She hates her life. It's spring and she's digging a latrine when she should be home with her baby and if she deserts and is lucky enough not to just be shot for that then in a month she'll abruptly cease to have a baby.
Shovel bites dirt. Dirt goes in pile around the red flag. And repeat, and repeat.
A wall of pink-violet text appears in front of her.
Peka Atan
"The Erogamer"
LVL: 1 (0%)
Stats:
DOM: 0/430
SUB: 10/620
BOD: 25 (+)
LST: 30 (+)
SED: 12 (+)
FUK: 22 (+)
PRV: 15 (+)
ERO: 10 (+)
Points: 5
Money: 30tap
Description: Peka Atan is the first of the three children of an undertaker and an autopsy tech; she's got a credit on layaway and a baby hanging in the balance. She lives at their home, when she's at home, which she isn't because the army pays better than anything in-district and they were hiring. She loves her baby, music, and sex, and it's that last thing that makes her a candidate for the Erogame.
Skills:
Erogamer's Body (Lvl MAX): The biological ability to live your life as an erogame. Venereal disease doesn't exist for you. Arbitrarily large appendages can fit inside any of your orifices. You heal from all marks with a good night's sleep, ready for the next day's adventures. Other aspects of this skill depend on the BOD stat.
Erogamer's Mind (Lvl MAX): The mental flexibility to live your life as an erogame. You're more able to accept the realities of your new world. You'll also bounce back from painful, upsetting and bizarre sexual experiences with relative ease. Rape can be anything from a recoverable trauma to a random afternoon, but it won't ruin your life. Other aspects of this skill depend on the LST and PRV stats.
Erogamer's World (Lvl MAX): The consent of reality to live your life as an erogame. People are never too preoccupied to consider sex or romance, not while you're around. Bystanders won't ignore what you do, but they're unlikely to actually stop you. Those who do decide to involve themselves are drawn into the logic of the Erogame. If you go far enough that an authority sees no choice but to intervene… they won't treat you as a simple criminal. Other aspects of this skill depend on the ERO stat.
Perks:
Pretty in Pink: Your caste is “Pink.” Everyone can immediately tell this by looking at you. Pinks are a magical caste that doesn’t play by the rules. Pinks are completely immune to pollution, and can therefore interact with reds or do red work with no censure (although objects in a pink’s possession can be polluted, including clothing, which means no one will bat an eye at you walking around naked just in case, no matter how formal the setting). Pinkness occasionally occurs spontaneously in the general population, and all a pink’s children will be pink regardless of the other parent’s caste. Further aspects of this perk will depend on your ERO.
Info // Character Stats:
LVL / Level: The quantified totality of your potency as an erogame character. The effect of this characteristic goes beyond just the 5 extra stat points you get per level, and the additional perk point you receive every 5th level.
BOD / Body: Your physical attractiveness. At higher levels, your body becomes able to enact more exotic erogame events.
LST / Lust: The intensity of your sexual urges. How easy it is to turn your keyhole.
SED / Seduction: Your ability to seduce others, to pique their interest and arouse their desire.
FUK / Fucking: Your ability to perform in bed and give others pleasure… or other sensations.
PRV / Perversion: Your descent into the world of naughtiness, fetish, deviance, and corruption.
ERO / Erogame Logic: The extent to which the world will bend---or can be bent by you---to create romantic and sexual situations in defiance of probability. Or at higher levels, physics.
DOM / Dominant Energy: Based off SED and FUK, fueling skills that invoke your dominance, sadism, or mastery.
SUB / Submissive Energy: Based off LST and PRV, fueling skills that invoke your submission, masochism, or service.
Info // Character Stats // Level:
At LVL 1, and 0% progress toward the next level, you're as pathetic as you'll ever be.
You can increase your level by completing the quests the Erogame offers you, or by causing romantic and sexual events to happen to you or around you. The more difficult the challenge, the greater the rewards.
