Divinity Rescue Corps
141- OZ

It was warming up and becoming a truly nice morning when we were ambushed. I’d woken up with a lovely female Nakamamon snuggled up on either side of me, still quietly snoozing. Both were naked, as they preferred to be, and one of them had my junk unconsciously cupped in one hand. I couldn’t be sure whether it was the cutesy and marvelous Vellenia, or the striking and sexy Shakindria. Most times I guessed which one of them would get up to some shenanigans, and every time I guessed wrong. I would’ve guessed that Shakindria would steal my towel and force me to dash across the camp nude; it was Vellenia. I would’ve guessed it was Vellenia who sat across the campfire batting her eyelashes at me and sitting primly, hoping I’d notice her; but that was Shakindria.

I carefully extracted myself from the two heavy sleepers and exited the large tent, already missing Trent. Although I could almost stand up in the tent, and although it had enough space to handle all three of our packs on the inside, it simply was not the same as a cube house with my own large living room, dining room, small study the size of a closet, bedroom with an expansive bed, and bathroom with running water. There were different benefits to having a camp out, but put those all together and they didn’t hold a candle to a hot shower.

I went to leave the tent and felt the tug of magic drawing me back in. The telekinetic force turned me around to face Shakindria, who was sitting up and smiling mischievously.

Not a sound, I told her telepathically. Vellenia deserves her sleep.

When we can communicate mind to mind in this manner, she sent back, there’s no need to make noise.

Then she kissed me, and the tiny sound of lips smacking in the dawn calm seemed like a gunshot to my ears.

It wasn’t your voice I was referring to, I told her, with a mental grin. I really enjoyed Psyspeech for the mental images and hints of sounds, smells or tastes you could layer into it. It took some getting used to, but I was definitely improving far beyond where I’d started.

Well if she wanted some consideration, she shouldn’t have made love to you so loudly last night when I was attempting to achieve my most beautiful sleep.

I furrowed my brow in confusion. What is your most beautiful sleep?

It is the deepest and longest sleep, I suppose. Here she tried to layer in a image of herself sleeping, except she’d never viewed herself sleeping before, you know, since people can’t do that without video cameras. But then next to that, behind the peacefully sleeping form of Shakindria, Vellenia and I were getting down and dirty. My head was buried between her legs as she sat on my face, and Vellenia’s mouth was open in a wide, silent scream at the sky.

I really liked that position. Not only did she tried to clench her legs on either side of my head, but her tail lay over the top of my head and also squeezed. It was also the best angle for her to hump my face and for me to get at her special spot over and over again.

Beautiful sleep isn’t a thing, I told her. Are you sure you’re not thinking about something different?

Shakindria leaned in and kissed me again, this time kissing sideways around my face: cheek, jaw, back to my ear, and then my earlobe. She had a special fondness for earlobes. Probably because she had tall yellow rabbit ears that ended in points instead of question mark shaped human ears.

Cinzia, Tara, and Regina all referred to beauty sleep, she said into my mind, in the middle of kissing down the length of my neck. In the meantime she layered in mental images of me laying on my sleeping bag while Vellenia’s pale white, slim form rocked up and down in the classic cowgirl position. I thought this meant a restful sleep. Is this incorrect?

I was already getting hard, watching Vellenia run her hands up her trim tummy and over her small white and pink breasts, where her nipples had appeared and were fully erect. The mint green parts of her body glowed softly in the dark.

It’s called beauty sleep, I managed to tell her. It’s meant to make you more beautiful.

Her eyes flew open. Thankfully the erotic mental imagery faltered. Vellenia froze, half impaled on my shaft, and the dim moonlight filtering in glistened off her juices.

What magic is this? I must know the secret of the beauty sleep.

It’s also not real, I said, then explained what beauty sleep actually was: nothing more than a figure of speech. Though, to be fair, missing enough sleep gave you bags under your eyes and a sickly pallor, so maybe it wasn’t completely ridiculous.

Now beauty sex on the other hand, I said, totally real. That’s what Vellenia keeps doing: an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away.

The yellow creature with the purple gem in her forehead regarded me suspiciously. I cannot tell if you are being serious or if you have just made up more nonsense from your world. Are all humans so full of trickery? She sniffed mentally, and the erotic images vanished. A concept for an imaginary, superstitious act that may or may not have any basis in reality. Ridiculous!

I gave her one last lingering kiss before parting. Today it was my turn to brew the coffee and make the breakfast.

