Greed God chapter 226

April 13th 2016 Brightedge City, Barbaric Bison Coffee House, 8:00 PM EDT

I  got a call after meeting with Silver from someone I hadn't expected.  Specifically, Thorn. The pretty goth got in touch with me because she  apparently KNEW Raven. Barbie had hit a dead end and asked Zee because  she knew my sorceress ran in similar circles to the the half demon.  Thorn had overheard and realized that the girl Barbie asked about  sounded familiar.

She told me where I could meet up  with the girl, but made me promise to take her along, which was how I  ended up meeting Thorn in front of Barbaric Bison Coffee house, home of,  no joke, a fucking poetry slam. I cringed just thinking about it, but  remembering the size of the half demon's rack made the mental image at  least slightly more bearable. Thorn meanwhile thought it was super cool,  and was excited to check it out. Since Thorn was here I naturally had  to wear my mask, but it was fine since that was how Raven had met me to  start with.

I supposed I could see the appeal of the  poetry slam for Raven at least. She didn't really seem like the social  type. I wasn't sure why she'd been at Midnite's that night, but I  suspected it had to do with the demonic clientele. This kind of place  would be more mellow, and if she had to go out and socialize they would  be pretty much ideal for someone with her inclinations.

I  slipped my hand into a pocket and withdrew a trinket I'd made. A ring  that suppressed demonic bloodlines when worn. Given all the constraints  I'd been able to squeeze it into D rank, bringing me down to three point  two five million. It wouldn't fix her problem, given the power involved  I'd probably need something higher rank than she was for a full  cleansing, but it would hold down the taint well enough to give her some  breathing room.

[Appraisal  function activated. Treasure detected. Band of Holy Binding- D rank. A  ring imbued with the power of the divine to combat evil. A shining  symbol to suppress the darkness. The bane of demonic taint.]

I  felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around to see Thorn. I was torn  between being impressed and rolling my eyes. Impressed because the  corset top and painted on leather pants looked amazing on her, rolling  my eyes because..."Are you wearing a fucking BERET?" I asked  incredulously.

She sniffed in a dignified manner. "It's  called fashion. You aren't part of this community so you wouldn't  understand. I'm on the cutting edge of goth style." She winked and blew  me a kiss with wine red lips. I found it hard to be annoyed at it. She  was actually kind of cute. Granted I was at least partially looking at  her through dick tinted glasses, but still, I genuinely liked Thorn. She  was sweet.

"Yeah, you goths know all about cutting  edges." I said with a smug smile. At her faux gasp of outrage I held out  my arm. "Anyway, we'll need to actually go in to find her. What do you  say we head inside and find a seat. I promise not to make fun of you if  you read a poem. Much. Probably."

She pouted at me fetchingly. "It's an open mic, so I might sing something. Or would you make fun of me for that too?"

I  could tell she actually cared how I answered that. "Of course not. I  know how much your music means to you. Poetry is kind of pretentious,  but music is art." I didn't actually care about her music, but my old  slut taming instincts had reared their heads and I rattled off the first  sensitive artistic line that popped into my head. Just because I could  care about people now didn't make every thing my girls said magically  interesting. Sometimes bullshit was the right response and it was nice  to know I still had it.

That said, I  wasn't against hearing Thorn sing. It would be way better than hearing  some goth assholes whine about their dark and brooding souls or  whatever. Because I felt like enjoying the view, I let her go first,  enjoying the way she worked those leather pants. It felt nice to relax a  bit, just be out with one of my girls with none of the bullshit. I had a  few days until that party with Silver, maybe I should try some more  downtime.

Stepping  through the door of the coffee shop I stopped in my tracks. Not because  of the gloomy atmosphere or the overstuffed chairs around the two foot  tall stage, no, I stopped because I smelled something fucking AMAZING.  Turning to head to the counter I rapped on the surface. "Hey man." I  said to the bored looking guy with the lip ring. "What the hell is that  smell and how much do I have to pay to eat what's making it?"

He  rolled his eyes as he flipped through some leather bound book. "Coffee  cake." He said shortly, mostly ignoring me. "Five for a piece."

I  considered bitching him out about the reading, but what the fuck did I  care if some guy paid attention to me. I dropped a twenty on the  counter. "Four." I said shortly. If he was going to be a dick I didn't  have a reason to pretend to give a shit about politeness.

He  sighed in annoyance and got up to go get four pieces of coffee cake. I  passed one to Thorn and took the other three, turning my back on the  asshole as we headed to look for a table. Thorn took a bite, moaning at  the taste, which made me want to try one, but I decided not to start  eating as I noticed a familiar figure sitting in the back.

And  it WAS the figure that was familiar. Her face was in shadow under an  oversized hoodie and her head was down, but there was no hiding those  jumbo sized goth titties. A quick appraisal confirmed I'd found my  target, and I dragged Thorn over with me to join her at her table.