Info // Character Stats // Body:
At a BOD of 25, you're the prettiest person in the room unless the room is hosting a mixer for a modeling agency. You can increase this stat through exhibitionism, and other acts that invoke the pure beauty and power of your nubile form.
Info // Character Stats // Lust:
At a LST of 30, you’re as horny outside of spring as most people are in spring.
You gain in this stat while experiencing sexual urges that are unusually intense or that go on unusually long.
Info // Character Stats // Seduction:
Your SED of 12 makes you a little better than average at enticing others to have sex with you. Not bad, but far from your full potential.
You can increase this stat by arousing the romantic interest or sexual desire of others, and successfully pursuing them or being caught.
Info // Character Stats // Fucking:
Your FUK of 22 makes you good at what you do. Combined with your natural enthusiasm, you’re approaching professional level. Only approaching, though. You’re going to need a little more practice first.
How do you increase this stat? Take a fucking guess.
Info // Character Stats // Perversion:
Your PRV of 15, given your relative experience, is nothing to write home about. You’re not especially out there, nor are you a sheltered naif.
You can increase this stat by being a little less close-minded about things, and acting accordingly.
Info // Character Stats // Erogame Logic:
At an ERO of 10, your life has become an erogame taking place in a mostly realistic setting. What happens to you might seem unlikely to others, but it won't break their belief in a sane universe… yet. Witnesses will reach for explanations other than the Erogame, but they'll still notice the unusual events.
If you keep pushing probability to its limits, then probability will learn to be a bit more flexible down there, relax and take it in and not protest so much.
Info // Character Stats // Dominant and Submissive Energy:
If this were a different game, you'd have mana and hit points.
And they'd refill just from you sitting around on your ass doing nothing.
Lol.
Wut.
She's too startled to read at first, but the text is between her and getting this latrine done on time so she scans it looking for a way to dismiss it, and it doesn't have that but it does have a whole lot of wut.
The text continues to sit there, the plus signs next to the stats beckoning metaphorically.
There isn't even a dismiss button or anything. She rereads the text looking for instructions and finally tries jabbing SED's plus sign five times in case that helps.
The plus signs vanish, and then the rest of the text wall. In its place appear the words:
Quest Available: Music is the Universal Language
Seduce the Anitami unit's red despite not knowing any of their language aside from song lyrics.
Success: +300xp
Failure: Your dry spell days tally marker ticks up by one
Accept: Y/N
She waves at the letters as though batting at flies. This doesn't work. ...she considers, turns up another shovelful of dirt, hits Y.
The text vanishes.
She finishes digging.
...she goes back to her tent and she sits outside of it and sings.
After a little while the Anitami red comes out to listen.
She switches to a suggestive clubby song in Anitami when she's done with the first one.
He smiles.
She knows what the lines mean, although she's not confident on how the words divvy up except the ones that are similar to Tapai ones.
The last line of the chorus is "won't somebody keep me company this fine spring night". She... smiles back, repeats it without the bounce of the tune.
He asks something in Anitami.
"Tapap," she says apologetically. "All I wanna do is sing all day and night~."
He nods and steps closer.
She holds out a hand.
He grins and takes it.
And she tugs him into her lap and kisses him.
Ooh. He is very pleased by this development.
So is she! It's spring, after all, and she might not have had the song lyrics idea without ?????help?????, and he's pretty squeezable.
Investigation of his squeezability may lead to the discovery that he is also ticklish!
That's adorable.
Well she is adorable.
Is she now. Would he like to be tugged into her tent to convince her of this.
He would love this.
Now they are in her tent! How about they get out of these stupid army uniforms!
These army uniforms are so stupid. He's quite enthusiastic about eliminating them from their consideration for the moment.
Great. She thinks by any reasonable definition she has seduced him by now but it's not like she's going to kick him out for not materializing her three hundred XP, whatever the actual fuck, so she puts the weird hallucinatory text out of her mind for the moment and decides to see if he is also ticklish when nibbled.
