad girl who's been punished good and proper. Which is humiliating... but weirdly thrilling as well.
"Ugh, great, I look like Miss Spanked. We're going to have-. Hang on, you've been spanked...well, not as much as me but still a lot. Why the hell isn't your ass bright red as well?" Because the loveliness of your sister's ass is unmarked and unmarred, with no sign of red, just creamy skin a little lighter than the more sun-exposed parts of her body.
"Force field thing?" Vicky says with a shrug and a confused whine. "I don't think the Oar was actually hitting me, most of the time. I felt it, and obviously its powers worked, but... Anyway, ready to go back to the party, woof?"
"What? But that's not how... Sure, whatever. But you're going to help make sure no one else hits me with the Spanking Oar before we leave, so if dumb dog Vicky's making a reappearance, she's going to be a very good girl and stick by her sister to protect her. Right?" You say, with a hint of menace.
"Arf! Vicky will be best guard dog!" Your sister declares, rising to all fours in a wide stance that looks like it should be not just uncomfortable but outright impossible for a human to hold for more than a moment. It's clearly instinctively natural, though, and lets her walk without her giant boobs getting in the way of her front legs. Or dragging on the floor, though the pose does mean anyone in front of her will get an incredible view down her cleavage.
Admittedly, given her outfit's top piece is now a rather strained tube top, rather than a tank, you're not sure her breasts would be any less on show if she was standing in a more human way, but the stance does seem to draw attention to their expansiveness and exposure in a way standing up normally would not. You can't say if it gives the same emphasis to the even more expansive nature of her lower body, as it's vastness draws attention like a black hole regardless, but being on all fours renders what little cover her now micro-skirt offers meaningless, leaving only a thong - that frames her toned, shapely ass and hips rather than concealing any of their impossible perfection - as the only thing between her and total exposure.
Vicky appears unconcerned by how her body is displayed by her canine posture, and her tail wags furiously as her face does what you can only call un-concentrating, all signs of focus, concerns and even thoughts fading away until she looks as brainlessly excited as she when tackling you in the ballroom. She bounds in place a couple of times, seeming not to notice the way her expanded boobs and butt bounce as she does, then barks happily and darts over to the doorway before turning back to look at you imploringly. The only indication you can see that she hasn't just had her brain swapped with a Golden Retriever is the fact she's waiting at the open door for you, rather than dashing off down the corridor, and you can't help but murmur "Good girl" and scratch between her canine ears after you cross the room, earning yourself some cheerful panting and a lolling tongue in response.
The doorway is wide enough to get even Vicky's new ass and hips through with only a little difficulty, but you run into a slight issue in the hallway beyond - there's nowhere near enough room to fit both your butts side by side, and since you have no idea where you are, Vicky has to take the lead. Which leads to you learning that Vicky's forelegs are slightly shorter than the back, resulting in her ass being thrust enticingly into the air as she pads along, tail waving and hips swaying. Which also leads to you having no idea what route you take or where you're going until you're back in the main dance room, and also to you banging your newly gigantic butt into things an embarrassing amount along the way (and if you're flushed with anything other than embarrassment, no one needs to know). You don't encounter many members of the Commune on your way, which is fortunate, as each encounter you do have involves a great deal of butts bashing into each other as people (yourself included) drunkenly try to manoeuvre recently expanded rears past each other in corridors that were a little on the small side for easy passing before the Spanking Oar made the rounds. No one seems able to resist giving your ass a slap once they're past, either, though at least they restrain themselves to just the one. Two, at most. Or Vicky starts growling.
The party is still going strong in the main ballroom, and you place a hand on Vicky's collar to stop her from darting out on to the dance floor while you look for Taylor. You don't see her, but you do see Free coming in the main doors. He spots you at the same time and hurries over, a look of mild worry on his face.
"Miss Panacea! She said you'd be here. Can you come with me? Dinah and Molly...they're not hurt, but...well, it's a bit unexpected and Missy Taylor says you should check them in case there are side effects." The young man explains in a rush when he reaches you, and you of course agree instantly.
You and Vicky follow Free back out of the main doors, then down a relatively wide set of steps that go a good way down and far enough back it wouldn't surprise you if you're under the back hill when you reach the bottom. There's some sort of large, open room at the end of the hallway the steps end in, but Free leads you to one of the doors along it. Inside there's a changing room or dressing room or something, Taylor, a nervous looking woman in an apron she's glaring at, and Dinah, hovering worriedly over Molly, who's sat on the floor looking out of breath. Oh, and the latter two are sporting much more massive lower bodies than last time you saw them. It's less of a surprise than it probably should be, but you still have many questions, and Vicky clearly does to, given the gasp and confused doggy noises you hear. And the fact she rushes past you to inspect the pair, briefly smashing your asses against each and forcing you to move quickly to avoid the door shutting on your backside (you just knock it against the frame several times on the way through instead).
Dinah's butt is smaller than yours, but bigger both relatively and absolutely than what Missy was sporting after her punishment spanking was done, and unlike the two of you, her hips and thighs are in proportion to it, making her seriously sizable from knee to waist, in a somewhat odd way that isn't fat or overdeveloped curves. She has curves, and more of them than before but they're still pretty slight. It's more like her lower body is at a much larger scale than the rest of her. Even her dress doesn't seem strained like the rest of your groups clothes are at this point. Molly's clothes on the other hand, barely manage to contain an ass which now surpasses Vicky's in every way and is matched is size and excellence by both her hips and her thighs. Your first thought is that the young woman is on the floor because she just doesn't fit comfortably on even the room's large bench, and that's certainly part of it, but questioning her as you give her a quick once over with your powers reveals that she's was also just too tired to even try it after a relatively small amount of exercise with her current sizes. Whatever caused this expansion, it apparently pushed her past the point you were worried further spanking would take your ass past, and the result is a notable degree of impairment moving (if less than it probably "should" be based on mass alone), made worse by the fact her hips and thighs are also past the limit.
"How did this happen?" You ask, moving your hand to the back of Dinah's neck. You're pretty confident there no hidden effects to what's happened, just the very obvious ones, but best to be sure.
"Ah was showing Dinah some Butt-Fu, and she took to it well enough ah thought she'd put on a good show in the tournament, but she'd be at a disadvantage, as small as she was, so we went to ask for a dish to boost her up a bit." Molly explains, breath mostly back, and pauses to give the woman a dirty look. "Penny said she had a new recipe that'd be good, and I had some too 'cause it should ha' made my junk smaller. It was supposed to be eaten before tournaments so everyone's equal sized. Obviously, didn't work out that way. And a'm pretty sure the equal size should be less than what Dinah's sporting now.
"It is also meant to only last an hour or so, which would not be so bad for Molly if so. But it did not do what it was said to for the rest of it...?" Dinah says, and give you a questioning look over her shoulder.
"Seven-ish hours." You say, after a moment's concentration, and Dinah turns the cutest disdainful glare you've ever seen on the now very nervous Penny.
"Well, ah, back to the drawing board then?" She offers, and you think some of the paint behind her peels slightly from the looks this earns her (even Vicky and Free join in). "But first I'll go and confesses my sins to Jeeves?
"Indeed you will- My word, that is dramatic. What, exactly, were you cooking with, Penelope?" Jeeves appears at the doorway and beckons imperiously to her...subordinate? It's not clear if she's formally in charge of all the Timeskeeps, or just inspires good behaviour through vague terror like she does with everyone else.
"Miss Molly, are you still able to compete in the tournament?" Jeeves asks, and gets a sad negative. "Understood. Lady Dinah, do you still intend to take part?"
"Um...I think yes. The moves Molly showed me were fun, and I have not have trouble with them...after." Dinah says with subdued cheer, waving at her lower body.
"Excellent. I shall let Sire know so the brackets can be adjusted accordingly. I'm sure you shall give a good showing." With that, Jeeves lets the door swing shut, and presumably drags Penny off to maid-hell.
"So what is Butt-Fu, anyway?" You ask, taking a seat on the bench that ends up being a lot more precarious feeling than you expected.
"Dinah? Ya want to take this?" Molly says, while you try not to feel like a wobble doll atop your own ass cheeks before Taylor sits next to you and discreetly stabilises you.
"Oh! Yes, I can explain." Dinah says, eagerly, standing where you and Taylor (and Vicky, who's somehow comfortable lying on the floor despite her boobs) can see her and taking a "lecturing" pose with a beaming smile.
The torrent of words that promptly pours out of her isn't the easiest thing to follow, but you haven't the heart to interrupt, and you get the general gist anyway. Butt-Fu is something between a sport made up to satisfy the Commune's love of all things butts and an actual, serious fighting style that takes advantage having such sizable backsides. And also hips and thighs, but the butts are the big thing. It's not entirely clear to you that such a fighting style would actually work, but the few moves Dinah demonstrates certainly look impressive, and Free agrees when Molly swears they work in actual combat, and Vicky doesn't object at any point, so presumably it's less implausible than it seems? It's not like you know enough about fighting to judge, really.
The sound of a gong cuts Dinah off mid (entirely unhelpful) explanation of how one of Butt-Fu's "special techniques" works to make the user's butt less sensitive to impact, and she blurts out a rapid fire "Oh!Thetournamentisstartingsoon,Ihavetogo." and rushes out of the room, somehow not banging her hips on the doorframe as she does so.
Molly tries to leap to her feet to follow, fails, and curses colourfully has she hauls herself up more slowly. "Damn thing. Come on, let's go. I want good seats if I'm not going to be able to take part." Free runs over to hold the door so she can focus on getting her ridiculous hips and ass through it, and you can't think of anything better to do, so you get up to follow.
"Molly's really good at Butt-Fu, and she really likes it." Free explains softly as you all follow after Molly, who once you were all out started off down the hall with the speed and grace of a charging rhino. "Dinah seemed to pick it really quickly too. I hope she does well at the tournament."
"Was this always here?" Taylor asks when you reach the room at end of the hall.
It's a pretty large, with several tiers of deep, well padded bench seats surrounding a central area that holds an overcomplicated looking boxing ring-like structure with a fair amount of room left over. It doesn't seem at all like the sort of thing you'd expect to find under an apartment block, but Free just shrugs at Taylor's question and Molly looks thoughtful. "Ah didn't know it was here before F-Day, but we didn't dig it out that ah know, just made the seats comfier."
You're not sure if that means this place is pre-F-Day, or just that the Infection does as much weird shit to the surroundings as it does people's bodies, but you're distracted from considering it by Dennis' voice.
"Hey guys, over here!" Looking round, you see him waving from the front row of seats, where he's sitting next to Carlos, whom appears to have ended up a dress while his clothes are cleaned. Possibly because no pants in the world would fit comfortably over the curves his lower body is now sporting. The ass is smaller than what you're stuck with, but the hips (and thighs and oddly, calves) match it, so he's got a considerable collection of curves now. Dennis has traded his shorts for a skirt as well and seems unbothered, by that and sporting an ass to match what Vicky had when you were done with her, and slightly larger hips and thighs.
He's also nodding off in his seat, you realise when you get closer. "What happened to him? I thought I'd need industrial equipment to get him to actually relax anytime soon." You ask Dennis, who grins in an unrepentant way that makes you instantly suspicious, despite being pretty sure there's nothing to be suspicious of.
"Well, you know. He's been working so hard since F-Day and he's so big and strong, there were a lot of people eager to show their appreciation, and some of them are very good at massage." Dennis replies, with an eyebrow waggle that somehow makes it clear it was just massages, not anything salacious. "Also every Timeskeeper who saw him insisted on bringing him food. I'm not entirely sure he isn't nearly matching my own swell sizes just because his power needing somewhere to put it all. Never seen anything they cook up give someone curvy calves, for one thing, even when they're experimenting."
"It's...mostly the food." You report after landing next Carlos and checking. "The calves are his power keeping things balanced, but I think the rest is external. I think. His powers plus the Infection make mine go a bit cross-eyed." With horniness more than confusion, but you wouldn't tell Dennis that if he broke out the thumbscrews.
"Huh. Wonder what it is that's letting the food go so far past the limit. Normally it tops out well below what we're seeing at the moment." Dennis says thoughtfully, not actually eying your own massive rear, even as his glance clearly acknowledges it.
"Jeeves probably knows by now. She dragged someone called Penny off to explain why Molly's currently..." You wave at the now older than you girl, who's settled on the other end of the bench from Carols and taking up a rather large amount of it.
"Just her? Not the rest of you?" Dennis ask, probably more curious than teasing.
"My ass is entirely the fault of this idiot running amok with the Spanking Oar." You answer, reaching down to ruffle Vicky's fur-like hair and getting an irritated look from the dog girl lying at your feet once more. "So's Taylor's. Not sure of the mix for Vicky herself, but think it's at least as much oar as food. Dinah had the same dish as Molly, and I think just that, and I've not seen Missy in a while, but she was much more oar than food when I did. ... And no clue for Dean."
"There's definitely more to it than just the oar, it's been popular, but not that popular." Dennis says with a frown, then shrugs. "Ah, if it it's a new ingredient or cooking technique Jeeves'll let me know, and if it's something else...I'm way too drunk to work it out tonight." He looks at a clock and the activity on the floor. "Nearly time to start. Keep Carlos company for me? I'd say don't let him fall asleep before it's my turn, but that's in the last bracket and he could probably do with the rest if he manages to stay asleep once the crowd gets going. So just don't let him fall off the end of the bench if he does."
The Ward's been gone for about a minute when the other two Wards in the building show up, Missy leading Dean along on a rein you're pretty sure is actually a curtain. The pony-boy makes a happy horse noise at seeing Vicky, and promptly clatters over to lie down along the base of the bench facing her. You do your best to ignore it as they start nuzzling at each other, focusing on Missy, who looks unchanged from when you last saw her, however long ago that was. (You're honestly not all that sure - the Commune might have clocks as a decorating theme, but the times on them are rather random, and you're pretty sure those that move do so at different speeds.)
"So this is going to be either excellent, awful and hilarious whichever way it turns out." The purple haired girl say as she sits down on the far side of the other purple haired girl from you. "Oops, sorry Free."
The young man in question blushes, but doesn't exactly look unhappy to be briefly squished between Missy and Molly (or more precisely their butts) before Taylor shuffles along to make more space, not that she can make much. It's a good thing Vicky and Dean are happy on the floor, because there's no room for them on the bench. There's maybe an inch between your ass and Carlos', then you Taylor and Missy are cheek to cheek and Free just about has a half inch on each side separating him from the blondes either side of him, and that only because his ass is still only rather large, not immense or larger like those possessed by ninety five plus percent of the people steadily filling the arena. Filling it, or the benches at least, rather more than usual from the sound of it. It's apparently a good thing lots of people are...otherwise occupied, despite the relatively early hour. There are fewer bodies to be seated, but much more butt per body than normal, and it's not like they can add seats.
"How so?" Taylor asks curiously.
"Well, first off, from how it's been described to me, 'Butt-Fu' is going to look stupid for sure, but stupid cringe or stupid awesome is up in the air. Secondly, no matter how it goes normally, if any of the people taking part are sober enough to hit the floor with their hat, I'll eat it."
"Good thing Dinah's not wearing a hat then." You say laughingly. "She's up first, looks like."
"She's probably eaten her bodyweight in sugar, given how many people have been giving her treats..." Missy trails off as Dinah climbs into the ring and she gets a good look at her current proportions, which are further augmented by the addition of a bulky, bright pink canvas garment that you can only really describe as a boxing glove crossed with a diaper around her waist. "Okay, maybe not. When did that...? Anyway, my point was that last I saw she was so hyper she was practically buzzing off the ground. She might not be drunk, but I'm not sure she counts as sober. She's even forgotten to be prim sometimes."
Further discussion (and Molly looks like she wants to at least try "discussing" the description of Dinah as prim) is cut off by a gong ringing out several times, followed by a commentator starting up. You're not entirely sure if your still that drunk or her prattle is just that mindless, but either way it washes over you meaninglessly. You pick up that Nell will be refereeing, and she is indeed standing by the ring in a set of black and white overalls. And a black and white straw hat. Other than that, you just about follow enough to know when the right moment to cheer for Dinah is, and a gratified to hear the rest of the room also cheer her loudly along with your bench. Missy's probably right that she's riding high on something - though you think it's as much excitement as sugar - since her response to the noise is to wave back enthusiastically, with no sign of nerves or embarrassment, and your impression is she's not generally that confident when faced with attention on more than a small scale.
Given that Dinah learned Butt-Fu existed a few hours ago at most, she's in the novice bracket of the tournament. It shows in her opponent's performance. It doesn't show in hers. The woman she's facing makes what is apparently a common rookie opening move, turning so her ass is facing Dinah and charging backwards while looking over her shoulder to stay on course. Except it's more of an "unsteady trot" than a "charge", and Dinah easily sidesteps it, further unbalances her opponent with a hip check as she passes, then crouches low and knocks the woman off her feet with what can only be called an ass-sweep. And then plants herself, gargantuan butt first, on her opponent's stomach, which is apparently a match winning pin? Or the whole combo scores her enough points to win instantly at this level. You can't tell, but the crowd goes wild, so it's clearly a good win either way.
The other first round matches are...less interesting, and you're pretty sure from the crowd's reaction that's not just your uninformed perspective. By the time Dinah starts off the second round, Carlos has pretty much drifted off, and even the great burst of mixed cheering and laughter that greets Dinah's new opponent, with honestly very minimal assistance, drunkenly racking himself on the boundary ropes only partly rouses him. Once again, you're not sure what Dinah won on - points or Nell giving her opponent a "Go home, you're drunk" penalty. The third round, Dinah definitely wins on points, although you're not sure how many, how she scores them, or how close it was. The answer to the last one is almost certainly "not very", though you're basing that more on her defeated foe's loud complaints about being beaten so badly by a little girl than any understanding of the scoring. There are flip charts on the commentator's table, but Dinah's matches so far have been over fast enough they've not bothered updating them. Or not been able to keep up with Nell's calls. Either way, the complainer gets booed off and the tournament continues. Dinah's next match is a semi-final, and proves her closest so far, with her and her relatively old looking opponent circling each other cautiously and making a few probing exchanges before her slightly grease stained foe commits to a butt-thrust that Dinah somehow blocks with her thighs in a way that sets her up to knock the wind out of her opponent with a butt slam. The final is something of a letdown afterwards, with Dinah facing a woman you think is the maid who was so flirty when bringing Taylor food earlier, and who proves to not be all that good at Butt-Fu when facing an opponent that can't be distracted by her...charms.
