An Afterlife Together Part 4

Maki’s previously boneless body snapped into rigidity. Both hands reached behind her to clutch at my wrist, knuckles whitening from the effort. I let her hold my wrist still and switched from pumping my fingers to flexing them back and forth, stroking the bottom walls with my calloused pads and rubbing the tops with my knuckles. My thumb remained in her ass but moved in a slow circle to the same rhythm so that she could feel it not only stretching her sensitive asshole but through into her cunt. The unprepared woman choked on a sharp inhale and coughed spit and whatever remnants of my cum were still coating her mouth onto my leg.

 “Ahm! Wait!” She whimpered as she tried to catch her breath. 

 I slowed down but didn’t stop. “Wait for what?”

 “Need…to think. Semen,” she added quickly.

 “Hmm. Believe you told me not to let you think.”

 “James!” she whined. “I let you rest.”

 “Fine, fine.” I chuckled and withdrew my hand, leaving her empty, and wiped my fingers on her butt before giving it a hearty slap. My thumb was of course, completely clean, subject as it was to the reality-warping porn physics that governed the world in a very localized cloud around me.

 Maki gave me a half-hearted glare. “I didn’t say pull them out.” I barked a laugh in reply. “Hmph. Until we can get set up to record our sessions, it’s imperative we discuss our observations immediately after climax.”

 “Maki, I’m so horny that I’m seeing pink. I’m going caveman mode over here. James think no so good. Maki too pretty. Maki want fuck?”

 She nodded seriously and observed my throbbing cock with a look of concern and, at noticing the stream of pre-cum, a slight hint of greed. “Don’t worry, I’ll be quick, it does look…volcanic. You seem to be in more of a state than earlier when you stabilized your bleeding. Am I correct?”

 “Yes, dumping a truckload of sex magic into my body has had consequences, as you can see.” I pointed to my penis helpfully. 

 “And the sensitivity, has that increased?” The corner of her mouth curled up in a cruel smirk as she ran her thumb up the thick line of pre-cum. She popped it into her mouth and froze while sucking her thumb. “The taste!” 

 I switched to Japanese, which had gone from passable fluency to indistinguishable from a native speaker and finally to the level of a native-born scholar of the language, all in one night. “Got better, yeah. Sometimes the gains are directly related, like with the taste of my cum, and sometimes they’re indirectly related—”

 “Like getting better at Japanese from having oral sex with a speaker,” she completed with excitement just barely bordering on the safe side of unhinged. “You utter bastard, that’s so unfair. At least it’s going to be fun learning how to keep up with you. Your semen when already imbued with your magic, for the record, is either easier to call upon or is the same. I won’t know until I get to experience the new baseline.” 

 “Perfect, let’s knock that out, shall we?”

 “Ah! Wait—"

 I stood and swept Maki into a bridal carry in one clean motion. She would have been light enough to throw around without issue regardless, but doing so without the distracting pain of my Injury Penalty was invigorating. The woman flailed at first like a startled cat before getting her arms around my neck. I doubted she’d been carried like this before or ever expected to be. By now I’d learned to read her fairly well and could tell that she was silently afflicted by some emotional turmoil, bothered by the connotations of being held like this, I assumed.

 With those in mind, I turned towards my bedroom instead of the bearskin rug I’d initially intended to move to. Symbolically carrying Maki through the threshold of my room inflamed some romantic impulse within me. And, I had been curious about the changes to the furniture here anyway.

 “Oh, come on, a ceiling mirror, really?”

 I groaned at what the bedroom had been turned into. The majority of the space was dominated by an outrageously large bed equipped with a nine-foot by nine-foot (2.74m) mattress. Its posts and headboard were covered with elaborate arcane carvings, a motif matched by the large silk rug below. The walls were thankfully tastefully decorated with Late Imperial Chinese love poems beside beautiful ink paintings of women in elaborate dresses. They had been made in defiance of Qing-era censorship and smuggled out by Mughal merchants, their history coming unbidden to my mind. The only obnoxious parts were the two full-length mirrors, one facing the foot of the bed and the other on the side wall, and the aforementioned huge ceiling mirror looking down over the entirety of 81 square feet of mattress. Only in my most depraved, libidinous fugue would I have thought to install a ceiling mirror.