Ooh he is so ticklish when nibbled.
Great.
Does she have any excellent reactions to being nibbled?
Yes. They are a) squirming b) delight c) gasping.
Gosh those are some awesome reactions. Clearly he needs to nibble her some more.
Yes he does. He absolutely does. How about here and there and there and here.
He has an excellent sense of direction.
Oh good. She does too, as it happens.
Oooooooh.
They will surely find their way around together all right by their powers combined.
They surely will.
Once finding is all done and the Anitami red is curled up for a nap, a set of violet words appears.
Quest complete! Music is the Universal Language
The language barrier is no match for your charms.
+300xp
Your level has increased by 1!
"- do I - operate this by - talking maybe or waving my arms," she mutters.
When she says "talking," the stats appear again.
DOM: 0/430
SUB: 10/620
BOD: 25 (+)
LST: 30 (+)
SED: 17 (+)
FUK: 22 (+)
PRV: 15 (+)
ERO: 10 (+)
Points: 5
"Uh... ... .......info?"
Info // Character Stats:
LVL / Level: The quantified totality of your potency as an erogame character. The effect of this characteristic goes beyond just the 5 extra stat points you get per level, and the additional perk point you receive every 5th level.
BOD / Body: Your physical attractiveness. At higher levels, your body becomes able to enact more exotic erogame events.
LST / Lust: The intensity of your sexual urges. How easy it is to turn your keyhole.
SED / Seduction: Your ability to seduce others, to pique their interest and arouse their desire.
FUK / Fucking: Your ability to perform in bed and give others pleasure… or other sensations.
PRV / Perversion: Your descent into the world of naughtiness, fetish, deviance, and corruption.
ERO / Erogame Logic: The extent to which the world will bend---or can be bent by you---to create romantic and sexual situations in defiance of probability. Or at higher levels, physics.
DOM / Dominant Energy: Based off SED and FUK, fueling skills that invoke your dominance, sadism, or mastery.
SUB / Submissive Energy: Based off LST and PRV, fueling skills that invoke your submission, masochism, or service.
"...perk... info?"
Perks:
Pretty in Pink: Your caste is “Pink.” Everyone can immediately tell this by looking at you. Pinks are a magical caste that doesn’t play by the rules. Pinks are completely immune to pollution, and can therefore interact with reds or do red work with no censure (although objects in a pink’s possession can be polluted, including clothing, which means no one will bat an eye at you walking around naked just in case, no matter how formal the setting). Pinkness occasionally occurs spontaneously in the general population, and all a pink’s children will be pink regardless of the other parent’s caste. Further aspects of this perk will depend on your ERO
She loads Citrus on her everything and searches "pink caste".
There is a short terrible Summarybank article that repeats the information in the perk description.
She can't exactly wake up the Anitami red for questioning, she doesn't speak the language.
......she goes on Seenit and makes a throwaway account and finds the least gatekept /castepolitics section and ignores the "no reds" policy and makes a post that just says "Pinks: discuss".
A couple of comments trickle in; one is that walking around naked all the time would be hot and another is jealous of pinks for being able to wear red hats without there being Unfortunate Implications.
Well.
She can... go sit out of her tent in the buff and see if anyone has anything to say about that, it's warm enough.
No one appears to have anything to say about it, although some of the relatively few greys who look in the direction of the undertaker tents give her appreciative looks. Open, unselfconscious appreciative looks, the kind you give a perfectly normal pretty person in spring, not the furtive or followed-up-with-horrified-realization kind clean people sometimes give reds.
...ooh.
Raising the morale of the nearby army unit causes your BOD to go up by 1!
...heh. She strikes a pose. She is not yet bold enough to wave.
Someone wolf-whistles.
She laughs.
She checks her everything to see if there's anything else in the Seenit thread, but then - wonders suddenly what this means for Katin's credit, if it's hereditary -
She checks her credit lease account.