As either a reward for winning the novice section of the tournament or for how skilled she was when winning it, Dinah gets to take part in the intermediate section, which starts up more or less immediately. She's at the far end of the bracket this time, though, and it's larger, so she gets a rest at least. The matches before hers are better than at the novice level, in that there combatants are clearly more skilled, but they're still about as drunk on average, and more than one attempt at a flashier move ends in a comical screw up. The crowd is more excited to see this, but despite the increase in the volume of cheering, jeering and catcalling, Carlos continues to snore away next to you, having drifted off...you're not sure. But he's doing it while sitting up more or less straight and with a vaguely attentive expression on his face and his eyes open, which raises questions about how someone who has to actively work to not be sufficiently rested has gotten enough practice at appearing awake while sleeping to do it automatically if he's sitting up when he drifts off. But on reflection, you're not sure you actually care what the answer is. You might bring it up if you need to dig at him about taking care of himself, but you're not exactly short of material there.
In the ring, Dinah's first match of the bracket is ongoing. Or rather, when turn your full attention to it about a minute and change after it started, concluding, as her opponent, overwhelmed by a combo of butt blows from several directions desperately tries to block the last thrust with their hands. This both fails to work, leaving them gasping for breath, and earns them a penalty for "hands", which you think is what makes the difference between Dinah merely getting a massive points advantage and winning the match there and then. You do your best to pay attention to the next round of matches, but they don't really clarify the rules for using your hands/arms, since most people don't, other than break falls or for movement, such as the young woman who uses the ropes to spring herself upwards and smash her opponent in the face. Or Dinah's wining move in her next match, backflipping into a handstand that looks almost coincidental in how crashes the padding around her gigantic backside into her opponent's chest and lets her land on them for a win by pin.
Despite the matches requiring more points (you're pretty sure) to win and there being more fighters, the intermediate tournament seems to reach its conclusion much faster than the novice one did. Possibly because the matches were more exciting/faster paced?" Either way, Dinah faces off against the woman who used the ropes to win her second round match in the final, and it's close, with the two of them trading points and blows back and forth for some time. Eventually, the woman, clearly aware they she's starting to flag and Dinah's energy seems inexhaustible, commits abruptly to what's clearly an all-or-nothing butt-slide. It's close, but Dinah's just able to leap away from her whipping thighs, and despite clearly trying, her opponent can't get in any sort of position to avoid a butt pin, and the crowd goes wild for Dinah's unexpected victory.
Dinah is once again offered, and accepts, the opportunity to take part in the next bracket of the tournament, but unlike last time there's a short break before the expert round begins. Dinah uses it to come over, and all of you save the sleeping Carlos get up to offer her hugs and congratulations. Dean's neigh and affectionate palm lick seem more in imitation of Vicky's happy barking, bounding and face licking any understanding of what's going on, but Dinah doesn't appear to mind, beyond her blush at the praise in general. Once you've all finished, she and Molly start discussing her various fights, with occasional comments from Missy. You can't follow the conversation at all, and not just because of the speed it's being conducted at, so you just watch with a smile on your face and discreetly check the youngest member of your group over. She's a little sweaty and dishevelled, but still full of energy, with her slightly laboured breathing returning to normal quickly enough, while the grin that threatens to make the top of her head fall off shows no signs of fading. Even Taylor apparently reaching some kind of limit and starting to straighten her hair and clothes up gets a resigned little preteen huff, but no complaints or a reduction in the size of the smile.
Various uniformed people are bringing refreshments around during the intermission, and you snort and reach over to nudge Missy at the sight of the rather unusual "trolley" they're being served from. "Hey, it's your arm wrestling buddy." Missy flicks a distracted glance in the direction you're pointing, then does a double take and bursts into gales of laughter, dainty hands pounding on the bench and her not so dainty thighs. Jackson is certainly a sight that deserves it. He appears to have been stuck inside into some sort of cart, with only his head and ass sticking out of it, which would be funny enough its own, but the look on his face makes it clear that whatever wits he had have been spanked right out of him, and his ass is big enough to considerably extend the space on the top of the trolley and still completely encased in the tight plastic panties despite being much bigger than even Molly's backside. You doubt he could move around unaided even if he wasn't a drooling pile of mindless lust, and while making said aid into a serving trolley could just be someone's idea of how he can fulfil Missy term that he "make himself useful" while he can't even stand, you're pretty sure it's not. You can't imagine why someone with such a winning personality would have people willing to take advantage of his situation to heap on additional humiliation, but given the number of casual smacks you see to his presented backside, no one is all that worked up about it.
With drinks and snacks in hand, you all settle back down to watch the final part of the tournament, having to shuffle about slightly to fit on the bench, as the Commune's equivalent to popcorn apparently makes Free's butt pop up a size or two. The matches in the expert bracket feature, well, experts at Butt-Fu, but that doesn't change the fact that everyone taking part (other than Dinah) is rather drunk, and it's about even odds whether a given bout will end dramatically or comically. You also get the impression Dinah's the only fighter who hasn't been introduced, butt first, to the Spanking Oar recently, and while that was probably largely true for the previous brackets as well, it's in this one that the less obvious effect of the Oar, making those backsides it hits more sensitive, starts to tell. Dinah probably had an advantage there anyway, given the traits of the Commune's various strains, and while you can't fairly describe her as taking merciless advantage of being able to both land and take more forceful hits with her butt without flinching, it's definitely an advantage. One that, combined with her seemingly endless energy, a noticeably more acrobatic sort of athleticism than the Commune's fighters seem to favour and a certain amount of luck, sees her soon enough reaching the final match of the final round.
Where she is, surprisingly enough, not facing Dennis. He lost to her opponent in the previous round, after a close, drawn out match. Even though that fight was before Dinah's semi-final, hers didn't go on anywhere near as long, and it's clear the overall clad individual now facing Dinah in the ring isn't recovered from it, favouring the hip Dennis got a good blow on in their final clash as well was still being obviously tiered out. They're clearly still much more skilled at Butt-Fu than Dinah, but the young girl has shown throughout the tournament an astounding grasp of the basic principles Butt-Fu fighting, and her foe clearly doesn't have the capacity left to push far enough beyond those basics to overwhelm her. It's a close match, one that has the crowd cheering at every reversal, but it's not a particularly long one, and soon enough Nell is declaring Dinah the winner and champion.
A podium is quickly brought out, and after the loosing semi-finalists of the three brackets are presented with bronze wreaths and the second place competitors with silver, Dinah is stood on it alone to receive a particularly ornate looking golden one. The commentator approaches with an interview clearly in mind as Nell steps away, but a series of bangs cut them off. The sparklers behind the podium are probably meant to be there. The confetti raining down around the room...possibly also expected. The glitter mixed into it over the stands, on the other hand, you have your doubts about. And the hail of water balloons from the ceiling is certainly not supposed to be part of the celebrations. You can tell, as you get an except chance to observe without the shock and confusion of everyone else, since your bench is spared the various falling items as though someone's holding an umbrella over it.
"Huh, I would have thought the water balloons would have been a bit big." Missy says casually, with s curious glance at Taylor, who is presumably responsible for the invisible umbrella above her warped space one.
"Probably, if they were a surprise. Would depend how fast they were. But I could tell they were there, so I had time to be ready. What tipped you off? If it was just, you know, a general response to sudden bangs I'd expect it to be all around us." Taylor responds, equally casual and a slightly softer sort of curious.
"Experience of Dennis." Missy says dryly. "He had a prank about to go off look on his face. And unexpected things dropping from the ceiling is apparently good situational awareness training, so it's one of his favourites since he gets away with it more often."
"Ah. I see we are too late." Jeeves says blandly without warning from behind you, she, Samuel and another maid-dressed woman having abruptly appeared in your sheltered bubble. Jeeves looks resigned, and possibly mildly irritated, but both Samuel and the woman are smirking, the woman openly and widely and Samuel more with his eyes than anything else.
The trio of Timeskeepers move round your bench and into the mild madness after a few moments to let the worst of the glittery confetti drifts settle, Jeeves and her fellow maid homing in on Dennis and Nell, while Samuel pauses for a moment to give Molly and Free a look. "Miss Molly? Mister Free? Please do not go anywhere. We do have people at the exits this time."
"Aw, busted." Molly whines, but fairly good naturedly, while Free goes pale, then pink, but nods.
Samuel smiles at their easy acquiesce, looks across the room to find Dinah, sees that she's sitting on the podium giggling and doesn't look inclined to make an escape despite not being the focus of anyone's attention, and strides off in the direction of the small group that's trying to sidle inconspicuously towards a back exit. They see him coming, and several abandon their attempts at subtlety to flee outright. Given how quickly they walk, blank faced, back into the arena ahead of pair of dainty butlers, you doubt they made it more than a few steps down the hall, and one of them appears to have managed to run into a balloon full of particularly pink, green and glittery water in the brief time they were out of sight. Once she's finished scolding an uncontrite Dennis and the culprits have all been rounded up and are standing in a group in the middle of the floor looking generally unrepentant (Dinah and Free are sort of exceptions, in that they're at least trying to look sorry), Jeeves claps her hands sharply, the sound echoing through the room and bringing near instant silence.
"Thank you. My colleagues will come around shortly to help you clean yourselves up, and then we shall see to the punishment of the pranksters who have been plaguing our community for the last hour or so. Again. An audience is absolutely required, so please remain here if you wish to bear witness." It's hard to tell with Jeeves, even when she's projecting to the whole of a big room without aid, but you get the feeling that while she's annoyed about the pranks, she's not actually upset, not that this will spare the pranksters any punishment.
Jeeves leads her collection of miscreants out of the arena, and various other domestically dressed people appear throughout the room, mostly offering towels and brushes for people to use, but a few have mops and brooms and set about trying to clear the debris from the floor and benches. Taylor watches them, sighs slightly and stands. "I should give them a hand." She says, and possibly more, but you miss it if she does, since she stretches hugely after a few steps, and you get kind of...absorbed...in the movement of her backside in her now tight skirt. Vicky has thankfully wandered off to quite literally stick her nose into the drifts of sparkling confetti and so doesn't see you gaping, but Missy doesn't, and snickers loudly at you. After poking you a few times to snap you out of it.
"Oh shut up." You mutter. "Like you'd be any better if Dean was waving his ass around instead of making cow eyes at my sister."
"I'd be more subtle than that. How the hell did no one know you were a lesbian before all this?" Missy shoots back, smugly.
"You brought Dean in on a rein, don't talk to me about subtle." You snap back, in a poor deflection you can tell the Ward allows you to get away with.
"Hey, I just got handed that by a maid, since I was heading this way anyway. I'm pretty sure it's your sister who put it on him in the first place." She contemplates Vicky, who now appears to be chasing her tail in an attempt to get at the clump of glitter stuck to it. "Well, maybe not. But it's her fault he thinks he's a pony and needs leading places at the moment. How much longer before they're back to normal, by the way?"
"Normal sailed long before F-Day, especially for Vicky. But Dean should be back to human thinking...sometime soon? I have no idea what time it is or when Vicky stopped riding him around, but it's got to be well past the hour mark by now, right?" You shrug, and Missy shrugs back.
Taylor passes by, trailing floating clouds of glitter and confetti, plus a bevy of worshipful maids, but as you open your mouth to ask the only sober member of your party if she knows what time it is, the main doors fly open and Jeeves walks in, followed by the pranksters, walking double file and holding hands like obedient kindergarteners. They've all changed outfits while they were out of the room, into yellow bucket hats and pigtail (as much as possible on the shorter-haired ones) childish looking blue pullovers with lacy collars and cuffs, short yellow skirts that are nowhere near long enough to hide the thick, very childish panties they're now sporting, cute knee socks, and oversized yellow wellingtons that look hard to walk in. Dinah's at the front, looking happy and childishly innocent, while Free, who's hand she's holding, looks similarly young and innocent, but rather more nervous. Those following them look to be somewhere on the spectrum between as happy as Dinah and annoyed at being caught, but in a fair's fair sort of way. They also, despite their greater ages, the general figures of their lower bodies, the outfit's relative lack of concealment for those areas, and in some cases (like Dennis') their own best efforts, look not much less childish and innocent than Dinah.
At some point, a number of black boards have been set up where the Butt-Fu ring was, and each pair stands in front of one, then Jeeves claps her hands again. "Now, each of you shall start writing on half of your board 'I shall not play excessively messy pranks' and keep going until told to stop. While you're doing that, we shall be applying parts two and three of your punishments individually."
So Jeeves says, and so it is done, people more or less immediately picking up chalk and starting to write with varying amounts of enthusiasm. While they're doing that, Jeeves takes a seat on a large stool, and readies on a standing tray a couple of small buckets, a large toothbrush and what looks like a bar of soap. Next to her, Samuel stands ready with the Spanking Oar and a look of not quite hidden eagerness. The pattern is quickly established, with someone being pulled away from their board and across Jeeves' lap, where she holds them in place as Samuel efficiently but thoroughly spanks their panty clad rears. Then, once eyes are teary and their rumps are considerably larger (and probably redder), Jeeves scrubs around inside their mouths with the toothbrush, producing an entertaining array of "bad taste" faces and an excessive seeming amount of foam, after which they're allowed to rinse their mouths out with the contents of one bucket and spit in the other. The effects of this part of things isn't clear until it's Nell's turn, and she announces in a loud, slightly immature sounding tone, that it is "Horse Poopie!"
"Aw, come on, Jeeves." Nell continues, stumbling slightly as she gets to her feet and has to deal with the weight of an ass now beyond the merely impossible in size. "Ya had to make this batch so ah can't even say 'Poopie' no more?"
"I do happen to have another batch, if you would prefer that, though I don't think you would want to start babbling like a baby now, rather than at midnight. The option is there, though." Jeeves' non-expression looks like it mugged a smile at some point, but has never gotten closer to one than that.
"Nah, Ah'm good!" Nell says hurriedly, returning to her board so urgently she actually crawls the rest of the way after the combination of her boots and backside lead to her overbalancing and falling over.
The other prankster's sessions with Jeeves and Samuel are unremarkable, if amusing save for two. Those two being Molly's and Dennis', and for what happens afterwards rather than during. Which is that both rise, walk exactly seven steps, then drop down on abruptly their asses like their legs have declared a strike (and try to curse colourfully, but "Poopie! Bum-bum! Poopie cuddles! Cuddles!" doesn't have quite the same impact, especially in the tones it comes out in). Which, given how utterly, mind bogglingly, super impossibly massive their backsides are after Samuel is done with the Oar, might not be far from the case. You hurry over and check both when it happens, and your power confirms they're fine and nothing unexpected is effecting them. As best you can tell, the Infection has simply withdrawn some of the support it provides for, well, supporting impossible proportions, and they're not strong enough to stand without it. It's still applying some bullshit though, since the two can move well enough if they don't try and stand. Not all that quickly, but still pretty damn speedy for someone crawling along dragging an ass nearly as big as they are behind them.
Dinah's turn comes last, after Free has been and received what seemed to be somewhat gentler treatment than those before him, and she skips right over when called. Not so much due to being eager for her punishment, but more because there's too much sugar and adrenaline in her system to move anything close to normally. Well, maybe a touch to finally get it over with and/or to not be writing lines anymore, given the way she's been impatiently tapping her hooves for the last few minutes. Regardless, she's soon lying across Jeeves' lap, with an expression that bothers you slightly. It's not (beyond how hear face always looks now) excited, or nervous or frightened or even resigned, it's...unconcerned isn't the right word, but...it just seem like she doesn't see the prospect of being spanked fairly heavily with a large wooden paddle as being worthy of concern, not because she doesn't understand what about to happen, but that she does, and it's not something that's worth getting worked up about. Maybe you're just over thinking it, but... You don't know. Something just rubs you wrong. You're not the only one either, from the glances that go between you, Missy, Taylor, and Samuel, before the latter two have a conversation in raised eyebrows with Jeeves.
Dinah still gets a spanking (if with an even softer touch than Free), partly because Jeeves isn't going to compromise her authority or your impression on the Commune by showing favouritism on vague bad feelings alone, and partly because you can't say for sure Dinah wouldn't find such favouritism more distressing than the spanking itself, which... Well, she takes it like a trooper, so that might not be wrong, and after Samuel finishes she looks up at Jeeves with eyes that are watery with tears of pain but not noticeably upset, and opens her mouth widely for the brush. Jeeves is swift and efficient about applying the soap, and soon Dinah is standing up again, adjusting her short skirt mildly self-consciously over her now ludicrously sizable butt.
Jeeves claps her hands again, and into the following silence, speaks. "That is enough lines. Now, if everyone who's willing to stay could find seats somewhere on the benches? Our pranksters are going to come round the room and apologise to you personally, and then their punishment will be completed."
You head back to the bench you watched the tournament from (where Carlos is still snoozing away), and practically before you've all sat down/settled on the floor, Dinah is there. "Sorry for all the pranks I helped play." She says, not terribly apologetically in a voice that sounds entirely unchanged for her normal one. "Did any of them actually get you?" She asks, all innocent curiosity, but Samuel clears his throat meaningfully before any of you can respond and she scampers off and the next prankster approaches.
"We should probably leave once Dinah's done." Taylor says a little later, in the gap between Nell lumbering away and Molly managing to crawl over to you, Free hovering worriedly behind her. "It's getting...well, it'll be a good way after six by the time we're out, and we still want to hit somewhere else before it's fully dark, right?"