 That said, I was already thinking of ways to tease Maki with her reflections, so maybe the Producers had the right idea after all.

 Speaking of, I tossed Maki onto the fluffy comforter and silk sheets, savoring the way she blushed at herself in the mirror above. Her pale skin was flushed and covered in sweat, her hair in disarray, and her nipples hard and pointed to the sky. Thighs, chin, and breasts were sticky with spilled sex, and through and over it all was an aura of lust and desire. I hopped onto the bed and straddled her chest so that my cock fell between her breasts and lowered some of my weight down to trap her there.

 “This way we can keep discussing our observations,” I explained, slapping the head of my cock onto her nipple, anointing the stiff peak with my ample pre-cum.

 “Sp-speak for yourself!” stuttered Maki, tossing her head back. I leaned back slightly to ensure that she could see her own desperate expression. “If you recall, you—ah! You bastard!” I swiped her other nipple. “You made me extremely sensitive.”

 I held the base of my cock, where a fresh fountain of pre-cum was washing away the remnants of Maki’s spit, down onto her right breast. From there I painted a slimy wide and long brush stroke across the valley between and onto her left breast. Maki whimpered and clasped her hands over her mouth as I began to deliver light whaps with my heavy rod. The slaps were just hard enough to sting and splashed the pre-cum over her chest, neck, and chin.

 “Surely, the iron-willed miko of the Black Harbor Shrine can’t be so easily defeated. I, on the other hand, have been so driven mad with lust that this is the least disruptive I can be.”

 “You’re an ogre, James,” she said with a sharp look, though all of the bite in her words was diminished by the way she’d begun to run her hands along my outer thighs. Reaching behind me, she slapped my ass with both hands. “Very well, rut away, samurai. I am quite eager to get a taste of the new baseline.”

 I bucked a little in surprise, poking her below the chin with my dick. “Gladly.”

 Pushing her boobs together, I forced my cock into their velvety embrace with a slow, slightly downward thrust so that she could feel its meaty heft. Maki and I shared a simultaneous satisfied exhale at the sensations. She lifted her head and bathed my member as it poked through, cooing at the flavor. I let my Force Pythons wrap around her breasts and reached up for one of the many pillows, using it to prop up her neck for her comfort.

 Maki applied some greedy suction as I pulled back, stretching her lips over my angry, red head. “Thank you. Though you could grab and force me into position too if you want.”

 I raised an eyebrow at her. “Like it rough?”

 She shook her head. “I like watching you lose control and I like feeling you give in to your lust. It’s flattering, you know? I know I’m a good-looking woman, but you are, well, whatever you are. Even if your current state is the result of your magic, it’s still empowering to be the object of your bestial affections.” Her words were getting faster, her voice throatier. “The most beautiful creature in the city, you could have anyone with a few words and a flash of your heavenly penis, but you’re here with me. I’ll be a legend amongst practitioners once they learn I seduced you into bed. They may approach me – actually, they will definitely approach me to get to you, but don’t worry, I’ll carefully curate whom I allow access.”

 I felt like she was rewriting history about who seduced whom, but I wasn’t going to correct her. “Fuck, Maki, you got the weirdest dirty-talk game in the city, but goddamn do I love it.”

 My complement had a strong effect on the woman. She pushed her chest up into me, momentarily stealing her own breath away. “Yesss. Show me how much you love it. You’re right, I could resist this pleasure if I wanted, but I don’t. You’ve got me so worked up, James, that I don’t care about our research, I just want to watch you cum for me. I want you to cum for me, James. I want you to fuck my tits,” she said, emphasizing the vulgarities, “until we cum together.”

 I groaned and shuddered. Hearing Maki of all people say ‘fuck my tits’ had nearly pushed me over the edge. I sent a telekinetic limb to hold her legs together then used another to fuck her thighs in time with my cock, forcefully rubbing the tendril against her clit, cunt, and ass. If we were dropping the pretext of this being to facilitate a discussion, then there was no reason to hold back.