Apparently pink credits are cheaper than red ones, because that's what it says, pink credit, paid off completely.
!!!!!!
She emails her mom about putting in for a discharge. Her mom says it's about time.
She puts in for her discharge.
It's only a few minutes later when she's informed that her discharge has been approved.
Gosh, that was fast.
She hops in the cab of her army truck naked to drive it back into Tapa and drop it off.
No one comments on the fact that she's naked.
That's pretty fun.
She hands in the truck and gets a ride to her district from a red army driver.
The army driver doesn't comment on the fact that she's naked either, although she does steal occasional glances.
"Isn't it wild that I can just go around naked all the time?"
Grin. "I guess so."
"I'm glad it's warm enough."
"What d'you do when it's not?"
"Usually I wear clothes and don't go out of the district. Since my family's there and clothes make it so hard to go back and forth."
"Makes sense."
"Am, uh, am I the only pink you've ever met?"
"I talked to someone on the Internet once who claimed to be, but it's hard to be sure, you can only really tell in person."
"It's funny that way, yep. If you aren't on too tight a schedule you could see my baby when we get to my district."
"Ooooooh."
Peka giggles.
"Lucky," she sighs.
"Oh, well, she was a surprise actually."
"--Oh. Even though you're not really--I'm sorry to hear that."
"Maybe he had some kind of deficit. But she's adorable and I love her to bits."
"I'm glad to hear that."
"I'd show you pictures but you're driving."
"I would absolutely crash if you showed me pictures, I spring pretty badly," she sighs.
"Just in the babies way?"
"--Not just in the babies way."
"Job must be rough, takes you all over away from home..."
She sighs. "Yeah. Not that being at home would even help that much, my last boyfriend dumped me over the winter. The jerk."
"Boooooo."
"I guess that means I'm better off without him but right now it's not like I need a stunning personality."
"Isn't that always the way. My girlfriend and I broke up earlier this spring because we had disparate sex drives."
"Oh? In which direction?"
"I was 'pesky', she said."
Giggle. "Her loss."
"I guess sometimes even in spring she wanted to do other stuff."
"I can't imagine breaking up with someone who has a baby because they wanted sex too much."
"That was before I was pregnant."
"Fair. Still."
"We hook up but we have a rule that she has to ask me, no pestering."
"Huh, okay. That seems like it could work."
"It does... as far as it goes..."
She raises an eyebrow flirtatiously. "Mm?"
"But she doesn't ask very often, see..."
"I think I do see."
"If you don't have to drive back straight away you can come to my house, have a look at the baby... maybe she'll nap..."
"I do not have to drive straight back and that sounds like a fantastic idea on every conceivable level."
Peka giggles.
The driver winks.
"What's your name, I'm Peka."
"I'm Ihine."
"It is very nice to meet you, Ihine."
"It is an absolute delight to meet you, Peka."
"Today is shaping up to be just really great all around."
"Discharges're like that! Especially if you have a baby."
"Mine came in really fast, it was great."
"I'm glad to hear it!"
"Noticed I had enough for the credit and bam."
The driver sighs enviously again.
"You'll get there someday."
"I knoooooow."
"You will find somebody way better than your old boyfriend even if that means 'your old boyfriend but after character development' and you will have the most wonderful li'l baby."
She squirms. "I know, you're right--"
"And in the meantime you can hold mine. I have a one year old brother too."
"Awwwwwwwwww."
"He holds her! It's adorable!"
She squeaks.
And soon enough they reach Peka's district.
The driver parks carefully and then gets out as fast as physiologically possible.
Peka hops out of the truck still stark naked and carrying only her pocket everything. She shows Ihine to her house.
Absolutely nobody comments on her nudity. Ihine is practically vibrating by the time they get to the house.
And here is Peka's baby! Peka's little sister is three and brings her the baby and hugs her as though it is perfectly irrelevant that Peka's naked.
