Scales like Stars Pt. 03

Lisa was the one who got her voice to work first. "I-Is that...descriptive or suggestive?" she asked, pointing at the knuckles.

"Who won?" the monster asked.

"Who...won?" Carlos asked.

"We did," Lisa said. "We kicked Hitler's ass so hard he shot himself in the head."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Carlos whispered.

But then...

The monster laughed, clapping one scarred hand on Lisa's shoulder. "Good! Fucking great, even!" He looked at Carlos and Trevor, then back at Lisa. "What about the Russians?"

"It's complicated," Lisa said, then grinned. "So, what's your name?"

"I am so confused," Carlos said.

The monster shook his head. "Not exactly the fastest draw in the west, is he?" he stepped past Lisa, crossing his heavily muscled, heavily armed arms over his muscled, armored chest. "The name is Bertram Gummer. The Princess calls me Gunner. I am her Master at Arms. But I was, first, a member of the 11^th Fighter Group, United States Army Airforce. Ace twice over before I got yanked into this nonsense."

Trevor and Carlos gaped.

Lisa frowned. "Can you show us the escape pods?"

"No," Gunner said, his voice flat.

"We're kidnapped, just like you!" Lisa said. "We can take you with us - we-"

"No," Gunner said, again. He shook his head as he turned, gesturing with one hand. "Come on. I want to show you something."

Lisa looked at Carlos. Carlos looked at Lisa. Lisa looked at Trevor. Trevor raised his eyebrows. Carlos grinned. "Come on!" he said, then started after Gunner - following the immense man and his thumping progress down the hall. Lisa frowned, but turned her phone's recording back on. Her voice was soft as she whispered her latest findings into the phone. They walked through the corridors of the ship - which seemed to just go on forever. They walked past doors that led into chambers filled with weaponry, with supplies, with machines that did something Carlos couldn't guess at. They walked past rooms where servants of dozens of races worked and chatted with one another.

At last, they came to a door that opened into a huge park area. Carlos' eyes widened as he walked out onto the balcony that was set before the door. A pair of stairs wound down to either side of the balcony, but he didn't need to walk down to marvel at the park. It was easily a mile, two miles wide, covered with greenery and trees. Houses were positioned here and there, and he could see families - groups of various races, some of them children. Some kids ran by underneath him, laughing as they played tag, or threw clods of dirt at one another, in classic children style.

Gunner stepped up beside him. Lisa joined him, as did Trevor.

"What is this?" Lisa asked.

"This is why I am still here," Gunner said, quietly. "This was the pleasure harem of the former owner of the Talon-9, Princess Relix's uncle. When he was assassinated and she took over, she took a glance at this, scoffed, said it was a terrible waste of space, tacky, overdone nonsense. So, she had the harem ripped out. But she didn't sell off the pleasure servants. She kept them on. She had her seneschal find them wives and husbands. She took me in, out of the fighting pits I had been trapped in for...years." He shook his head. "Every one of my men at arms, she rescued. Hell, she rescued Thuwit."

"So, what?" Lisa asked, her voice not holding an inch of give. "She's a good person because she throws you scraps?"

"She's the best she can be in the context of the world she's in," Gunner said. "And while I've served her, I've saved this ship five times, and her life ten." He looked at Lisa. "And because I did that, I've saved every life here. Lets say the Red Bas, er, sorry, the Red Baron gets in charge here." He snapped his fingers - making a sound like a gunshot. "The attractive women go into a harem. The men are sold at the nearest spice mine. This ship becomes a gilded slave factory again."

Lisa frowned.

"During the war, we fought with the Soviets. And they were bad. The Nazis were worse." Gunner shook his head. "And you know what? I don't feel a jot of guilt working with the Princess."

Carlos watched a child run by.

"Holy shit," he whispered. "I have never been happier knowing that Merton knows Hackmaster."

***

Bex was in a smallish humanoid form as he read the physical printouts he had ordered of the five "PeeDeeEff" files that the techthralls had yanked out of the primitive computing device that Relix's consort had given him. He was slowly reading through The Zealot's Guide to Wurld Conversion. He frowned as his eyes settled on the rules block for the Zealot character class. Specifically the Zealot of Shona, the Goddess of Games and Ritual Combat. His eyes narrowed as he read the following.