 Maki moaned loudly, not holding her voice back at all, truly giving in to the moment. “Yes, that’s it. Fuck my chest and fill my mouth with your cum. Give me your lifeforce, I want that too. I’m going to become the most powerful spiritualist in the city using it, James.” I groped her chest aggressively, rolling each nipple between my thumb and forefinger. “Mph! You like that thought, don’t you? Like me, you love the idea of a strong, powerful woman moaning your name. James, oh, James, cum for me darling, cum for me and make me a queen. Anoint me with your holy oil, elevate me! Yes! A belly full of your precious seed is going to make me a living legend.”

 “Jesus Christ,” I gasped and had to slow down to avoid busting. Damn, I really did like that thought. 

 She sipped her teeth in disappointment, but she’d inspired me with that last sentence, and I was far too impulsive in my current frenzy to even consider an alternative. Prior to her statement, actually spending Experience to lean into this magic semen stuff would have been ridiculous to me. I needed to focus on my glaring weaknesses, not spend my limited resources on something that would only make me more likely to be kidnapped.

 She dug her nails into my thighs. “Harder, faster,” she demanded. “I want to feel your sweat drip on me.”

 But investing in my semen was investing in Maki, in a way. I could dual cultivate with and train Annie, but I was relying on the priestess to carve her own path to power. I looked down at the beauty beneath me, hair splayed out like a black halo, eyes staring back up at me with naked, possessive desire. A vision of Maki in the future, smiting a Hungry Ghost with casual ease filled my mind – I had to help make it a reality.

 Fuck it, I thought. I’ve been rewarded for all of these impulsive buys thus far anyway.

 I bought the upgrade for Cum Overflowing, then engaged Style Maker to come up with a good custom companion feat to go with the growing suite of semen feats. I had high enough related Attributes and Skills as well as several prior feats to build off of, so the real difficulty came in powering through my lust-crazed haze to creatively come up with something.

[Major Feat] Cum Overflowing

You produce an amount of seminal fluid with every orgasm equal to your number of Dice in Endurance squared times what you would normally produce. 

[Major Feat] Mr. Fresh & Clean

Your bodily fluids carry with them some of the inexplicable aura of physical purity that you possess. They will stay as fresh and as hot as they were when they exited your body and will leave whatever they come into contact with cleaner than before. Unless deliberately placed into a vessel, they will harmlessly vanish without stains when unobserved for a period of time. While these are inexplicable effects, they are very noticeable.

Oh, hey, that was going to be amazing for keeping my blood off crime scenes too, nice. Already satisfied that I’d made a decent call, I decided to go the additional step and buy another 2 Dice of Endurance. Those were always useful, still left me with 93 Experience, and, most importantly to my erotic-energy-ridden pre-frontal cortex, meant I would produce eighty-one times as much cum as normal.

With that, all higher thinking left my brain. I placed a hand on top of her head and seized hold, keeping her at the proper angle to catch my cock. Maki rolled out her tongue and stretched her jaw wide, squinting an eye-smile at me. I shuffled up on my knees so that my enormous bell-end was fully occupying her mouth when thrust forward, and began.

Counting on my Porn Physics to keep her safe and happy, I began to properly fuck her tits as hard as I could while still maintaining a rhythm that I could match with my Force Pythons through her thighs. I could have gone faster, but even in my most bestial, I had my principles, one of which was that the woman either came before or with me. 

Poor Maki, iron-will or no, she stood no chance. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she could have potentially withstood the absurd fifteen Successes I got from a Sensuality + Seduction check, but it was never going to be easy. Her eyes were locked onto mine the entire time, and I could see the exact moment when she decided to not bother fighting the feelings and give in. Her eyelids half-closed and reverie replaced curiosity.

The room was filled with the noise of wet slaps, the sound of my thighs and balls hitting jiggling breasts, and heavy breathing. Between the steam heater, my ridiculous body heat, and her sweat, the air in the room was like a thick blanket wrapped around us, comfy for me but perhaps somewhat oppressive for her.

