Capture Target

So!  Story time - eh?  Oh!  Right.

[Sexual Signifiers] is actually one of the less corruptive blessings you can get.  …So long as you don’t go wandering in public while dripping wet, that is.

The key is that the effect can be reduced, or magnified, based on personal preference and willpower.  When combined with [Mental Fortitude], which ensured I could always say ‘no’ to sex if I wanted to, I could simply shut it off at will.

…If I wanted to.

It’s less corruptive, not non-corruptive.

The problem is that if I want it, then I’m probably already feeling a bit randy.  And it’s easy to turn ‘on’.  It was a method to quickly get relief if I ever needed it and somebody hot was nearby, without getting into any trouble.

And when combined with [Manic Vanity], which ensured that I would always look perfect, I wouldn’t even be messed up afterwards.

Theoretically, [Sexual Signifiers] was easy to control, and wouldn’t make things any worse for me.

Practically… it was the first sign of me shifting from a ‘slippery slope’ to a borderline freefall of pleasure~

---

Picking up where I last left off… I spent the first day of the party in my own personal heaven.

It’s hard to properly explain.  My body had been getting increasingly sexual, increasingly depraved, and I was getting better at controlling myself.  Outside of a few slips here and there, like during my more extreme moments with the parasites, I was getting more and more used to being a slut in the world of MISSY.

My body had needs, and I needed to sate them, but I could control how and when I did so.  I was getting better at being careful, and had managed to avoid starting any mid-street orgies… which, according to Takeo, was actually rather rare for me!

I had those that could fuck me if I needed it, and I had toys and fingers if I was alone.

I was managing.

I was ensuring that my body wasn’t left hungry for pleasure.

But I wasn’t letting myself get full.

It was like a constant, growing, nagging voice in the back of my mind.  A pressure that urged me to get more.  To fuck more, feel more, submit more.  Every day I would sate it just enough so that I could ignore it, and little more… because like a stomach, if I had my full, I would only be hungrier the next day.

I 'fed' enough to survive. 

But this party… this party let me gorge myself.

The moment I got [Sexual Signifiers], I turned it on full blast.  Those around me stiffened, momentarily, when my aura hit them with such a degree of uniformity that you could almost see my desires as an expanding blastwave rippling through the air.

They didn’t all come charging towards me, of course, but things changed after that.

After I was done with one person, or one group, I’d have just enough time to settle myself.  To stand up, straighten my uniform, and to take a few steps towards -- uh -- wherever.  Bluntly it didn’t matter where I was going, because I wouldn’t get there.  I would inevitably get interrupted by another guest, or group of guests, as they grabbed me and tugged me towards them.

At times, it almost felt like I was dancing.  Like I was swaying on the floor with the guests, going from partner to partner, following an obscure set of rules as I did so.  At other times, it was like I wasn’t even there -- I didn’t have a say in what was happening, not that I wanted one.  I was in the backseat, letting others drive me, and bring me and them to heights of ecstasy.

But most of the time it just felt like bliss.

I didn’t have to worry.  I didn’t have to think.  The libido-boosting potion ensured that I would always want more, and the stamina-boosting potion ensured I would never get tired.  I could just enjoy the sex.

My legs felt weak, and I was giggling with a giddy feeling in my throat whenever I was between guests.  I could barely focus on anything but who my next partner was, and even that was too much at times.

It was only [Mental Fortitude] and [Bodies Fortitude] that kept me from breaking that day.  And even with them, I was changed forever by the experience.

I realized something that day.  It was a slow, growing understanding, one that had been developing for the past two years, but by the time I was told to go and rest it had crystalized in my heart, in my soul.  It was a fact that I could never again deny.

I loved sex.

I loved being fucked.

I loved being a girl.

Oh, sure, it was obvious those were true already, but this was something different.  To me, it was like a religious awakening… and I know that sounds weird, but it’s true.

The idea of having a life that just -- just didn’t have sex?  Where men and herms with cocks and perverted tentacles would ram into my sexy holes until I passed out from pleasure?

The thought of not having that became -- is -- almost chilling.  It’s like not being able to enjoy food, or never hearing music again.

There are people who can live with it, and those that, due to one reason or another, have and will never experience it.  And I’m glad that they can find their way in the worlds.

But for me?

I couldn’t live without it.

I would break down crying if I felt I could never get pleasure again.

I’m aware this isn’t a ‘higher human’ thought.  Were I not so altered by everything I’ve gone through, that thought would be more than worrying.  I do know that, I’m not blind to it.  But in the end, so what?

