Greed God chapter 219

April 11th 2016 Brightedge City, Hall of Nevers, 6:00 PM EDT

"Ouch!"  I yelped, yanking my hand back as a flash of blue energy exploded out  from the Suit of Sorrows. I glared at the fucking potmetal raincoat. It  refused to work with me, and while I could theoretically merge it with  something weaker to bring its rank down (since my points were deducted  based on the final rank of an item and not its components) I'd be giving  up a ton of power even if I only brought it down one rank, which I  fucking REFUSED to do.

Barbie, who was sitting to one side  looking amused, watched me try again with a giggle. "You know, doing  the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is  the definition of insanity."

I sneered at her. "It's also  the definition of PRACTICE. I'll get it under control soon enough. I  just have to convince these ornery religious fucks that they need me to  kill Lilith, which THEY DO!" I said loudly at the Suit. Then I shrugged.  "Or just let Amy use it if I can't come to an agreement with them." I  looked up to where Sindy was floating cross legged in the air on a  spectral cloud. "Speaking of which, how is that communion going?"

She  grimaced. "They...aren't very nice master. They've spent the last hour  or so calling me names, of which 'Corpse Whore' is probably the tamest. I  don't know what kind of religious order teaches its adherents to talk  like this, but I'm glad I never ran across these "knights templar" or  their ilk back in Gemworld. They are thoroughly unpleasant." She  flinched. "I'm almost positive that's against the tennents of every  major religion. Some of these men are just disgusting."

I  shrugged. "Religious fanatics aren't exactly known for avoiding  hypocrisy. If it helps, you're the hottest corpse I've ever fucked." I  winked at her and she giggled as Barbie rolled her eyes. "That aside, do  any of them seem willing to talk to us? Maybe make a deal of some kind?  Seriously, Lilith murdered all of them, how are they not more fucking  worried about this?"

Closing her eyes, she murmured to  herself a bit longer, and as she did I reached out to touch the armor  again, yelping as it fucking burned my fingers AGAIN. "I will wipe my  ass with you!" I roared at the chainmail hauberk. The blue glow winked  out, and Sindy snickered at something she heard from the spirits.

Then  she perked up. "Wait, I got one. Says his name is Asher Valley.  Apparently he's the great great...you get the idea, the guy we took the  armor from was a descendant. He says since you spared his offspring he's  willing to at least hear you out about Lilith."

I  grinned. Huh, who knew giving Barbie what she wanted would pay off.  "Alright, well has he heard any of what I've been saying so far?"

I'd  pled my case to the damn armor for a half hour before trying to have  Sindy connect with the spirits. She just shook her head and I rolled my  eyes before starting over, telling the ghosts everything I thought would  sway them about the situation and leaving out everything else. As I  talked, I took my phone out to check my texts, because I doubted franch  paladin ghosts would be too upset about me texting and talking.

Nothing.  I'd texted my dad a while ago, and nothing yet. Ignoring calls was one  thing, but ignoring texts wasn't a matter of being busy or lazy. It  meant he was for some reason completely out of touch, and that wasn't  like him. Especially not with important things going on. I slipped it  back into my pocket as I finished explaining.

Sindy was  nodding thoughtfully. "He says this is indeed a danger to the world, but  that he refuses to let an abomination take up the weapons of his  brethren." I gritted my teeth, my hands sparking up Primal Force as I  prepared to claw some of the fucking links out of this thing to make  these ghosts reconsider. Sindara's eyes widened and she held up her  hands. "Wait!" I stopped, raising an eyebrow in curiosity. "He says you  aren't worthy, but he knows what must be done. He offers a compromise.  He says he'll let the...no." She paused. "No I'm not repeating that.  What does that even mean? Then why not just SAY red haired woman?" She  rolled her eyes. "He says Barbara would be permitted to wield the Suit."

I  blinked at that. That was...actually not a terrible compromise. Barbie  was mine, heart, soul, and pussy. She would protect me with her life,  and would be especially motivated to kill Lilith. She was also an E  ranker at this point, which meant she should be able to handle the suit,  while not quite as well as me, reasonably well, not to mention her  extreme martial prowess.

Narrowing my eyes, I made a  contemplative sound. "Why her?" I asked calmly. I had a few guesses, but  I wanted to see if the spirits would be honest about it. Since she was  immune to mind control via Eros and Psyche, I wasn't worried about her  being possessed, and as stated I could render the armor much weaker if  not scrap within a second if I wanted to, though it would cost me a  pretty penny in points even just to scrap it, because the quality of  that thing was high enough that even merging it was random trash  wouldn't bring it down below D rank most likely.

Still, I  didn't want my batslut putting on an evil chainmail suit if it wanted to  kill her off. I'd invested plenty of points in that bitch, and she was  pretty fun in bed. Sindy closed her eyes, murmuring for a bit before  opening them. "He says he knows she was the reason you spared his  descendant. Says her heart is pure and she cares for the people of this  city." She paused. "He also says he thinks making you give up power to  your woman would be funny and annoy you, and he thinks you're an  abomination."

