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The Gamer Chapter 1271 – Gala Date 2 – A Gala for no noteworthy cause
🕑 Added 2022-08-22 19:14:45 +0000 UTC“You are respectably skilled at the piano,” Nightingale said, as the stretch limo slowly rolled through the streets of Berlin. The streets of mundane Berlin, in this case, with the caveat of a secondary layer of Illusion Barriers making sure they did not have to deal with any kind of traffic. The drawback was that they could only use the main roads. Fateweavers could not be bothered to maintain all of the side streets.
“That is formulated in an interesting fashion,” Lydia observed. “Commonly, people will praise talent.”
“Would you wish for me to praise your talent?” Nightingale asked.
Lydia did not have to think about that question long. “No.”
“It’s always more flattering to be respected for what one has gained through hard work, then through birth,” John chimed in.
“Where talent and dedication intersect, true skill is born,” Nightingale posited.
“I agree wholeheartedly.” Lydia nodded and reached over to the minibar. The limo’s capacity could fit most of John’s harem; them being just three made it look pretty empty. The table that filled the space between the U-shaped bench was similarly devoid of anything. Lydia changed that with two glasses. After a questioning gaze towards her man to her left, she added a third. “Champagne?”
“I’d prefer wine. My reliance on straws makes flat drinks more attractive.”
‘Going to have to add that to the mental archives,’ John thought, while Lydia opened a bottle of red wine and poured each of them a glass. The thick, sweet scent informed John what kind of taste he was in for. In terms of red wines, he did much prefer the sugary variety. While Lydia put the bottle away, he pushed Nightingale’s glass over the table towards her.
Wings weren’t hands, but the harpy had learned well enough how to move a glass over a smooth surface. Soon, it was within range of her lips, straw and all. They toasted, without contact, and took a sip. “What inspired you to learn the piano?” Nightingale asked.
“It is a family tradition of the house Hohenzollern.” Lydia put her glass down with an audible ‘clack’. “To be most precise, my grandfather, the late Frederick the Great, was of the opinion that proper control was best learned through a sensitive medium and saw instruments as the best tool for such exercise. All children with Innate Abilities born into my family and its cadet branches, for the past 250 years, were assigned an instrument that they had to learn with their powers alone. Where one could not be found, it was made.”
“I can’t imagine that is a successful strategy for all six elements and their specializations,” Nightingale thought out loud.
“The Hohenzollern family typically produces those of Innate Ability in the earth realm, mostly metal related.”
“Abyssal bloodlines are such a mystery,” John hummed. “Innate Ability is not necessarily inherited and when it is, it’s not necessarily of the parent’s variety, but it can be.” He paused for a moment. “What do you two think of the hypothesis that Innate Abilities can both be inherited and created spontaneously in a kid. That would explain both the discrepancy and the variety of inherited traits.”
“It is the most promising hypothesis, majorly due to the simplicity of its statement,” Lydia said.
Nightingale nodded. “Agreed.”
“Has any data been gathered on which families have more Innate Abilities show up and if it has anything to do with the power of the parents?” John asked. “Might be that the magical essence of the parents is strong enough to nourish that of the child outside of Gaia’s entire Faith distribution system.”
“Faith distribution system?” Nightingale tilted her quizzically. “Another secret you learned, my suitor?”
“…Oh yeah… ask me about that again some other time. There’s a lot of information attached to that,” John responded. He hadn’t talked to her about Remus and the backstory of their current world yet. Partly because that was intel Romulus entrusted to him in private. John, himself, did not see what the big deal about it was – except maybe that it revealed that Gaia had potentially been a mortal at one point. That could give stupid people the idea that she was, in some form, vulnerable.
Some stupid people were also highly intelligent and competent. The last thing John wanted was for one hyper-genius moron to get the bright idea to repeat the Tower of Babel fiasco. There was no excuse to give Gaia a reason to nuke a whole continent.
“I shall,” Nightingale hummed, visibly intrigued by what he was hiding. Rather than press him, she changed the topic though. “It is a late question: what is this gala’s purpose?”