Ihine is utterly fascinated by this baby.
Katin is still very small. Peka cradles her and takes Ihine's hand to let her pet Katin's... hair. She has hair. Peka supposes everyone can tell by looking that she is pink and has accordingly been permitted to grow hair now. It's peachy-colored.
Ihine delightedly pets the peachy pink baby.
Katin waves an arm at her.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"What a good baby," Ihine squeaks in effervescent delight.
"Mm-hm! She's my li'l sweetheart!" Peka kisses Katin's forehead.
One may presume that the adoration of the baby goes on for some time.
The baby is so adored. Eventually though the baby will need to sleep and Ihine will smile at Peka.
Katin goes down for a nap in the room she shares with Shahn when she's not sleeping in a grownup's bed, and Peka shoos Apef out of the room she shares with her, and leads Ihine into it and kisses her.
Then today will be the Best Day for both Peka and Ihine!
It's just a really really good day! Perfect for seducing random red army drivers.
The relevant red army driver is super in agreement with her on that.
And when even a couple of springing folks are done with what springing folks do, and Apef can be heard pacing in annoyance outside the door, Ihine should probably wear clothes and Peka should go pick up her baby again, who sounds awake now.
Ihine cheerfully dons clothes and ooh baby.
Ero Achievement: Fucking a badly-springing woman until even she doesn't want any more. +100xp
Heh.
When Peka's dad is home from work he invites Ihine to stay for dinner.
Ihine would be delighted to stay for dinner, unless she catches any signals that the invitation is only to be polite and she has overstayed her welcome.
Peka doesn't mind at all if she stays but the invitation is perfunctory on the dad's part.
Ihine will bid a reluctant goodbye, then; she does need to get the truck back.
"Bye! It was great to meet you!"
"It was great to meet you! D'you want my everything number?"
"Sure!" And they can swap contact info.
And Ihine bids her a very cheerful goobye.
Ero Achievement: Potential Harem member unlocked! +300xp
"- potential harem member info?" tries Peka in barely a whisper, pacing Katin up and down the hallway.
Nope.
"Achievement info?"
No.
Quest Available: Milk and Honey
Seduce someone into buying you lactation hormones to feed your baby yourself.
Success: 1,000xp, "Milky" status
Failure: -2 Reputation, "Gold digger" status
Accept: Y/N
Gosh. "Doooooo I get a hint?"
Nothing.
Well. She isn't going to find anyone who can get her lactation-inducers in-district.
...leaving is scary.
She dithers over that for a while, then takes Katin's onesie off (Katin, too, is pink), grabs a bottle, and goes to... the edge of the district, just beside where a truck would go out.
She hits Y, once she is leaning on a building casually, and conspicuously bottle-feeds Katin.
She gets some appreciative looks, but no one seems willing to get close enough to the red district to interact with her.
The quests don't seem timed, or at least not very timed. She has been pretty adventurous today and does not quiiiiite want to step out. She'll stand here feeding Katin till the bottle's empty in case later passersby are more interested. After a minute she starts singing.
Heartfelt Song: At Lvl 1 of this skill, your singing has begun to convey your feelings straight from one heart to another, especially when what you're feeling is that you'd like to ero with someone.
Some people stop to listen to her singing.
Gosh.
She scans the listeners to see who she might most wish to sing at.
Would she like to sing at:
--A pretty orange in a nurse's uniform?
--A pretty, stressed-looking yellow?
--Either of these two purples, both very pretty, one looking vaguely Mad At Everyone In The World Except Peka And Babies and the other humming along and tapping his foot to the beat?
Maybe not an orange today.
The yellow looks like he needs to unwind! She attempts to sing... at... the yellow. She's in the middle of a lullaby for Katin, since she didn't know she was going to get sexy singing powers when she started singing, but she can conclude next verse and switch to something - friendlier. Hmmm, maybe Clouds Over Cities, that's pleasingly ambiguous.