You are magnificent and I’m so glad you’re my bond mate, I told her mentally, chuckling. Her darkening expression told me my words weren’t going over well.

The first thing I did outside the tent was head to Muppin. After planted and tending to the garden on Muppin’s back, I harvested the coffee and shucked the beans.

Among my suite of special abilities, Verdant Rejuvenation was now the quiet powerhouse.

Verdant Rejuvenation II

(Special Ability, uncommon, passive)

Herbs and plants harvested by you and stored by you will last twice as long as normal.

I- By placing cuttings of plants in the soil, watering and tending them, they will sprout if they remain within half a mile of your location over the course of 18 hours.

II- By placing cuttings of plants together in an enclosed space and tending them they will sprout a hybrid plant if they remain within half a mile of your location over the course of 48 hours. Hybrids may not be bred with other hybrids.

Since we could, and had, put soil all over Muppin’s back, the magic of the special ability had done the rest. Now I could grow coffee every day, roast the beans over an open Magmamander, and then brew up fresh coffee daily. This was an awesome use of the ability. I had grown entire trees to get at their leaves, nuts and fruit, but this trumped them all. Coffee… in an alien world… what was not to love?

Moreover, I was now splicing coffee with other plants in an attempt to remove some of the bitterness, or get different flavoring out of the beans. I’d had coffee brewed from different parts of the world before I came here, and I was kind of excited to use the magical splicing power to give me orange-flavored coffee, chocolate-flavored coffee, vanilla-flavored coffee, mint-flavored coffee, and a million others. And once I had chococoffee, I could splice it with mint. I was going to turn coffee into this world’s ice cream, for me at least.

The rich smell of the beans wafted out among the camp, bringing with it our ambush. I had just sat down and had a nice deluxe yawn when our interloper spoke up.

“Don’t mind if I do,” an unfamiliar voice said, and plucked up the coffee pot from off the specially constructed hot plate that sat atop Larelle’s bonded Nakamamon. I turned to see a stocky man with hair sprouting from literally every visible inch on his body, in a dark brown. He wore thin and flexible armor without any sort of identifying features. A few runes here and there, but nothing that screamed magic. The runes weren’t glowing. His hair fell in curled locks around a face I couldn’t see, since the coffee cup was raised to his lips. His voice though… I couldn’t place the accent.

“Don’t mind me, mate. You should go into business,” he said when he finished. “Especially considering the portals all out of whack and… not open any longer. Fair dinkum.”

“I don’t know what that means.” His manner of speech was already annoying and he’d said about three sentences.

“No worries. Means you’d make a killin’ just on beans alone. Now if you’d open a cafe, that’s another matter entirely.”

That accent… probably Australian. Or New Zealand. I didn’t know too many Aussies or Kiwis, so possibly New Zealand.

“And who are you?” I asked. “And also how did you get in here? Also why are you here, and did you do anything to my Guardian on patrol, did you?”

“Whoa, mate, that’s a lot of questions!” He held up two thick hands and chuckled amiably. The accent… not Irish, English or Scottish. Down Under for sure. “I got no beef with you or yours. Crikey, there’s no way I’d go up against a Guardian. And that’s not me mission.”

“You got more questions to answer,” I said.

I had options here. One, the one I’d used a lot, was a combo of Fierce to try and social him into submission.

Fierce II

(Special Ability, Common, passive)

I- You know you’re kind of scary when you want to be. Whenever you force a contested social check against an opponent, you are considered to have the skill for such a check at rank 7. When you enter a dangerous situation, you gain a temporary Token in Physicality and Durability. These Tokens disappear after an hour if unused.

II- Whenever someone attempts to use a special ability against you, the check is at +1 difficulty. If they spend Tokens against you, they must spend +1 Token.

With Fierce, I could either scare him through intimidation or charm him into talking. There was also the Dazzle ability I had from Vellenia, which could induce a euphoric kind of state and get him talking. Those were the two best bets. Dazzle was all carrot.

That said, if someone else was watching, I also had the use of Minor Telekinesis. It was only good up to about 5 pounds, but I had faith that a 5 pound projectile shot with enough speed could do some damage. I hadn’t actually attacked anyone in this world, and I’d never been in a fist fight, but if there was a team out there looking to take me in, I needed to consider even the worst kinds of options.

Oh, who was I kidding? I didn’t hurt people. That wasn’t me, and it wasn’t how my team operated either. Even the Guardians only put up shields, and didn’t actually strike out at anyone.