Not that I think she minded, if anything it was adding to the experience for her. Maki, once she’d decided to yield to pleasure, had done a glute bridge as best as she could manage with my telekinesis pinning her thighs together. Despite the position notably shortening her breaths, she was clearly craving the pressure from the weight. Her first orgasm came when I made a minor shift in weight; thus far I’d been avoiding putting enough down to interfere with her breathing, but sensing she wanted it, I took her just past where it would have ordinarily been comfortable.

Maki’s eyes, which had been unblinkingly burning me into her memory, rolled up as she came. She slapped and clawed at the sheets as she spasmed helplessly, but impressively didn’t stop moving her tongue. There was a large and growing wreath of white, frothy cum and spit atop her breasts, rolling down over her neck and chin, that she continued to fervently lap up even in the throes of her orgasm.

I was close as well, but I couldn’t give this up just yet, especially after seeing the look of loving gratitude that came upon her once she regained some semblance of lucidity post-climax. For both of us, this was much more than physical. We saw one another as grand conquests, living testaments to our sexual and romantic prowesses.

A narrow two Successes on an Endurance + Willpower check let me titty-fuck another orgasm out of her. This one, built on top of the last, caused her to arch her body up as hard as she could and then collapse bonelessly beneath me. I gave one last thrust and began to cum into her mouth.

Cum Overflowing applied a multiplicative effect to what I would have normally produced. Now, this was the third time I’d cum tonight which meant that it would have been on the smaller side, however, there was an ungodly amount of Erotic Sorcery pumping through my body which was already increasing my production.

Maki, still mid-orgasm herself, was unprepared for the force or the volume of the first two shots which hit the back and roof of her mouth. She began coughing, covering the top of her breasts with my pearly white seed. I was nearly bowled over by the sensation myself. It felt not unlike a gut punch, and I ended up covering her face with another three insanely powerful jets before I could shuffle back and take aim. 

Eighty-one times the normal volume of cum would have been more than enough to completely bukkake Maki. This was not the normal volume. I covered her breasts, neck, and much of her shoulders in a heavy glaze, my semen being unusually thick and pearlescent; she was quick to recover and lolled out her tongue in a silent request halfway through my climax that I happily obliged. Quite a bit missed her mouth and ended up on her face instead. I winced when she took a shot directly to the eye, but it seemed to cause her no pain nor even enough discomfort to make her blink.

The exhaustion of the day once more returned with prejudice after I finished. I flopped over onto my back beside her. Maki lay arms to her side, panting for breath – I knew she was tired because she made no move to clean herself. Her chest heaved and glistened in the soft mood lighting, the only kind in my upgraded apartment. The sheets were already dry and clean around us.

“See? Cum covered mess. Man o’ my word, I am.”

[Hidden Quest Complete!]

Do a one-man bukkake.

Reward: 35XP, +1 Endurance, +1 Occultism (Erotic Sorcery), Gain a random Semen Upgrade feat (Natural Anabolic)

[Minor Feat] Nature’s Anabolic (Semen Upgrade)

Other people who have consumed your semen gain a temporary +1 to their Strength and Agility for as long as it remains in their system.

[Ally Quest Complete!]

Tit-fuck Maki.

Reward: 30XP, +1 Empathy, Gain Warding Charm x5 – these wooden charms, when hung over a door or window will prevent entry from most hostile spirits and can provide meaningful resistance to stronger ones.

Bonus, Introduced her to and satisfied a new fantasy: 20XP, +1 Charisma, Gain Minor Feat (Fountain of Holy (Semen Upgrade))

[Minor Feat] Fountain of Holy (Semen Upgrade)

Your sexual fluids can be used in place of holy water for rituals and will prevent most possession attempts, and mind-altering effects placed on those who have been anointed with them. They will not, however, share the same destructive capability as actual holy water does upon Evils.

[Hidden Quest Complete!]

Consensually tit-fuck a lesbian.

Reward: 50XP, +1 Persuasion

[Hidden Quest Complete!]

Seduce an NPC teammate after a successful mission.

Reward: 50XP, +1 Lowest Attribute (Attunement), +3 Random Skill (Lockpicking)

[Recurring Quest Complete]

Have a notable sex scene.

