The person’s name was Hazel, apparently. They had not revealed more than that before asking if they could put something on. When Regula had said yes, she had foolishly assumed they meant clothes.

She watched, dumbfounded, as the person reached into the pouch, putting their whole arm into it despite its small size, as if performing a magic trick. It had to have been a Bag of Holding. And then, completing the magic trick, they pulled out a massive, floppy suit of a minotaur.

It was even stranger watching them (just ‘them’—Regula hadn’t seen their genitalia and in fact had tried not to look) get dressed. With practiced ease, like they’d done this dozens of times, they stepped one foot into it and then the other, slipping them down into the suit’s legs. They reached down to the crotch and shoved it upward into their own, human crotch. The arms went in, then the head, and within under a minute the costume was zipped and the zipper was covered.

They turned around, revealing a male minotaur! Whew! Regula’s new hormones were already having enough trouble with one attractive female mortal: the last thing she needed right now was a second one, when she had such a big problem brewing.

“So….” Usagi said. They were all sitting down now, at the base of the hill, away from prying eyes. Augrel and Usagi were on one side, and Hazel was on the other. “You wore a special costume that changed you into a dragon?” Usagi asked.

“Yup.” The minotaur’s voice was gravelly and deep, a far cry from the androgynous voice of Hazel beneath it. That being said, he was barely less naked than Hazel had been outside the suit: he only wore a pair of leather shorts, like a pulpy barbarian, as well as the same pouch the skinsuit had come from. This left ample room to show off his glistening musculature.

Usagi squinted. “Okay. Silly question, but we got told about a direwolf threatening sheep around here. Was that…?”

“Oh, yeah, also me.” Hazel looked very pleased with himself (themself?).

“Cool….” Usagi grimaced. “Did I, uh, hurt you when I shot the dragon head?”

“Nah, that suit’s bigger than my body so it missed me inside.” The minotaur glowered. “You could have really injured me, though!”

“Injured you?” Augrel glowered right back. “You breathed fire at us!”

“Hey, I missed on purpose.” Hazel shrugged. “I’m not trying to hurt anyone, just trying to keep people away from my spot so I can have some fun with my suits.” The minotaur patted the pouch around his neck. “I’ve got dozens of these things in here! This one’s a fun one, though. Like what you see?” He flexed his arms, winking at Usagi.

Usagi smiled. “Nah, you’re not my type.” She slid over toward Augrel a little as she said that.

Augrel, on the other hand, found it a little difficult to look away. Those big buff pecs, those bulging biceps, and that deep voice were… doing something to him. The same thing, in a vastly different way, that Usagi’s features had done.

Nevermind, a female minotaur would have been better. This was worse. So much worse.

Augrel squeezed his legs together and leaned forward. “Whyyyyyy,” he wheezed, head in hands.

“Why what?” Hazel asked.

“Why are you wearing all of those? Why do you have those in the first place??” He looked up through splayed fingers. “Why is my life like this???”

Hazel frowned. “Answering those out of order….” He held up one finger. “I tried to train as a druid once? Really wanted to figure out shapeshifting. They kicked me out because they thought it was just a sex thing for me.”

“Is it not?” Usagi asked, innocently as ever.

“Well, kinda? But still. Rude.”

“Oh my goddess,” Augrel mumbled.

“It’s not just a sex thing! I just… like not being tied down to any one thing, that’s all.” Hazel shrugged, and held up three fingers now. “Whatever your life is like, I think that’s between you and your goddess, dude.” He put one finger down. “And as for why I have these?”

He smiled proudly again. “Found a whole pile of em in a dumpster.”

“What?” Usagi said.

Hazel shrugged. “I washed em first! I mean, no one else was taking em. I guess those were the ones they didn’t want, somehow? Even though they’re clearly the best ones!” Hazel rolled his eyes. “People are so weird sometimes.”

“Back up.” Usagi leaned forward. “The ones they didn’t want? Who’s they?”

Hazel glanced around, then leaned in too. “You didn’t hear this from me,” he said, whispering even though there was no chance of eavesdroppers. “But there’s rumors going around Arbor, for the past month or so. If you know the right people, and if you can pay the right price… you can become a new person. Whoever you want.” Hazel leaned back. “Me, I don’t know anyone, and I have no money, so… dumpster diving!”

Augrel’s mind—Regula’s mind was spinning. This was the worst possible thing that could happen to her: someone had found the skinsuit device she’d lost, and was using it.

Except it wasn’t the worst possible thing—not because it wasn’t the worst, but because it wasn’t possible, right? Or at least it really really shouldn’t have been possible.

First of all, it shouldn’t have been possible because no one could use the skinsuit device but a deity, right? But maybe that wasn’t right… after all, as much as she hated to admit it, there was some overlap between the power level of a bottom-tier goddess like her, and some of the stronger mortals who lived in Revelia. So… possible, theoretically, to use it at least somewhat. Maybe at least on the random setting.

But second of all, she’d lost it only an hour ago! Two, tops! And somehow there had been rumors for the past month? That made no sense—

Time flows differently between the realms.

She tangled up her fingers in Augrel’s hair, feeling the tug on his scalp. Of course. From her perspective it had been a matter of minutes between the device falling through the portal and her own entry. But for Revelia, the two events could be weeks, even months apart.

It was possible. It was happening. And it was the worst.

Regula looked up. “This is—”

“Really bad,” Usagi interjected, standing up. “If the Dread Lord’s generals got hold of a power that can create dragons and monsters, or any disguises they want… they’d be able to wreak havoc on the free world. We need to find out what’s going on.”

Regula blinked at her.

“What?” Usagi asked, blushing a little.

“I thought you weren’t taking this seriously?” Regula asked, craning her neck a little to make eye contact.

“Oh, well, haha….” Usagi grinned sheepishly and scratched the back of her neck. “You’re so earnest, Augrel, it’s infectious!”

Regula—Augrel—blushed a little bit as well, but stood up. “We need to stop this power from falling into the wrong hands.” He extended his hand toward Hazel. “Will you help us?”

“Mmmmmm….” Hazel tilted his head from side to side, like a dog trying to think. “Eh, fine, sure. You haven’t been weird about my shape-changing thing, mostly, so I’ll tag along.”

Augrel smiled.

“Plus, I get to mess with this little guy.” Hazel stepped forward and, rather than taking Augrel’s hand, picked him up in a big one-armed hug that pressed his face against the minotaur’s pecs. “Like what you see, little dude?” he asked, with a tone that suggested laughter.

Augrel’s face was catching on fire again, and there was no way to hide it.

“He does!” Hazel laughed. “Never met someone who’s into minotaurs before. You some kind of pervert or something?” He looked up at Usagi. “See, elf girl, I’m just not your type.”

“Oh, back off, big guy,” Usagi said, though she sounded close to laughter as well. “I saw him first!”

The world was under threat. Regula was in danger of losing her job for misuse of deific inventory. And worst of all: she had acquired a harem, and the harem was bullying her.

This was the worst day ever.