He clearly didn't know me too well, but that  was to be expected and I didn't really care. There was no real  difference between Barbie having that Suit and me having it. I put on an  annoyed face, since there was a chance the shitbag ghost would go back  on his offer if I didn't pretend to give a shit about his petty  nonsense, and turned to Barbie. "Strip and put on the suit."

She  gaped at me. "Wait...what? I don't want to wear that thing bare assed.  Chainmail tugs on pubic hair so badl-" She froze, realizing that she'd  admitted to more than she'd been planning to say and cleared her throat.  "I mean, it'll be super uncomfortable and that thing is old as fuck."

I  snickered at her slip up. "You don't have to strip completely. I just  figured your panties and undershirt would be less hot and restrictive  when you were getting used to it. Just so you know, I'm going to make  you wear that for a while to get used to it and probably spar in it to  test your abilities. I'm pretty sure that's going to get fucking  sweltering after about five minutes. The links on that are pretty small,  I somehow doubt it breathes very well."

That made her  stop and think for a second and she nodded. She stripped off her pants  and top, leaving herself in a thong and sports bra. I didn't stop her as  she left, coming back with a pair of spandex booty shorts on. I didn't  begrudge her a little comfort, I just didn't feel like letting her  change later.

She slipped the hauberk on, eyes flashing  that same eerie blue as the wings unfolded behind her, illuminating her  red hair like the last rays of sunset. I was impressed. I wondered if I  could fuck her in that. I bet flying sex would be pretty great. I shook  that thought off, not the time. "Ames!" I bellowed to my wife. "Barbie's  been acknowledged by the coat. Get your cute little ass in here so we  can field test it."

As a C rank artifact I wanted to see  what it could do for her, and I knew Amy and I could at least keep up  with a C ranker when we worked together. If we could simulate a fight at  that level we could at least estimate how she would do against someone  like Mary. As for Lilith...I wasn't sure how strong she would be.  Hopefully we could prevent her resurrection entirely and I wouldn't need  to find out.

Amy came breezing into the room, smiling  widely at Barbie. "Oh Barbara!" She said happily. "You look so lovely!"  She gave my redhead a once over. "Well, give us a spin." She said slyly,  spinning a finger. Barbie rolled her eyes, but smiled a bit as she  twirled around to show off her outfit. "Doesn't she look lovely Nicky?"

I  smirked at the darkening blush on Barbie's face. "Yes dear." I drawled.  "Now lets beat her cute little ass." Barbie snorted at that and gave me  the finger, which I returned with a wink. Before I could get ready for  the fight though, I got a text. I slipped my phone out, holding up a  finger to tell them to wait, and checked it in case it was my dad. It  wasn't but apparently it WAS urgent.

"It's  Strega. She say's its urgent." I frowned at the phone. Honestly my  resident blood mage wasn't one of my favorite girls. She was mine, so I  threw her a bone sometimes, but mostly I just left her to do her own  thing. It was out of character for her to summon me like this. "Give me a  minute, you two can warm up, maybe have the others help for now, I'll  be back in a minute."

Seeing  my unease, they both nodded, the playful mood of the room evaporating  nearly instantly. I headed out into the castle up to where Strega's lab  was. I'd given her one of the empty rooms to work in to keep her out of  trouble, since there were hundreds of the damn things anyway. She must  not have known I was home, which made sense since I hadn't seen her, and  she didn't have access to the remote viewing capabilities of the hall.

When  I reached the door to her lab I knocked, and she threw the door open  nearly instantly, looking worried and out of breath. "Nicky!" She  yelped. "Thank the gods you're here. I've been poring over the blood  sacrifice notes you gave me. I wanted to see if I could work out some  details like the timing or methodology to help us narrow things down. I  stumbled on that prophecy and I was using it as a reference. We have a  problem!"

I  raised an eyebrow. "Calm down Strega, just say what you need to say,  it's fine. Even if there's an issue we can handle it, we're equipped to  deal with anything at the moment. Plus we have time I'm sure." We  weren't, not exactly, the Fear Host was out there still, and I suspected  he had a good source for fear. However, based on the bullshit he'd  pulled at the meeting, I didn't think he would show up at the Lilith  summoning. He was a coward and liked to skulk around in the background.  He would wait and see if I got hurt badly enough and try to jump me.

Strega  shook her head, eyes widening in wild alarm. "No! We don't! Nicky that  prophecy is technically accurate, but according to the spell structures I  found it's not as direct as it sounds." She turned and bolted to the  table, bringing back the book and flipping it open to shove it at me.  "Here. Where it says the blood of the beast will awaken her. Blood in  this context doesn't mean blood the substance, it means blood the  concept. It isn't talking about your blood specifically, but blood of  your blood. Which means-"

"A  relative." I said in slowly mounting horror. Suddenly my dad not  getting in touch went from harmless and annoying to VERY worrying.  "Lilith could be waking up AS WE SPEAK." Of course, I doubted that. I  suspected Mary would want to use my blood because the draconic life  properties would help Lilith recover to her peak strength faster, but if  she couldn't get that...I looked at Strega sharply. "Get your things  together. I'll call the others. No time for training, we need to get our  asses down to that fucking cathedral." I just hoped we weren't already  too late. It was the strangest thing though, as I considered how best to  save my dad, my head started to ache a bit. I shook it off. Time for  that later. I had a raid to plan.