Greed God chapter 237

April 15th 2016 New Jersey, Rosewood, 10:00 PM EDT

I  hurled another shimmering wall of destructive light at yet another  hedge, and we stepped through. I turned to Scott, who looked about as  annoyed as I felt. "So." I said gruffly. "Exactly how large could he  have made this place? Because...it's been an hour. Like, if he's using  the stone, there still have to be limits right? Some kind of maximum  tolerance the space has, or the spell. There's got to be a point of  failure somewhere. Otherwise any idiot with a magic battery could just  make a whole new universe."

Scott  gave me an impressed look, which weirdly kind of made me feel a bit of  pride. Not sure why, though the fact that he was a peer of my dad's  might have had something to do with it. He was at least semi-competent,  so it was nice to be recognized for my genius. "It does have to have  limits. Eclipso himself, when completely in control, MIGHT be able to  manage turning a building this size into a small world, but a partial  possession of a human being? It can't go on forever."

Barbie,  who had been walking ahead, froze. "What if it isn't." We all stopped  to look at her. "What if we're IN the maze. Like within the confines of  its parameters. Blowing out a wall seems like a shortcut, but if he  accounted for that in the design we could just be running on a wheel  still."

"That  would explain why we keep having to reorient on the gem." Scowled  Scott. "I'd been thinking about the possible explanations for the slight  change in heading, but I assumed he just constructed the maze with  unstable spatial elements and that we were dealing with some kind of  spatial drift. I've seen that before. If you're right though...this  might be a four or five dimensional space."

I  pointed to the hedges. "You could help? Maybe between the two of us we  could blast our way out?" I couldn't appraise a dimension, at least not  that I was aware of, and the briars between the aisles were just high  D-grade plant matter.

Jenny  piped up. "He can't." Well all turned to look at her and found her  flexing her fingers as emerald energy sparked on them. "Neither of us  can. I'd bet it's part of why that bastard picked a hedge maze. Aside  from the symbolism, this stuff is plants, specifically bushes with  branches, which means wood. Our magic doesn't work on wood."

I  stopped, turning to them. "Your magic doesn't work on WOOD?" How the  fuck had that not been in my appraisal? "That's a REALLY common  material. Like...so much shit is made of wood. How do you even function?  As a superheroine I mean. Like... you're fighting a bad guy and he  whips out a pair of chopsticks and you're fucked."

Amy  giggled a bit at that, but Jade didn't get annoyed, just rolled her  eyes. "It's less of an obstacle than you might think. Most people use  metal for weapons, or plastic. And people aren't made of wood." She  flushed. "Except dryads, but they almost never cause problems." I was  intrigued by that blush but now wasn't the time so I refocused.

"Alright, so I can't get us through on my own, and you can't help." I said with a scowl. "What do we do?"

She  shot me a critical look. "Speaking of getting us through. You've been  deflecting questions about your magic for ages. What is it? I don't  recognize that effect as anything I've seen before. It looks like some  sort of reserve of force you tap into rather than a spell effect. Are  you a metahuman? My brother Todd has dark powers, do you have like...the  opposite?"

I  weighed the pros and cons of telling her, but...we were stuck. If we  were going to get out then I'd need to give them a proper accounting of  our assets. Which would mean telling the truth. Annoying. I rolled my  eyes. "I'm a Dragon." I said begrudgingly. "The light is my bloodline.  I'm pretty strong."

That  got me a critical look from Scott. "A dragon?" He said slowly. "I  wasn't aware your mother was a non-human." He made the obvious leap in  logic and I let him. To be fair my mother WAS non-human, just not the  kind he was thinking. "I never met the woman, she wasn't around long and  Max and I were hardly lunching together, but I heard what happened to  her. A dragon dying in childbirth is...unusual, especially birthing a  single child."

I  knew the old man had spread that story about mom, so I wasn't shocked  that it was the one he knew, I just waved it aside with a sad smile. "I  don't know what happened. I just know I never got to meet her."  Technically true, if you didn't count the smug bitchy soul fragment she  left in my consciousness. "Anyway, can being a Dragon help you at all?  The energy I've been throwing comes from my bloodline, but my breath  would be stronger. Sadly not in my full sized form, it's too big."

Seeing  him weighing our options I decided to wait. "I may be able to work with  that. The vortices of a space like this ARE limited, like you said. You  can only use a magical cornerstone to hold so much before it collapses,  at least when you have finite resources. At his current limit, he can't  cast the kinds of spells needed to prop up anything truly  earthshattering. Which means he'd have to cut corners. Jennifer, I need  you help me run through a few scanning spells. I want to test  something."

Amy  raised her hand. "I can help too. My bloodline gives me certain  abilities, but I AM trained in sorcery to some level. Not enough to be  as versatile as some magic users, but supplementary spellwork like  scanning and detection spells are well within my skillset." Her voice  was rigid, and I could tell she was adamant about helping, to try to  make up for flinching earlier.