“We’ll need to head back into Arbor to learn more,” Usagi said, and blessedly, Augrel felt her hand take his collar and yank him out of Hazel’s grasp, then set him down. “And I think a minotaur is going to raise a lot of questions.”

“Oh, sure!” Hazel reached into his/their pouch again. “Any requests, elf girl? My shape is at your command.”

“I can think of one, yeah!” Usagi smiled. “After all, we’ve also got a reward to collect.”

“One direwolf, not dead but alive!” Usagi held out her hand toward Mira the receptionist, who was looking down at some reading. “Reward, please!”

Mira looked up at her, nonplussed. “What do you mean, alive?”

“We tamed her!” Usagi smiled widely. “Look! Hazel, speak!”

“Arf!” Hazel raised her paw and barked proudly. They were now wearing the direwolf skinsuit that had prompted the quest in the first place (which had turned out to be female) but also a collar tagged with the name Hazel. They had already had the collar with them. Regula knew that implied something about them but didn’t want to think too hard about what.

“Reward, please!” Usagi repeated, vibrating her outstretched palm a little.

Mira peered down at it. “Well, it does match the descriptions…. Fine, here you go.”

She rummaged around somewhere behind the desk, pulled out a little sack, and counted out gold coins up to ten. Once they were in the bag, she passed it to Usagi, who immediately fumbled it—tossing it from hand to hand in an attempt to avoid letting it hit the floor.

Augrel grabbed it from the air, and then thrust it in Usagi’s face. “This is yours.”

“What?” Her eyes widened a bit. “Shouldn’t it be an even split?”

Augrel shook his head, insistently. “You paid for the equipment and the guild fee, and…. This couldn’t have been done without you.”

“I mean, I couldn’t have done it without you either, but….” Usagi shrugged and put the baggie in her coin pouch. “Thanks!”

“One other thing,” Augrel asked, turning to Mira as she looked back down at her reading. “Where can I find the temples to the gods in this town?”

She didn’t even look up. “Head toward the north end of town, ten minute walk, can’t miss it.”

“Thank you!”

As they walked out of the Guild, Hazel the direwolf poked her nose at Usagi’s coin pouch, down at her hip level. They made a little whining noise.

“No, it’s not for you,” Usagi said, pushing the snout away. “Although that does give me an idea….” She grinned. “You go to a field somewhere and cause some havoc until there’s a quest to deal with you. We show up and ‘tame’ you, and split the reward! It’s foolproof!” Hazel’s mouth opened in a canine smile.

“We are not doing that,” Augrel said. “For so many ethical and practical reasons.”

Hazel growled. Usagi just rolled her eyes with a little smile. “Spoilsport. Why do you need to go to the temple, anyway?”

“I need divine help in finding the devi—” Regula remembered that technically, she shouldn’t know there was a device, and amended: “In finding the devils who are making all these suits.”

“Oh!” Usagi’s face lit up. “You’re going to appeal to my new favorite goddess Regula!”

Regula grimaced. “Unfortunately, no.”

“I’m sorry, sir and ma’am,” said the curtsying attendant outside the town’s temple, “but no pets are allowed inside the building. Your… dog? Will have to wait outside.”

Augrel and Usagi looked at each other, and then back at Hazel—who was already turning around in a circle, then laying down in a heap on the grass outside the temple. Very committed to the bit, they were.

So the two of them shrugged, and entered the temple.

It was a fairly large building, with high ceilings and stained glass windows. Their footsteps echoed on the hard floor, and she could hear whispered prayers from all angles, but a hush seemed to fill the space even so. Regula knew, objectively, that it was on the small side for temples, and that the richer cities of Revelia had larger ones, but from a mortal’s-eye view it was still very impressive.

From the perspective of a goddess, of course, the building was more like a power plant. She could feel the supplication of these people traveling up, up, up to the heavens—she could see them, like faint beacons of light. This was where gods got their power.

The temple, like many in Revelia, served multiple gods—enough that there was a directory near the door showing where each one’s altar could be found. Thank goodness, Regula was still listed… in a tiny alcove with the other small gods, but she’d take whatever wins she could get at this point.

But that wasn’t the one she was looking for, and the one she was looking for did not need a directory to be found. With an internal groan, Augrel left Usagi at the directory and walked straight forward, toward the largest statue in the room: a gorgeous woman standing twenty feet tall, with lilac hair and her tits all the way out.

Augrel was ‘lucky’ in the sense that the line for prayer was only one person long: the previous pray-er finished quickly, mumbling something about protection from the Dread Lord before standing and leaving. But Regula had never considered herself lucky to have any conversations with this woman.

She sighed, deeply, and then knelt down. “Hello,” she said, under Augrel’s breath. “Are you there, Lady Iris? It’s me, Augrel.”

No response. The hush in the temple around them felt stifling.

“The champion of Revelia that was sent by Lady Regula?” she added.

Still nothing. Regula’s lip twisted: she usually aimed for much better SLOs than this, in terms of response time to prayers.

She had one last trick up her sleeve. “Apparently she told you that I was cute?”

“Heyyyyyy, pretty boy!”

She nearly jumped to her feet from startlement. “L-lady Iris?” she managed, looking around. This was not the way she’d ever experienced a prayer before: rather than coming from one identifiable source, it seemed to fill her brain, or maybe fill the temple. She wasn’t sure which.

“Yup! That’s me!” Then Lady Iris burped. It was a long, loud burp, and now Regula was sure that the noise had to be just in her head, because if it had been in the temple then it would have echoed. “Sorry about that,” Iris continued, “but I just partied hard with a bunch of nymphs, and holy shit am I drunk!” She laughed giddily. “Lemme get a look at you….”

What happened next was probably, technically speaking, a hallucination. It certainly wasn’t real—or more precisely, no one else could see it—but it certainly looked and sounded and felt way too real.If this was what hallucinations were like, then Regula never wanted this body to have any drugs in it ever.

The massive statue of Iris, looming over him, bent down to a crouching level and reached out a giant hand towards him. The marble making up the statue’s body creaked as two of her fingers picked him up by the collar, like a cat, and lifted him to her eye level.

Regula yelped, and tried not to flail her limbs.

“Oh my me, you are such a cutie pie!” Iris cooed, poking him with her other hand. “Regula gave me a snack. Gosh, should I get her something for this?”

“Uh….” Regula gulped. “She, uh, mentioned something about a promotion—”

Iris snapped her fingers, and the sound was like thunder. “A fruit basket! I’ll send her a fruit basket. I get a snack, she gets a snack, haha….”

She looked down at her breasts, as if noticing them for the first time. “Whoa, am I made of marble right now? Cooool…. Damn, the girls are looking even better than normal!” She hiccuped, and leaned forward with a hand to the side of her mouth. “I don’t usually answer prayers, you know. Most of us don’t. Regula’s kind of a weirdo… she answers all of them… you’re not really supposed to do that, it makes mortals so entitled…. Oh, you can’t tell her I said that, though,” she added, speaking in a loud, loud whisper. “It’s a secret.”

She hiccuped again.

