Gloria snuggles into Sable on the loungiere and settles a controller in her lap. It's just menus right now, so she doesn't need to set up the pleaser, though she is nude.

Flicking through the menus, she comes to the fruitgirl origin and pauses, then grins. "Looks like they had someone into being eaten on whatever design team too. I really like the fruitgirls in this. What do you think, lemon? Maybe strawberry?"

"Oooh. Yes please. Strawberry, I think."

Sable snuggles in and starts setting up characters for her and her headmates, and pauses when selecting a species for herself. She pulls up the preview for demons, watches the animation, and then bumps her shoulder against Gloria's.

The prototypical demon girl is displayed sensuously sticking out her tongue, which is easily at least a foot long and black along the front half, with soft little spiky nubs along the surface, especially the edges. After swishing it back and forth for a moment, the demon girl flexes her tongue in a particular way, and the little nubs suddenly extend, becoming hard, sharp spines, each at least half an inch long.

"That looks like an argument for me to be a demon girl, don't you think?"

"That is super an argument for you to be a demon girl, wow." Gloria blushes deeply and smiles at Sable. "They didn't do any half measures on the aesthetics for this one." 

She selects a strawberry-girl with blonde hair like her own, and the preview animation comes up. It shows the strawberry-girl standing in front of a cutting board with a cleaver in one hand and her own arm on the cutting-board. She slices it, and it falls apart into circles of gleaming strawberry flesh, shot through with white veins. Pale pink strawberry juice stains the cutting board.

As Gloria watches, the strawberry-girl finishes cutting apart her left forearm, regrows it from the elbow, and plates the slices of her forearm to be served on a white ceramic dish. Then another fruit-woman in a waitress's uniform walks by and takes the plate of cut strawberries out of the shot, and the animation loops. 

She looks over at Sable. "And that looks like a strong argument for strawberry-girl for me." 

"Goodness." Sable licks her lips. "Yes, that is absolutely an argument for you to be a strawberry-girl. Wow. Okay."

She takes a breath and shakes her head. 

"Right. Need to finish customizing me and then make the others."

She imports her saved facial tweaks from previous games, makes a few refinements, and sets her eye and hair colors to violet, and customizes her horns (smoothly sweeping back over the top of her head, with a little notched barb in the right one).

And then Maya slips into front, resting her head on Gloria's shoulder and flipping through options for herself. She hums thoughtfully, looking at the preview of the "liftfruit girl". The prototype avatar skips lightly about, seemingly able to float at will. When she cuts off an arm, her flesh seems to be very reminiscent of mango. A note explains that liftfruit girls are very rare, and the pits of liftfruits (which can be found rarely on trees), are used as the cores of airships, and to float sky islands.

"This looks promising. It would let me be the heart of our airship."

Gloria loads her saved data for her character as well, configuring their gender and facial features. She's playing as herself but as a cis girl, as usual. She still hasn't quite saved enough to get the surgery in real life herself, but it's fun to pretend. 

She sets up Hyacinth with her usual character, then starts going into the kinks and drawbacks section. 

"Chastised," she reads. "Your sex has been locked into a magical chastity device that only lets you come or be touched when you have permission from the keyholder. Your cage key is lost and will be the objective of your starter quest. You gain benefits for having another character control the activation of your pleaser and your crewmate's availability for sex moves..."

Gloria grins. "Cute. I think Hyacinth would love it. I can designate another of my characters as her keyholder using the crewmate system or we can have one of you hold the key. I know it's not hugely your cup of tea, but...?"

Sable jumps back in, and giggles and smirks. "I'm always down to domme Sin harder. I'll hold the key."

Then she lets Maya finish customizing her character.

Gloria sets up Lilian's character too, a gothy-looking vampiress with nice sharp fangs and a big smile. 

"That's all of ours," she says, and kisses Sable's cheek. "Do you wanna set up the whole crew now or dive right in?"

"I think set up everyone. Hailey's done too, she jumped right on having raven wings, but we're still deciding what captures Ruby and Neo's vibes properly. Ruby does have her eye on a dash skill that she really likes, but hasn't picked species yet."

She hums and smiles and snuggles close. "Any suggestions?"

"Let me look at the particle trails..."

She flicks through. "Aww, the cherry girls rain sakura petals when they use movement abilities! Do you think that works for Ruby?"

"Oooh! Ooh ooh ooh ooh yes! And cherries go well with red and black themes!"

Ruby switches in immediately and is wiggling excitedly.

"That sounds like a hit for sure. Hmm, Neo... I'm not sure what she wants for species. Maybe elf? But I'm pretty sure she wants to take Monster Bait from the kink drawback section."

Ruby leans over and kisses Gloria's cheek with a blushy smile, and then lets Sable switch back in.

"You're right about that," Sable nods. "She definitely wants Monster Bait, and Muteness, and ideally some kind of hardlight to go with the illusion magic she's picking from the general abilities."

"Hmmm... Hardlight magic, hardlight magic... I saw something about that..."

Gloria scrolls through the menu and opens another species, which displays a butterfly-girl with pink luminous wings and a glowing pussy and nipples, as well as glowing spots behind her toe and fingernails. Luminous patterns wander across her body.

"Here. Vanessae. It says they have hardlight magic based on intense emotions."

An intrigued grin crosses her face as Neo slips into front. She nods excitedly.

Then she tilts her head to the side, reading about the mechanics a bit more. Apparently the glows represent her supply of emotional energy, gathered from her own intense feelings and experiences, and also make her more sensitive to touch? 

She flushes and grins and locks it in, customizing her face and hair, picking skills, and locking in Monster Bait and Mute as her drawbacks.

And then Sable blinks and shakes her head as she's suddenly back in front.

"Well, that was a hit. I think that's everything then. We've got a pretty wide spread of abilities and species. This should work well."

"Alright, let's go!"

Gloria navigates over to the start button. "Last chance to make any tweaks. I loaded the world settings from our last game but if you've got edits you want me to make I'm interested."

Sable shakes her head with a smile and gets ready. "No changes. Let's go."

Gloria settles her pleaser in place, and hits start.

The screen flickers and stutters, and a loud squeal of feedback comes over the system's speakers. The screen flashes bright pink, and then a flare of light encompasses the room —

And suddenly they're in the center of a grand amphitheater, with a cathedral looming in the distance. The ground falls away beyond the edges of the arena, descending into deep, shadowy clouds that hide the ground from sight. There's a smell of sulfur in the air, and there's a bunch of people standing around —

"Sable! Are you alright?" Hyacinth lunges to Sable's side —