I  didn't actually fault her for that. A lot of people had a weird  aversion to what they would call cowardice, but deciding to bail on a  fight you can't win is just smart. She considered this guy to be some  unbeatable boogeyman, and she'd have been right in other circumstances.  But I knew trying to talk her out of it would be pointless. Even I was  aware that you couldn't out logic a feeling. Instead, I shot her a proud  smile, and I was glad to see the adoring expression she returned it  with.

Amy  was...so odd to me. I'd expected to understand her BETTER with my  humanity, but it made her even more confusing. It also made my reactions  to her make less sense. She was beautiful, and sweet, and loving, and  sexy, and kind of twisted, and mine. Which would have been all the  traits that mattered to me before. But she was also loyal, and strong,  and doing her best to face her fears for me. And I found those traits to  be more important to me than I expected.

Stepping  forward, I wrapped my arms around her and just...hugged her. I didn't  grope her, or whisper something in her ear, or kiss her, or spike her  desires. I just held my wife against me tightly, in what may have been  the first sincere hug of my entire life. She laid her head on my chest,  ear to my heart, and gave a happy sigh as she relaxed against me. It  felt weird. I didn't know where to put my hands. Normally I'd have a  handful of something soft and bouncy, so I just put one on the back of  her head and sort of stroked her spine with the other like I'd seen in  movies.

She  pulled back, beaming up at me lovingly. "Thanks Nicky. That was just  what I needed." I gave a jerky nod. It had been...not bad. I mean, I'd  have preferred to be palming an ass cheek, but it hadn't been as  pointless as I'd expected. Sort of warm, and like...weirdly supportive?  Barbie was watching with amusement as Amy headed over to help the others  with their scanning spells.

My  redhead grinned up at me. "That was unexpected." I just shrugged and  her grin became a smirk. "Awww, is my rough, horny daddy embarrassed he  showed his little wifey some non sexual affection?" At my answering  glare she leaned up to kiss my cheek, standing on her tip toes, before  whispering in my ear. "I'm proud of you, and if it helps you feel less  conflicted I'll suck your dick later as a reward."

It...kind  of did. But I shook my head. "No. I didn't hate it. I wanted her to  feel better and she did." I winked at her. "You're gonna suck my dick  anyway, and you're not going to make an excuse other than, 'because my  daddy said so'." She gave me that dirty giggle I usually only heard mid  fuck, and I pulled her into my arms, and this time I DID cop a feel of  some sweet little booty.

Sadly  that fun time wasn't to be, because Jenny called out. "Hey, I think I  found something." I let go of my bat slut, giving her a quick smack on  the booty to remind her who she belonged to, and turned back to the  others. They hadn't been able to see my hands, so it probably just  looked like another hug. We walked over to where the green girl was  standing in front of the hedge.

She's  been putting in some serious effort, judging by the big heaving breaths  making those fat green titties pop. But I forced myself to focus on the  problem instead of my draconic instinct to push the dress up and add  another slut to my hoard. I ran the lust and possessiveness through the  exercises Raven gave me again, helping to dull them, and allowing my  head to clear.

Jenny  waved a hand in the air, and I saw a strange cascade of runes and  spellwork in the space in front of her. Amy and Scott both stepped up  and started muttering nonsense. I leaned down to whisper to Amy. "Hey,  do you have any clue what's going on? I'm middling at best when it comes  to magic."

"Nope."  She said freely. "Science is fine, but magic means jack and shit to me.  That's all gibberish as far as I can see. Runes or something."

I  scoffed. "What kind of sexy nerd are you? Alternate dimension  shenanigans are going on and you can't even translate. I got a defective  model. Clearly I ordered one with too much brawn and not enough  brains." I was speaking low so the others couldn't hear me. "If I'd  wanted a punchy bimbo I'd have picked up Power Girl."

It  was nice to see how secure she was with me now, because she laughed at  that where early on she might have taken it too seriously. "Yeah, I  guess my genius level intellect and several doctorates worth of  theoretical knowledge just show me for the braindead little slut I am.  Truly, what were you thinking?"

I  popped her on the ass again, a little harder this time, and Jenny  looked over at is in confusion and sharp clap of hand on cheek, but I  was already back in a normal position. She narrowed her eyes at me, and I  dropped mine to the much thicker cheeks just out of reach. Sadly I  doubted I'd be slapping those tonight. More pity for me. I raised my  gaze back up the symbols, and Scott finally stopped and stepped back.

"Alright."  He said solemnly. There's a weak point, or there will be when we  compromise the structural integrity of the space, but the direction is  almost straight up. Guess he figured that would the least likely avenue  for escape." He looked at me. "We'll need a ride, Dragon boy. So I hope  your other form is as big as you said." I resisted the obvious dick joke  and nodded. Well, at least we'd be getting out of here soon. I was  going to munch that fucking butler down like a bag of cheetos.