I can withhold myself as long as I need to, if I need to.  It would be hellish and I’d be miserable company, but I could do it.

I don’t let it make me ruin my life, or the lives of others.  I ensure consent is king and that mutual understanding is required.

But I still need it!

It’s my passion!

Sex is an animal's desire.  It doesn’t serve some ‘higher purpose’; it’s not the same as making art or writing a novel.  To claim that it is one's purpose is, in a very real way, to willingly state that the pleasure of an animal is more important to you than the understanding and growth of a human.

I know that.  

I know, I do not care.

From that day on, my life would always revolve around sex and pleasure.  I would plan my life out with ‘ease and regularity of sex’ being one of the most important factors.

Others might decide to focus on spending time with their family, or ensuring they always have room and time for their favorite sport.

And that’s certainly valid.

I would simply always ensure that sex was never out of reach.

And for all that I may hate Master -- or, uh, Raphael Masters -- I will always be grateful that his actions led to that realization.

Sex is so fun!

---

I had the best sleep I’d had in a while that night.  I was pleasantly exhausted on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels; like a full-body workout, just expanded to everything that a person ‘is’.  I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and ready for more!

…And, ironically, my new realization actually helped me focus throughout the day.

There’s a difference between ‘caving to something you enjoy’ and ‘willingly indulging’.  You can make more rational decisions with the latter.  If you go ‘is it worth it’ instead of ‘I want it but I shouldn’t’, you can keep your thoughts cleaner and more organized.  You can ensure that if you do what you want, it’s done after actually thinking about it, instead of having your emotions decide for you.

…Or maybe that’s only for me… it was weird either way, as I realized that I could actually pay attention even while being fucked by two or three people at once.

And I very quickly realized something was weird about this party.

The comments from yesterday, combined with how people were acting today… it was starting to worry me.  To the point where I actually toned down [Sexual Signifiers] so I could investigate.

I had noticed that some of the guests were missing, and I had no idea where they'd gone.  I was hoping they had just left the party early, but a quick check with my fellow maids showed that nobody had left the manor.

Well, okay, that’s not entirely true.  A few people did.  A merchant that got an emergency letter, one of the more important nobles that was only there for the beginning… things like that.  But I had noticed that ten or twenty people were just gone, and that was far more than could be explained by the occasional exception.

I investigated more thoroughly.  It was a bit hard to pull myself away from the main rooms, but when I mentioned I wanted to make sure the bedrooms were all clean I got some understanding and amused smirks thrown my way as they let me pass.

The party was going to last days; every guest, or group of guests, was given a temporary bedroom in the manor.  A lot of them were usually used by the maids, but they willingly shifted to a more communal situation at masters’ request.  I was actually one of the few that kept their own bedroom in case a guest wanted privacy with me… but I digress.

I spotted a few of the guests I noticed missing in their bedrooms.  Some were passed out, occasionally they were fucking another maid, and a few were having private conversations… but there were still guests that were unaccounted for.

I was getting increasingly concerned.  

So I eavesdropped on one of those private conversations.

It’s amazing how often people ignore the help.

As I was cleaning their room -- I still had to do my job, after all, even while investigating -- the two of them were discussing something about ‘nonbelievers’ in a quiet tone.  I couldn’t hear them that clearly, but I got some pieces.  Something about ‘show them the truth’ and ‘she won’t appreciate their betrayal’, but it was only after one of them told me to suck them off that I could hear the details.

I still couldn’t hear every sentence… but I heard a few, and could put together the rest.

“It’s a relief to finally stop dancing around the topic.”

“Are we sure they won’t betray us after the application?”

“Such a shame we couldn’t get any of the back nobility on our side.”

“The Goddess of Order treats me quite well, thank you.”

Things clicked.

The party was a final recruitment drive for some kind of -- I wasn’t sure at the time, but ‘conspiracy’ felt like the best word to use.

‘Cult’ also worked.

Because there was no Goddess of Order.

Throughout every game of Alchemical Corruption, ‘order’ is never mentioned as a goddess’s domain.

Humiliation, submission, alchemy, monsters, hermaphrodites, power-play, parasites, sensation, rape, conquest, beauty, free use, breeding, mind control, family, romance, restraint, addiction, hedonism, hyper, cattle, exhibitionism, voyeurism, bondage, dominance, seduction, technology.

Those are the twenty seven domains of the twenty seven goddesses.

‘Order’ is not anywhere on that list.

Which meant that there was something very, very strange going on.