“It would please me if I could answer that with some glorious or at least interesting fact.” Lydia took another sip of wine and stared out of the window. They were currently in a worse part of the city, filled with dilapidated buildings that had been empty since the Berlin wall fell. “However, the gala is of a shamefully wasteful nature. The pretense is that it is a fundraiser for the historical landmarks of Abyssal Cologne – the third richest city of Rex Germaniae after Berlin and Hamburg. Fundamentally, the money is embezzled by nobles that already have too much of it. It is a gathering of the rich, the vapid, and the entrenched.”
“We are lending our names to such an unjust event?” Nightingale asked in a sharp tone.
“I’m attending for two exceptionally valid reasons, I assure you,” Lydia stated and turned her head to John. Lovingly, she scratched him under the chin and smiled in that tiny way that she reserved almost exclusively for time she spent with him. “Can you guess, my love?” she cooed.
“As rulers, you and I need to attend even events we don’t like periodically, to keep an ear to the ground and maintain relationships with people on the opposite side,” John first presented the obvious reason. The second, he could crack fairly easily. “You said this was an event of the entrenched – so your traditionalist opposition. I suppose we are lending some credence to the event by going there, but by showing up with your foreign lover and a second woman, you’re also insulting them.”
“It is incredible how entitled people get when their position is certain for more than a generation,” Lydia all but outright confirmed his second assumption. “When I humiliated key figures on their side during the celebration of Carthage’s defeat, I assumed they’d keep their heads low for some time. Recently, they have been growing bold again and so have been my headaches.”
“Can’t allow my favourite queen to have headaches,” John hummed, wondering just how much he could push people that were annoying Lydia. “What’s the duelling culture on German courts again?”
“In modernity, it is dead, save for festivals located in colosseums. However, traditionally,” Lydia stretched that word, “nobles are allowed to issue a demand for duel towards anyone at their court that they feel offended by.”
“That so… Say, Lydia, totally random question, who is our host?”
“One Viscount Bertrand von Großhofstadt-vor-Sigmaringen, he’s the grandchild of a servant elevated to minor dukedom. His family has since distinguished itself for all the parties they organize on their minor properties. He’s quite the drunkard, especially as the night progresses, insists to always be the last one awake at his gatherings, and believes his family deserves to be elevated into the rank of Counts.”
“And you disagree?”
“Vehemently. He’s a parasite receiving royal taxes to pay upkeep on a private mansion.”
“Of course, the queen of the country could never state that so brazenly at a gala she’s attending,” John thought out loud, while sipping on his wine. “That would just further the outrage in the support for the traditionalists. A foreign, republican, uncultured Gamer, however, well, they all hate that guy anyway, right?”
Nightingale chuckled, behind a raised wing. “Is it not unfortunate that you attend this of all galas, my suitor?”
“It really is… but real talk for a moment, would you not think it’s in bad taste if I get the host tangled up in a controversy as a part of Lydia’s little scheme?”
“My preferred path to justice it is certainly not,” Nightingale responded, lowering her wing far enough that her serious expression could be seen. “However, those that put themselves outside the reach of the common law will suffer the primitive law, inevitably. It is better than to let them persist in their ways.”
“Guess I got a side quest for tonight then,” John hummed.
“…or an actual Quest. Man, been a while since I saw one of these in the wild,” John said, as he read through. “Humiliating him will be pretty easy, I guess. He wouldn’t happen to be someone around our strength, would he?”
“He’s far stronger than his station would imply, hence the drive towards promotion in the aristocratic hierarchy. That being stated, compared to us he is a pigeon to an eagle.” Lydia leaned in and kissed him on the neck. It left a little, wet mark on his skin. “Even if your current state demotes you.”
“I’ll let Observe tell me how feasible the combat is, then,” John hummed and tapped on accepting. Most likely, the bigger challenge would be to get him to agree to the duel than to win it. Even if his mana regeneration was terrible at the moment, he did have a full mana pool, which effectively served as a second health bar. Most people under his weight class he could pummel even in a raw physical contest.
“As an unofficial reward, you can add to your Quest the reward I promised you,” Lydia purred.