Vicky barks an agreement to that, and you and Missy nod yours and the three of you discus options once Molly, Free, and, after a bit, Dennis have come and gone.
"I'm honestly surprised we're talking about after six." Missy says when you're done, stretching and briefly making a weird face before going carefully blank." I'd have thought seven. Hell, you could have told me eight and I've have believed it." She continues, casualness just a tad forced.
"It was...a bit before half four when the three of us got to the ballroom? A bit after? No, before." Taylor says after a moment's thought, not seeming to notice Missy's behaviour. "The big Feral showed up a bit before five and I'm pretty sure I heard bells when Amy and I were walking back afterwards, so that would be five... I'm not entirely sure they didn't like, time warp this room so the tournament didn't happen faster on the outside than the inside, and there was definitely some sort of time shenanigans when Vicky dragged Amy off, I wasn't that far behind them and I'd have noticed if she was breaking the sound barrier with her spanking when I broke it up. Six-ish seems about right, though." You blush and squirm slightly at the memories, while Vicky gives a doggy grin and Missy gives you a look.
"If we're going soon, I need to go to the bathroom first." You say, not entirely to escape the conversation. "Vicky, do you?" Your sister shakes her head. "Right. In that case, stay. I don't want to have to chase you down when we go."
"I'll come with you, Amy." Missy says quickly, but fortunately doesn't use the time spent tracking down the toilets to get in any teasing or uncomfortable questions. Instead, she spends the whole time with an odd look on her face and a slightly strange gait, as well as making attempts to discretely adjust her rubber suit. The bathrooms consists of a number of single occupant rooms and only one's free when you get there, so you let Missy go ahead to deal with whatever's up with her.
"Huh, flower petals. Guess it could be worse?" Missy's voice drifts through the bathroom door, probably much louder than she intended it to be, given how loud her next words are. "Hey Amy, could you come in? I need a quick check up."
When you open the door and slip inside, Missy has the Power Suit off and is shaking it out, sending flower petals fluttering to the floor to join a small pile, so you get an excellent view of what at first seems to be a large tattoo of a black and purple rose bush on her gargantuan butt and growing up her back to vanish under her vest. One second glance though, it doesn't look quite right for a tattoo, and when touched both flowers and stems have a petal-like texture. They're also, based on Missy's breathless response, even more sensitive than the rest of her ass, with those on her back "merely" being more sensitive than the surrounding skin, rather than matching the lower ones.. The deep purple, equally petal-like skin that's replaced her armpit and pubic hair has similarly boosted sensitivity according to your powers, though those will just change colour periodically, rather than design, like that back and rear patch will. They'll all also shed flower petals sometimes, basically as a far more obvious version of ordinary skin shedding dead skin cells, except each has a trigger to do so more heavily. For the back patch, it's basically random but also shortest, happening when the design changes, while the armpit patches do so during exertion instead of sweat, and the one above her vagina will do so when she's aroused.
"I hope that's only when I'm particularly worked up. Otherwise I'm going to have underpants full of flower petals all the time, given how much horny's going around these days." Missy says when you report your findings, turning to look at you. You try not to let your gaze drift down. She seems to have put the Towering Boots back on after taking the suit off, which mean you're eye level with her chest, but that at least is still covered by her vest.
"I'm...honestly not sure?" You say with a shrug, mildly puzzled by your powers not being able to tell. "I think it might be variable? Probably is, for maximum irritation and embarrassment. That seems to be the Infection's general goal."
"Guess I'll have to wait and find out. Irritation seems likely in this thing, at least." Missy sighs, giving the Power Suit a last shake. Tight, full body, and no easy way to get any petals out without taking it off. Yeah, that'd be annoying.
"Maybe it won't feel so bad once you're used to it?" You offer, and shrug again at the sceptical look the weak suggestion gets you.
"I'm not sure I'd want to get used to it even if it did. Well, I didn't need the toilet, just to get those out, so I'll leave you to it." Missy says, starting to climb into the suit without taking anything else first, which seems to work, somehow.
"Before you go, you've picked up a couple more Traits as well - Endless Youth, Power Adaptation and Royal Command off the princess strain and Room to Grow off the vampirate one." You tell her, as your powers told you.
"The last one is the one that lets you earn stuff based on the admiral strain, right?" Missy asks, and you nod. "Great, I was hoping I'd get that soon. With that and the potential one you said I got earlier, I've got a couple of good ways to get more powerful quickly. Need to be a good as possible, if we're going to do anything about the state the Bay's in, right?"
"I guess? Are you...okay? You've had a lot of changes in a short time." Many of them in her brain, where you can't really tell what they've done. "And the dainty princess look isn't exactly your...taste?"
"Eh, it's not that I don't like being cute and girly and all that sometimes, it's just if I did it at all, people'd take it as me being 'just a little girl still' and then it was like I was still in pre-school for weeks until I reminded them enough times I'm perfectly capable of handling myself. Now, though? No one's going to freak out and stop me being useful anymore. There's no one left who can. And if people underestimate me for being too small or girly or delicate looking or whatever? That's their problem, and I'll enjoy showing them they're wrong, like I did with that asshole earlier."
The look on Missy's face during her not-quite-rant precludes comment, and it's not like she's wrong. Despite how effective your powers were, there were always comments about how you were "just a child/girl" in the background at the hospital, and while you get where the ones about the number of hours you spent healing were coming from these days, they weren't helpful. It's not like you could have not helped as many people as possible just because you were under a fairly arbitrary age when you got your powers. That's one good thing about the state of the city, you suppose. No one's in a position to complain about who's helping them and how old they are or how they look or pointless stuff like that.
Well, a lot of groups will, but that's down to Infection induced to fanatical hostility to outsiders, not arbitrary standards. ... Okay, more like Infection intensified fanatical hostility to outsides in a lot of cases, but the general point stands.
You quickly run through what her other new (and not quite as new) Traits do while Missy finishes getting the suit back on. Other than Dhampir, which is hard to judge until it actually does something, the others from the Cabin Girl strain are pretty much like you thought when discussing them earlier, though Missy appears to have changed her mind on the possibilities of Power to Potential, especially when combined with Eager Pupil. From the Princess strain, Power Adaptation is a straight up benefit, even if it doesn't appear to Missy that it's done anything yet, Royal Command...will probably be mildly useful and not all that impactful thanks to Identity Resilience. Assuming what happened when the three of you used the Kink Guide was otherwise accurate, Missy already has a fairly take charge streak in the bedroom... You force yourself not to dwell on the memories, and instead make sure Missy's okay about picking up Endless Youth.
"Pretty much, yeah." Missy says with an easy shrug after considering it. "I'm not getting past twelve anyway unless it either turns out to be possible to turn it into something else with Room to Grow or you get the ability to change it round, right? So it doesn't make much difference, it'll probably make me live longer, and it'll stop me getting aged into a crone if we run into youth sucking vampires or some shit."
"It might stop you getting aged up by aging you down instead." You point out. "And it'd stop you from getting Clock to age you up again, as well."
Missy shrugs again. "Probably still a better result. Worst comes to worse, I can grow up again, but not young again, right? And I won't be back to nearly thirteen again for three days, a lot could happen before then. I don't know, maybe I'll think differently when I'm not clear of puberty, but like I said earlier, it's not being that young I hate, it's being treated like I'm useless because of it, and there's no one I'm obliged to listen to who'd do that anymore."
Missy leaves after that and you turn to your own business. It's not difficult, exactly, but there are enough complications to the process that you're not exactly looking forward to the point later in the night where the rest of what you've drunk makes it' way through and you have to use a toilet that isn't scaled up for super-sized asses. You'd have to sit backwards, you guess? Assuming, if you're back at Winslow by then, you can actually fit inside a stall in the first place. You consider that, shudder, and resolve not to borrow trouble. Worst comes to worse, the principal must have had a private bathroom or something, right?
"Should we let him sleep? He definitely needs it." Taylor is saying as you get back, considering a snoring Carlos, with the rest of your group bar Dinah standing nearby.
"We'd be happy to host him for the night, Lady Taylor." Jeeves offers, with the ghost of a smile. "Also, I took the liberty of placing that oar within the sack Lady Dinah was carrying while it was left unobserved. Please ensure you take it away." She adds much more quietly, with a hint of pleading.
"As long a she can put her old clothes back on once she's done apologising, there's no way she'll leave the sack behind. And the oar certainly won't be coming back out again before we leave." Taylor says, with a pointed look at...all of you, really.
"I believe she and Free have finished and are doing just that as we speak." Jeeves answers smartly.
Dennis and Molly are still literally crawling along as they drag their asses round the room, while Nell and the others are moving faster, but not exactly fast at their super-impossible backside and trick boots induced waddle. Given how hyper Dinah was, you're not surprised she finished well ahead of them, only that Free's done the same rather than sticking with Molly.
"We'll get going once she's back and had a chance to say goodbye, then." Taylor says decisively, then turns her attention to Aegis. "So... Are we waking him up or not?"
Feat Unlocked
Dinah has shown an instinctive grasp of principles the not-terribly-ancient art of Butt-Fu, at least while fuelled by enough sugar to power the city. Butt-Fu's Feats revolve around using the butt, hips, thighs and knees to attack and defend, and also enhance Infection granted abilities that do the same.
Butt-Fu Savant - Training requirements for Butt-Fu Feats are halved, while Stat requirements are modified by x0.75, and Feat effects are modified by x1.2.
Training: None if bought tonight, short Butt-Fu refresher course required if not.
Cost: 5XP
Butt-Fu training will be available at the Clocked-Up Commune from tomorrow afternoon
Items gained
7 Commune Rep and 5 Clockblocker relationship from time at party and Spanking Oar. Total gain from actions 40 Rep, 32 Relationship.
Moderate amount of Leather (Rough Hide) - Aprox. sale value 100, much more valuable as material for projects.
15 Gold "Trophy"
Lesser Animalism Heartstone - A chunk of amber the size of a fist, intricately carved with animals and pulsing steadily with light. Sleeping in the same room as the stone for at least 4 hours has a 60/75/90/100% chance of increasing 4/3/2/1 of someone's STR, DEX, STA and PER by 31d3 (Max 50), but their INT and CHA are reduced by the total stats gained until they sleep for at least 6 hours away from the stone, and each point gained over 6 causes them to become increasingly more animalistic in appearance and behaviour for the same time. Consecutive exposures (which do not have to be separate) increase the activation chance, stat growth and cap, but also stack the penalties, possibly resulting in permanent transformations. Touching and focusing on the stone for 15 minutes activates its blessing, causing the recipient to become larger and more animalistic in appearance and behaviour, while modifying STR/ DEX/STA/PER by x1.25, HP by x1.1, INT/CHA by x0.75 and WP by x0.9 for 3 hours. This effect can be stacked up to 4 times with increasing physical/mental effects (to x2/x1.4/x0/x0.5 for 12 hours) and can be extended indefinitely with repeated activations, though spending more than 24 hours under its effects can have permanent consequences. It is also possible to combine the Heartstone with a Lair in some way, but further study will be required to learn what the results would be.
Butt-Fu Champion's Laurels - A golden laurel wreath made from an odd plant. If worn when the lower body is under a temporary growth effect, it can store a portion of the increase (based on much of the effect duration it's worn for) when it expires, allowing anyone to gain it by wearing the laurel. If the wearer is under multiple such effects, this high quality wreath extends their durations to match the longest. It is guaranteed to store at least 50% of the increase, and has a 7% chance (stacking) per four hours worn to store of making the initial growth permanent. Can be worn alongside other small head-slot items. Loses all special effects if the process of storing an increase is not started within a day.
For winning the Butt-Fu tournament, Dinah has been awarded a laurel wreath with some unusual properties. Does she make use of it to store any of the considerable current expansion of her lower body? (Pick One):
[Wreath] Wear Immediately - Dinah will put the laurel on right away, to capture and extend maximum butt increase. (Attempt to store butt increase to Ludicrous, hips and thighs increase to Extreme, worn for 18 hours)
[Wreath] Wear Shortly - Dinah will put it on after the Spanking Oar's effect wears off, so butt, hips and thighs are in proportion to each other (and sizable until nearly noon tomorrow). (Attempt to store butt, hip and thigh increase to Extreme, worn for 16 hours)
[Wreath] Wear To Bed - Dinah will sleep with the laurel on, saving a small size increase only. (Attempt to store butt, hip and thigh increase to Very Small, worn for 11 hours)
[Wreath] Don't Wear - Dinah will take the laurel, but won't wear it after leaving the Commune. (Someone else may choose to use during downtime)
The combined efforts of Clockblocker and the Timeskeepers have finally gotten Aegis to relax. Possibly a little too much, since he's currently asleep in his seat. Should the Party wake him before leaving?:
[Aegis] Wake
(Aegis will spend the night at Winslow with the party and will be available for both whatever they do before returning and downtime actions, though may be less helpful at times due to drowsiness. Aegis guaranteed to be present in the morning, all temporary effects having worn off)
[Aegis] Don't Wake
(Aegis spends then night in the Clocked-Up Commune, is not available for any further actions today, but his mental health and general condition will be improved to a greater degree than if he returns to Winslow due to uninterrupted rest. Also improves Aegis-Clockblocker relationship and increases chance Aegis will visit the Commune in the future. 95% chance he comes to Winslow at some point tomorrow, if this is when the Party is there depends what they're doing. 5% chance Aegis ends up with some kind of permanent increase in lower body curviness, 55% chance his current temporary increase is extended and/or intensified)
Vicky and Dean have completed their first session of training for the Dog and Pony Show Feat. Should they do any more tonight? (Pick One):
[Training] No More
(Dean returns to normal mentality around 18:30, no effects on downtime. Dean will have to be convinced to stay and continue training in the morning, if this is desired)
[Training] Once More
(Some effects on Vicky's downtime actions unless the Party is out very late. Dean will have to be convinced to stay and continue training in the morning, if this is desired, but doing so will be easier than if no further training is done tonight)
[Training] Twice More
(Limits downtime actions for Vicky, but Feat is available for purchase tonight. Vicky and Dean have a late night and go to sleep animal-brained)
It's 18:15. Sunset is in around an hour. What does the Party do after leaving the Clocked-Up Commune? (Pick One):
Spoiler: Travel Options
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Last edited: Oct 24, 2021
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Annatar, Vhalidictes, Midnight007 and 34 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 2, Part 11 (Early Evening)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: Holly contrasting updates, Batman! What happens when the dice deadeye on the quickest way things can go, I guess. Also, 8K of update is much easier to produce than 40K, and not just for the obvious reason.
Spoiler: Rolls
"...with his powers, it's actually impossible for him to eat or drink too much. So whatever you did to get him to eat earlier, do it again when he wakes up. And then get him to go back to sleep again. Anyone else would be working on death by sleep deprivation at this point." You finish explaining to the quartet of maids Jeeves has detailed to take care of Carlos for the night. They smile back in unison in a way that's only mildly unnerving, and start quietly making plans to get him to Dennis' spare bedroom with as little disturbance as possible.
That done, you wave a final farewell to the red-headed Ward and Molly as they crawl past several levels of seating up, and take to the air so you can join the rest of your group at the doors without tempting any of the milling crowd to slap your ass. There are a number of admiring whoops at the view this gives people, but you (mostly) ignore them. It's not like your skirt covers much from any angle at the moment.
"Everyone got everything?" Taylor asks, checking you each over as you say yes. Or bark it, in Vicky's case.
Once that's done and Dean's curtain/rein has been removed and handed to a passing butler, Dinah calls out one last goodbye to Molly and Free (and Samuel, and Nell, and Dennis and...) and you set off down the hall and back to the ground floor. You end up at the back, next to Dinah, and the young brunette looks uncertain for a moment before rummaging around in her sack and pulling out the laurel wreath she won for winning the Butt-Fu tournament.
"Um, Amy? Can you check this? I was told these wreaths could 'store', um, growth if worn until the effect causing it wore off, and make such effects last longer, but Miss Jeeves said they could sometimes do other things as well, and... I am not sure I want to store my body being as big as it is now anyway. If something else could happen as well..." She asks notably, if slightly, faster than normal, despite keeping her careful speech patterns.
"No problem." You say, taking the wreath, and then taking off slightly so you can focus on it and not trip on the stairs. It's a weird texture, almost gold, but with an indescribable plant-like quality to it. "Yep, extend slash store temporary changes increasing the size of the lower body and... OH!" There's not really enough room for both your and Dinah's supersize asses on the staircase, and you fall back behind her, trying not to shiver inappropriately after accidentally banging your butts together. "Sorry about that. Anyway, there's also a chance of it making the 'temporary' growth permanent. Not a high chance if it's worn for a short time, but it adds up."
"Chance of ending up with this butt permanently if I wear the wreath now?" Dinah asks herself as you float over her shoulder to hand it back. A burst of very loud music, followed by shouted apologies, from the dance floor as you emerge into the upper corridor drowns out her result for you, but she pales and stuffs the wreath back in her bag, so clearly she got the odds and didn't like them.
There's a brief pause in the lobby for Taylor to whistle sharply and cause the travelling case you found earlier to come clattering out of the shadows. And outside there's another pause as Vicky leaps on to Dean's back, prompting them both to shudder as their butts impact each other, then spend a little time working out the best positioning. Which is just the one they were using before, with Vicky sitting upright and the lead from her collar passed through Dean's mouth, but that doesn't stop your sister from trying several different attempts at a riding position that doesn't require her to sit upright. You're not sure if she's looking for an excuse to ride around hugging her boyfriend or if she's just that enamoured with not being bipedal anymore, and wouldn't be surprised if it was both, plus something else too Vicky-brained for you to think of it.
"Seriously? You didn't got enough of playing dumb animal at the party? After everything?" You grouse, and only stop yourself at the last second from slapping your impossibly big ass to emphasise "everything".
"It was fun, woof." Vicky replies. "But I have a plan for Dean to be safer when he goes off to do his stuff. There's a way to got his thing for being ridden and mine for riding to sync up so we can find each other at a distance, but we need to practice it first, arf. And I want to get it down tonight, so I have it in case he charges off in the morning." As breezily as she starts off, you can tell your sister is seriously serious about what she's saying. Even her doggy treat-induced verbal tics are less in evidence.