Regula glanced from side to side. “Uh… yeah, I definitely won’t tell her.”

“Cool!” Iris giggled and let go, dropping Augrel several feet to the floor. He landed on his knees, which was painful but at least was the position he needed to be in. “It’s so great to have someone to talk to,” she said, not really looking at him. “Like, nymphs are hot, but, like, it’s all sex with them? They don’t cuddle afterward? And they’re so needy, like, I always have to be in charge, you know?”

She sniffled and pouted. “Like, what if I wanna just talk for a while? What if I wanna bottom for once? I’m not just a piece of meat here! A piece of beautiful, fuckable meat… Mmm….” She absentmindedly massaged her breasts for a few seconds, then paused and squinted. “What was I doing here again?”

Regula coughed politely.

“Oh right, yeah, Regula’s little twink!” she said, smiling and looking back down at him. “You’re the hero from Earth or whatever?”

“Yup, that’s me!” Regula grinned. “Twenty-first century human person who got hit by a truck, Augrel! I know what a smartphone is!”

“So cool! Is that spelled with an O, or….” Iris shook her palm from side to side. “No, wait, still don’t care. Anyway, what can I do for you, cutie pie?” She stared at Augrel with attempted serenity, but she swayed side to side a bit.

Regula gulped. “Um,” she said, trying to remember the cover story she’d thought of on the way here. “The, uh… the Lady Regula gave me a small item on my way to Revelia. She said it was my ‘starting gift’ upon entering this realm, and that it had originally belonged to you, Lady Iris. A lavender device, shaped a bit like a Faberge egg?”

Iris laughed out loud. “Holy crap, she gave you that? Homegirl got kinkayyyy!” Regula tried to continue speaking, but Iris was too busy laughing at her own proclamation, her hand clapped to her eyes. If this statue had tear ducts, she might have been crying with mirth.

After several seconds, she had calmed down just a little., enough to continue speaking. “I mean, someone oughta use it! She’s such a prude, you know? Never used it even though it’s so much fun. She’s zero fun. Oh, but you can’t tell her I said that!” she added, tapping her nose (and missing on the first attempt). “She’s my bestie.”

Regula tried not to grimace. “Yes, well, um. Anyway. I definitely don’t know what it does, but I’m afraid I lost it somewhere in Revelia, and I am informed by Lady Regula that her magic cannot locate it because the item is not originally hers. So I must humbly, shamefully beseech you for aid in finding…”

A repeated, staccato chime sounded off in Regula’s head.

“… in finding your lost—lost treasure, Lady Iris,” Regula finished, stuttering a bit. It was really hard to concentrate with the chiming in her ear, even if it didn’t mean the most inconvenient thing possible right now: someone was praying to her. Usually something she would welcome, but right now….

“Yeah, I can probably do that for you,” Iris said. “Gimme a minute….” She closed her eyes in thought.

“That’s, uh, that’s—that’s great!” Regula managed. “Also, can I pray you back in about five minutes? I, uh… need to use the bathroom?”

Iris cracked one eye open. “What, right now?”

“… yes.”

“Ugh, mortals. Just like I said, so entitled.” She flapped one hand. “Fine, do your little bodily function.”

“Yes, Lady Iris, thank you, Lady Iris, bye!”

Regula turned around and sprinted out of the temple. She glanced back once, halfway through the building, and saw the statue immobile and in the same pose it had been in when she’d entered.

There was a sort of moat around the temple, with bridges over it in all four cardinal directions, and ornamental gardens and trees planted within that moat. Regula hurried around the perimeter of the building as inconspicuously as she could, until she found a little copse of trees she could hide in. Then she reached back and groped around the skin of her neck until she found the little flap, and the zipper underneath it. She pulled it about a third of the way down her back, and then grabbed the suit’s hair and pulled forward.

The tugging on her scalp was painful, just like tugging her own hair—until, abruptly, it wasn’t. Like a suction cup resisting being pulled away from its surface until the last moment, the mask of Augrel popped off of her face, yanking out the nose tubes and dental prosthetic in one clean movement. Regula was back: panting, disheveled, and red in the face.

She took a moment to breathe deeply, straightened her hair as best as she could, and tried to ignore the hollow mask flopping in front of her. Then she manifested an office phone in her hand and put it to her ear. “Hello, you have reached Lady Regula, Goddess of Rules and Regulations,” she said, as calmly as she could. “Please state the nature of your prayer.”

“Oh my gosh, Lady Regula! You do answer prayers! Hi!”

Regula’s eyes widened, and she had to hold the phone a little away from her ear. That was very loud. And moreover, she recognized that voice. “To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?” she asked, as if she didn’t know the answer.

“I’m Usagi! Archer and adventurer extraordinaire, and your newest convert!… probably!”

“Probably?”

“Well, someone else might have just converted since I did, like, a minute ago. How would I know?”

“That is… unlikely.” Right, Usagi had said she was going to convert earlier, but that had slipped Regula’s mind after… everything else. She gulped, and tried very hard to keep her composure. “Well, young Usagi,” she said serenely, “welcome to the Regular faith. What is it you wish of me, child?”

“What? No, I’m not asking for anything.”

“… pardon?”

“I’m just praying to say thanks! Like, there was this dragon, well it wasn’t a dragon but we didn’t know that at the time, and I had to shoot it but I can’t really shoot very well, and then you used your divine power to help me aim correctly and shoot straight! I’ve never shot an arrow that well in my life!” Usagi laughed a little sheepishly. “I know, you probably get prayers like that all the time.”

“Er….” She didn’t, really. Most of her followers were basically lapsed at this point. None of them really asked her for things she could help with. But that wasn’t the biggest thing on her mind right now.

A little beacon of power was shining out of the phone’s speaker, and into her body. She shivered a little as it flowed into her essence, refreshing her like a cold drink on a hot day. She hadn’t had a prayer so grateful, so earnest, since… maybe ever?

She put the phone back to her ear, to feel the energy close up. “I do remember the intercession of which you speak, and I greatly appreciate your gratitude for it,” she said. “I believe that the one praying was not you, but your companion, the hero Augrel?”

“Yeah, that guy!” Usagi made a little cooing noise. “He’s so cute!”

Regula’s face flushed. “Uh… oh, is he? I didn’t notice.” She found herself smiling.

“Yeah, and he’s super fun to mess with. But he’s a good guy…. Oh!” Usagi’s tone went from gossipy to excited. “I know I said I wasn’t going to ask for anything, but… do you have any advice for asking him out?”

“What?” Her eyes went wide.

“Oh, yeah, I guess it’s probably also worth asking—do you think it’s too soon to do that, if we only met today?”

“Uh….” Regula’s smile turned pained. Was this what ‘butterflies in your stomach’ meant? It was not an entirely awful sensation, but it was uncomfortable. “I, um, I don’t think that’s within my purview as a goddess of rules and regulations. You might want to pray to Lady Iris about that—”

“Yo, I heard my name. You done in there yet?”

