(Vol 2) Chapter 16: The Cruelty of Desires

Sammy took a moment to sit back on the comfy cushion of the couch and shake her head at Red in wonder. “You think you have it all figured out, Red, but what if you’re rejecting the very balm that could heal you?”

“There is nothing that can heal this, Moth. Do you see the many gods around that managed to be healed? The many pantheons? No? I don’t recall much these days, and I was among the most reclusive of ancients, but I remember how hopeless it is to suffer their god killer. Like a cosmic check on us, it is our version of a coup de grace, for lack of the numerous mortal equivalents.”

“But you’ve endured… surely far longer than any other ever had. Right? Perhaps what was done to you — at such a later time from the rest — was weaker. Maybe it’s vulnerable to a cure.”

Redberry sighed and shook her head. “It’s slower but inexorable. Things were tried, dear. Everything was tried. And besides, do you honestly think a fucking hug will do it?”

“No… I just know that you can draw strength from someone caring about you. That you can fight it much more effectively with things and people to live for. It’s not some crime to be comforted in weakness by a friend.”

The nature goddess was getting annoyed at this point. “You’re trying to convince me, but it still isn’t your choice, girl. Not only that, do you really trust your own motivations?”

Sammy shifted uncomfortably and frowned. “What do you mean?”

Redberry fixed her with a gaze. “Does it hold no danger, then?” She uncrossed her legs, rose… and when she strode slowly forward, it was not merely walking toward Samantha. It was the stalking of a predator, it was the sure and indolently self-possessed sashay of a femme fatale crossing that too short distance.

As Red soon veritably loomed over her, Sammy found herself slumped way down into the cushion without even thinking about it. The alluring dryad queen leaned down and down very close… then placed a finger under Sammy’s chin, eyes locked in. “If I pulled from such a hug,” Redberry breathed, purred, “with lips almost touching, and I asked if you wanted them to, what would you say to me?”

Sammy was entirely a doe in the headlights right then, and could not get sensible words out, just stared wide-eyed, butterflies in her stomach and a charge running through her.

Sensual lips smiled devilishly down at her. “As if the Goddess of Nature, Life, and Fertility doesn’t know? Tell me. Tell me what you want, Samantha…”

Is she-?! But I-

The brief, cruel pause and expectancy ended with a smile of genuine fae amusement. “In regards to why you came here in the first place, I mean. Because I think my questions to the little puddle of Moth on my cushions already have their unspoken answers.”

This time, Redberry just waited, eyebrows raised expectantly, not moving an inch away, not even flinching. Sammy swallowed a dry throat and managed, “Advise. New entity line… m-mirrors.”

Nodding approvingly, Redberry retracted her finger and leaned up, hands going to her hips. Her demeanor switched on a dime to something less intense. “Let me guess: you want a more business-like Servitor? Mirrors is a domain of monitoring, I think. You’ll want this line to efficiently take over for your routine duties. Take broad delegations. Spy. Correct?”

Sammy inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Her heart was still pounding. For that, she chastised herself. Redberry hadn’t actually done anything! She… hadn’t even… started…

“Y-yes.” Sammy adjusted to sit up and compose herself a little more. “That’s pretty much it exactly. I want them to be like shadows, or immaterial spirits. Ghosts that only bother taking apparent physical form in mirrors, and there they can do much the same as I do, I think. But if they go into the world, they are agents to spy where I can’t otherwise reach.”

“Mmn. Very good. Not exactly my sort of preference obviously, but I can help you. The ability Immaterial is powerful defensively but makes offense almost nonexistent. Excellent for non-combatants. Also not available to every domain, but I think you’ll be fine. Now.” She summoned a pen and little notebook to begin writing. “You’ll want to include these modifiers and instructions…”

Happy to have an experienced creator to draw on, Sammy listened carefully as Redberry explained, and asked a few questions here and there. How to get a serious personality without it turning out like a flat board…

Assigning made-up 1-100 gradients between personality qualities in a spectrum, to more effectively influence the System’s interpretation. ‘25’ on the ‘Open-Mindedness’ gradient to have less risk-taking and more reliability. So on. This was not something Red would usually do, nor did for Dart, who had protocols to draw a lot directly from her.