They may purchase any of the following skills at half the initial BP cost: crane, cricket-in-the-peapod, eye of the tiger advantage, kidney bruiser, mortal combat and any Martial Arts combat procedure listed in the Combatant's Guide.

Bex pursed his muzzle. Smoke roiled from his nose.

He picked up the Combatant's Guide to Slaughtering Foes.

He flipped to the Martial Arts section.

He began to read.

And slowly...

Bex began to laugh.

***

The four armed purple skinned chick looked down at the biomorphic engine control panel. She had carefully programmed in two routines. It had been quite tricky - but fortunately, she had the first program set to run after a five minute break. The second program should not run, not unless someone pushed a large 'engage' button underneath the snarl of spell-glyphs and code runes. Slowly, the four-armed purple skinned chick pointed at that button and said, clearly and loudly: "It would be highly unfortunate if anyone were to push this button. I now will go to perform routine maintenance."

She turned and walked out of the room.

Merton, who was currently strapped into the biomorphic engine, looked at the large number of crystal tipped spikes mounted on articulated, gimbaled arms. Each one was starting to glow with a throbbing blue-white light. He winced, then said: "Uh, Julia, you failed to mention the fuckspikes!"

"Pfff!" Julia said, stepping out of her hiding space. "I'd endure far more than fuckspikes for magic! Heck, I endured the fuckspikes for a super cute, totally legal cooter!" She giggled, then twirled herself around on her toes. Her T-shirt fanned out wide, exposing her flat belly, before settling as she stepped up to the control console. "Ready?"

"No," Merton whimpered, looking at the spikes that were slowly starting to aim at his eyes.

"Don't worry!" Julia said. "It doesn't actually hurt."

"Oh, real-"

And that was when it started to hurt. A lot. The pain bloomed inside of Merton's head, fanned outwards and downwards. It tingled through his feet, buzzed along his cock, burst along his spine, and punched him into his very soul. Fortunately, it lasted less than a second. Then the pain subsided into a haze of half-sensations. He floated on a massive sea of space. His eyes went unfocused and he could see the ship around him slowly dissolving away into nothingness. He was adrift on tides of time, his body stripped naked before the cosmos. He looked outwards, though, not down, not at himself. He didn't care about himself.

The galaxy was a great, majestic dance of suns. They flared red and gold and black and purple and white, glittering and pulsating to the beat of a cosmic heart. He could see thin stands of connectivity reaching outwards between stars, like gossamer fibers being sewn by some great cosmic tailor. His brow furrowed as he looked at the lines...and saw that they glowed with an eldrich light. A quiet breath sucked into his lungs as he spread his arms wide.

"Ley-lines..."

Then the galaxy faded and his eyes opened as Julia's face filled his face.

"Merton?" she asked.

"Hey," he said, slowly, then blinked. "Are your lips blue?"

Her lips were, in fact, not blue. They shimmered and rippled between blue, purple, white. Lines of light crackled from her tongue as she spoke: "Uh, no, but that sounds sexy as balls." She grinned. "And I don't even like balls that much." She laughed nervously. Her voice caused the shining colors of her lips to crackle faster. Merton blinked and the colors faded, replaced with a more normal set of hues. She leaned forward, her eyes filling his.

"You okay?" she asked.

"I don't know..." Merton blinked, then gently grabbed onto the edges of the biomorphic engine. He stepped out, staggered, caught himself. His arm shook and quivered and he looked down at his body. His muscles had been toned and tightened, while his skin had been freed up of blemishes. There was a noticeable lack of arm and leg hair. And pubic hair. He looked down at his shaft, gaping slowly as he looked at the thickness of his member, resting on balls that looked as if they had swelled up a few notches on the 'ball-o-meter.' He shook his head slowly, his palms going down to squeeze his scrotum.

His cock twitched, growing harder and he saw that it actually got quite a bit larger as he felt a jolt of pure arousal rocket through him. Julia licked her lips slowly.

"O-Okay, I'm not normally a size queen but, uh, yum?" she whispered, slowly kneeling down on the floor. Her palms closed around his cock as she looked at his cocktip, her teeth biting down on her lower lip as she furrowed her brow in concentration. A thick drollop of pre cum rolled along her knuckles as she started to pump her hands up and down his cock. Merton's eyes half closed and his knuckles went white as he gripped the tabletop. He had to lock his knees to try and stop himself from collapsing on the ground.