You're curious as to how then hell your sister knows about this "trick", but Missy hasn't been idle while she was getting situated, and the second space warps near the cliff edge, Vicky spurs her mount/boyfriend through it, robbing you of the chance. She's not going to be particularly questionable while you're travelling, and given the gathering gloom, you probably shouldn't distract her anyway. You're heading to Taylor's house before night truly sets in, Missy having won the two purple haired girls' game of politeness judo, and who knows how busy you'll be when you get there.
As you walk down the street from where Missy's last warp lead to and Taylor's house comes into view, you can't help but gasp and look worriedly at the girl in question. Her house looks even worse than yours did - none of the windows are intact, and not only the front door but chunks of the wall surrounding it have been smashed down. She's about the only one in the group who doesn't show some sign of shock at the sight, but given the violent rippling of what grass remains in the surrounding yards, you're pretty confident her calm is a facade.
"It's worse than the others." Taylor says detachedly. "I wonder why? Give me a moment." From the look of ferocious concentration that appears on her face, you highly doubt that moment is to prepare emotionally, and sure enough after a minute or so she starts giving out instructions. "Vicky, Dean, stay. This is going to be delicate." Your sister looks mildly offended, but doesn't argue. "Amy, Dinah, wait on the sidewalk? Best not to overwhelm them. Missy, with me but hang back in the doorway? Oh, and step where I step going across the yard." You're highly curious who "them" is, but agree along with Dinah.
"You realise the foot you have on me is mostly leg, right?" Missy mock complains, but proceeds to follow easily in Taylor's footsteps (possibly because she's wearing boots that make up for most of that foot) as they approach the door, taking a zigzagging path for no reason you can see.
You assume Taylor's house must have previously had a porch or something, the shattered doorway is too far off the ground to be stepped into easily, but no trace of it remains. Taylor eyes the broken sides of the frame suspiciously, but as she goes to put her hands on them and pull herself up, Missy clears her throat meaningfully, waves a hand lazily to bring the entrance down to ground level, then to wave the taller girl in. The Ward lets the space go back to normal once she's inside herself, which is unfortunate, because-.
"I can't see what is going on. Missy's butt is too big." Dinah clamps her hands over her mouth and blushes at saying out loud Missy has a big butt, or possibly at actually using a contraction, you're not sure.
But yes, with the doorway in its proper position, the angle is such that Missy's gargantuan backside blocks the view of the inside pretty much completely. You hear Taylor call out "Hello?" softly, and then speak more, but you can't make it out clearly from where you're standing. The tone is non-threatening, though. At one point Missy starts and the hand holding the shaft of her battleaxe like a walking stick starts to move from her side, but she untenses more or less right away, and Taylor's calm tone doesn't waver, even when something hisses ferociously from within the house shortly after. There are several minutes where it sounds like Taylor is having a conversation with someone, which are tense for those of you outside, but Missy relaxes further as it goes along, and eventually turns round in the narrow entryway (somehow not looking even slightly likely to bang her butt on the edges as she does) to scan the street outside instead, with only the occasional glance back inside. Shortly after that, Taylor's face appears over her shoulder, and an elegant hand waves beckoningly.
"Amy, can you come in? You too, if you want, Dinah. The traps are all disarmed for the moment." That's not as reassuring as Taylor clearly means it to sound. "Vicky, can you and Dean keep watch outside? It's probably too early for trouble, but someone could be getting an early start." And that is even less reassuring.
After a not entirely voluntary nervous glance around, you float your way cautiously across the remains of the lawn and through the shattered door, nodding your thanks to Missy for subtly widening it so you can get through without risking a splinter in your bared buttocks (which would probably have fit through without her doing so. Probably), and also making room in the hallway for you and Dinah to pass her easily, without any of the butt bashing that happened when people passed each other in the Clocked-Up Commune. Once you're both through, the Ward takes up station in the doorway, axe haft readied but glowing blades not yet...lit? Ignited? Whatever the word would be. Beyond her, Vicky has stopped pouting and whining (literally) about not getting to see inside Taylor's house and ridden Dean airborne, where he's trotting in lazy circles around the house.
The entryway of the house is heavily cobwebbed but otherwise clean, barring a few suspicious red stains, and also utterly bare of any signs of habitation. The same is true for the room Taylor leads you and Dinah into, to the point you can't even begin to tell if it used to be a living room, a dining room, a bedroom or what. Hell, you're only mostly sure it wasn't a bathroom. It seems at first Taylor's brought the two of you to an empty room for some reason, but then a figure appears suddenly from a corner. It's small, about a foot shorter than you, but that's not small enough to have hidden fully in the shadows there, and the walls look solid, so where they came from is a bit of a mystery. From the waist up, the person who emerges into the fading light from the window is quite clearly female, even wearing a loose silk shirt, and perfectly human looking, other than her pure white hair and a pair of small fangs (and you guess the red eyes despite them matching Taylor's), while below the waist her wide hips merge smoothly with a white-furred, spider-like abdomen, that's round and heavy and nearly as long as she is tall. She also looks quite a lot like Annette, or possibly an older Taylor, pre-princessification.
"Which of you is the healer?" She asks, in voice that sounds exactly the same as Annette's, though slower and less sure, like she's speaking a language she's unfamiliar with.
"I am." You answer, and she hurries over on her eight thin but sturdy looking legs.
"The...Taylor said you might be able to help me. A few nights ago I found myself with a new power, but since using it my breasts have swollen and felt sore more and more." There's a long pause, and then she adds, with Taylor-like stoicism. "They feel quite painful at all times, now."
Taking her hand, you don't let yourself get distracted by her Infection, which you fortunately don't need to decode to diagnose her problem. Even from your brief impression, you get the feeling she's not the sort to care about discretion, so you just tell her outright. "You're lactating."
"I'm afraid I don't know what that means?" She says, looking honestly if not particularly demonstratively baffled.
"Your breasts are producing milk." You explain, and quickly check something before continuing. "It normally starts happening towards the end of a pregnancy, so the mother can feed their child after they're born, but you don't seem to be. Pregnant, that is. I can't be sure without studying your Infection more thoroughly, but I think it's caused by something in that. Probably a cost or side effect of the new power you mentioned."
"I understand. How is lactation normally dealt with, in the absence of a child?" The spider-woman asks, with the blandest look of focused intent you're ever seen.
"A breast pump is the usual method, but if you don't have one..." A headshake that could be either 'No' or 'No idea'. "...then you'd either need to work your breasts and nipples by hand to get the milk out, or..." You pause momentarily, too embarrassed despite your best efforts to be clinical to move right on to the final option
"I have rubbed myself quite a lot to try and ease the pain with no effect." The spider-woman says, as unconcerned as if she's discussing the weather. "The girls doing the same didn't help. I fear that will not be possible. What is the other method?"
"Someone else would have to nurse on your breasts and, ah, suck the milk out." You say, trying to ignore your blush, and also not glance towards Taylor.
"That...would explain why those I used my new power on generally become so focused on my breasts that the others can easily strike them from behind as they come towards me. That seems the intended method. I would rather not allow one of our attackers to reach me, though. Even to relive this pain." The spider-woman frowns.
"It doesn't have to be an enemy who does it, Arachne." Taylor puts in, and you try not to make a face at the unimaginative name. "It can be...pleasurable to nurse, for both sides." She glances at Dinah, but the preteen seems oblivious to the adult implications of the conversation, and indeed the conversation in general, having leaned backwards, nearly halfway out of the empty window frame to look at something up above.
Arachne looks unsure. "If I get one of the girls to do it and they like it, the others will upset they didn't get to. I could have one do each breast, but that will still leave one out. Also, if this is something to be used on enemies, could it not have ill effects on them?"
"You could set up a rota? Or... Never mind." Taylor blushes faintly. "Amy could probably tell you what the effects of someone drinking your milk would be, with a little more time."
"Maybe." Arachne says, looking unsure.
As you consider what best to say to reassure her, a little gasp from Dinah is your only warning before something small lands quite hard on your bountiful backside and bounces off with a faint "Wheeee!". Two more impacts follow it before you can finish shuddering and react properly, and a tiny voice cries out "Bouncy, bouncy!" as Dinah giggles.
Whirling (and nearly having your ass spin you right round), you see the last of three tiny forms reach the ground, dangling from a parachute of web. They look to be half-woman, half-spider, like Arachne, but large spider sized, rather than small person sized. At least until they dart away from you and hide, giggling, behind Dinah's legs before growing, first to small dog sized, then toddler sort of sizes, about a foot and a half shorter then Arachne. At their larger sizes, you can see that their spider halves are smaller and much leaner than Arachne's, and they're also more half-girl than half-woman. Unlike the first spider person you met, who could be anywhere between her mid-twenties and her fifties, they're...teens? Ish. Their faces say Dinah's age, most of their build says around your and Taylor's age, and their bustlines say they'd be in for serious back pain if it weren't for the Infection. You're pretty sure that, given their relative sizes, the black haired one breasts to match the seriously milk-swollen Arachne. The red-head is smaller, but sports impressive hips, and the blonde is smaller in both then either, but still has a figure like Vicky's. Err, before she became a bimbo dog.
"Girls, you were supposed to stay hidden." Arachne sighs, voice and posture more resigned than upset or surprised.
"But mooom, It was boring." The black-haired one whines, in a cute, high-pitched, voice. "Athena knew we were there anyway, and so did her friend."
"It's Taylor, not Athena, Helen. The book's not about us." The red head snaps in an equally high voice, elbowing her hard. "You can remember Dinah's her friend, not her sister, why can't you remember that?"
"Don't tell me what to remember, Cassandra!" Helen snaps back, shoving her, and the two spider girls quickly turn into a whirling brawl of legs and silk.
The blonde one looks at them in distress until Dinah takes her hand and pulls her round them and over to you. "Don't worry, you can say hello. Amy's nice." Dinah tells the even smaller girl.
"Hi. I'm Penelope. I'm sorry about my sisters." The blonde's voice isn't quite as high as her sisters, but that might be down to her speaking calmly and much softer. This close, it's clear she resembles Taylor's old appearance quite strongly, other than her hair and figure, looking at least as much like a close cousin as Missy does.
A deep sigh followed by high pitched hissing has you looking over to see Arachne has scuffed the two combatants and is holding them as far apart as her arms (and the strands of silk connecting them) will allow. Studying them while Taylor helps un-web them from each other, you can see that Cassandra looks about as much like Taylor's cousin as Penelope. Or possibly Missy's, she's got the same sort of build as the Ward does now. Helen, meanwhile, is practically the twin in miniature of Taylor's current appearance. Other than the colour of her hair, size of her breasts and the childish cast to her features. So perhaps not that twin-like. But it's still an uncanny resemblance.
"Right. Girls, if you're not going to hide, why don't you put your energy to good use helping Taylor's friends find anything useful our attackers have left behind upstairs." Arachne says, in an uncompromising mom-voice, as she sets Helen and Cassandra down. The two immediately tear out of the room, shouting about finding more than each other, while Penelope follows more quietly but only a little slower, tugging a smiling Dinah along with her.
"I...don't think there's anything for them to find upstairs." Taylor says awkwardly as the sounds of two of the three spider-girls voices grow more distant.
"It will keep them busy - and out of the way - while we go down to the basement. Most of what's in there is ours, but there's a few boxes... And one thing that's definitely yours." Arachne responds with a shrug, and starts out of the room.
The basement is well protected, with a decently put together fake wall set up in front of the door, which has been reinforced in with whatever planks, bars, chains and so on the spider people could find, and then the narrow stairs down are filled with web lines connected to all sorts of traps. It's fortunate Arachne can move them out of the way, because Taylor would be hard pressed not to trigger most of them getting down, and there's no way you'd have gotten your fat butt past any of them. Given once you're in the surprisingly roomy basement itself (and Taylor's reflexively turned the light on), it's clear it's where the current inhabitants of Taylor's house have been living and what you've picked up of their situation, the security seems unsurprising once you're through.
"I'm sure this didn't used to be this roomy." Taylor says has she looks around, somewhat ironically having to duck slightly not to hit her head on the ceiling. "It could just be a lot of the clutter is gone, but it doesn't feel like it.
"Other than bringing the furniture in and a few truly useless boxes out, we've not changed anything after learning to take larger forms." Arachne says with another shrug.
The furniture in question isn't much - a double bed and four single mattresses of different sorts pushed together, half a dozen chairs of different sorts, a couple of sets of shelves, half-filled mostly by books on a range of topics, and a battered wardrobe full of silk clothes, mainly shirts, of varying quality. Other than a clear semi-circle around the foot of the stairs (which has yet more traps above it), there's a sense of lived-in clutter to the space, with a half made shirt on the arms of the rocking chair, toys in three small piles on the floor, and books left open on any flat surface that isn't the floor. Arachne leads you to the back of the room and moves aside two towers of empty boxes to reveal a hanging silk drape that's been covered in dust and rubble to try and blend it into the wall. Behind the drape is a small nook, containing a solid looking chest with several locks the spider woman undoes before opening it.
"I've told them not to put these in here." She says with a fond sigh, taking out three well loved looking stuffed toys and a large, equally well loved looking, book on Greek mythology and setting them to the side, then producing a folded bundle of white skill, which she hands to Taylor almost reverently. "This is yours." She says, with quiet, absolute, certainty.
"Huh, the armour's gone. ...And the dye." Taylor says, running a hand over the bundle and letting it fall open, revealing it to be a full bodysuit. "Did you...add anything to this?" Taylor asks, inspecting the lacy "cuffs" that mark the point where sleeves become gloves.
"Possibly in the early days, before we were truly aware?" Arachne answers uncertainly, shrugging once more. "But it has changed over the time since, without us doing anything. The girls think the abdomen is 'super cute', but swear they didn't add it, and we've never had what would be needed, in parts or knowledge, for them to do so."
You can't help but giggle when Taylor turns the suit round and you see the "abdomen" in question, as much at her perplexed expression as the item itself, which looks like one of the spider-girl's own spider halves, made of furry white fabric, stuffed and about twice the size of a person's head. Oh, and sown on to the seat of the bodysuit in such a way that the wearer's ass will probably be partly inside it. It is indeed very cute looking, but very much not the sort of thing Taylor would include in the costume she's alluded to having been making, which you're pretty sure this is. Or was, before the Infection got its hands on it. Why this would have turned a fairly utilitarian costume into something so cutesy - there's even a bow on the torso - is unclear, but then, so is why it would turn one of Vicky's dresses into latex, or mix Carol's costume with one of her work suits and turn the result into rubber.
"The padding's way beyond what I could have managed. Not sure it's enough to replace the armour plates, but it's still spider silk, so it should be decently protective. Especially if it has Infection weirdness. Amy, can you give it a check?" Taylor says thoughtfully, holding the bodysuit out in front of her.
You move to do so but, just before you touch it, the silk seems to come alive, flowing away from you and down Taylor's arms. In bare seconds the bodysuit goes from held in her hands to on her body, somehow under her cheerleading outfit, which doesn't even look disturbed. There are several moments in which Taylor and Arachne look surprised and you try not to ogle what you can see of Taylor's perfect legs in skin tight silk, then there's what your brain registers as a flash despite there being no light involved.
When it fades, the first thing you notice is that Taylor's legs have been covered completely by purple...fabric? Fur? It's not clear, and you get distracted from working it out when you realise said legs have extra joints, end in points rather than feet, and that there's three more legs behind each of them, attached to the now much larger, purple, and still clearly stuffed abdomen. Which seems to have replaced the bottom of the bodysuit completely, rather than simply being attached to it. Looking up from there, your gaze moves past hips that look like they might be a little curvier, along a torso that seems subtly different somehow, gets briefly stuck on bust that's definitely bigger than before, and finally on to Taylor's face, now covered by silk up to the bridge of her nose, and also...not younger exactly, but immature? Childlike, somehow, despite still being a teen's face, not a child's. Seeing it, it clicks that's what looked off about Taylor's torso, it and her arms are more childish (and also athletic) now in their proportions and build, though again, still clearly belonging to a teen, not a child. Looking back down again, you realise you get a similar impression from the build of the abdomen, and also finally notice that Taylor's also a lot shorter now, having lost at least a foot in height. It's hard to be sure with her still settling on to eight spider-like legs rather than two human ones, but you think she might be (very) slightly shorter than you now. She also seems to have gained makeup, had her long hair brushed and primped, and generally looks every inch the pretty captain of the cheer team, but in a way that causes you some...conflicting feelings, and not because it's the spider-people cheer team. Like when Vicky was wearing the junior cheerleader outfit yesterday, appreciating how good she looks makes you feel like you're perving on a younger girl, despite knowing her age. And the fact she's sure as hell not got the curves of a preteen.
"EEEH, you look adorable!" Arachne reacts to Taylor's sudden change before either of you manage to, squealing and darting over to try and clutch the still larger girl to her bosom. Before you can do more than blink a couple of times at the sudden burst of expressiveness from the stoic spider-woman, she lets go like she's been burned and actually leaps away. "I'll, uh, just go make sure the girls aren't fighting again." She announces, quickly, and flees up the stairs, but not before you see she's blushing deeply.
"Let's ignore that in favour of finding out if I'm stuck in this thing, shall we?" Taylor says, in a voice that's slightly higher than normal but not muffled at all by the silk across her mouth, faint pink dusting what little you can see of her cheeks. You get the distinct impression she's more concerned about not talking about having someone who more than vaguely resembles her mom call her adorable and hug her then she is about if she's going to be forced to wear a spider person costume for an unknown amount of time.