Shit. That was Iris’s voice. Without time to think about it, Regula held the phone away from her face, grabbed the Augrel mask with her other hand, and mashed its mouth roughly against her own. No time to put it on properly. “Not yet, Lady Iris!” Augrel said, although his voice sounded a bit slurred. “Two more minutes!”

“You’re so mean to meeeeeee….”

Iris’s voice disappeared. Thank… someone. Regula let go of the mask and pulled the phone back to her ear just in time to hear Usagi saying, “Sorry, I know I’m not supposed to use the b-word for goddesses, but she is kind of a—”

“I forgive you, my follower,” Regula interrupted. “Anyway, I thank you again for your gratitude, Usagi. Go in peace.”

“Thank you! You’re the best, Regula!”

The call ended, and the phone disappeared. Regula slumped to her knees, and sighed with relief.

She looked down. There was a little channel of water leading out from the building to the moat around it. She could see her own reflection in it: still disheveled, still red in the face, and her hair tangled unmanageably. And all of it a little blurry through her nearsighted eyes.

She didn’t like it. She’d never really liked it. But on the other hand, she’d never really disliked it before—she’d never felt any kind of way about it. Frankly, she hadn’t felt any kind of way about a lot of things. So why did she feel bad looking at it now?

Maybe because, for the first time, she had an alternative.

She took a deep breath, and pulled the mask back on properly this time: nose tubes, dental piece, all of it aligned properly. She seated it properly on her face, zipped it up, and hid the zipper. Then Augrel ran back into the building as fast as he could, skidding to a halt on his knees in front of the Iris statue. The floor squeaked as he did so. “Lady Iris!” he said.

When he looked up, the statue was gone.

He blinked. “Lady Iris?” he said, looking from side to side.

“Boo.”

“Oh goddess!” Augrel yelped, spinning around and falling on his ass. Lady Iris’s statue was looming directly behind him, leaning down with a very unamused expression.

“Blow me off like that again and I’ll curse you and all your descendants with infertility,” she said, her voice deadly serious. Then she paused, pouting with contemplation. “Wait, no, that wouldn’t… whatever, I’ll make your dick fall off or something. Anyway, found your thing.” She waved her hand vaguely. “It’s, let’s see, seven hundred and twenty three meters south of your location, and two hundred eighty one meters east.”

“Thank you, Lady Iris!” Augrel prostrated himself. “I am truly grateful for the aid which you have bestowed upon me.”

“You’d fuckin’ better be. Don’t lose it again.” Iris stepped over him, and Augrel made sure not to look up. “And tell whoever’s in charge of the statues to give me bigger tits!” she called out, before becoming immobile again.

“… yes, Lady Iris,” he mumbled. Heaven help him, she was a bitch.

He turned around and walked back toward the entrance. Usagi joined him halfway through. “I prayed to Lady Regula,” she said, practically hopping with excitement, “and she actually answered! She’s so nice!”

“I’m… glad you like her,” Augrel said, smiling a little. Usagi was a great mood booster after having to deal with Iris—one more advantage Augrel had over Regula, it seemed. “Did you… talk about anything in particular?”

“Oh, just me thanking her for the arrow thing earlier, you know,” Usagi said, beaming. “What about your thing, how’d that go?”

“Well, I have the location, but I’ll need a map.”

Once they were outside the temple, and had met back up with Hazel, Augrel took out the map of the city that Usagi had paid for. He located the temple, and put one index finger on it. Then he squinted at the bar scale in the bottom right. With inhuman accuracy, he traced a line due south from his index finger for seven hundred and twenty three meters, and then east for the two hundred eighty one meters.

“There,” he said. “The device can be found….” He paused. His finger hadn’t just landed on some random building.

Usagi leaned in and squinted down at the map. “Isn’t that the Adventurer’s Guild?”

For the third time that day, Augrel walked into the Guild Hall. It was the first time he’d done so with such a sense of foreboding.

However Lady Iris might have felt about being left waiting, she almost certainly wouldn’t lie—not about something like this, and not with such specificity. And Augrel knew that Regula wouldn’t make a mistake with a map… er, Regula knew she wouldn’t make a mistake. This was the place.

But if the Guild itself was involved, then what did that mean? And how big of an operation was this?

Only one way to find out.

Augrel walked up to the receptionist again. “You’re here a lot today,” she muttered, glancing up at him for a brief moment. “We don’t have more quests for newbies.”

“We’re not here for a quest, we’re….” Augrel looked from side to side, then leaned in and whispered. “We’re here to ask about the suits.”

Mira stared blankly at him for a few seconds, until Augrel was nearly sure that he’d made some kind of mistake—and then she smiled, a little too widely. “Please, follow me,” she said. She stood up and opened a low door in the counter, then walked to a door behind her. When she opened that door, it revealed a darkened room, with no visible windows.

Augrel, Usagi, and Hazel followed her in, though Usagi had to duck under the doorframe. Augrel reached down and found the pommel of his sword, just in case.

There was a hiss of flame, and the receptionist was again revealed next to a lamp, holding flint and steel. “Let me ask you a question,” she said, reaching down to grab a long pole in the meager light. “Have you ever wanted to try being someone new?”

Augrel and Usagi looked at each other. Usagi was the one who answered. “Uh... sure?”

Mira smiled again. “I’m so glad you think so!” She lifted the pole and started opening windows near the ceiling of the room, one by one.

As the windows opened, Augrel could see where they were: a large storeroom for the guild. Basic-looking swords, shields, bows, and other items for the beginner adventurer were arrayed on rows of wooden shelves. However, he got the sense that the room had been rearranged recently: the more expected merchandise had been pushed to the far side of the room, leaving a large empty space closer by. There were many large, locked cabinets along the wall to the right, and it was to one of these that the receptionist walked.

“As a matter of fact, you’re not the only ones,” she said, pulling a keyring from her belt and flipping through it. “Many adventurers find a certain sense of boredom after completing so many challenges and becoming so experienced. Wouldn’t it be fun to start over from level one, as someone new? Or maybe you’ve got something in your life you need to get away from? Whatever your reason, we at the Adventurer’s Guild have a brand-new solution for you!”

She unlocked the cabinet, reached in, and pulled out a rack of skinsuits. It telescoped out as she pulled it, covering something like half the room and revealing two dozen skinsuits at least, all on hangers. Male and female, tall and short, every color and species Augrel could think of.

“Behold, our new line of skinsuits!” Mira waved a hand at them. “Lifelike in the extreme, and so realistic that even the gods themselves won’t know you’re in disguise. And they can alter your stats as well! Lived your life as a rogue and want to give barbarism a try? Or maybe you’re a paladin who wants to be an archer? Whatever you want, we can provide!”

She walked to more cabinets, and unlocked them in turn to pull out more racks. There had to be hundreds in here.

“Ooh, look at that one!” Usagi said, darting forward. “His dick is huge!” Hazel followed eagerly behind her.

Augrel stared dumbly. There were hundreds. “Um…” he started. “And people have bought these?”