Then Julia closed her mouth around the head of his cock. Her tongue swirled tentatively around his member as she closed her lips tight around his glans, fastening herself and sucking eagerly. Merton had never gotten a blowjob in his life. He just had to go on descriptions he had read online. Those descriptions hadn't been anywhere close to what the feeling was. It was...chaotic. It was spikes of sensation that were as shocking as lightning crashes - sensations that came without warning. When he touched himself, he knew what his hand did, what his thumb would caress.

Everything Julia did was a revelation, even as she pushed her mouth forward an inch or two, choked softly, then drew back. She coughed, gasping as she turned her head to the side. "W-Wow, how do girls do that?"

"Practice?" Merton asked.

"No, I'm pretty sure it's magic," Julia said, grinning at him. "Also, I hasten to add...I expect some cooter nomming."

Merton grinned. "Oh horrors." He licked his lips, then looked around the room. He spied a recovery couch. His hands grabbed onto Julia's shoulders and he tugged her to her feet. The two of them hurried - giggling like high schoolers - and collapsed onto the cot. It was far too advanced to squeak under their weight. Their hands caressed one another, and Merton did what he had been waiting to do for years. He slipped his hands underneath Julia's shirt and found the smallish, perky mounds of her breasts and squeezed. They were silky soft, capped with tiny nubs of hard, sensitive nipple, which he coaxed gently, bringing out a sweet giggle-moan combo that escaped between their locked lips. Then Merton found himself pushed back. He thumped down and watched as Julia swung one limber leg over his hips. She sat down and trapped his newly embiggened dick against his tummy.

This brought out a series of giggles.

Julia, who had been in the midst of looking sultry and seductive while tugging her shirt over her head, paused. "What?" she asked.

"It's a perfectly cromulent word," Merton said, chuckling.

Julia tugged her shirt the rest of the way off, then used it to gently slap him on the chest. Merton grabbed her shirt and tossed it away - and sighed the exalted sigh of someone slipping into a warm, soaky bath. Seeing a beaming, nervous, exited, red faced, hard nipped, bare chested, blue haired, real Julia was a like balm to a weary, nervous soul. Merton licked his lips - and sighed again with just as much contentment as Julia slipped herself forward, shifted her knees, swung around...and sat down on his face. Her sex was shadowed by the curve of her hips and her butt. His eyes closed and he kissed blindly, finding the smoothness of her sex.

"By the way," Julia whispered, her voice throaty and full of erotic promise. "I asked to taste like strawberries."

She settled herself down and Merton's tongue started to delve into her sex. His hands grabbed her hips as her flavor - indeed, strawberries - burst on the tip of his tongue. Then she leaned forward and her palms caressed his balls with slow, wondering strokes. She kissed the side of his cock, nuzzled his member, then breathed in, then slipped her mouth along as much of his cock as she could. And it was a gratifyingly small amount of dick that she got into her mouth before she had to stop and draw back. Feeling the movement of her tongue and her lips and the soft, happy moans that she kept making...

Well.

Merton was an enlightened, 21^st century, mostly liberal native of California.

...he still totally felt like a real man right now.

His hands slid to her ass and he focused - or tried to focus - on his true love's cooter. His tongue coiled up, trying to find a place inside her that brought the most quiet, happy gasps. Now, Merton wasn't sure if being a mage made him supernaturally good at tonguing out a girl, or if Julia had just set her sensitivity to the max (which, to be fair, seemed eminently wise.) But either way, she was soon moaning her pleasure through his cock like there was no tomorrow. The buzzing vibrations thrummed through his body and Merton had to draw his mouth back, quietly gasping.

"J-Jesus, Julia!"

"No, Julia Jesus," she said, gasping as she jerked her mouth back - her hand continued to pump his cock with quick, eager motions. "Well, technically, Julia of Nazareth."

Merton choked out a laugh, then squeaked as Julia pressed her hips down and sat herself on his face again. Since she still tasted divine - and her sex was dripping liberally now - Merton was far from upset by this. His hands slapped onto her ass, squeezing her as his tongue slurped from clit to to cunt, thrusting in deep as he could manage. His tongue actually started to ache as he pushed himself harder and harder, his tongue swirling inside of her. It worked. Julia moaned against his cock and he felt her juices spurt against his mouth. He opened his mouth and drank her warmth as he let himself go.