Reward: 5XP, +1 Random Skill (Biology)

Bonus, Elaborate and extended: 15XP

[Producer Reward]

Congratulations on your first major mission! What a day you’ve had! We at Skindimensional Media would like to show our appreciation for your continued commitment to both play-testing our system and to performing for the Audience. Your proactive method of ensuring future content by putting your life on the line is admirable and worth incentivizing.

We as Producers no longer feel the need to subject you to having to pay rent on your housing; you create more than enough problems for yourself when left to your own devices.

Deed: You are the legal owner of your Base, its Upgrades, and any future Bases and Upgrades purchased through the use of Tokens and Vouchers. The taxes and utilities are handled, and you will have the legal permits to operate any businesses that would suit the facilities. Furthermore, most people will not acknowledge changes made to your Bases via upgrades, and those that do won’t investigate how you could have possibly acquired or accomplished them. In short, feel free to purchase Upgrades without having to worry about breaking the Fourth Wall. 

(There would still be consequences for the results of your defenses, it’s just that the police will be less interested in how you attained mechanized turrets versus the circumstances that resulted in them gunning down a crowd of attackers.)

Additionally, please select from the following categories for a Viewer Selected Reward: Weapons, Gear, Vehicles, Feats, Base Upgrades, and Followers.

I selected Base Upgrade immediately. While I was curious about the rest, particularly Followers, I’d been too recently tantalized by the Base Upgrade catalog to pick anything else. A second or two at most passed between my selecting the category and the result appearing; I took it as evidence that the Audience and Producers perceived time differently than I did.

[Viewer Selected Base Upgrade]

Meditation Chamber: Your Base has been equipped with something akin to an indoor Zen Garden perfect for both stationary and moving meditations. This provides a natural bonus to several related Skills, including any attempts to manage, cultivate, or transmute your internal energies, and has whatever altars, shrines, or circles are required for you to communicate with any beings to whom you have made Pacts, or Deals with.

Oh, joy, a private line to Funikugami, I grumbled in my mind. Still, it would be useful for figuring out what was happening to Annie’s Qi, and for that, I was genuinely grateful. Though, I’d continue to grumble about it regardless.

 “The volume of fluid increased dramatically every time,” said Maki. She had wiped about half of her face off and was holding her palm up to her face, somewhat reverently watching my cum begin to drip back down in stick strands. “Your doing, or your power’s?”

 “The latter at first and then I went a little nutty with it.” I sighed, covering my eyes with my forearm. I could see Maki licking her hand clean in the ceiling mirror and didn’t want the distraction. In the crystal post-nut clarity, passive observations were beginning to fall into place. “I think…it would be unwise to rely on Erotic Sorcery for healing.”

 “Surprisingly sensible for a homeless vigilante.”

 “Guess you sucked the stupid out of me.”

 I took stock of my decisions since initially stabilizing my wounds with that first spell; it was not a flattering inventory. Ken had warned me about the corruptive effects of the sword, that my inhibitions would be the first to be affected – I wondered if there wasn’t something similar happening to me outside of my perception when I used magic. 

 Immediately after the first spell, I’d purchased furniture that would look too on-the-nose in the Playboy Manor. I’d dumped a shitload of Experience into Erotic Sorcery, my most embarrassing Skill. And then, to my now horror, made a loud mental proclamation to the Audience and Producers that I would match every Die in Erotic Sorcery with an equivalent in Martial Arts. That was fucked, and there was no getting around it either. I’d be living with that self-imposed tax for the remainder of the campaign.

 And then, despite just telling myself that I didn’t want to become a sex wizard, I entered into a long-term standing agreement to research the subject with Maki. What the hell was I thinking? I was going to have to be such a himbo fucking idiot to counteract all the magic I was going to be learning now. There was no way that Maki wasn’t going to go insanely deep into ritualized eroticism, and I was sure to keep earning Erotic Sorcery Dice from her efforts. The inevitable cost of all the semi-mandatory Martial Arts Dice I’d have to buy to keep up would bankrupt me if I wasn’t careful.

 After the second spell, I’d fully taken leave of my senses. I’d bought not one but two ludicrous cum-feats after being emphatically warned about how dangerous my semen would make casual sex in the city. I might as well have walked into a witch’s hut, sat down in the cauldron, and started snacking on the carrots while she made stew because I sure as hell wasn’t going to stop having casual sex. At least the throwaway Endurance purchases had paid off.