“Oh, yes, many people!” The receptionist’s smile glittered. “Of course I can’t tell you who they are for obvious reasons, but let me just say that our satisfaction rate is very high. And if you’re nervous about the price, can we offer you a two week free trial?”

“Right, I’ll think about that….” He licked his suddenly-dry lips. “But where do they come from? Do you make them all by hand, or… is there some sort of magical device that makes them for you, maybe?”

Her smile turned devious. “Oh, that’s a trade secret.” But her hand moved, almost instinctively, toward the pocket near the bottom of her shirt. Augrel could see just a little lump in there, about the right size for the skinsuit device.

For a moment, Regula wished she’d made a skinsuit of someone who was a better pickpocket.

“Now,” Mira said, “would you like to browse, or do you have something specific in mind—”

“Augrel, come over here!” Usagi called out, behind the various racks of suits. “Check this one out!”

Augrel hurried over to where she and Hazel were, on the other side of the room. “The device is in her pocket,” he hissed. “If we can figure out a way to distract her, maybe one of us could get it out.”

Usagi flapped her hands. “Yeah, yeah, in a bit. Look how cool these are!” She pointed excitedly at one, then another, sidling quickly down the rack. Hazel darted ahead, clearly just as interested. “That’s an actual dragonkin! How many of those do you see, huh? And ooh, a dark elf! And oh my goddess, is that a centaur? Would that take two people in it, or—whoa!”

In her eagerness, she’d caught her foot on one of the thin, low legs of the skinsuit racks. In typical Usagi fashion, this was not just a mere stumble. She careened forward a few steps, arms flailing for support, and nearly regained her balance—only to trip right over Hazel, who hadn’t noticed six-plus-feet of spectacularly clumsy elf headed their way.

She crashed headlong into the last cabinet on the wall—which, Augrel noticed, hadn’t been unlocked—and smashed the door to pieces.

“Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow….” Usagi clutched her head for a few seconds, rocking back and forth on the ground. Before long, she was able to get to her feet. “Sorry about that!” she called out with a shaky laugh. “Had a little accident! I’ll, uh….” She glanced at the cabinet she’d just opened. “I’ll… pay for it….”

She froze. Augrel took a few steps forward to see what she was looking at, and froze as well.

There were no skinsuits, or any other merchandise, in the cabinet. Instead, there was a bound and gagged woman, looking at them with terrified eyes. And what was worse, she looked remarkably like the receptionist.

The receptionist who let out a sigh, several paces behind them.

“Well, so much for drawing you in,” she said, sounding only a little annoyed. Augrel turned around slowly, hand once more on his pommel, to see her standing at the end of the little corridor created by the skinsuit rack. Blocking them in. “But you are right about one thing, elf girl. You will pay for it.”

She held out one hand, and it blazed with blood-red light.

Augrel thought fast. “Move!” he yelled, grabbing the skinsuit rack to his left and yanking it toward him. His strength stats were pretty good, and with some exertion, the whole rack levered to the right—smacking straight into ‘Mira’ just as she tried to fire the blast of evil energy at them. The collision ruined her aim, sending the blast straight through three of the suits instead, and leaving charred holes almost a foot wide.

Augrel dived into the rack, and struggled out the other side.

“You know, it took me a lot of tries to make a skinsuit close enough to substitute for the real receptionist,” said ‘Mira’. She sounded more annoyed now. Not at all threatened, though, which was a bad sign. “This stupid thing only spits out random suits! I had to make a hundred before it came up with something that would work!”

Augrel glanced around to see the other two behind him, diving into the next rack over. He stayed in this little corridor, inching steadily forward, and drew his sword.

“Oh, did I just hear the shing of a beginner sword being drawn? That is adorable, little man!” ‘Mira’ cackled. “You clearly don’t know who you’re dealing with… but then again, how could you?”

A red glow appeared at the top of Augrel’s vision, and he looked up with dread in the pit of his stomach. The woman was floating now, both hands glowing red, with a wicked grin on her face.

“How could you know that behind this false face was none other than Za'riama!” She sounded proud to admit it. “General of the Dread Lord! Tasked by Lord Gaius himself to use this device—” the skinsuit device floated from her pocket, suspended in a red haze “—to conquer the city of Arbor as a gift to His Dreadfulness!”

Shit. Shit shit shit. Augrel’s—Regula’s—head was spinning, and his sword hand trembled. He recognized that name. He’d been prepared to fight some low-level mooks, not one of the direct subordinates of the villain himself. What the hell were they supposed to do now?

There was a little pause. Then, Usagi’s voice called out from several rows down. “That’s a really dumb idea, though!”

Za'riama’s head whipped around toward the voice. “What? No it’s not!” The device floated back into her pocket, and she started slowly floating toward the source of the voice.

“It sounds pretty dumb,” Usagi repeated. “How is giving people a bunch of cool costumes going to take over a town for the Dread Lord?”

“It will weaken the mightiest heroes of the land! In their desire for a new start, they will reduce their own stats to a pitiful state!” Za'riama’s hand closed into a fist. “Once they have fallen into my trap, Arbor will be defenseless against my—”

“It clearly doesn’t reduce stats, though,” Usagi called out. “You’re wearing one, right? And you’re floating, and doing all kinds of powerful magic stuff. You don’t actually know how these things work, do you?”

Za'riama paused mid-flight. “Um… I’m, uh, I’m too special! I am a general of the Dread Lord himself, I cannot be weakened by—”

“And even if it did work like that, they could just take them off.” Usagi sounded really annoyed about this for some reason. “Did the Dread Lord actually tell you to do this? Like, in those words? Because if he did, he’s an idiot.”

An expression of pure rage appeared on Za'riama’s face. “Shut up! How dare you insult His Dreadfulness!” She surged forward, both hands raised, ready to throw her magic—

Hazel leaped out at her from between the racks, clamping their jaws around her leg. She yelled with pain, and turned to try to strike them down—and then Usagi stood to her full height, bow raised, and fired one of her arrows at Za'riama.

It missed, and struck the wall behind her. Za'riama looked at it, and laughed, and turned back to face Usagi—and then the second arrow struck her in the torso with enough force to slam her into the wall too.

Usagi pumped her fist. “Yes! Second try!”

Augrel vaulted over the rack in front of him, raising his sword high, as Za'riama slumped down to the ground. Before she could gather her bearings, he slashed at her once, twice, three times, and she barely blocked each attack with the orbs of magic around her hands.

On the fourth, she couldn’t block it, and he slashed her across the cheek. The skinsuit was cleaved open, and he saw billowing blackness beneath it, from what had to be Za'riama’s true form.

Za'riama’s eyes burned black. “ENOUGH!” she roared.

The roar blasted everything around her back, sending the racks of skinsuits tumbling toward the door and Augrel tumbling along with them. Hazel hung on as best as they could, but Za'riama grabbed them in a cloud of red light and flung them across the room too. They let out a yelp as they collided with the far wall, then fell limply into the mess of racks, out of sight.

Augrel got to his feet, and tried to run at her, but Za'riama clenched her fist, and Augrel was enveloped in a cloud of light of his own that immobilized him, suspended him inches above the ground. It burned at his skin.