Fortunately, after you take one of Taylor's silk clad hands and check, the bodysuit is not stuck on, just requires a little more effort to take off than put on, in that she has to actually take it off, rather than just being able to think vaguely about doing so like she apparently did to get it to put itself on. She has to take her cheerleading uniform off to do so, and you stop her briefly once she has, since her appearance has changed again at some point as she did so. The pause is entirely so you can fully inspect the suit with your powers to make sure there won't be any weird effects from taking it off, and not at all to guiltily enjoy the sight of Taylor's torso in close fitting silk. And you do feel very guilty about it, as taking off the uniform has removed the extra athleticism, the makeup and the general feeling of cheer captain-ness, so there are far less cues that Taylor is your age and not, like, Dinah's even though a quick touch of your hand to her forehead lets you confirm her age is unchanged. That she's now even closer to being Helen's double doesn't help, given the only significant non-colour or scale differences are her breasts being smaller and her abdomen bigger, and the later doesn't exactly register to you as a sign of maturity. Especially since it looks like it belongs a stuffed toy or particularly over the top Halloween costume.
Your power-inspection tells you the only effect of taking the suit off will be Taylor's appearance returning to normal. It also tells you that the bodysuit is powerfully protective, especially against any sort of sexual attacks targeting part of the body it covers, i.e. pretty much everything that isn't visual or sound-based. On top of that, the effect that makes the wearer smaller and more immature looking significantly enhances all their physical and mental capabilities and on top of that, the bodysuit has a triggerable effect too. Activating it causes the suit to become impossible to remove, or even partly displace, for three hours, but in return increases the wearers capabilities randomly but permanently over that time. This can be reactivated as many times as desired, but doing so in quick succession will intensify its transformative effects, and possibly cause them to linger for a while after the bodysuit is removed.
Once you relay your findings to Taylor, you turn away so she can take the suit off and put her clothes back on without you staring at her. Which, due to Infection nonsense, takes her a short enough time that you've only just picked up the book Arachne took out of the chest and opened it to see a card reading "Property of Annette Hebert" inside the cover jacket when Taylor's stepping up behind you, fully dressed and quite deliberately taking advantage of her restored height to look over your shoulder.
"I remember this book." She says softly. "Mom used to read it to me a lot. Probably not the most kid-friendly choice of books, but I liked it. I'm glad Arachne and the girls found it, and found it inspiring. I feel...kind of guilty about them."
"Guilty? Why?" You ask, turning to look at her in surprise.
"They...the Infection...there's some sort of connection between them and the spiders i was using to make my costume before F-Day. I don't know if they are four of those spiders, if the Infection created them whole cloth, or if they're people who got so messed up they don't remember being human at all, but...however it happened, they're here because of me." Taylor explains solemnly. "Also, they're literally here because of me. Whatever impression has carried over from the order I gave to my spiders has them really reluctant to leave, even though they're getting attacked almost every night now." She laughs bitterly. "And, of course, just because I'm here now doesn't mean they're willing to leave on the strength of me saying it's a good idea alone."
"I'm...not sure any of that is your fault?" You offer, weakly. "You couldn't have predicted the Infection, or the sorts of ways it would make things weird. Plus, it's not like you've been ignoring them on purpose or anything. You had no way of knowing they were here, and it's only been two days since we woke up. Less, really. The only night you even possibly could have spared them from or protected them or whatever, you spent with your parents, who are very much not living here now." You continue, getting more confident as you think things through. "Your dad even said he'd been here since F-Day, and he didn't mention any spider ladies having moved in, so why would you think to come here?"
"Well, there's this thing. But there's nothing to be done about what's happened, I guess." Taylor says, shaking her costume and not sounding totally convinced. "Speaking of, do you mind putting it on? Or trying to at least? I want to know if it's just me it practically jumps on."
The answer, when you slightly reluctantly agree to try it, is yes. You still find yourself wearing silk bodysuit under your clothes without having to undress first or actually make an effort to put it on, but you have to at least be trying to put it on before it will apply itself, not just hold it and think. You also find yourself less than three feet tall, at least until you take the Butterfly Wings off and shoot back up. To four foot-ish. It's a little hard to do so, as your outfit's gloves have moved by themselves so your fingers are inside them and it doesn't seem possible to have the paw parts merely over them anymore, but you manage, despite the distracting feeling of an extra set of ears twitching atop your head. Having the wings and not the cat-girl outfit on drops you back down to below three feet, and also turns the abdomen gold and pastel, rather than a tabby-like gold and brown.
The silk and padding of the bodysuit feels very comfortable regardless of how it changes our appearance. Even on your legs, despite the vague feeling you have eight of them, and extremely so against your swollen, sensitive ass. Which feels even bigger cradled in an abdomen that's massively bigger than your torso, far beyond the size of the one Taylor sported briefly, or even Arachne's. But your butt's covered up properly for the first time since you came round from your mega-spanking, isn't jiggling about at all and, thanks to the padding and stuffing surrounding it, even the hardest blow you can land (or convince Taylor to land) on your rear can't be felt on it at all. You'd honestly be tempted to keep wearing it, despite how much you resemble a toddler when doing so, just for the sake of ass protection, but the sheer size of abdomen your ass requires means you don't fit on the stairs out of the basement, and the suit doesn't grant any sort of spider-like climbing abilities that would let you get up them anyway.
Once Taylor turns away to look through the boxes and give you privacy to undress, you take a moment to discreetly check, and confirm that you can only feel the very slightest of sensations through the padding on the chest, and none at all through the thicker padding and material of the abdomen's front encasing your crotch. Which is a good thing. Even though trying it makes you conscious of how worked up you are at the moment and makes the whole exercise feel rather frustrating. You're stuck by an embarrassing thought regarding this once the suit is off, but thankfully an even more discreet check confirms the largely inadequate coverage provided by your cat-tailed currently-a-thong has at least prevented you from leaving a wet spot inside the suit and you can pass it back to Taylor and start helping her go through the boxes stacked off to one side without shame.
You'd be hesitant to say that searching the boxes doesn't turn up anything valuable, but it wouldn't be wrong to say that your finds - including several photo albums, a diploma, a collection of report cards, some worn novels and a cookbook - are largely of value to people called Hebert. They all clearly call up good (if sometimes also bittersweet) memories for Taylor, so it's something of a surprise she insists on checking that Arachne and the girls don't want them before taking any. Not all that much of a surprise, given she's clearly still feeling irrationally guilty about their situation, but still. You do at least manage to convince her to put everything she'd want to take in the suitcase that's followed her down to the basement like a well trained dog and take them upstairs, if only to reduce the number of trips along the heavily trapped staircase.
Taylor can't effortlessly manipulate the webs that trigger the traps the same way Arachne can, but she can use her powers on them with greater ease than most objects, and that, your ability to float and the fact they're targeted at people coming down lets you get back up to the ground floor without much difficulty, even if squeezing your ass past some points is a little nervy. You discover once you're up there that the decidedly not well trained dog that's also known as your sister has apparently gotten bored with patrolling, come inside to nosey around, and promptly gotten Dean stuck in a narrow opening between two rooms. Probably her ass wouldn't have fit through on its own anyway (you certainly wouldn't have wanted to try and get yours through it if you didn't have to), but the main issue at the moment seems to be that Dean refuses to either go forward or backwards. You're honestly not sure if this just down to dumb pony brain making him get balky or if he's deliberately messing with your sister in a less subtle version of one of the irregular fits of passive aggressiveness that are what he does instead of complain she's being bossy or overbearing or whatever. Possibly the presence of a playfully taunting spider-girl in both directions is also contributing, you're pretty sure he's not terribly found of spiders, but Vicky's trying to persuade him to move rather than getting annoyed at Helen and Cassandra, and Missy's standing in the room behind the dog and pony show, watching with an open grin (and not particularly concealed appreciation for the view), so you're pretty sure there's no actual distress involved on Dean's end.
"Couldn't you just...get off and carry him out?" Taylor asks after considering the scene for several seconds. She sounds completely and utterly baffled this hasn't occurred to Vicky yet, demonstrating just how little familiarity she has with your sister.
"No? I'm not carrying Dean, Dean's carrying me, arf." Vicky responds, sounding about as baffled that Taylor would even suggest "giving up" and approaching a problem from a different angle. Which isn't simply, or even mostly, down to being drunk, though that might explain how she got herself and Dean into their current position in the first place. Might.
"Just count yourself lucky she didn't decide the problem was that the opening was villainously not being big enough and she should hit it until it stopped that." You comment snarkily, and Vicky actually blushes. "What the hell, did you try that already and it didn't work?"
"No!" Vicky barks, high pitched, tail sticking straight out behind her. "I wouldn't do that again, woof."
"Again? Seriously, that was a joke, when did you try and widen a doorway with your fists, and why is this the first time I'm hearing of it?" You demand, but though Vicky blushes more deeply and her ears and tail droop, she doesn't tell you. No matter how many times you ask. Even starting to offer unhelpful and highly sarcastic commentary on her efforts to convince Dean to go in reverse, with the promise to stop if she tells you, can't get the story out of her.
It takes so little time and effort for Arachne to look through the things Taylor picked out and confirm they don't want any of them that you've barely had time to notice she's arrived and Taylor's asked her before it's done and Taylor's fending off curious questions from Cassandra and Penelope about why she wants those things. She seems happy enough doing so, so you leave her to it and break off mocking Vicky to sidle over to Dinah, who you think has also just shown up with Arachne and Penelope. Surely. Even in trainers, the sound of her hooves on bare floors is loud and distinctive, you can't have missed it.
"Did anyone win the treasure hunt?" You ask, whispering in case the answer risks triggering an argument.
"Penelope and I won by a book and three forks, since Miss Arachne says forks and table knives count the same, and no one found any spoons." Dinah answers earnestly but also quietly. "We had three books, six forks and three knives, Cassandra had two books and three each of knives and forks, and Helen had two books and six knives."
The books are a mix of fiction and non-fiction, and unremarkable beyond apparently being from Annette's personal library. And having apparently appeared out of nowhere in various places on the upper floor of the house at some point in the last day, but that's not actually remarkable anymore, from what you've heard and seen since waking up. The knives and forks are even less interesting than the books, dusty steel that's almost certainly appeared throughout the building since F-Day, but it wouldn't actually be surprising to learn they've actually just been lost behind various furniture over the years.
"How did you find the three of them?" You ask, waving at Cassandra and Penelope, since Helen is still in the other room, apparently tickling Dean's nose with something.
"Oh, they were just on the floor. There is not really anywhere else from them to on or hidden behind. It was more a race to find them than a treasure hunt." Dinah answers, so straight faced you honestly think she legitimately misunderstood your question, until you open your mouth to clarify and she giggles impishly. "Helen and Cassandra were a bit loud, but they are all nice. Or at least do not mean to be mean." Dinah answers your actual question, between giggles that contrast starkly with her formal words. "They are something like small children, but not exactly? They are not sure how old they are, and they only remember about a month, most of it spent here with no one other than each other and Miss Arachne, so they do not...really know about the world and other people, even though from what Penelope said they know facts and such they do not recall learning."
"Well, now I kind of want Taylor to give in and ask them to come to Winslow like she couldn't bring herself to admit to wanting to just so I can try and work out what's going on there." You mutter. "I mean, the answer is almost certainly going to be 'More Infection Nonsense', but still." A thought strikes you, and you step closer to Dinah so you can speak even more quietly. "Would you be alright to answer a couple of questions?"
"Of course." Dinah answers, in an actual whisper rather than the carrying "whisper" you'd expect from someone her age.
"Thanks." You think for a few moments, then whisper into Dinah's ear (which may involve floating at an angle to do without pressing your butts together). "Chances of Arachne, Helen, Cassandra or Penelope causing significant trouble if invited to stay at Winslow? No, wait, chances of them deliberately causing significant trouble?"
"Fifty seven percent chance. Thirteen percent chance. Both chances feel more...short term...than normal, though. Not accurate for more than a month, and probably less than that. That could just be my power after F-Day, though. I have not had all that many open ended questions since we woke up." Dinah responds equally quietly, with a frown that's only consideration, not pain.
"Nearly a sixty percent chance of serious trouble isn't great, but if most of that is by mistake or unintended or whatever, we can probably head that off." You say, partly to yourself, then step away from Dinah and raise your voice. "Missy! Stop ogling and come over here will you? We need to plan what we're doing next. Taylor, you picked this one, stay on spider sitting duty. Vicky, don't make that face at me, young lady. You know why I don't ask you to help plan things. You know, and you're in the middle of demonstrating it right now."
Vicky pouts, but she can't exactly argue, given the only reason she can't come over to do so is she won't get off her stuck boyfriend's back and has been trying the same unsuccessful method of unsticking him for several minutes without changing approach. Taylor takes your words with a cheerful shrug, and you think also picks up on their subtext, and Missy both blushes and scowls, but comes over. After a quick check to confirm that the idea of wondering who she was ogling as apparently sailed right over Vicky and Dean's heads.
And if the implication to Arachne is that you want to plan where you're going next in semi-privacy, well that is part of what you're going to talk about.
Item Gained
Cute Spidersilk Bodysuit - A bodysuit made of pure white silk that covers the wearer from toe to fingertip to nose. The armour panels it originally sported have been replaced by padding and things like bows and lace, and a large stuffed spider abdomen is attached to the butt, giving it a very cutesy appearance. These changes do nothing to reduce its impressive protective qualities, and it modifies DEF by x1.25 after all other modifiers have been applied and x2.5 against any Lewd attacks targeting a covered body part. It has a Safe Enhancement when worn that modifies all stats by x1.5, but also causes the wearer to become significantly smaller and more immature looking (though their figure appears slightly more developed), and also causes the stuffed abdomen to become "alive", encasing their lower body in a (stuffed) Drider one, with the size based on their build. Also has an activatable effect that causes a gain of 1d10 stat points per hour (allotted to random static stats, max value 75) for 3 hours, but also seals the suit on for the same time, preventing the user from consuming solids, reducing LIB by physical stimulation, and similar tasks involving anything covered by the bodysuit. Consecutive or near-consecutive uses of this effect amplify the physical effects of wearing the suit and add mild mental ones, and also cause them to persist for a period after removing it based on how long it was worn for.
The Spidersilk Bodysuit can be worn with most other clothes, but may change appearance and add additional effects to the transformation wearing it causes based on them.
This item has special resonance with Taylor, and she may be able to unlock hidden capabilities by wearing it for long enough.
Strain: Loli Dridergirl - A cute, youthful, big-boobed, spider-themed superheroine with a customisable powerset
The Tiny Driders now inhabiting the Hebert house have some form of connection to the spiders Taylor had making her costume, and so feel a vague sense of loyalty to her as their...something. Given the number of attackers they've faced recently, they might be willing to follow her elsewhere, and so let the party collect the various things still in the building they're currently using. They'll need convincing, though... (Pick One):
[Driders] Leave Them (No items gained. Driders remain at Hebert house, it may be possible to visit them in the future for trade or recruitment, but there is initially a 60% chance they will not survive a given night, and a 25% chance this will be permanent if it happens. These odds are almost certain to increase over time)
[Driders] Recruit Them (Taylor must pass an Impossible (TN 220) CHA check. The difficulty can be reduced by also committing to one or more of the below. The party will gain a small amount of random unremarkable books, and verious household items such as furniture, sheets and towels, dishware and the like, increased to moderate if the Driders stay at Winslow. Even if this check fails, they will come to Winslow overnight, and may attempt to retreat there if they face serious threat in the future)
-] Wear the Spidersilk Bodysuit
(Taylor will wear the Bodysuit under her other clothes until tomorrow morning, both to gain its bonus to the check and to encourage a sense of kinship with the Driders. -20 to TN)
-] Relieve the pressure in the Tiny Drider MILF's breasts
(Once the Party is somewhere safe, Taylor will nurse from the Drider MILF. This has a 30% chance of causing her to gain 1-3 Nursing kink levels, a 45% chance of granting a random ability for 8 hours, and a 50% chance of either halving her age or causing her to lactate heavily and experience a phantom pregnancy for 8 hours. If this is picked, there is a 55% chance Amy nurses also, with the same possible results, and a 45% chance Missy does if she doesn't, with 35/55/40% odds for the results. Nursing will proc Milk Drinker and satisfy need for food for night. -45 to TN)
-] Play with the Tiny Drider Lolis
(Taylor spends her first downtime action playing with the Drider Lolis. Due to her Mood and Stress levels, no beneficial effects on Taylor herself, but if they're staying at Winslow or the DWU Compound long term, this action will help greatly in ensuring their initial integration (and that of the Drider MILF) goes smoothly. There may be further effects based on what's specifically done and where. -35 to NT)
Since there was so little to find at the Hebert house and things with the Driders now living there went so smoothly, there's still a little time before night fully falls. What should the Party do? (Pick One):
[Next] Fast Travel to and search Missy's house
(Random rolls for what you find, will be there ~1 hour. Increased chance of danger after first 30 min or so. Costs Missy 9 WP, INTPER roll, TN 100. Driders may help search if recruited)
[Next] Fast travel to the DWU Compound to turn over wood and shop
(Costs Missy 4WP, will be there ~30 min. Chance to re-home the Drider in DWU Compound if desired. 40% chance each due to drunkenness and Milk Drinker that Amy and Missy will nurse from Danny automatically. If one does and not the other, 85% chance Taylor does instead. Missy has reduced odd of negative effects from nursing. 20% chance Taylor will choose to remain overnight (May be increased if she nurses)(Odds may be modified depending on what is chosen in the Drider vote above).)
[Next] Fast Travel back to Winslow
(Extra minor downtime action, costs Missy 4 WP)
[Next] Walk back to Winslow
(Takes ~1 hour, 25% chance of random encounter per 15 min, last parts of journey will be after dark)
[Next] Go somewhere else (Write in where and how, very time consuming tasks not possible)
QM: If recruited, the Drider will add their fairly potent combat abilities to the defence of their new home, along with their ability to produce massive quantities of silk with various qualities. They may also be able to learn to do other things, but currently have almost no skills beyond doing whatever a spidergirl does. They are reasonably low maintenance in terms of food and accommodation, but a certain amount of work on Taylor's part will be needed to make sure they don't get predatory towards non-Drider/Taylor Infected.