 It had all kind of paid off, I guess, and none of it was terribly out of character for me. I could have seen myself making some of those decisions, but all of them, one after another? No, there had to be an explanation. The more lust magic inside me, the more erratic I’d behaved.

 I thought back to the line from the Producer Reward, ‘your continued commitment to both play-testing our system and to performing for the Audience’. It sat uneasy with me. 

 This wasn’t just a game or a playtest, in fact, it wasn’t really either of those, this was a show, those were just the genre and the twist respectively. I wasn’t actually a Player, I was a cast member at best, and a guinea pig or subject, really. There would of course be hidden mechanics. What if there was a Sanity stat in the game, but I wasn’t privy to it? There was surely information hidden from me, and information hidden from the Audience – the only real question was, what if anything was hidden from the Producers? 

 Ah well, tonight had worked out for the best despite my own unhinged behavior. I only had the one mandatory Die of Martial Arts to buy, and I’d earned both Maki’s respect and her commitment to our continued relationship. Lady Luck had my back today, and in the future, I’d be more cognizant of the mind-altering effects of magic. 

 I sat up and smiled at Maki. “Want some water?”

 “Yesh, pleash,” she said through a mouthful of cum. 

 There was an additional door in my living room that I ignored. Tomorrow, I told myself. It had been a long, but ultimately great day. If I opened that door and saw Funikugami there, my good mood would have been ruined. After chugging a few glasses of water, I grabbed Maki’s phone from her purse on the way back to my bedroom. 

 “Thanks,” said Maki as I put a glass of ice water down for her on the closest end table. It was far out of reach from where she was currently lying on the Alaskan King mattress. “Hey, no pictures!”

 “Relax,” I said with a laugh, “it’s your phone. You can delete them if you’d like.”

 “Or, let me guess, I could send them to you?”

 “Your words, not mine.”

 Maki rolled her eyes but allowed me to continue taking pictures of her licking the cum off her fingers and palm, even posing seductively for me once she got over her camera-shyness. 

 “Oh, I forgot to mention, it’ll stay fresh and hot indefinitely if stored.” She paused, clearly torn between continuing to enjoy herself or if she should do the responsible thing and save the rest in a jar. “I can make more tomorrow, Maki. Have your snack. It’s your night.”

 She nodded. “True. I am celebrating. I avenged my brother and seduced the city’s greatest lover tonight, you know?”

 “Ha! Nice, very impressive.”

 “Yes, I think so too.”

 Once she was mostly clean, I crawled into bed beside her. We took a few selfies of us cuddled up together, and she let me log into my social media to make a post about having broken my phone. Then, finally, with my new partner in my arms, I passed into peaceful oblivion.

 Funikugami was sitting on the side of the pool, kicking his feet in the water, splashing a floating beach ball my way.

 “Fuck!” I said, jumping in fright at the sight of the crow-headed child. I tried to pull the hot blonde I’d been chatting with behind me, but she had disappeared. “Goddamn it, you’re like a living jumpscare, you freak. And what happened to the babes?”

 “My apologies,” said the death god, “your mind dismissed them when I entered. I do not fit into this dream very well.”

 “Oh.” I looked around at the community pool. It was a perfect summer day, sun high overhead, and temperatures in the upper 80s (~30°C). “Right, I’m dreaming.”

 “Yes, I came to complete our deal, however, when I found your mind it was under heavy scrutiny from curious mortal practitioners, so I decided to stay and keep watch.”

 I groaned and conjured a Mai Tai in my hand. “How could I forget, our ‘deal’.”

 He bobbed his head apologetically. “You are understandably upset that I lied to you. Then, you will be pleased to learn that I am bound to tell you only the truth now that you have become a member of the Ishida Clan. Ishida Ken found a way to protect you even in death – he was a remarkable man, was he not? I am sure his sister and family are glad that he is no longer trapped within the Egui’s dark stomach.”

 I narrowed my eyes. “He also warned me not to trust you. How do I know you can’t lie to me?”

 “It will be easily verified once you speak to your adopted family.”