“You,” Za'riama said, teeth gritted with anger. Darkness billowed out from the cut in her cheek. “You dared to challenge the Dread Lord the first time you arrived in this place, didn’t you? Pitiful little worm that you are, did you think you could ever defeat him? You are not worth an instant of his attention.” She smiled, as Augrel tried to struggle. “It will be a very small honor to snuff you out in his name.”

The glow in her other hand grew brighter and brighter, so bright Augrel could hardly look at it. Za'riama raised her hand and fired—

“Stop!”

Usagi was there. Somehow, she managed to shove him out of the way, straight out of the air and to the ground. Just in time—for him.

There was an impact, and Usagi screamed.

“No!” Augrel yelled, looking up in time to see Usagi clutch at her head and stumble several steps back. Za'riama laughed, and Augrel looked on in horror. She’d gotten hurt because of him—he had to act! With all of his willpower, he forced himself to stand, raised his sword—

“You stupid little fuck,” Usagi snarled.

Augrel stopped dead. Za'riama stopped dead.

Usagi was standing, after an attack that should have killed her. She wasn’t clutching her head anymore: her hands were down at her sides, but half-clenched as if they were talons. Augrel couldn’t see the side of her head that the attack had hit, but the side he could see stared at Za'riama with pure, unfiltered hatred that turned his insides to ice. She leaned forward, looming like a predator about to pounce.

“Do you even realize what you’ve done?” she seethed. “You’ve ruined everything!”

Za'riama took a step back. “You—”

Usagi stalked forward, in three long steps, and grabbed her by the throat with one hand. Lifted her off the ground until she was at eye level, leaving her dangling a foot above the ground. Za'riama clutched uselessly at her throat with both hands, not loosening a single one of Usagi’s fingers.

“You….” she croaked out, barely able to form the words. “You can’t be….”

What happened next, Augrel could only barely understand—Regula could only barely understand. A horrible red glow, brighter and redder than Za'riama’s attacks, blasted out from the injured side of Usagi’s face and straight into Za'riama’s eyes. The whole warehouse lit up crimson. And the sound was like a power drill boring straight into Augrel’s eardrum.

Za'riama convulsed, her mouth opened as if to scream, but then she went limp…. And then deflated. Whatever body the general Za'riama had inside the receptionist skinsuit, it was being incinerated into nothing more than ash.

When it was done, Usagi straightened up, let out a little noise of contempt, and dropped the empty, eyeless skinsuit. Little wisps of ash and gray smoke emanated from it, but nothing more.

Augrel panted, still frozen, staring at Usagi. She sucked in a deep breath, held it, and let it go. Then she bent down, reached into Za'riama’s pocket, and pulled out the skinsuit device. She turned it over a few times in her hand.

“Sorry you had to see that,” she said, and her voice was somewhat normal again as she slipped the device into her pouch. She turned to face him.

Augrel saw the injured side of her face, and his breath caught—because it wasn’t injured, not exactly. Oh, the face of Usagi had been obliterated on its upper left side, along with the hair on that sector of her head, and one of her blue eyes. But the face underneath it wasn’t even scratched. A face with ashen gray skin, white hair, and an eye that was blacker than the blackest void, with a burning red iris held inside.

“I know this looks bad,” she said, stepping forward with her hands raised, “but give me five minutes to explain—”

Augrel yelled, charged forward, and struck her in the heart with his sword.

She looked down, and so did he. The sword had stopped upon hitting her chest, like he’d tried to stab a brick wall. “Ow,” she whined, “my feelings!” She looked genuinely hurt on her face, but only emotionally.

Augrel was hardly thinking. He pulled the sword back and tried again, and again, hacking in a mad terror.

“Ow—stop—quit it—” Usagi took a couple of blows to various body parts—once again damaging the Usagi skinsuit but not the body underneath—before she finally growled and caught the sword by the blade with her palm, stopping it. “I just bought you that sword, Regula, don’t make me break it!”

Augrel—Regula—froze.

Usagi twisted her wrist a little, forcing Regula to drop the sword, and then let go. Regula took several steps back, rubbing her wrist and wincing. Had she just said….

“Yeah,” Usagi said, “I know you’re Regula. I knew the whole time. Honestly, I’m kind of surprised you didn’t figure me out sooner. We had the same idea for names, after all.”

Regula blinked. Anagrams. ‘Augrel’ unscrambled to ‘Regula’. Which meant that ‘Usagi’ unscrambled to….

“So you admit it,” Regula said, her voice shaking.

Usagi sighed. “I guess so, yeah.”

“You’re the Dread Lord Gaius.” The words seemed to echo in the small space.

“Yeah.” Usagi shrugged.

“Defiler of the free world. Enemy of mortals and gods alike.” Regula’s voice rose. “The single greatest threat to Revelia!”

Usagi grimaced, looking genuinely pained. “Would it help if I told you it wasn’t my idea?”

Regula blinked. “What?”

“I wasn’t always the ‘Dread Lord Gaius’ or whatever, you know,” she said, raising her index fingers to provide the sarcasm quotes. “I was a normal person living a normal life in a normal world. Maybe you’ve heard of it? It’s called Earth.”

Regula took a few seconds to process that. “I… have.”

“And then one day, a truck came when I wasn’t looking, and bam! I thought that was the end of me, but then I ended up in this weird floaty place… and there was this beautiful woman there with me.” Usagi’s voice—Gaius’s voice—took on a hushed quality. “She told me that I had been chosen to be sent to a fantasy world. That I would change the fate of Revelia with my exploits, fight in the battle between good and evil, and did I want in? Hell yeah I wanted in! Adventuring in a fantasy world? Sign me up!”

She gritted her teeth. “What that pink-haired piece of shit forgot to mention was that I’d be the villain!”

Regula blinked. “Pink-haired… Iris?”

“Yup. And when I woke up in this world, I had all these evil generals and lieutenants asking me what to conquer first, and I looked like this.” Usagi tapped the exposed skin of the face underneath her own, and smiled grimly.

Regula felt like she needed to sit down. “Iris has been tasking me with sending a hero to oppose Gaius—to oppose you. Why would she….”

“She never told me why. All I knew was, I was surrounded by psychopaths hellbent on conquering this place in the name of My Dreadfulness, which is a terrible title and I did not come up with it either, by the way.” She growled. “I’d try telling them not to attack somewhere and they’d just take that to mean they should attack somewhere else! I was losing my mind!

“And that’s when this fell out of the sky.”

She reached into her pouch and pulled out the device she’d taken from Za'riama—and tossed it to Regula, apparently without a second thought. Regula caught it and shoved it in her pocket, keeping one fist clenched around it.

“I was on a ‘scouting mission’ with Za'riama several weeks ago, near Arbor—really just an excuse to get out of the fortress, and the only reason that psycho was there was that I couldn’t get rid of her.” Usagi motioned with her head in the direction of the deflated skinsuit. “I was outside my tent that night, trying to enjoy a moment of peace and quiet, and the device appeared from thin air. That was you, right?” she asked, looking up at Regula. “I can feel Iris’s magic on it, but it was yours for a while, I think, based on how much you’ve been freaking out about it.”