Where they will settle permanently will be voted on later if they're recruited. They can be settled at Winslow with relative ease, the DWU Compound with only a little more effort, and the Boardwalk or Clocked-Up Commune with rather a lot more. If settled at Winslow, it will also be possible to persuade them to move to a different location in the future, if the Party establishes a Lair or other significant presence there.
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Last edited: Nov 7, 2021
Oct 28, 2021 ReportLike QuoteReply
Annatar, Vhalidictes, Midnight007 and 32 others like this.
Threadmarks: Day 2, Part 12 (Early Evening)
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Cod of Justice
Cod of Justice
I trust you know where the happy button is?
QM: This could possibly do with another edit pass, but today was just one thing after another conspiring to stop me finishing it, and I just don't want to right now.
Spoiler: Rolls
Spoiler: Hourly rolls (7 pm)
It doesn't take long for your huddle to break up, agreed that you'll risk a little time in the approaching night to visit Missy's house before you head back for the evening. And also that Taylor should just go ahead and invite Arachne and her daughters back to Winslow already. There's a distinct lack of both spider people and Taylor in the room when it does, but you quickly get a pretty good idea where they've gone.
A trio of high pitched squeals and cries like "So cute!" precede Dean abruptly finding reverse gear and backing out of the opening he was "stuck" in so fast he smacks his and Vicky's rears into the far wall hard enough to make them both moan (and you and Missy shiver in response to said moans).
You're not surprised that looking through the now empty gap reveals Taylor back in the bodysuit and looking like a cute little spider-girl again, or that the girls have responded to this with hugs, snuggling up to her and general cheer, but you're unprepared for the sight nonetheless. Maybe it's the way Penelope at her middle size is lying on Taylor's abdomen, nuzzling the point where it meets her back. Or the way Cassandra at full size is hanging on to Taylor's front like a spidery koala, resting her head in the other girl's cleavage as she gazes adoringly up at her. Or the bouncy little dance Helen is doing while holding both of Taylor's hands and sing-songing "Big Sister, Big Sister, Athena is Big Sister". Or all of the above plus the downright soppy look on Taylor's face as she looks between the three of them, joyful and tentative and heart stopping cute. Hell, throw in the way Arachne's heart is clearly melting at the sight in the background, too. However you explain it, the fact is your brain turns to sugary goo at the sight and you mindlessly try to walk straight through a space that absolutely won't accommodate your ass.
Which would be merely embarrassing and painfully pleasant, but Missy was apparently following close behind you, and thanks to the heels of her boots, tall enough to clearly see the diabetes inducing scene over your shoulder. She makes a loud "HNNNG!" noise, and ploughs right in to you when the edges of the hole stop your movement. When your brain recovers from its whiteout, you find the impact has not only wedged your ass thoroughly in place, but done it in such a way that your feet are several inches clear of the ground, leaving you to dangle helplessly and hope like hell the feeling of hard wood pressing into the flesh of your ass doesn't drive you to orgasm in front of everyone before Missy regains enough wits to expand the gap and get you out.
Of course, it then turns out that there's not actually enough space between your ass and the Infection-filled wood for Missy to do anything with. At least the Ward gets Vicky to help get you free right away, rather than returning your earlier mocking for a bit first. Even if your ass does get smacked rather a lot in the process. It jolts you free, sure, but while Vicky's face might be clear of lascivious intent it's in no way free of teasing intent, and Missy looks just a touch too guilty afterwards. And Dean's nickers are absolutely a laugh, or possibly a smug pony-sissy giggle to go with his smug pony-sissy face.
Taylor, at least, refrained from watching your humiliation in favour of talking quietly to Arachne, and shortly after you're free (and wishing you could use your powers on yourself, or at least your butt), she steps back from that conversation. "Okay, one last thing and if you still don't want to leave afterwards, I'll drop it. Girls?" The spider-girls run over from where they were giggling with Dinah and stand in front of Taylor, who crouches so they're almost the same height. "Pleease come to Winslow?" She begs in a cutely childish whine accompanied by a sad pout.
"Pleeease can we go to Winslow?" The girls chorus with her, turning sad puppy-eyed begging faces on their mother.
You have to fight the urge to give all four of them hugs and cookies, and you're pretty sure everyone else does too, so it's little surprise that despite Arachne's best efforts, her resistance crumbles like soggy tissue. "But we have to... We need to... We should not..." A deep, defeated sigh. "Very well. We will come to Winslow for tonight, at least."
Taylor raises an eyebrow as the girls cheer and hug her, each other, Arachne and Dinah (who wandered too close), but doesn't comment on the not particularly firm sounding qualifier. "If you're not going to be here tonight, we should collect your things from the basement so they'll be safe. Packing everything should be easy enough with the bags we have."
Taylor's words are quickly proven correct, especially once it turns out the Equipment Sack Dinah's carrying treats boxes of things as a single item towards its capacity limit. All the furniture in the basement disappears inside it, and nine sets of hands make short work of boxing up the smaller items, most of which go into the sack too, with the last few ending up building-block sized in Missy's backpack. It takes almost as long to get your wide-bottomed group up and down the heavily trapped stairs safely as it does to pack up Arachne and her daughter's lives... Which feels like it should be kind of sad, but they don't seem all that bothered (the girls are downright excited to be moving/going on a trip (Cassandra calls it the first, Helen the second and Penelope just tries to get them not to argue about it), in fact), and when you consider they're only a month or so into those lives, you suppose it's a fair amount.
"We're going to stop at my house before we go back to Winslow." Missy says a little later, when you're all outside and the girls are cheerfully biding the Hebert house goodbye. "Is that okay, or would you rather I drop you off there first?"
"It should be no trouble." Arachne answers, but you're only part aware of it, distracted by the look on Taylor's face as she regards the empty shell of her childhood home.
"You okay?" You murmur, squeezing her hand gently.
"I- Yeah." Taylor answers after a moment, voice hitching as the grass ripples around her. "There's a lot of memories here, but... It's a place. I've got both parents again, we can make new memories in new places, now. It's, you know, sad to know I'll probably never come back here again, but even if I did...what's here to come back to? Everything is either at the union compound, packed up or gone. Here's just walls."
"Walls can still mean a lot." Taylor shrugs at your words, squeezes your hand and turns away from the house. You're not sure if she's actually feeling better or just recovered enough to mask her feelings again, but given you're quietly panicking about how the hell you're meant to continue what you said to a coherent point rather than a babble of meaningless platitudes, you don't press, just follow her to where Missy's creating her first warp.
Missy's neighbourhood would normally be a slightly more prosperous version of Taylor's, you think. It's hard to be sure how far apart they are, with Missy twisting space to get you between them in less than two minutes, but it doesn't feel that far. And the houses are the same sort of small, slightly old but still perfectly serviceable, family homes. The roads and sidewalks are just that little bit better maintained, the houses and yards a little less in need of small touch ups. Of course, you could be wrong. Taylor's street looks like there's been a small war fought on it (probably because it has, one that's technically still ongoing), and Missy's cul-de-sac, other than a few broken windows, one looted looking house, and the complete lack of non-streetlight illumination could almost be an ordinary neighbourhood in an ordinary city, so comparing them is possibly unfair.
"The hell's my house gone?" Missy asks, staring perplexedly at an apparently empty lot you'd honestly thought was, like, a tiny park or something from the well manicured hedges fronting it and the beautifully blooming trees visible at the back.
"It looks like there's something in the middle, arf!" Vicky calls down from above. "Not sure it's a house, though." Well, now you have to go and look.
The gap in the hedges leads to a single path rather than a maze, but turns enough corners to be about as disorienting, something not helped by the way the bushes tower over you all, path just wide enough for you to get your arse down it comfortably. Missy's leading the group, so you don't see the frown on her face until you finally reach the end of the path and emerge on to a vast, neat, lawn in front of... Well it's about half a house and half some sort of particularly tacky kid's "Princess Castle" playset blown up to house size. You put the frown down to the state of what's presumably her house at first, but then you hear something impact very loudly indeed above you, and look up to see all four of Dean's hooves planted firmly on the air above you. Assuming Dean's turned into a giant in the last couple of minutes, of course.
"Woof! You're all tiny! Like little dolls!" Vicky barks, huge head filling your vision like the sun as she leans over on her boyfriend's back to peer down at you.
Screaming is a perfectly reasonable response, you feel.
By the time Taylor's talked you out of the perfectly shaped bushes, everyone else is watching as Missy waves her hands like...like... Honestly, like no action humans have ever needed to describe before. Someone conducting the R'leyh Transdimensional Orchestra, to understate it considerably. The end result is that Dean trots...you're just going to go with "forwards"...bringing himself and Vicky onto the lawn with you, back to normal sizes. Or sizes on the same scale as the rest of you, at least.
"Add another one to the 'The Infection is fucking with us' column, Amy." Missy snarls once she's done, and the space above her house is no longer making the spider girls (and Dinah) fall over dizzy if they try to walk while looking up at it. "Making my house dollhouse-sized through space stuff would be one thing, but this? I recognise the dollhouse it's half turned into. It's was in my room for..." She blushes heavily, bright roses blooming on her pale cheeks. Err, metaphorically. That's actually an important distinction when talking about Missy now. "Um, a while. Are we really supposed to believe it's a coincidence it picked something princess themed? Really? With all this?" She waves a hand at herself, then pauses, and blushes a bit more. "Okay, random luck would have favoured 'Princess' rather a lot if it was the playsets still in the house somewhere. In my defence, those tended to be less cheaply made."
You and Taylor exchange a look and refrain from commenting. Vicky wouldn't have done, but she's been on Dean's back again for long enough that it takes precious extra seconds to turn the teasing you see in her eyes into actual words, and you use them to get high enough to clamp a hand over her mouth. You get a very doggy lick for your troubles, but that's honestly easier not to react (inappropriately) to than her doing it before her tongue changed and this is far from the first time you've had to do it.
The front door of the Biron house is inside a small porch with a portcullis and still normal door sized despite being shaped like a pair of fancy double doors and made of what's quite blatantly plastic moulded and coloured to look like fancy wood. They swing open easily at Missy's touch, but they're an awkward shape for anyone who's either tall or wide, and Missy can't seem to expand the space in them. Getting through proves something of a trial for those of you who can't either switch to smaller sizes or are currently much shorter than normal and attached to a mass that, large as it is, is still mainly stuffing and therefore much less bothersome to squeeze through a narrow doorway than an oversized and oversensitive ass. Missy could probably just about pass without difficulty if she wasn't wearing such tall boots but as it is she has to duck, and only narrowly avoids catching her backside on the doors as she does. The rest of you bang your butts repeatedly. And in Vicky's case, her head. Also repeatedly.
The room you eventually all get in to is...you'd say odd but that's honestly beginning to lose all meaning...blended covers the most obvious part quite well. It's sized like the grand entrance hall of a castle, but the walls are covered by tasteless wallpaper from a 70's decor catalogue and the floor has both fur rugs and a similarly dated carpet. Torches high on the wall provide light to both a grand staircase and an ordinary coat and shoe rack, which feature everyday raincoats alongside sweeping fur mantles, work boots next to glittering heels. On closer inspection, the whole room is also fake, or perhaps artificial would be better. The shoes and cloaks are solid plastic, moulded to the furniture that displays them, the "carpet" is actually textured plastic and when you fly up to look more closely, the flames torches are likewise solid, shaped plastic. Painted plastic that shouldn't give off any illumination, despite the fact it's clearly doing so. Also, most directly relevant to your group, all the doors on the ground floor are (plastic) fakes despite having rooms beyond them. Fake, and tough enough Vicky can't force her way through them, leaving you with nowhere to go but up the stairs.
The stairs lead to a three-way junction, long, dim, hallways stretching off it, too long to fit inside the building you saw from outside. Doors line the walls at regular intervals, each with a room beyond them according to those of you who can tell such things, but they're as impossible to open as the ones below, making them effectively as much decorations as the paintings on the walls. In the wall? The paintings are as much part of the walls as the fake stone pattern in the plastic, and for that matter the doors. The whole hallway also looks like it should be roomy inside, but actually feels rather cramped, like the scale is just slightly too small. None of you have any trouble fitting, or even passing each other, so it can't be as low and narrow as you brain insists it is, but it gives you a vaguely claustrophobic feel nonetheless.
Taylor's senses and a little exploration reveal the floor you're on is basically a grid of hallways, most of them entirely pointless given none of the rooms off them are accessible, and would also be about the size of broom closets if the placement of the doors and the length of the "blocks" had any bearing on their size. As best as Taylor can tell, the only routes elsewhere in the house are hidden behind some of the identical doors, and the floor is devoid of life, traps or other risks, so after only a little debate, Vicky and Dean gallop off down one hall, Dinah and the girls run off to search another, and you, Taylor, Missy and Arachne head more sedately along the last, idly checking doors as you go.
You're mildly surprised when your foursome actually comes across an working door a few minutes in, one that leads to what would be a perfectly ordinary, if very dusty, bedroom if it wasn't seemingly cast from a single block of plastic and the "daylight" filling it wasn't coming from a window overlooking a nature scene that's clearly a sticker.
"Huh. This is Mom's room." Missy comments, wandering in and poking the bed and coughing at the puff of dust this raises. "I think being turned to plastic has actually made this thing softer. Not sure if she'd be madder about that or the dust. ... Why's it dusty in here and nowhere else?"
"The floor in the entrance looked like someone had been mopping it." Taylor says, and thinking back you...honestly didn't pay enough attention to know if she's right. "Pretty badly, but still. This floor..." The purple-haired girl sticks her head back out in to the corridor briefly. "Could be someone making a half-assed effort with a broom, could just be the breeze. Maybe whoever's doing it doesn't come in here? Or can't work the doorknob because it's just an animated broom or whatever."
"Could there be someone here?" Arachne asks, concerned.
"Not on this floor. I can tell for sure now we're moving around it that nothing big does normally." Taylor answers, eyes flicking about briefly as she tracks something no one else can see.
"Well, there's nothing here but dust." Missy, who's kept poking around the room without finding anything that isn't solid plastic, announces. "Let's keep going. Mom's mice pillows are no less creepy for being plastic." You've been feeling unnervingly like the dancing mice on the room's pillows and cushions are staring accusingly at you since you walked in, so you have no objections to the Ward's plan.
One you're all gathered again a little later, the others have found a fancy but entirely decorative bathroom, complete with a solid "bubble bath" in the tub, what might be the Biron's living room, but on the wrong floor and looking like a lace maker threw up all over it before it was turned to plastic, and two spiral staircases, one going up and the other down. Missy's house only had two floors before, and something about space around the up one is "interesting" according to her, so you take that one first. Well, the rest of you stand around in the cavernous room it's in the middle of while Missy walks up it, occasionally making an arcane hand gesture for no obvious reason or result.
"Right, that should be done! Come on up!" Missy calls down a few minutes later, voice loud and nearby despite her being nowhere in sight.
There's no good reason not to, and in any case Helen started up it the second Missy spoke, so the rest of you follow, finding yourself after far less twisting steps than expected inside a stereotypical "Princess' Tower", one that seems to be made of actual stone and with actual furnishings, rather than yet more plastic. The floor you emerge on seems to be some sort of reception space, royal air only slightly spoiled by the stuffed animals filling the seating and the fact the tea services are plastic. The next floor is a single vaulted space, with a throne on dais towards the back and a large glass case in front of it. The case contains a mannequin near-identical to Missy's original appearance, posed as through asleep and wearing what's almost her Vista costume, just with a slightly fancier, frillier and poofier dress. More stuffed toys are scattered about the room, singly and in groups, on the floor and on seats, but all clearly "watching" the throne.
"That's...kinda creepy." Missy says, inspecting the contents of the casket. "Especially since I think that dress might have been one of the original designs for my costume. It's been a while, but I remember Piggot reading someone the riot act at how impractical the sleeves would be. And about expecting an eight year-old to lace up the back of her costume... No, wait that was a different one. She had Armsmaster sit in on the meetings after that just so she could have anyone who suggested corsetry for a preteen physically thrown from the room."
"And once again, I'm really glad I never had to deal with the PR part of the PRT, woof." Vicky says into the silence that follows.
"Yeah, you lucky bitch." Missy mutters, possibly less under her breath than she intended. Dean gives a wordless neigh that still clearly agrees with the sentiment, then somehow shuffles guiltily on his hooves when his girlfriend smacks his rump in mock offence.
"Only one who seats themself upon the throne and who's secret seat endures it's trial is worthy of the Princess' Raiment. But to the bold beware, for those whose measure is not equal to this Siege Perilous shall join the ranks of the Princess' courtiers instead." Dinah announces, and you look over to see that while the floorshow has been going on she's made her way over to the case and, presumably, read off the words on the plaque at the base. (You resist the urge to congratulate her on including the contractions when she did.) "Chances sitting on the throne triggers a trap? Zero percent chance? But...oh, it is not a trap. Chances sitting on the throne causes you to get hurt? Ten percent chance." Dinah looks happy at the odds she gets, then frowns. "Chances sitting on the throne causes you to get embarrassed? Ninety one percent chance."
"Check if sitting on it will transform someone in some way too, if you're okay with more questions?" Taylor says, regarding the throne suspiciously.
"Chances of anyone sitting on the throne being permanently changed? Zero percent chance again. That's good!" Dinah looks cheery once more, then an idea clearly occurs to her just as you're about to point out the issue. "Chances of anyone sitting on the throne being temporarily changed? Ow, ow, hard one. Ninety eight, no, thirty one, no sixty nine, no... It is all over the place. I should not have asked about 'anyone', I think. But I cannot do more questions for a bit, sorry." She looks more upset about her "mistake" than she does the pain she felt and is clearly still feeling
"That's fine, there's plenty more searching to do here. We can worry about this later." Taylor assures the younger girl, while you, her, Missy and Arachne nearly collide rushing over to check on her. (And Penelope weaves through all your legs at her smallest size to get there first and hug her.)