She  sighed as we sat down. "I'm not looking for company. Please find your  own table." She slouched a bit in her chair, which only had the  unintentional side effect of making her tits push up. I glanced down to  enjoy the view, but stopped myself, time for that later.

I  pushed a slice of the coffee cake over toward her. She looked up from  under the hood, pale face inscrutable. She stared at me for a second. "I  know you." She said blandly. "But I don't. You seem...different."

Raising  an eyebrow at her, I shrugged. "I didn't expect you to remember me.  Yeah, I'm stronger now. Hard to explain." I wasn't going into detail,  but people got more powerful all the damn time. No reason for that to  seem suspicious, even if I'd gone up more than a few rungs on the food  chain.

She  shook her head. "Not that. You're not the same anymore. You were creepy  last time. Your emotions were...shallow. Lust, hunger, all ways to  consume. You were like a yawning void of want with no substance. It was  why I told you to buzz off so quickly. Now you seem like...more. Still  plenty of lust and hunger, but there's other things too." She cocked her  head at me. "What happened to you?" Ah, empathy. I hadn't read between  the lines on her appraisal, but it had mentioned being linked to  emotions so maybe I should have. Explained why she seemed so hostile  last time we met.

I  decided to be at least partially honest. "I undid something unfortunate  my mother did. She's an immortal fae tyrant and she's kind of an  asshole. Messed me up after I was born."

That  got a sympathetic nod, and to my surprise she took the coffee cake and  took a small bite. She looked like a fucking squirrel nibbling on an  acorn. It was kind of adorable. "I can sympathize. Is that what you came  here for? Because as much as I feel for your plight, I have no interest  in joining some sort of club for people with bad supernatural parents."

Grinning,  I reached into a pocket and pulled out the ring, placing it on the  table. "Not at all. It just made me more likely to work on your problem.  I couldn't stop thinking about you after we talked." I said  flirtatiously. Thorn pouted a bit but didn't say anything since we  weren't actually together yet. I'd have to make her feel special later.

She  was staring hard at the ring. "What is that?" She asked quietly, her  voice intense. I was pretty sure she had some kind of magic sight, based  on her ability to sense my power and see how it had changed. She most  likely had some vague idea of what she was looking at, but I decided to  fill in the blanks.

"It's  a band of holy binding. A specialty magical item." I made sure not to  sound too smug, lest she think this was a trap. "It can suppress demonic  taint. Sadly it won't rid you of it entirely, but it will keep it under  control until I can find a more permanent solution for you." At B rank  there was no fucking chance I'd be able to cleanse her anytime soon. Her  father's bloodline was most likely even higher level, but since it was  IN her, a B rank cleansing method should be enough. That would cost a  metric fuck ton of points though.

Still,  even a temporary stopgap would get her feeling indebted to me. It  wouldn't be enough to mark her, given I already KNEW what her mark  condition was since she'd told me, but I could get started getting her  on my side at least. She looked at it longingly, clearly believing what I  said, but still cautious.

"You  don't strike me as a man who gives something for nothing." She said  accusingly. "I've felt your lust when you look at my body. You want to  have sex with me."

I  very much did, and the idea of a Raven sandwich with that fat tittied  slut from superbabes made me literally salivate, but this was a long  game. Plus...I didn't think I'd enjoy fucking her as much knowing it was  just because of the ring. It wouldn't have bothered me before, but  something about it just felt...pointless. If I couldn't tame her myself  what was the point? A snug hole to use? I had plenty of those.

"Yes."  I agreed casually. "But I'm not going to hold the ring over your head.  It's yours. I need your help with some emotion stuff after what's been  going on with me. But the ring is yours either way." I'd told Ingrid I  wouldn't have Raven cut off my emotions, but the girl was a fucking  demonic schizo. She used special meditation to manage and control her  feelings, and those sounded useful to stop my bullshit overreactions.

As  for giving her the ring...I was pretty sure it would pay off. I was  making the same call I always would have. Leverage was key when dealing  with anyone, and having that over her head would be useful. More than  that though, I was pretty sure Raven was a decent person. I thought  being a decent person was pretty stupid still, but I understood caring  about shit enough now to believe she would try to repay that gratitude  even more vehemently than if I had directly leveraged the ring.

She  picked it up, looking at me uncertainly, and then slipped it on her  finger. She cast a few muttered spells first, probably making sure it  did what I told her it did before putting it on, but once she did, she  gasped slightly. I saw a SHIFT in her. Her nature changed, and a quick  appraisal showed me that a decent chunk of her power had been  suppressed, bringing her to C rank, but she was still pretty powerful.

Those  bright purple eyes filled with wetness, and she averted her gaze so I  didn't see the tears. I didn't feel sorry for her or anything, but part  of me felt...pride. She was beautiful, and I made her look like that.  Maybe doing shit for other people wasn't so bad sometimes. Of course I  was going to fuck those fat tits someday or I wouldn't have bothered,  but still. "So." I said. Picking up the coffee cake. "How do you feel?"  Damn, this coffee cake really WAS good.