---

How do I put it… Okay, look.  The chief god is pretty relaxed mostly, for a power-mad asshole.  He doesn’t get involved that often.  He prefers to let things work themselves out.

Or, if you’re being more honest, he’s a lazy bum that can’t be assed to do the work his position requires of him.

There is one exception.  

Blasphemy.  

Specifically, he wants the entire world to know that he is the chief god, and he has twenty seven goddesses in his holy harem.  He wants everybody to know who they are and what they do, to show off how great he is.

I also knew for a fact that there were exactly twenty-seven goddesses at that point in time.  While I wasn’t exactly ‘transported to a game world’, the lore of the Alchemical Corruption series had not been wrong for the entire two years I’d been there.  Not once; there wasn’t even a moment where it was ‘questionable’.  It was always accurate.

And Alchemical Corruption 11, which ran mostly concurrently to Alchemical Corruption 12, spent a lot of effort explaining the divine.  It was actually something of a shock to the fans of the series, as the goddesses had been mostly ‘off-screen’, with only occasionally having one or two of them front and center.  But that game went into detail on all twenty seven of them.  Their domains and how they had shifted over the years.  The order they ascended.  Even some of the relationships between them were explored!

There were gaps, there were always gaps in the lore of those games, but the game was explicit about the number.

“There may be more that can be called divine, but of the goddesses, there are exactly twenty-seven during this age.  The god of goddesses would brook no disagreements on that matter, and man had learned to not question him.”

So while the pantheon of the divine might be more complicated -- which, uh, includes the Evil God of Chastity and Purity -- but if you use the word Goddess, there are twenty seven.  Their domains are precise and defined.

There is no ‘Goddess of Order’.

And the chief god may be a lazy bum, but on this matter he’d throw down lightning and floods once he realized what people were talking about.  And he would realize, sooner rather than later.  The noble in charge of this party was part of the front of the noble family!  The maids were all sexy sluts!  If he didn’t get off on me gaining a blessing that let me be treated as a sex toy, I’d be shocked.

He has thin skin about insults to his power, so even hearing the words ‘Goddess of Order’ would have gotten up in arms.

…Yeah, this is a bit of an extrapolation.  I hadn’t met him myself by that time; I only had his descriptions from the games, and his occasional action in them.

But I was confident enough in my understanding that this alarmed me.

All of this went through my head -- almost immediately, actually.  It’s the kind of thing where I already knew all of the pieces; this was just the inciting trigger for realization.

What took me a bit longer to realize was how this was a very bad sign.

The realization alone that things were this bad had stunned me -- the false goddess, and how they were apparently kidnapping and brainwashing people that knew too much and might betray them.  Those two things alone would have been enough to get Raphael Masters in serious trouble if they came out.  

Rule one of Alchemical Corruption:  Do not poke the chief god.

He has, repeatedly, caused massive problems for those that annoy him.  Every culture I knew of on MISSY had a very strong taboo against rubbing the chief god in the wrong way.

But no, that wasn’t the worst of it.

It was pretty fucking bad, don’t get me wrong, but there was one thing that was worse.

If I assumed that the chief god should have noticed and acted on this blasphemy by now… which was, I felt, a fair assumption… then why hadn't he? 

There were two possibilities.  Both of which were bad.

Firstly, this cult could have found a way to replicate what Atlantis did, in hiding themselves from the gods.  By interacting directly with the shard of divinity that keeps this reality running, one can use it to disguise themselves from divine sight.

That would be really bad, because when people think they can get one over on the gods, they tend to get really stupid.

Don’t misunderstand, I’m all for undermining chief asshole.  

But if you’re going to do it, don’t be stupid about it; that would only result in tragedy for all involved when it comes out.  

Like, say, when he learns you made an entire cult over an imaginary goddess after somebody pushes the envelope just a bit too far.  That’s the kind of stuff that results in empires collapsing due to sex-zombies or something.

But at least that would be simple to deal with.  Get rid of the cult, problem gone, all done.

The second possibility, however, was even worse.

It was possible he wasn’t acting because the ‘Goddess of Order’ was one of the twenty-seven goddesses, and they were running this cult with his approval.

This wasn’t bad because they had his approval, mind.  He’d approve something like this for regular titjobs, so long as it was temporary.

This was bad because it meant that a goddess felt the need to disguise herself.  And the only person they would need to disguise themselves from would be their fellow goddesses.

Which meant that this cult was preparation for a war between the gods. 

And that made things much more complicated.

-- Eh?  Oh.  Right.

Turned out it was the latter.

Because fuck simplicity, right?