“You better open up and start talking.”

“Yeah, nah,” he said. “Just wanted to meet ya, mate. Survey the area, see what’s what. I’ll piss right back off to where I originated, sure as.”

He stood and made to leave.

“Hold on now,” I said, “I have questions and I’d appreciate the answers.” And engage the Dazzle ability from Vellenia.

A surge of cuteness and wonder came bubbling up from the connection that I shared with Vellenia. My mana turned… I don’t want to say pink, but the feeling, smell, and sounds of pink. The sound was like what happens when you rub your skin against a balloon, and the scent kind of bubble gum but also kind of a pungent rose flower. Those don’t perfectly express the feeling of my magic shifting but without a third eye, it’s just not possible to quantify.

Words came with it.

“Why don’t you take a load off, mate?” I found my hand patting the stump next to me. “Park that caboose right here, grab up another cup of coffee, and tell old Fletcher what’s going on. That way I can help you get a handle on anything you’re going through. Now what’s up?”

The Dazzle succeeded. Handily. The stocky fella—who was probably an Aussie—parked his caboose in the indicated spot and poured more coffee. The last time I’d tried this it hadn’t worked, but my Likability and connection to Vellenia were both higher now.

She fit into my arms so well at night. Also she was really easy to talk to. The feeling that came through our connection calmed me down nicely, and I stopped scanning the surroundings looking for other assailants. If the Agency wanted to apprehend me, they wouldn’t send a cheerful Australian to nick some of my coffee.

Still, I sent a mental command off to Shakindria that we had someone in our midst, and to check with our on-duty Guardian.

Also, this wasn’t a tense situation with hostiles all over the place.

“She’ll be right if I have another cuppa,” he said. “What can I do ya for, Fletcher?”

Twinkles and sparklers of fairy dust were literally appearing and disappearing around his head, slowly revolving around him like he was the sun. His eyes were swimming with the tiny versions. He appeared half drunk already.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Name’s Marlowe, mate. Friends call me Oz.” He shrugged. “Cause of the O and the Z, seein’ as I’m an Aussie.”

I squinted. Had I seen this guy around the crazy antigravity castle when I’d first arrived here? There’d been so much to see and do it was hard to focus on all the people everywhere. Wait…

“Yeah, I’m the Rogue out of Jacoby’s team,” he said, then grinned a big toothy grin and waved like he’d just popped out from behind a tree after being caught.

I blinked several times and got my bearings. “Why is Jacoby’s team looking for me?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t pay much attention, but my guess is it has to do with the reward the HQ put out for anyone who could catch you and your people.” Gods the way he said the word ‘people’ was so strange.

The Agency personnel here knew I was the last person through the portal somehow? That suggested they had another way back to earth, and had communicated with whatever they were calling the Agency back on earth.

Hell with it; it would simply be the Agency forever.

This was a CHIRP situation. Nobody was going to call the well-established social media platform with the cutesy name by its new name just because some mega-billionaire wanted to call it EDGELORD or whatever. Just like nobody was going to call the Agency by its actual government name, SNORC. It might be stupid and therefore perfect, but we all called it the Agency. Shadowy, mysterious, and probably up to some shenanigans while we grunts on the ground did actual good work.

I was starting to love not being on earth more and more.

“Jacoby found you yesterday!” Oz said, a big dopey grin lighting up his hairy face.

“I know,” I said. “Regina mentioned as much. What’s your job, then?”

“Mate, no worries at all. I’m just here to poke around and see what’s what, then report back.” He stopped and looked at his coffee. “Oh dang, I stuffed it up, didn’t I?”

“You’re doing all right. Is Jacoby hoping to take me back to HQ to collect on the reward?”

His face went blank and he nearly dropped his coffee. “Dunno, mate. I uh…”

I wished I could give this guy orders like I had with my own Rogue, Drat. He had specific experience point trigger for gathering and keeping secrets, and doing underhanded stuff, like tricking people into things. Even through the Dazzle this Oz fellow was hesitant, because he didn’t know the answer. He did have some kind of insight into Jacoby.

“Does the answer have to do with me specifically?” I asked.

“I’d have to say that’s a definite probably.” Well that answered precisely nothing. However, it was enough to go on. My last meeting with Jacoby was with her utterly fixated on Vellenia.

This is Christopher setting up a meeting with Jacoby, for her to come alone and unarmed, to a location of my choosing.