Regula nodded tersely. It was more of a cringing motion than anything else.

“As soon as I analyzed it and figured out what it could do, I didn’t waste a second.” A little lavender light ebbed out of Usagi’s fingers, the same color as the device. “I activated it, created a suit that would hide me from suspicion, made some clothes, got some money, and got the hell out of there.”

She grimaced. “Aaaaaand left the device at the camp, which in retrospect was not the best move. That’s probably why Za'riama thought I wanted her to use it to take over Arbor… honestly, though, if I’d left a twig she’d just think I wanted her to use that. Freaking lunatic.

“Anyway, a few weeks later you showed up, talking big about taking down the Dread Lord, clearly Regula in disguise,and… well, I couldn’t not keep an eye on you. Besides, I think we have a lot in common… but, uh, you know the rest from there.” Usagi held out her hands in a placating gesture, palms up. The cut on her palm was visible, exposing a little more gray skin.

Regula stared at her. “Why should I believe any of this?” she demanded.

“Honestly, I don’t really expect you to,” Usagi sighed. “But I did just incinerate my own general to save your skin, if that helps?”

Regula took a step forward. “Why now? Your armies have threatened this land for years. If slipping away was that easy, why did you need the device? Why not just hide on your own?”

Usagi looked guilty now. “I… well… you see….” She slumped against the wall and sat down, looking vaguely at the floor. “I asked Iris a couple of times, you know. I asked if I could just have a normal fantasy adventure, but she told me there’s no adventure without a villain—that I couldn’t save the world until it was in peril. I thought that if I did my job as a Dread Lord or whatever, let my underlings conquer a few villages, she’d finally let me do what I actually wanted.”

She snorted, and looked up at Regula. “It’s stupid, right? It’s unbelievably stupid. Who would do something as dumb as like that?”

Regula opened her mouth, a condemnation forming on her lips—

And given my above average performance recently, I was wondering if the pantheon might consider expanding my godly purview? For instance, oh, I don’t know… to the domain of weather?

She sighed instead, and looked down at her feet. “I keep thinking she’ll promote me one of these days,” she said. “If I do my job as well as I can.” It sounded delusional as she admitted it.

Usagi pushed herself back to her feet. “She’s never going to give us what we want, Regula. We have to take it.” She walked toward Regula. “You and me, we’ve already made something pretty nice for ourselves, haven’t we? We could just stay here in Revelia as regular people, fighting against the Dread Lord’s generals. Augrel and Usagi, living the adventure, saving the world. Sounds good, right?”

As she got closer, she loomed over Regula, and Regula gulped.

“Or….”

But suddenly, Usagi dropped to one knee, and bent down even further than that. “If you really want that promotion,” she continued, and bowed her head. “You and I could spread the good word of Lady Regula the Just, the only goddess on the side of mortals. You as her champion, along with me… her most devoted worshiper.”

She reached out to rest a hand on Augrel’s hip, and Regula’s breath hitched.

Her voice continued as a low, sibilant whisper. “Build up your cult. Gain strength from our devotion. And when the time is right… strike down Iris yourself, and take that title. Whatever title you want.” Usagi looked up at her, smiling just a little. “How about it?”

Regula stared down at her.

This would be so much easier if she thought Usagi, or Gaius, or whoever, was lying. But despite how crazy of a story it was… in her heart of hearts, she didn’t think it was a lie. For starters, how would Gaius know about Earth if it was a lie? But that wasn’t the only thing, not by a long shot.

Gods and goddesses needed prayer, right? And when did mortals pray? It wasn’t when things were going fine and dandy, she knew that very well. They prayed when everything was going wrong. Manufacturing a Dread Lord to plunge the world into chaos sounded like exactly the kind of shit Iris would pull.

And besides that… it was still Usagi in front of her. Usagi, who’d prayed to her just to say ‘thank you’, and meant it. Somehow, the fake face of Usagi looked more real, more genuine, than the real face of Gaius beneath it.

But still, she hesitated. “I….”

A bovine bellow filled the room. Hazel, back in their minotaur suit and wielding an axe, burst through the door and through the racks of skinsuits that had been barricading it—only to stop dead three steps into the room.

“Oh, we won already!” He/they lowered the axe, and their expression switched from determined to lascivious in an instant. “And hey, victory blowjob! Can I get in on this?”

“No!” Usagi and Augrel called out at the same time. Augrel pulled her face closer to his crotch, which set Augrel’s face on fire, but hid the hole in her suit.

“Your loss. My technique is impeccable.” Hazel closed and locked the storage room door behind them, then ambled forward. “What happened to the evil lady?” If they got much closer, they’d see what had happened to Usagi.

Usagi looked up at him with one red eye and one blue from waist level, and whispered out of the corner of her mouth: “Little help?”

Augrel slipped the device out of his pocket, pressed it to the broken part of the Usagi suit, and channeled Regula’s magic through it. It was unorthodox, and he didn’t know if the device worked like this, but….

The edges of the hole in Usagi’s suit glowed lavender, along with the couple of other cuts on it. After a second or two, they all closed up, rendering her just an ordinary elven maiden once again… albeit an unusually tall, strong one.

Augrel slipped the device back as surreptitiously as he could, and Usagi stood up and whirled around. “It was so cool!” she exclaimed, back to her usual excitable self… if that was her usual self. “That Zammarama lady almost had me, and then Augrel got her with a lucky sword strike, and she just sort of disintegrated! I guess that’s what happens when dread generals die? But forget about that part, the important thing is Augrel was awesome!”

Hazel bent down and picked up the deflated likeness of the receptionist.

“And where were you?” Augrel asked, frowning.

“Changing! I had to sneak out and find somewhere to change into something stronger than a direwolf.” Hazel lifted the suit. “So, uh, what do we do with this? And about her?” They motioned with their horns toward the last cabinet on the wall.

Augrel’s heart stopped for a moment, and he ran over to at the real receptionist—had she heard everything? But, luckily, it appeared that Za'riama’s shouted attack had knocked her out.

And then someone pounded on the storage room door. “Hey, what’s all that noise in there?” someone yelled through the door. “What the hell is going on?”

The three of them looked at each other. “I’ve got an idea,” Hazel said.

“I’m sorry,” said the receptionist, in her best customer service voice, “but some of the potions in our warehouse were improperly stored a few days ago, and exploded when they mixed together. We may therefore experience delays and shortness of inventory for a few days until we replace the stock which was damaged in the explosion. Thank you for your understanding.”

She smiled. There was a long, thin bandage on her cheek.

“That’s okay,” said the adventurer she was talking to—maybe the tenth person she’d given this spiel to today. “I’m not here for normal inventory, I’m actually, um….” He leaned in, glanced left and right, and whispered, “I’m here about the suits.”

She smiled blandly at him. “All of our inventory is unfortunately affected by the incident. But rest assured, if you just leave your name with us we will be able to service your needs as soon as we are able.”