Redberry shrugged. “It’s tricky not ending up with something soulless without an actual sapient to draw from. So here, we put a tiny bit in, then heavily screen it through concrete modifiers. Then you can look it in the eyes and not see a zombie.”

“I certainly don’t want that.”

“I’ve suffered the trials and errors already. I help in order to save both you and it from the horror.”

“Redberry… can you… create bodies? For… lost souls without them. Hypothetically.”

The nature goddess frowned back at her, then her eyes shifted away, face becoming thoughtful as her hand came up to rub at her forehead. Rub at the wound. “Once, I would make new life, new creatures. Transform, shapeshift, and… and perhaps as you say…”

Redberry’s eyes were cast into the past as she zoned out for a spell. “But that goddess is gone. So… the answer is no.”

Sammy nodded thoughtfully and, sympathetically, did not say more about it. But she knew that the answer was actually yes. Hypothetically the Goddess of Life could create a functioning body for a psyche, though whether it was simple to get it in there was still unclear. Regardless, she could do most of it…

If she were herself. If she were whole. I swear I will fix it all, Red. You, Marjorie, the Dominion, the fae. I- we will make it right.

After the lesson and the delivered notes, it was time for Sammy to go. She gave a little slow side hug to Redberry before parting, to which the nature goddess smirked wanly.

“Until next time, Red,” Sammy breathed in artificial nonchalance. “I promise no, uh… glomping? Or tender holding.”

With her customary deadpan, Red nodded. “Then we’re in agreement.” A pause. “Also, no kissing or sex.”

Sammy felt herself redden as she winced. Exasperated, she nodded. “Yeah- no! No hanky panky. Totally in agreement.” Taking a deep breath, she squinted her eyes at Red. “You said you just knew I’d agree? What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You know what I’m asking! Did you want to…” Sammy tried to just fill in with a general hand motion.

Redberry merely quirked an eyebrow. “Yes?”

Damn her…

Sammy glared at her friend for a moment. “Did you… want to… kiss me?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters!”

“I refuse to answer.”

Sammy slumped and sighed. “What a damn letdown. But I think that makes the answer obvious.”

The exact same eyebrow from before quirked anew. “Does it?”

“Well, yes, because it shows you don’t want me to-... but if you were trying to spare m-... well, fuck. It doesn’t.” And her Intuition wasn’t bothering to help.

Traitorous bitch of an ability!

Redberry just nodded a bit self-satisfied, eyes of river water swirling in currents. “I believe you were just leaving, dear. I’d also suggest a dunk into cold water. But it’s been… a unique pleasure, Moth.”

“That’s one way of putting it… Red, I’m always down to come and talk to soothe your pain. And whatever else we can figure out. I’m going to keep checking up on you.”

Red was frowning. “Moth, occasionally is fine, but I told you, getting too clo-”

“Wait, I know! Floofa!”

“What?”

“Can’t construct entities cross realms?!”

“Yes — mindscapes — but really, it’s no-”

“You need a pet in here, Red.”

The nature goddess sighed wearily. “Moth, I come here for solitude and peace, I don’t-”

“You need a pet in here, Red.” Sammy stared with firm, undeniable conviction.

Grumpily, Redberry’s will seemed to wilt. “Fine. It seems we both have our ways of bullying each other. Reminds me of-... fine, fine. You can open the realm for her… and the fucking dryad commune. They’ve already been pestering me about seeing her. I’m cursed by my inability to keep secrets from them. All but a few, they’ll toss around like apples to every chattering sweet tooth!”

Sammy had to repress a giggle. “She’ll come and go as she likes then.”

“Yes… and send me the info you used to create her some time. Not now, later. Everything later. But I’ll make her a playmate if you don’t mind.”

“I’d love it!”

Sammy finally left to return to her throne, for various reasons not fully wanting to. Her mind was stuck visualizing Redberry leaning over her, mesmerizing eyes full of possessive promise drinking her in, the quirk of cruel lips-

Fuck, I’m hot. I need a cold shower.

So she went to her house’s bathroom, stripped, and took one nearly ice-cold. She made enough racket yelping and cursing that when she finally got out, shock adrenaline coursing in her veins, Floofa was there on the floor, blinking up at her worriedly with big ears flopped down.