Leaving the half-sheep girl in the company of the half-spider (temporarily, in Taylor's case) ones to recover, you, Vicky and Missy head up a staircase hidden behind the throne. It leads to a bedroom that's almost entirely a very small girl's idea of a princess' bedroom, pink and frilly and over the top and full of girly toys (and yet more stuffed animals). The almost is important though, because those few things that don't match the theme make it clear that this bedroom is/was Missy's, at least to the scowling Ward. The "Princess Vista" themed covers on the bed are a hint about it to anyone else, you guess, but only an anyone that doesn't know Missy wouldn't be caught dead admitting such things are maybe not completely, totally, unbearably awful, never mind actually allowing them on her bed.
Exploring the room a bit reveals that while its contents is more realistic than what you've found in the lower part of the house, most of it is no more actually usable - the dresses in the wardrobe are stuck to their unmoving hangers, the books to their shelves and the toys to the floor. The bed is usable, other than the sheets being partially sown to it in a way that would make getting under them a touch complicated, and rather comfortable, given they're silk, with only one slight issue which has you frantically covering Vicky's mouth again. The fact she's riding Missy's crush around would do the exact opposite of sparing your sister from attempted bisection if she made so much as the slightest implication of teasing about the thick plastic mattress protector on the bed and what it might mean about any embarrassing night time issues Missy still has at age twelve. Possibly Missy currently being eighteen would, but you're not inclined to risk it, and with both hands clamped over Vicky's big mouth, you kick Dean vaguely in the ribs until he gets the hint and heads for one of the discreet doors at the sides of the room. It turns out to lead to an opulent if excessively feminine bathroom, which isn't ideal, but still works for scolding your sister into good behaviour, even if you have to do it in whispers since raising your voice causes a lot of echoes.
"The other door's a closet." Missy reports when you're confident Vicky's not going to deliberately say anything stupid. "I mean, there's a bed in there. but it's clearly a closet. Only clothes in there were these though." She holds out a bundle of silks and velvets for you to check.
"No Infection. But they're all a set, and I think they'd make it a little harder to judge the age or sex of anyone wearing them than all the poof and frills would do anyway. They also let you learn to do 'noble' things a tiny bit more easily, but don't ask me what that means." You report a minute later.
The outfit Missy found is very fancy and high class, marking the wearer out as a person in the employ of someone of the greatest wealth and taste. Assuming they were living in twelfth century France, of course. You doubt what your powers label as a "Royal Page's Uniform" will ever be of much use, but they're still clothes, so Missy packs them away in Vicky's rucksack while you're wondering when your power started labelling clothes.
There's nothing else to check on this level and he trapdoor Missy spots in the ceiling doesn't open, so you head back down. You're behind Dean, and so have an excellent view when Vicky shudders and her ass expands even further, followed by her hips, then her thighs and finally her calves, which grow most of all. They're no match for her current gargantuan thighs, but you think they'll be in better proportion to them once the Commune's food wears off. Dean grunts slightly at the increased mass of his back, but doesn't actually fall down the stairs or anything. You think you see Missy flicker as she reaches the bottom of the stairs, for fractions of a second her original appearance, or her changed one with her normal age and proportions, or just one of them, but she's back to normal when you blink, and doesn't appear to have noticed anything odd happening. You're distracted from thinking about it further, but not Infection from your Cat-girl Outfit causing you to develop the Trait that lets your power develop new tricks in response to Infections you carry, or giving your skin gaining a golden hue that's just slightly too metallic to be a tan, or the Infection deciding to make your freckles the "dots" in a colourful join the dots game, or even some of your hang-ups about behaving in a way that pleases random strangers melting away. No, you're distracted by seeing your Darling, awkwardly perfectly reassuring Dinah about...something. You think maybe she has real horns now? It's not important. What's important is that it's been ages since you saw Taylor. Hours. Well, a quarter of an hour. Seven minutes, maybe? All that matters is that it's been far too long.
"Missed you, Darling!" You say, darting up from behind to hug her. The costume's abdomen isn't quite as nice as her perfect backside to the touch, but on the other hand it's big enough for you to sit on. It's a benefit you can't believe hasn't occurred to you before now! You can actually, properly, hug your Darling as you explore, not just hold her hand when one of you's not doing anything!
"Missed you too, Sweetheart." Your Darling says softly, smilingly widely at you over her shoulder. She goes back to Dinah after that, because she's responsible and always finishes what she starts, but she adjusts her long hair bit by bit so it falls over you like a cloak as she does, so you know she's thinking of you as she does so.
You can tell from her brush of her hair against your skin your Darling's Infection's has progressed, even if it hasn't visibly enhanced her perfection, so you gather up several of her long locks to stroke as you study it further, since her bodysuit might be as silky to the touch as her skin, but it doesn't actually count as it for your power, no matter how tightly it hugs it. You soon learn that your Darling's already formidable mental fortitude and self control has been enhanced, and she's gained a number of traits. The boosts she gets for Dressing For Success have been boosted (and you guess the penalties for not looking her best, but how could she not?), and she's picked up the same Royal Command and Excuse Me Princess Traits as Missy, a combination that gives you some mildly inappropriate fantasies. Well, inappropriate for now, there's no reason not to revisit them at bedtime. She's also picked up the negative Fallen Form Trait, but you see no reason to worry about that. There's no way your Darling will lose a fight, and even if the impossible should happen, your bond will bring her back, easily.
You still tell her, of course, but she just smiles back at you. "I'm not worried, Sweetheart. Even if things go wrong, you'll save me."
"Amy? Could you see if anything has happened besides me getting horns?" Dinah asks, timidly, from where she's been walking along next to Taylor.
"Huh? Oh, yeah sure." You answer distractedly, looking away from Taylor's deep red eyes with reluctance. "You don't mind me putting my hand on the top of your head, right?" Her cheek would be a slightly easier reach, but the top of head will look less weird.
"No, that is fine." Dinah answers brightly, and you brush one of the horns curling from her temples briefly (replacing the ones her headband had there) before settling your hand on the top of her head. It's in her thick, curly brown hair rather than touching her scalp, but that's fine.
The horns are nowhere near all of it. Most significantly, she's picked up the Satyrisim Trait, which would give her...okay, a just tail, sheep ears and possibly more wool-like hair, given the changes she's got already. It does also make her get horny more easily...but not much compared to how much her Lolli's Are Not For Lewding Trait reduces that sort of thing, and it's not the kind of trait that can strengthen. So you don't really need to brave her innocent incomprehension to explain "getting horny" to her. But the Satyrisim Trait is important no matter how little it actually does at this stage, because Dinah's also picked up the Animal transformation Trait, and having Satyrisim as an inherent trait means she's in no danger of turning entirely into a sheep, no matter what happens with her strain in the future. She's further protected there, and in general, by having developed the Identity Resilience Trait, and has also picked the Ramming Speed Trait, which is pretty self-explanatorily (and because it's Dinah and not, say, Vicky, she doesn't try to test her new attack by charging a wall), and Hair Today which should be pretty minor. Even if wool is growing much faster than normal, how fast can that be?
Once Dinah's been informed of her new Traits, thanked you and skipped off to join Penelope a little way away, you consider calling Vicky over, so you can check if anything happened to her besides her rear getting even more ridiculous, but you don't really want her intruding on your time with Darling. Missy would be a more acceptable intruder, and you should probably check if what you thought you saw was significant, but she's right at the front of the group and you and Darling are at the back, and you can tell the Ward's not in the mood to drop back and let someone else take the lead. Especially since you've just reached the staircase leading in to the downstairs part of the house you couldn't reach before, and...well, you assume flipping the stairs off was the gesture part of sorting out some kind of space issue, and not her suddenly becoming the sort of drunk who gets mad at random objects.
There are two ways you can go once you're down the stairs, and Darling says the left one goes less distance, so you go that way first, and quickly reach a dead-end in a large storeroom. Which is mainly storing plastic fruit. And plastic vegetables, and plastic tables, and plastic cloth, but Dinah is able to find a blocked off area created by stacks of (also plastic) crates, which Helen and Cassandra can get inside at their spider-size and pass several bolts of very fine silk out of.
You've gone a little way down the other corridor when Darling freezes. "We're not alone down here." She calls, as quietly as she can and still be heard by everyone. "I think they're still a way away, but space is being a bit weird."
"That was only partly me." Missy calls back as your group bunches up a bit so the two purple-haired girls don't have to try not to shout to be heard by each other. "I didn't think we wanted to walk through half a mile of twisty passages, so I straightened them out. They kind of vanished when I did, and it felt like the end of the hallway jolted in from elsewhere."
There's nowhere else to go but towards the double doors just about visible at the end of the hallway, and Missy at least is eager to find out who's in her house, so you head that way, pausing only momentarily for Darling and Missy to ask at the same time if anyone else hears singing. Which is a no from the rest of you until you get much closer to the doors. It's a man's voice, if quite a high one, and would probably be quite nice to hear of the singer didn't seem to think consistent pitch was something for other people to worry about. And could remember more than two lines of words from a given song before either changing or just going "Na Na Na" vaguely tunefully for a while.
"That...might be my Dad." Missy says quietly, pausing at the door. "It's way too high, but it's exactly how he sings when he's drunk. Or sober, but he's better at remembering the words then. I think. He doesn't sing sober much. At all, really, unless it's 'Happy Birthday'. Which doesn't really count and I'm rambling to distract myself. Let me talk before anyone does anything?" She's looking at the doors and doesn't so much as twitch towards Vicky, but who "anyone" is couldn't be clearer if she'd set up a neon sign with bells and whistles, and Vicky cheerfully barks an agreement.
Beyond the doors is a vast hall, with rows of food-laden tables, crackling fires, hanging tapestries and even quiet music drifting from one roped off corner. The general impression of being in some great medieval feasting hall is spoiled only be two things. Firstly, the room is entirely empty save a single figure in the left-most of the three throne-like chairs behind the table furthest from the door. Secondly, the hall and everything in it are all quite clearly made of plastic and as you get closer you see that includes the lone inhabitant. What they're eating and drinking (mostly drinking) is real, as is their elaborate dress, but the feaster themselves is quite clearly an animate doll.
They're too intent on their drinking (and very occasional bites of food) to notice your group approach, and you lean round your Darling to get a better look at them. Their sex is fairly ambiguous, but despite their short, slight stature, their ringlets of long blond hair, the literally doll-like delicacy of their face and the makeup on it, and even the suggestion of small curves under their dress, you lean towards male. They're quite clearly a guy regardless of their physical equipment, that's plain in their body language (and the great belch they let out after their latest swig), but something about their build is masculine, even in its androgyny. There's also a certain degree of resemblance to Missy - you're not sure you'd guess father and daughter, but there's clearly some degree of relation, and the main thing weighing against a parent-child relationship is he doesn't look old enough to be Missy's father. You think her parents had her young, though, so if she was her normal age... The plastic flawlessness of his body throws things off, but you could believe he's in his early thirties.
"Well, it's nice to see even the Infection can't change some things." Missy mutters, when your group is all gathered in front of the table and her probable dad still hasn't looked up from his goblet to notice you. "Ahem!" Her pointed throat clearing gets no response. "Oh, for the love of... Daddy dearest, I'm HOME!!!"
The man finally looks up at that, his face rapidly switching through shock and a touch of fear, surprise, more shock but also recognition and then happiness. Literally switching - his face doesn't actually move beyond how open his eyelids and mouth are, just moves from one fixed expression to another without any in between steps like his face is a series of masks being swapped out near-instantly. You're about ninety five percent sure there's no moment in this process where his head is literally featureless, or even excessively blank, but that five percent uncertainty contains a lot of unnerving feelings.
"Missy? Wow, you look great dear. What are you doing with your hair?" Missy's dad sounds happy to see her, but his words are kind of...rote? Not uninterested or fake, but like he doesn't really get what he should be saying, so he's just going off a script.
"That's what you notice? Not being older or the giant ass or the rubber suit?" Missy sounds mildly incredulous, but not all that surprised.
"Well, I've kind of lost track of time. it could have been a while. And besides, you'd know you're older if I said anything or not, so why sound like your Grandmother talking about how much you've grown. And I know better than to comment on a woman's ass or clothes." Missy's dad shrugs, takes an idle swig from his goblet and looks back down at his plate, not exactly dismissively, but still giving you the impression that despite how long it's been for him since he's seen his daughter, he's not more interested in her than his food.
"Would you actually listen if I told you what's happened on my end since I last saw you?" Missy asks, in the tone of one who clearly knows the answer, and gets a shrug in return. "I won't bother then. Anything you want to say about what's happened to you? Anything about your body you're worried about? Panacea's here, she might be able to help."
Another shrug, and his eyes might briefly flick over the group looking for you. "Not really. Being plastic was odd at first, but fine once I figured out how to make my dick not be hidden."
Missy pulls a face. "Seriously, does the Infection just cause people to TMI as a general side effect?" She mutters. (You don't think so.) "Is Mom here?" She asks more loudly, sounding like she'd rather not, but will catch hell if she doesn't.
"Haven't seen The Bitch since a few days after F-Day!" Her dad answers, with great cheer, quaffing his drink. "I think. Might have been longer. Anyway, she and some of her 'friends' were going to the Trainyard to...honestly, I wasn't listening. The fuck would she know, it wouldn't have been her idea anyway. They didn't come back from whatever it was." He shrugs, utterly unconcerned.
"Is this 'friend' as in guys from the neighbourhood you think she's having an affair with because she can have a whole conversation with them without threatening to rip their balls off, of 'friend' as in those wine-sodden, gossipy, harpies she calls her book club?" Missy asks, also looking less than concerned.
Her father's face changes to one of deep concentration for several seconds. "Harpies, I think?" He doesn't sound terribly sure.
"Do you actually, or have you just made that up?" Missy's probably rhetorical question gets another shrug. "Never mind, doesn't matter. I'll keep an eye out for her when we end up there. I'm sure if I'm wearing anything but a nun's habit when I do I'll be able to pick her out however she's changed by the way she starts screeching at me for how I'm dressed."
"The nun's habit would get screeching too. Just about papists rather than immodesty." Missy's dad responds, mockingly but not actually jokingly. "Don't feel you need to keep an eye out for my sake! Or yours, unless it's to avoid her. You could rescue her from being held hostage by Lung and she'd just complain about the whole thing. And then about everything else about you. And things that have nothing to do with you but she'll blame you for anyway."
Tellingly, Missy doesn't try and address her dad's claims, just gives a shrug of her own and moves on. "Meh. Anyway, we've been poking around the place looking for stuff, we're going to keep doing at down here, okay?" It's clear to you that her dad's answer will have no effect on what Missy does next, but he either doesn't notice or doesn't care.
"Sure. Help yourself to whatever's in the kitchen, there's always too much for me. Oh, but bring me back a bottle of something. Not the Royal Mead, though. It makes my head really swim, and I don't feel like that now." You can't really say Missy's dad turns his attention back to his meal, but he's quite clearly not concerned with Missy anymore.
"Arf! Is your dad always like that!?" Vicky manages to contain herself until the doors on the side of the hall that will presumably take you to the kitchen are closed behind you at least, even if she's loud enough they probably wouldn't make much difference to someone who cared enough to listen.
"I mean, mom's not here for him to spite somehow by faking an interest, so...pretty much? He's, like, aggressively disengaged if you leave him to it. It's easy to deal with, at least." There's not really a lot you can say to that, though Vicky tries. At least Mark cares even if he's not always able to be...involved.
You don't get lost looking for the kitchen, it's a straight corridor and Missy's making space behave, but it ends in a circle with four doors, and you try all of them before finding it. One leads to a bedroom that's clearly the one Missy's dad is using, and might even have been his originally, despite being a frilly, feminine (plastic) princess paradise now, one that matches the bathroom behind the opposite door. The last non-kitchen door leads to what might have been a garage before the Infection got its hands on it, but is now pretty much a stable despite its roller door. Well, a mocked up display of a stable, anyway. The only part of the room other than the door that can be so much is twitched is a set of stupidly detailed and shiny armour on a mannequin which, fancy as it is, would still provide some serious boosts in combat. Pity the mannequin is for a horse, and anyone wearing the armour would be forced to move on all fours until they took it off. Or, more likely, someone else did so for them. It wouldn't stop them from using their hands (technically, it could be a bit tricky to use more than one at once), but part of its enhancements make it very hard to take off yourself. You don't think Dean will want to take it with him, it's too restrictive, but if you make it to this time tomorrow without Vicky at least trying it, you'll be shocked.
The kitchen, once you finally find it, seems to be having a bit of an identity crisis, 60's showroom kitchen and Hollywood castle kitchen running into each other throughout the room, with actual modern appliances popping up here and there. It's also huge. Like, can't see two of the walls huge. Helen and Cassandra immediately start scurrying around, poking things in wide-eyed wonder, while Arachne tries to rein them in a bit, one eye always on the various sharp objects scattered around. Dinah and Penelope look around more sedately, Dinah explaining the purpose of the bits she recognises, which includes a surprising amount of the more archaic parts. Vicky spurs Dean over to the counter which holds enough roast meats and vegetables to feed a family of ten and starts poking through it, only a little more restrained than the spider-girls, while Missy considers a large wine (and other things) rack with a resigned expression.
"I'm picking up something interesting in the basement. Shall we go and check it out, Sweetheart?" Your Darling whispers to you, and you nod, happy to go anywhere with her, but especially to go somewhere more private. Especially when everyone else is busy, and will be for at least a little while.
Fitting though the narrow hatch into the basement is a little tricky for you both, but your Darling's abdomen is very squishable and flexible, and floating means you don't have to worry about keeping your balance on the ladder. There's a worrying moment where your ass is a little stuck and Darling's being so much shorter than normal means she can't reach your hanging legs while safely on the floor, but even without any sort of spider-like grip, eight legs still gives her a lot of points to grip the ladder with, and she's able to tug your legs firmly until you slip through.