 “Fair enough.” I summoned a cigar to go with my everful Mai Tai. The taste of tobacco was ordinarily unpleasant for me, but this was my dream so I made it taste like bubblegum instead. “But don’t you dare take credit for freeing Ken from the Egui.”

 “I meant to take nothing from your heroic achievement, but alas, it was the second curse that I placed on you that ensured my sword would be freed. The release of the languishing souls of the ghost’s victims was a happy happenstance.”

 “So that thing about me dying if you told me what it did…”

 “I am not privy to know the future with such certainty, James Li. That is the realm of a very select few. Though, from what I could see, the second curse only increased the likelihood of your death. Indeed, I did not expect you to survive. Well done, my champion.”

[Endowment Received] Champion of Funikugami, Carrion King

Gain 1 Permanent Point of Corruption.

Your Lord grants you the following four abilities. They are yours for as long as you live:

I

[Death’s Hand] – Death will not readily claim his Champion. Convert the first four points of Murderous Damage you take in any scene into regular Damage instead. 

II

[Oppressive Soul] – Your battle aura is denser than most and is choking to be near. All other characters nearby when you are fighting suffer a 1 Die Penalty to all actions. Your allies can learn to tolerate this with repeated exposure. You can also learn to control this with some experimentation, though it will require conscious effort at first.

III

[Black Dog of the Fens] – Gain 3 Temporary Points of Corruption to surround yourself with a cloak of palpable dread. Once activated, you may convert additional Successes on melee attack rolls into Temporary Willpower damage instead for the remainder of the fight scene.

IV

[Curse: Certain Death] – Gain 1 Temporary Point of Corruption. The next time you touch a creature, convert all Damage they have taken into Murderous Damage. For the next 24 hours, all Damage they would receive is Murderous Damage instead. Only supernatural beings have a chance of resisting this Curse, mortals cannot try.

[Hidden Quest Complete!]

Become the Champion of a Divine Entity.

Reward: 50XP, +1 Affinity

Bonus, Funikugami: +2 Stealth, +2 Perception

Funikugami’s wretched black power nearly caused me to lose consciousness as it forcibly entangled itself with my soul and Qi network. Thankfully, it was a quick process, and by its end, whatever he had done to or given me felt as native to me as any of my other abilities.

 We were on a beach when I came to, both of us reclining on chairs, though the Kami was entirely shaded by an umbrella. Tragically, I was forced to admit it was extremely cute seeing his crow-headed boy form so out of place in this paradise resort.

 “So, it was all about that sword of yours? Ken told me it was you who told him where he could find it in the first place.”

 “Yes,” said the Kami, “Fate has tried to keep my blade hidden away since I first created it. Always has there been some circumstance that has intervened to see it lost once more each time I’ve had it found. I thought that I had finally been defeated when it was swallowed by the Egui; if the Ishida or the Sunada were to seal the creature away, then I would have been bound by my oaths to protect its prison, and thus, prevent anyone from retrieving the Hakkotsu no Ha, which would have been doubly trapped.”

 “And then Maki left my dumbass alone in the Shrine.”

 “I had to act quickly once I realized my opportunity. I hope you can understand.”

 I shrugged. “It’s whatever, man. Ken and them other souls are free, that’s what’s important. Shitty way to get there, and I don’t appreciate being tricked, but it is what is. I knew you were lying to me anyway and I still agreed to the thing, so, can’t put all the blame on you. What now?”

 “You are wise, champion. Now you do as you please. Need will force you to use my sword in battle, its power is too great to ignore. If you wish though—”

 “I don’t.”

 He continued, “I can trade you more power in exchange for Hunting other Evils in the city. Many in Black Harbor cling to life past when I would have preferred them to die. I can empower—”

 “Not interested.”

 “—what I’ve already given you. Or I can show you memories of great fights that I’ve seen, so that you may add the dead’s talents to your own.”

 I opened my mouth to rebut him but stopped. Could I really turn that down as the Grandmaster of Black City Kung Fu? Was there any better way to use Style Maker? That was kind of my whole steez, and I was already the death god’s champion. I may as well take advantage of the situation.

 “I’ll…think about it.”

 “That’s all I ask.”