Said reward had been for the great sacrifice of putting his dick up her rear a few days back. What the reward was supposed to be was nebulous, but considering the context and her tone, John made his logical assumptions. Interested, he looked over to Nightingale, “I know you wanted to prove that you were the lady of the night, not a lady of the night, but would you…”
“I will consider partaking in this reward,” Nightingale said.
The conversation turned to less lewd and then perfectly mundane topics, as the car continued rolling down the roads. Eventually, they made it out of the city and into the fields that surrounded it. The mansion they were aiming for was located just outside the bounds of Berlin. The mundane city had been sprawling massively these past hundred years and the Illusion Barrier was from a time before population growth had hit its modern boost. That it even was outside the city was a miracle, in its own way.
They travelled on normal roads for a bit. The world outside flickered in the colours of the rainbow, as if they were driving through a stretching soap bubble. It remained a fascinating phenomenon to John, even viewed through the dark-tinted windows.
What had been a regular street a moment ago turned into one made from carefully selected stones. The limo slowed down, as carefully spaced-out trees created long shadows. The sun was on its way towards the horizon. John watched that for a moment, then returned his attention to Lydia.
He brushed a stray strand of her orderly confined hair behind her ear. Nothing wild had been and could be done at the moment, her carefully coordinated look would give away any past indecency if it was compromised in any way. A kiss, however, before the conversations of the gala were to swallow them, he could certainly allow himself.
Happily, she leaned up into it, meeting him halfway. Soft as ever, her ruby red lips met his, in all their warmth. The sweetness of the wine was physically more intense than that of her saliva, but John knew what he preferred. He held her, carefully caressed her thighs. His eagerness had to be reigned in, lest he ruffle that skirt and create undue wrinkles.
The limo came to a halt and their lips separated. “Present your best manners now, my foreign, republican, uncultured Gamer,” she whispered, warningly tapping his collarbone.
“I’ll try,” John responded with a grin, just as the driver opened the door.
“My Queen, we have arrived,” he said, more out of habit than anything else.
“Thank you. You may take the next three hours to do as you please,” the royal dismissed her driver, while letting John get out first.
As was his duty, John helped Lydia out of the car first and Nightingale right thereafter. Once more, he was thankful for the lack of hands on her part. It gave him an excuse to lift her by the waist and to keep his arm there after she stood. Lydia disregarded a need for an excuse and attached herself to his right side in the exact same manner. They had appeared like this numerous times in public, so any attempt to make it a renewed scandal would fall on deaf ears or only bother those already convinced of Lydia’s unfitness.
John noticed a second vehicle pulling into one of the many parking spots. It had nothing of the grace or overdesigned splendour of the other cars around. It was a van, clearly reinforced, and simple black. About as clear as a sign that the Knights of Teuton were still around as the invisible warriors could make without taking their armour off. Metra was the only one to visibly exit.
The estate itself was exactly what the Gamer would have expected from an aristocratic party mansion. A main house at the back, three stories tall, loomed over the curated forest that surrounded it. For a noble’s house, it was exceedingly brightly coloured, with red plaster covering most of the yellow brick walls, and a large quantity of decorations adorning the roof. One of them was a statue that steadily poured out water, all the way to a place on the ground.
Where exactly it landed, John could not see. Between him and the house was a three-metre-tall wall of the same architecture. A solid, wooden gate served as the only entrance, separating the people outside from the laughing and soft violin music inside. Even in their own pocket dimension, they created an extra layer between them and the rest of the world.
They walked towards the front entrance, where two guards in full plate armour were stationed. Reacting to the approach, they marched, in unison, towards the front of the gate and then pulled the two halves open. Without comment, the trio was allowed to pass.
Inside the walls was a heavenly garden. An artificial, small river idyllically meandered between hills that were each large enough for a small group of people. Trimmed hedges, trees, and large vases filled with flowers created corners and getaways here and there. A central cobblestone path cut the landscape in half, only a small bridge interrupting it on its path to the house. Extending from the front of the house was a veranda. It was two steps elevated from the landscape, roofed by glass panes confined in silvery frames. Underneath was the bulk of the attendees, standing in close groups by tables lined with snacks and fine drinks.
‘Into the fray,’ John thought, as all attention shifted towards their approach.
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