“Sammy ok?” the little cabbit sent.

Sammy laughed as finished toweling off — getting the whole, real experience of mere mortal drying processes though she hardly needed to. “I’m alright, just some needed medicine. Hey!” Her voice became sing-song. “Good neeews… wanna hear?”

The cabbit nodded its head vigorously, already excited. “Is it carrots?!”

“Er, well, we can do that too, but no! We’re going to open up Redberry’s realm so you can visit!”

Floofa’s face lit up in wondrous glee. “Yay!” Then she began hopping up and down enthusiastically. “Redberry! Mommy-mommy-mommy!”

Sammy blinked. “Uh… mommy. Right. Heh…”

I think I’ll refrain from that one.

Sammy had to distract her pet with some hidden carrots to go snoop and dig for since she was ready to go and visit already. Fortunately, carrots more than did the trick, as always. She also threw in a banana, already peeled.

With those things out of the way, and maybe a bit cooled down, Sammy dropped the 77 FE necessary to create a new Line of Servitor: Resemblants. She gave them Mirror Attunement, Intangibility, Invisibility, and Suppressed Aura, the latter of which made them harder to detect as a spirit, with magic. Intangibility made offense almost nonexistent… all they could use were mental effects. As such, they were great spies but poor assassins out in the world.

In her realm, having more or less a copy of her power but slightly more limited, they’d be an order of magnitude better than the fairy dragons at monitoring and handling anything through mirrors. The first Resemblant she gave the Special Skill ‘Organizational Acumen’ which seemed like a perfect shoring up of her weaknesses.

Annnd because all-in-all it makes me think of them like butlers…

Servitor Created. Jeeves is born.

New Quest unlocked: “Gears of the Operation” — Create 2 Servitor lines & 7 total Servitors.

● Rewards: +100 FE, +2 exp in [Goddess].

There was nothing especially fancy to his arrival. A bit of ethereal light twisted in one spot, then a ghostly, indistinct humanoid figure appeared down at the foot of the throne. It might’ve bowed.

In a perfectly posh accent, a deep, mature voice resounded, “At your command, Your Majesty.”

Dart floated over, now back in his natural smallish dragon form. He eyed the wispy entity dubiously. “Doesn’t look like much. But glad I’ve got someone to boss around.”

A random mirror dropped down from above, turned so its ‘back’ was to them, which functioned as an actual mirror. A respectable-looking man in a fine suit appeared to walk from one side then turn to face them, adjusting his tie and smoothing out his suit briefly.

Mirror-Jeeves affected Dart with a withering gaze. “Begging your pardon, but I should think it the other way around, lizard. My assumption is I will be the eyes and ears here while you’re off chasing balls or whatever it is you do.”

“Um, fish, actually,” Dart corrected as if it was a quality retort. “And I resent being called a ‘lizard’... My name is… Master. Yeah, Master. So that is what you gotta call me, thank you very much.”

Jeeves stared back flatly. “No, it is not, you simpleton, and I certainly shan’t be doing that.”

I always wanted a butler who would snootily use the word shan’t! This is so awesome!

“His name,” Sammy interjected before Dart could bark back, “is Dart, so use that. Or Dartagnan if you prefer. But I need you both to get along, so let's drop any further argument.”

Dart gave her a pouty look, as Jeeves inclined his head gracefully and replied, “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

“Actually, you can call me Madam after the first address, hmm? Or whenever really. I always wanted a butler to call me Madam.”

“Understood, Madam. That is quite agreeable, I might add.”

“Good. For now, work together a bit. When it comes to the mirror network, obviously Jeeves is the maestro, so follow his lead, Dart.”

Dart ‘hmmphed’ grumpily. “Fine! But I don’t like it one bit! I’d rather hear ‘giddyup’ at this point.”

Sammy grinned. “You will! All too soon. We can hardly appear to lay around on a farm. Amusing as it might be to be put to work, it’s a waste of time right now. In the morning, we’re off to the inn. One of these days, we need to figure out a real base of operations, too.”

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Note: I began on a map but I just can't half-ass stuff, so it's now 'in development 😜.' Still, if I start something like this, I'm likely to finish.