His balls clenched and a jolt of pure, fiery pleasure exploded from him. Julia managed to keep a hold on his member and drink as the first spurt filled her mouth. Then his surging, twitching cock escaped from her lips and he heard her giggle and squeak as cum painted her face, splashed against her chin. She moaned and shifted, arching her back, so that the next spurt coated her breasts. He could feel the faint patter of his own seed dripping down onto his belly and balls and cock as Julia giggled and whispered: "Hee! So much cum!"

Merton slowly sagged his head back, panting heavily.

The door to the bio ward opened.

The four armed purple skinned chick pursed her lips as she looked down at the two of them.

"So," she said, her voice firm.

Merton struggled to sit up, while Julia grabbed onto a sheet to wipe at her face. By the time Merton was upright, Julia's face was mostly clean, save for a strand of cum on her chin. She licked it up shyly.

"Uh, we were just testing it!" Julia said, quickly.

"I can see that," the four armed purple skinned chick said. "And good. But your training in pleasuring a dragon has been put on hold. The Baron Thresh has sent a las signal. His character is completed and he is ready for his first adventure and he is waiting in the gaming room."

Merton looked at Julia. A cold feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. "I thought it'd take him a week," he whispered, then stood. Julia slipped on her shirt as well. Her expression was just as grim as his.

***

Bex sat across the table from Merton. Merton looked down at the five pages of character sheet he had been given. Bex's handwriting was precise and perfectly neat, despite being done by hand. Slowly, Merton pointed at the statline.

"How did you get this?" he asked. "Twenty five STR, twenty two DEX, twenty four CON, twelve INT, twenty five WIS, nine CHA, six COM?"

"Flaws," Bex said, his voice flat.

"Ask a silly question, get a silly answer..." Merton muttered. He flipped a bit more and found where the Baron had listed his character's flaws. Like D&D, Hackmaster relied on rolling three six sided dice to get your initial 'statistics.' Or, in other words, the rough physical and mental layout of your character. In Hackmaster, those stats were Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma and Comeliness. The average human had a nine to twelve. The Baron's character - a human zealot of Shona named Reikstand - had a twenty five in strength. That meant that he added an obscene amount of damage to his attacks, was highly accurate, and could even bend metal with his bare hands.

He was nearly untouchable in terms of his agility. His constitution was so great that he was exceptionally hard to kill and would regenerate wounds like a slightly slower wolverine.

And the worst thing was, he had followed the rules. In Hackmaster, you could improve your stats by taking randomly generated flaws. Reikstand was a one armed, one eyed, bald, flatulent, lisping burn victim with intense phobias of spiders, horses and monkeys, pyromaniac, sadism, superstitious belief in the power of the color green, an intense hatred of elves, dwarves, gnomes, paladins and bards. Oh, and he was missing his right pinkie finger, had no nose, and a bum knee. But then Merton saw the list of skills. His eyes widened.

Somehow, Bex had gotten Circle Kick, Flying Kick, Backwards Kick, Choke Hold, One Finger, Pain Touch, Levitation...a series of martial arts abilities that would allow him to, if he was reading these rules right, do obscene amounts of damage with his bare hands.

Which was...

Oh no.

Merton looked at the character's equipment. He had been about to call out Bex on making a rules error. In Hackmaster, you couldn't add more damage to your weapon than the max number on your weapon dice. So, if you had a longsword that did an eight sided die's worth of damage, you could only add a max of eight damage to the roll. But the one exception that that? Unarmed damage. So, he was doing 1d6+13 damage with his punches and kicks. And he did three per round, with an initiative mod that meant he'd always go first, and an Armor Class so good that it'd take a miracle to hit him.

Merton looked up at Bex.

"Is it a legal character?" Bex asked. "I have read the rules extensively."

Merton's throat worked in a gulp.

It was a legal character.

He couldn't simply disallow Bex - trying that would lead to disaster.

Merton set the sheet down, then slid it back to Bex.

Bex took the papers. His nose flared and smoke roiled into the air as the red dragon grinned at the human Dungeon Master.

"Well played, Baron," Merton said. "But it takes more than good stats to win at Hackmaster."

"I am aware," Bex said, his voice a low purr. "Shall we duel, oh god of this minute realm? I have to admit. I had never heard of humans. But if all your kind ever created was this astounding interplay of rules and imagination, of strategy and cunning, of mathematic elegance and pure artistry...then I think your race's time spent evolving from the mire was worth it."