The yellow bites his lip and blushes.
Katin sucks on her bottle; it's about two-thirds gone now. Peka sways as she sings with increasing implied yet bewildering metaphor about clouds over cities.
...The yellow hesitantly starts to walk over.
Peka waves encouragingly at him insofar as she can with one arm under Katin and the other holding a bottle.
The yellow continues approaching but is careful to stay away from the bottle itself. "Hi," he says.
"Hi! The bottle's clean, I ran it through the sterilizer before I put formula in," Peka says. She's not sure how normal pollution instincts work but she thinks bottle sterilizers probably cut it. "What's your name? I'm Peka."
He relaxes. "I'm Peshak."
"Nice to meet you, Peshak. And this is Katin."
He beams at the baby. "Hi, Katin!"
Peka waves Katin's hand at him.
"She is the cutest thing," he sighs.
"I know, right? You can pet her if you want." Since she has hair now. Pet pet.
!!!!!! petting!!!
He pets the pretty peachy baby.
Katin finishes her milk and burps. Peka kisses her face.
"Can I hold her?"
"Sure."
He takes the baby reverently, holding her as though she were made of eggshells and diamond.
Peka keeps her finger wrapped up in Katin's clutching little fingers rather than relinquish her altogether. "Do you have any?"
"No," he sighs sadly.
"I think of yellows as having plenty of money but I guess that doesn't help when it comes to credits."
"Yeah, what matters with credits is how much money you have relative to your caste."
"What do you do, Peshak?"
"Oh, I do the accounts for a pharmacy."
"Gotta be honest with you, sounds pretty dull."
"It's not great, but it pays well enough, and when there's downtime my boss doesn't get on my case about playing silly everything games."
"Aww, that's good then! I'm lucky I can afford formula."
"Are things that tight?"
"Less than they used to be but I was in the army for a few weeks right after she was born making ends meet."
"--Oh wow. I'm sorry to hear that." He looks down at the baby. "I guess that's why you need formula, too, huh."
"Yup, that's why."
"Aww." He gently starts to rock Katin. "There's hormones for that, but I guess if formula's a strain on your budget you wouldn't really be able to afford them..."
"I'm not sure there even are any in there," she aims a thumb back over her shoulder, "and I wouldn't know how to get them, but even if I did they'd cost money, yeah."
He gives the district a brief, uneasy look. "I mean, you can leave."
"I can walk out, but I still grew up there. It's all confusing out here. And expensive."
"It's confusing? What's confusing about it?"
"It's just so different! I watch TV, but TV can't tell you everything."
He looks dubiously into the red district. "I guess..."
"Where were you on your way to?"
"I was just going home after work. I didn't have anywhere I specifically needed to be. ...Do you want to go somewhere?"
"I'd love to. There's so many places I've never been."
He smiles at her. "Anywhere in particular?"
"Let's go sing karaoke!"
"Okay! Do you need to pick up any baby supplies first?"
"I should go grab extra diapers, I'll be right back. Fresh out of the bag, promise."
He nods.
She takes Katin back, and runs and gets diapers out of the pack and a packet of formula mix in case Katin gets hungry again.
The yellow is still waiting by the exit to the red district when she gets back.
"Hello again! Do you know a good place for karaoke?"
"Yep! Do you want the one with the wider selection of songs or the one with the better snacks?"
"Snacks! Maybe selection will matter more when I've been to karaoke more than never."
He grins and starts leading her towards a train station.
And she traipses along after him, Katin dozing on her shoulder, down the street in broad daylight stark naked with pink hair fluttering after her.
Absolutely no one objects to the nudity or the hair, even when they get to the train station, which is crowded enough to make it hard not to bump into anyone.
Eeeeheehee this is a very cheerful bouncy pink following Peshak to karaoke.
Embracing the full natural beauty of your new caste has caused your BOD to go up by 1!