“Oh, um….” The man looked embarrassed as he held out his guild ID.

The receptionist jotted down his name on a list she’d been keeping. “Thank you, we’ll be in touch. Have a nice day!”

“Hazel’s gotten really good at that,” Usagi remarked to Augrel, over in the restaurant area. “Maybe customer service is the thing for them!”

“No one’s thing is customer service,” Augrel groaned, and took a long swig of mead.

“Well, it certainly wasn’t that one lady’s thing.”

Augrel couldn’t argue with that. Mira, the real receptionist, had been grateful for getting rescued, but had wanted less than nothing to do with the Guild after that harrowing ordeal. She’d packed up her stuff and moved straight out of Arbor, to somewhere less adventurous. And, well, they’d all decided that it would be nice for awkward questions to be kept to a minimum, so… Hazel had just kind of taken over for her.

Among the results from this was that Augrel and Usagi had acquired an unusually good information network regarding the various quests that might need doing in the kingdom—and therefore, what the various dread generals were up to. But even more importantly, and mostly by accident, they had managed to corner the market on skinsuit sales.

“I’m still not sure we should be selling them,” Augrel mumbled.

“Hey, gotta do something with them, and we need the money.” Usagi grinned. “And come on—if someone else wants a fresh start, who are we to judge?”

Augrel looked her in the eyes, and she smiled innocently back, two eyes of guileless blue. He still wasn’t sure if he could trust her… but they had an uneasy alliance, at least. Uneasy on his part, anyway, and getting easier all the time. For her part, Usagi was as apparently comfortable around him as ever. And really, they did have a lot in common, even if he didn’t like to admit it.

For instance: in much the same way as he was finding it hard to think of her as Gaius, he was finding it increasingly easy to think of himself as Augrel. It wasn’t like he had stopped being Regula in any way—Regula still answered prayers and, sometimes, performed minor miracles. But Regula was the one stuck in the celestial storage closet. Augrel got to do the fun stuff.

Speaking of which….

“Hey,” Usagi said, standing up suddenly, “that reminds me! Come on!” She put some coins down on the table, enough for their lunch, and began the dicey process of exiting the mess hall. Usagi still careened, spun, and flailed her arms as she weaved between tables like she was on a sailing ship in a hurricane. The other diners had learned to duck and cover, at least.

Augrel watched her for a moment, wondering not for the first time how much of the clumsiness was real. Then he stood up and hurried over to her, as she stumbled her way into the entry hall. “Oh, hey, Mira!” Usagi said, regaining her balance for a moment in the relatively clear space around her. “Just, uh, forgot my arrows in the storage room there, need to get in for a bit!”

‘Mira’ rolled her eyes as Usagi pulled open the counter door, and then slipped on something as she stumbled through the storage room door, bumping her head in the process. “Ouch!”

“I’d better go after her,” Augrel said, hurrying into the storage room. It had been cleaned up somewhat since the big fight, but there were still lots of skinsuits around to clean up, they really had to do something about—

As soon as he was inside, Usagi’s bumbling resolved into a single, precise movement—she slammed the door behind them, and Augrel against the door, as she fell onto her knees in front of him.

“Usagi?” Augrel said, feeling butterflies in his stomach.

“I was just reminded,” she said brightly, as her hand landed on his hip. “We got interrupted in here, the other day.”

“Interrupted?”

“Don’t you remember?” She grinned up at him, and reached for the button at his waist. “You were about to get a victory blowjob!”

His eyebrows flew up, at about the same time as his trousers fell down. “Usagi?”

“Ssh.” She reached up and gently caressed the growing bulge in his undergarments, before slipping them down, and letting the stiffening member spring out from beneath. “You don’t need to pretend you haven’t been waiting for this, my goddess.”

“Your goddess—oh….”

He moaned as she caressed him. And it wasn’t just stimulus response, either—he did want this. He’d been dealing with other thoughts about Usagi besides the distrustful ones: Usagi kissing him, Usagi with her ass in his face, Usagi with her face at his crotch…. He’d been more and more pent-up every hour. And reminding himself of what she really looked like under that skin didn’t do anything to quell such thoughts—if anything it just got him more… excited.

Yes, he was sure he wanted this—as sure as he, or she, was of anything anymore.

“I’m a devout Regular, remember?” Usagi looked up at him reverently. “Your most devoted worshiper.” She licked her lips. “Let me show just how devoted I am, my goddess….”

She took him tenderly in her mouth, his whole length, and he saw stars as her faith flowed into him. Whatever doubts he had fled from his mind, along with most of his thoughts in general.

She reached up with one hand to hold his own, and guided it to her head. He took the hint, and grabbed her head with both hands, forcing her to continue her worship. She made a little appreciative noise into him at his touch, and pushed deeper until her nose was pressed against his skin. Gods above and below, he felt good—powerful, even, as Regula never had before. The Dread Lord himself, and she was putty in his hands.

It was heaven…. No, it was better than heaven. And he would know.

Hazel heard the little muffled moans from behind the door, and smiled to themself. Or, perhaps, herself? Hard to keep track of genders with all these layers.

She’d gotten suspicious when people had stopped praying for protection from the Dread Lord Gaius quite so frequently, about a month prior. She’d shapeshifted herself into little Hazel, gone down to Revelia, done some snooping, and had found what else but the products of her own device, flooding the town of Arbor? Now that had been a surprise, but a pleasant one—she’d forgotten just how fun these things were to wear.

Clearly, poor little Regula had fucked up big time… but why call her out on it, when the results were this much fun? The Dread Lord, her Dread Lord, masquerading as an incompetent elven archer! Well, maybe not masquerading about the incompetent part, it was tough to tell—in fact, it had nearly been impossible to tell it was him until part of his suit had been briefly blasted away. Those skinsuits were indeed lifelike enough to fool the gods, and unfortunately that meant her… or perhaps fortunately? It certainly made things spicy.

She heard another little moan from behind—one of her favorite sounds in creation—and rubbed her thighs together with pleasure.

Truth be told, after all the whining Gaius had done about playing the bad guy, she was inclined to let him have this one as long as he kept being interesting. If anything, she felt a little bad for putting him up to it in the first place… but what else could she have done? She’d been a minor goddess, about to lose half her temples, before she’d come up with the Dread Lord idea, and even if she was in the big leagues now, it wouldn’t take too many slip-ups to kick her back down to the bottom of the pyramid. It was a god-eat-god world up there, and not in the fun way.

And then there was Regula’s boytoy. What was his name again, Oggril? One of these days she was going to have to learn how to spell that… however it was spelled, though, he was a go-getter, and so much fun to screw with. She couldn’t blame Gaius for getting him under his spell, just so long as he would be willing to share. It would be nice to let someone else take the lead for once—not that she wasn’t going to be a brat about it.

In any case—it was a new day, in a new place, and Iris was ready for the adventure of a lifetime.

She smiled widely as a few new adventurers walked into the guild. “Welcome to the town of Arbor, home of fresh starts!” she said. “How can I help you?”