You wander hand in hand through the basement, finding it is yet another immovable plastic show piece, and a particularly bland one at that, just boxes and crates of unclear purpose stacked neatly. A door at the far end leads to a room that seems at first to be no more interesting, containing only a single, massive ornate mirror opposite the door. But then you realise that instead of reflecting the room, it's reflecting a...boardroom? A long table in a room with giant windows and lots of middle-aged white guys in suits sat around it and younger ones standing attentively by the walls - almost certainly a boardroom. You and your Darling are in the image too, but that's not obvious at first - your reflection is older, even shorter and with boobs to match your ass, barely contained by a drab uniform, and a dull look on her face. Your Darling, meanwhile, appears to be a...drinks trolley?? Her naked torso emerges from a furry purple box, less sexy than it should be due to being made of metal and plastic, with some kind of electronic display replacing her beautiful face and taps emerging from her nipples. The way her head and torso move and her lower half twitches suggests she's aware despite being an item of furniture, as well. Though the two of you simply stand and stare in bemusement at their appearance, your reflection starts pushing your Darling's though the room, pulling a cup and saucer out of her box, taking an order from one of the seated men, painstakingly manipulating the display and filling the cup from the taps, then setting it on the saucer on the central table. It looks like it takes all of her attention to pull it off, and each time she does, the man whose order she took slaps her ass while she's still bent over, causing her to stay in that pose for several seconds, shuddering with pleasure.
After a minute or so of this, your Darling makes a discussed noise and strides across the room to the mirror, running her hands along its frame and surface. "Darling?" You ask, not sure what she's doing.
"Doesn't seem to be any way of turning it off." She responds, with a scowl. "Let's leave. I'm not watching that happen to you any longer, Sweetheart."
"But my reflection's got such huge..." You wave at your own chest, which is practically flat in comparison. You also cross the room and touch the mirror yourself, getting what can only be described as an "info-dump" from your powers the moment you do so on what it is and how it works. It's so much information in an instant you don't even notice your Darling hugging you until it fades.
"Sweetheart, you're perfect just as you are. Or however you look, but not if you're so...beaten down." You think your reflection looks more too dumb and horny to object than too defeated to do so, but it's not worth arguing with your Darling over. You do file away a barely verbalised "Or being touched like that by someone else" to revisit later, though.
"Aww, thank you Darling. You're right, we should go. My powers just filled me in on what the mirror does, and we don't want to be here when it goes blank." You hug your Darling back, and take advantage of your lightness and floating power to keep doing so, koala-style, as her eight legs quickly carry you both out of the room.
You fill your Darling in on the mirror's purpose once you're in the other part of the basement and the door to its room is firmly closed. While whatever skit it's decided to show is running, the mirror does nothing beyond probably weird any watchers out. When a skit finishes, however, it's surface goes blank, and anyone who "looks too deeply" into it in that state will be frozen in place until the next scene starts. Which would be bad enough when you're not sure what counts as "too deeply" or how long the blank state lasts, but when the next scene starts, anyone caught by the mirror who's will isn't strong enough will find themselves compelled to copy their reflection's actions until the skit ends, while anyone who resists at first still won't be able to move, and will have to keep resisting the urge to copy their reflection until the very end. Anyone who manages to hold out for the whole scene will gain some form of significant reward, possibly find their willpower restored, and be free to go unchanged, while those who give in... Well, they'll be free to go to, but not unchanged, and they'll only get a "consolation prize" reward, which you're pretty sure will be as mocking as it is useful. The changes will only be temporary, but they'll be based on the role the reflection played in the scene, and well...your Darling was some sort living drinks machine in the one you saw. The roles of reflections aren't guaranteed to be weird as fuck, but the impression you got is there's no reason they wouldn't be, even if more normal (or at least "normal") ones are more common. Both the risks and rewards of the mirror are greater the more people that are "caught" by it, too, so while you're certain your Darling would be equal to its challenge, you agree you should discuss it with the others first.
You get briefly stuck again coming up from the basement, but your Darling pushes you free with ease. And no one's looking to see you nearly fly into a wall because you're too occupied with remembering how her hands on your butt felt as she did to pay attention to where you're going. The others are all some way down the room, huddled loosely around a counter. As you and Darling get closer, you can see there's a plastic slash metallic bubble coming out of its surface, one which gets larger and larger until it's about the size of Vicky's ass, then vanishes with a quiet but weirdly echoing pop. Left behind on the counter is what looks like a whole roast pig with all the trimmings. Which shouldn't fit, either on the counter or in the bubble, but that doesn't seem to bother it. Looking around, you can see several more surfaces scattered throughout the room are now also laden with food, and almost every flat surface that isn't the floor has a bubble slowly growing on it.
"Amy! Just in time. Check this is safe before your sister tests it by sticking it in her mouth, would you?" Missy hears you and Darling approaching and calls out to you, smacking Vicky's reaching paw away from the pig without looking as she does.
You hurry over, and grab...you think it's a very fancily cooked whole onion? Anyway, your powers work on it quickly enough. "Infected, but not beyond the normal levels in most food." You announce. "Doesn't do anything special, either. On its own or in combination. I think. It doesn't feel like it has the 'hooks' for a combination effect. Oh, and it's appearing...pretty much just because. The Infection here's just...decided it wants to make a feast. Or ten. Not sure when it'll stop, but it doesn't seem like a regular or continual thing, just...a thing."
"That's...good, I guess? But what are we going to do with it all? There's already enough to feed us for days, if all the bubbles make as much we couldn't eat it in a month." Missy say, sounding mildly exasperated by the Infection's strange whims. And smacking Vicky's paw away again, apparently by reflex.
"Take it back to Winslow? The fridges for the cafeteria were still staying cool at least, so it should keep longer. And the garden is going to provide a lot of food, but even with the Infection it'll be at least a few days before it's all ready, and I'm not sure there's enough food stockpiled to last until then. Especially if we're going to invite more people there." Your Darling looks apologetically towards Arachne, who's currently trying to stop her daughters from trying to jump on a giant jello and only succeeding because they shrunk to their smallest sizes first (and Dinah's helping). She's clearly being apologetic about the spider-woman, not to her, and you take advantage of your much closer heights at the moment to swat her lightly on the back of the head for being stupid, just before Missy warps space to do the same from several places away.
"None of that, Darling. We were all fine with inviting them." You scold, gently.
"Definitely." Missy nods firmly. "What else where we going to do? Just abandon them? They were doing pretty well, but no way they could have held out at your house indefinitely. Anyway, Winslow sounds like a good idea. Not sure if even feeding all the Cats will put a dent in this lot, but at least it's some use. We can get some of them to help carry, too. I'll go let my dad know he'll be having more visitors. And ask if the backdoor is still around somewhere, the garage door didn't open most of the time before, I doubt turning into plastic will have made it more cooperative."
The Ward crosses the room in a single space-warped stride, grabs a bottle from the wine rack, and heads for the door. After an exchange of reluctant glances with your Darling, you follow, to fill her in on the mirror while your Darling takes the more difficult (to get and keep the attention of) group. Missy seems...interested? You're not sure that's quite the right word, but she clearly wants to find out if she's up to beating its trial, and the consequences if she's not aren't quite enough to turn her off the idea. You reach the eating hall again before you can talk about it much, though.
"I couldn't find any beer, and only the wine bottles came off the rack, so it's this or nothing." She plonks the bottle she brought down near her dad, and gets a vague smile in return. "You're not getting any more of the Royal Mead, you don't need to be drinking something that promises to make you "Pretty, and Dumb enough to enjoy it!'. We'll take the whole box with us to make sure of that, actually." She says firmly, after a moment of indecision. "Do you know anything about the mirror in the basement, by the way?"
"Thank you, dear. That's fine. I haven't had any beer for...a while...anyway. The kitchen doesn't seem to make it. The wine tastes much better than The Bitch's swill, anyway. And go ahead, the mead gets weird if you have too much in a row, an evening's break will just make it better." Her dad replies, opening the bottle and pouring a generous amount of it into his glass.
"The mirror?" Missy prompts, when his attention seems to have gone wholly back to his drinking.
"It's weird." He shrugs. "I just stay out of the basement now. I don't want to be a tree again."
"That's great, really helpful." Missy mutters sarcastically. "Fine. Do you know where the backdoor's gotten to?"
Another shrug. "It was a the back of the kitchen when it was only a little big. I haven't gone all the way back for ages, though. No point walking that far when there's always food near the front."
"You're going to find out if plastic can get fat." Missy says, teasing but in a sort of obligatory way, and gets yet another shrug in response.
"Um, before we go, Mister Biron, do you know anything about the throne in the tower?" You ask, feeling hesitant for no reason you can explain. All evidence suggests the man could not give less of a shit, about anything, but he's still Missy's dad and you irrationally don't want to make a bad impression on him by asking questions.
"Feels real nice while you're on it, but being a squirrel afterwards is weird, so I don't use it much. I never pass anyway." One final shrug, and his attention turns back to his goblet in a way that makes it clear he's not going to elaborate.
If it's anything like the mirror, you could probably learn more about the throne by going back upstairs and touching it, but it's been far too long since you saw your Darling, so you just head back to the kitchen with Missy. Once you're there, the Ward glowers at the room, and makes a sharp gesture that has a bit of the far wall with a door in it appear in between the tables in front of her, surrounded by eye-watering edges. You're not entirely sure if the door was just stiff or Missy actually broke it, but either way after a ferocious scowl, some hard pushing and a carefully placed sharp kick, the door's open and she's striding out onto an immaculate back lawn to start making a link between it and Winslow, and you snuggle into your Darling once more as you watch her work.
Trials Discovered
Trial of the Throne - Upon taking a seat on this ornate throne, restraints lock in place over their arms and legs. After an ominous pause, the seat begins to vibrate, change shape and texture, vary dramatically in temperature and otherwise stimulate the ass and genitals. The challenger must endure several rounds of this before the restraints release them and they can collect the prizes that appear from beneath the throne.
Test: The challenger undergoes 1-5 rounds of stimulation, causing them to gain at least 1d10 LIB per round, with more dice added per round based on the sensitivity of stimulated areas and how well insulated they are from the seat. This takes a few minutes at most from onlooker's perspectives, but feels much longer for the challenger.
"Success": If the challenger does not reach max LIB in a round, they roll their current LIB against TN 100, with success gaining 2 rewards and failure gaining 1 but also resulting in a TF in the theme of "Living Stuffed Animal", lasting 1d12 hours.
"Failure": If the LIB gain in a round causes the challenger to reach their max LIB, there is a 25% chance it will be reset to 0 and they will gain 1d3 rewards, but also 1d31themed TFs lasting 2d12 hours. Otherwise it will be reset to 4d1010 and they will gain 1-2 themed TFs lasting 2d12 hours plus 0-1 rewards.
Reward Stock: At least 2 items, unknown others*
Restock Rate: Unknown*
Trial of the Mirror -This large, gilded mirror does not reflect what's in front of it, but rather the altered reflections of anyone who can see its glass acting out roles in another scene entirely. Often quite in odd roles, with unexpected alterations. For example in a horse riding scene, viewers are as likely to be a saddle as horse or rider, but that doesn't mean they won't have hooves. The scene in the mirror takes a few minutes to play out, then fades to black for a short time before a new scene starts.
Test: If someone looks too deeply into the mirror when it is blank, they will be frozen in place until the next scene starts, and when it does they will feel an overwhelming urge to imitate their reflection's actions in it. Their current WP is reduced by a portion of their total WP (20% chance of 1/10, 30% chance of 1/4, 30% chance of 1/2, 20% chance of 3/4), then challenger then rolls current WP against TN 100. The scene is random, but challenger's roles may be influenced by their kinks and or TFs.
Success: If the challenger manages to resist copying their reflection for the whole scene, it will fade away, replaced by a treasure chest they can reach into the mirror and open. They gain 1-3 rewards and recover 1/10 total WP per DoS.
Failure: The challenger helplessly copies their reflection throughout the scene, and as they do they suffer temporary TFs based on how their reflection appears and what it was doing. These always include at least one significant compulsion, one physical and one clothing change. The more DoF on the roll, the more severe the TFs are, and the longer they'll last (1d5DoF hours). They recover 1/10 total WP per DoF, and get a consolation prize that will make the compulsion less burdensome, which has a 10% chance per DoF to be of at least mild use beyond that.
Reward Stock: Unknown *
Restock Rate: Unknown*
Special: The more people who look into the mirror at once, the more potent its rewards are, and the more dramatic the consequences of failure. If 4 people use it at once they all receive a day long buff, regardless of success or failure.
Unknowns can only be revealed by receiving a reward from the Trial at least once
Quest Gained?
Absent Mother (Part 1?) - The last Missy's dad knew, her mom was heading to the Trainyard for reasons unknown, probably with friends She guesses she should probably try and find out what happened to her after that should the Party end up in that part of the city? She'd never hear the end of it if you came across her mother somewhere and it turned out you hadn't.
Items Gained
Enough prepared food, generally of the faux-medieval feast sort, that Winslow will have a considerable surplus of food for 5 days minimum.
Royal Page's Uniform - A fancy set of clothes based on a medieval page's. Makes the wearer look slightly more youthful and androgynous, as well as very snappily dressed. Provides 50 CHA and 10 STA, and makes learning "noble" skills faster.
50 Royal Silks - Have greatly increased value and special effects when used to produce suitably royal clothes or a limited number of other items, like bed sheets.
Royal Steed's Barding - A set of gleaming, intricately detailed golden armour, fit for only the finest of royal steeds. Provides x1.3 HIT, x1.5 DMG, x2 DEF and can be worn with most clothes, but it is impossible to walk/stand on two legs when worn, and very hard to take off yourself. Has a Major enhancement that makes moving on all fours easier, more comfortable and faster, and provides x1.2 STR/STA when carrying a rider or pulling a load.
Strain: Loyal Steed - Docile, submissive and obedient human steeds who provide considerable bonuses to their riders.
Case of Royal Mead - A large wooden box containing 36 of bottles Royal Mead. Drinking a bottle raises Mood, reduces stress, restores 15 points to whichever of HUM and SAN is lowest and permanently transfers 1d12 points from INT to CHA, unless INT is below 0, in which case it moves one. Additionally, it modifies INT by x0.25 for 12 hours.
The Party has encountered two Trials within Missy's house. Attempting a Trial can result in rewards such as items, temporary or permanent stat boosts and temporary or permanent Trait or Feat gain, but also risks temporary TFs and other short term consequences. Details of the Trials can be found above, as they are both fast any number of party members can attempt them without meaningfully delaying the return to Winslow.
Dinah will gain FAV as long as at least one Trial is attempted by anyone, and more FAV for each different outcome resulting.
Do any party members brave the Trial of the Throne, or of the Mirror? (Pick as many people as desired for each, will go down in order of votes received until either all rewards are gained or "No One" is reached):
[Throne] Amy
[Throne] Vicky
[Throne] Missy
[Throne] Taylor
[Throne] Dinah
[Throne] No One
[Mirror] Amy
[Mirror] Vicky
[Mirror] Missy
[Mirror] Taylor
[Mirror] Dinah
[Mirror] No One
Additionally, the mirror may be faced individually or as a group, how does the party face it if they do so?
[Mirror] Group (Dean will also challenge if Vicky does, at least some of the Driders will if Taylor does, affected by who else does. Overrides the "all rewards gained" modifier of the above order. Party members prioritised for chance at rewards)
[Mirror] Individually (60% chance Dean challenges with Vicky, 25% chance 1-3 of the Drider Loli challenge with Taylor)
The Party has encountered Missy's father, still living at their house and broadly sane, even if he is now a life-sized living princess doll. He's reluctant to leave the safety of his "castle", but Missy can try and convince him to come to Winslow if she wants. Alternatively, she can raise his spirits. Or just leave him be. What will she do? (Pick One):
[Dolly Daddy] Recruit - Dolly comes to Winslow, providing...not much at first, really. (Missy CHA check, TN 200. It will be possible to train/encourage Dolly in useful tasks, so long as they're suitably "Princessy". If failed has a limited version of Encourage's effects)
[Dolly Daddy] Encourage - Dolly remains at the Biron house, but with his spirits boosted so he starts doing more than just roaming the halls, drinking and looking pretty. (Missy CHA check, TN 25/50/100/200. Dolly will start developing the house, eventually resulting in one or more services being offered at the location, and potentially gathering other Infected to form a "Royal Court" living there)
[Dolly Daddy] Leave - Dolly remains lonely "queen" of a castle of one. (Recruit and Encourage may be available in the future. Low chance Dolly may come to visit Winslow in the future, potentially risking danger)
Additionally, Dolly is willing to let Amy examine his Infection without further rolls, but if she does so when Dolly has not been Recruited, she, Missy and Taylor will be at the Biron house long enough to trigger a Considerable environmental exposure from it. There is a 50% chance Vicky and Dean will also be exposed, and a 30% chance each for Dinah and the Drider Lolis, starting from Cassandra and ending with Dinah, with chance 10% for each preceding success. Does Amy examine Dolly now, or come back another day to do so? (Pick One):
[Dolly Daddy] Examine
[Dolly Daddy] Don't Examine
Missy has gained the Costume Change Trait, and due to a high roll, what the Trait treats as her baseline state may be selected. Each of the forms/strains she possesses will modify this as appropriate. This is for the moment purely physical, and it is possible to attempt to change it later with a downtime action. (Pick One):
[Missy] Original Appearance
[Missy] Full Current Appearance*
[Missy] Gothic Flower Princess Appearance
[Missy] Gothic Flower Princess Appearance With Age Up*
[Missy] Gothic Flower Princess Appearance With Lower Body Expansion*
If a temporary change is included in the base form, there is a 50% chance in will be applied again to all forms for its remaining duration.
QM: Advanced notice, the next update will include a vote on what the various members of the party wear for the evening. I will post any wearable's gained from the Trials ahead of the update so they can be considered. The inventory has also been updated with the results of the analysis of already found items Amy will do without an action once back at Winslow.
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Last edited: Nov 10, 2021
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