Kickass!!!
They eventually reach the karaoke place, Peshak stealing shy glances at her and then looking down and blushing and smiling the whole way.
"Do you do karaoke much?"
"Oh...I don't know about much, karaoke is no fun by yourself and most of my friends aren't that interested. I'd like to do it more often than I do."
"Do you think they'll have Marvel?"
He brightens. "Ooh, I hope so! I haven't actually been to this one before, just read reviews--I know they have Dance Until Daybreak and Bend the Rules but nobody mentioned Marvel specifically."
"Ooh, I love Bend the Rules."
"The other one had both of those and also No Sweeter Flower, which is honestly my favorite."
"I bet your voice works really well with that now I think about it!"
Blush blush blush. "Well, I think so, but I've never really had a chance to get a second opinion about it...I mean, not that I've never sung it in front of anyone before, but my mother is tone-deaf and my dad doesn't care about music and drunk coworkers don't count, they say I sound good but they also say that about Safi and she sounds like a lemur gargling ice cubes."
"I'm self-taught so I don't know how objectively good I am either."
"At least being pretty is a better reason for people to overestimate you than them being drunk."
"Awww, thank you."
"You're incredibly pretty!!!"
"You're cute too! Especially when you relax, you looked super stressed out before."
"Ahh, yeah, it's been insane at work lately, there's this rumor that one of the senior analysts is transferring to a different location and they're gonna promote someone to take her place and there's this huge project with way too short a deadline and nobody wants to be the one whose fault it is if it collapses horribly."
"That sounds kind of scary!"
"Yeah...I don't like my job much, to be honest, this is the first time something like this in particular has happened but it's not the first raw steak they've slapped us upside the head with. I'd quit in a heartbeat if it didn't pay so well."
"Other stuff in your field doesn't compare?"
"Not around here. If it gets to the point where I hate my job more than I hate moving I might quit."
"I've never moved, is it awful?"
"Not everyone hates it as much as I do, but it's pretty obnoxious. You have to pack up everything you own, and if something goes missing you have to figure out whether you already packed it or if you have to find it and pack it, and then when you get to the new place you have to figure out where everything goes all over again with the new layout, and until you're completely unpacked you can never be sure of finding what you need when you need it, and then for me I have a hard time sleeping in unfamiliar places, and it's not so bad for a week or two on vacation but it takes long enough for me to feel settled in a new place that I'm horribly sleep deprived for several days."
"Ouch. Hey, how much farther is this place, these aren't super barefoot streets?"
"--Oh, it's right after this turn, do you want to borrow my shoes or something?"
"Nah, another block is no big deal. I should get a storage locker or something outside the district maybe."
"Oh, uh, I don't know a lot about red districts or anything so maybe there's a better one near another exit, if there are other exits, but I do know this one place that's pretty close to where we met."
"Maybe you can show me after we sing!"
He beams at her. "I'd like that."
A new pink-violet message pops up in front of her:
A skill has been created by a special action! Wearing absolutely nothing all over the city has created the Bare Body skill.
Info // Skills // Bare Body
Bare Body: Lvl 1, 0/200sp
When one truly has springtime in the soul, it doesn't matter much what the weather is like on the outside. Reduce the negative effects of wearing less clothing than the environment would call for by 0.5*ERO%
Subskill: Foot Fetish Lvl 1, 0/200sp
Reduce any negative effects of not wearing anything on your feet by a further 0.1*ERO%
It's kind of hard to read while she walks and not be conspicuous about it! She covers it with a spontaneous barefoot twirl.
Her companion giggles.
Giggle.
Karaoke place!!!
Karaoke place!
He pays for their room and then queues up Bend the Rules, winking at her.
Peka offers Peshak the baby to hold and scoops up a microphone, bouncing through the intro.
Peshak delightedly coos at the baby in harmony with the song's tune.
KARAOKE IS SO GREAT. Peka looks through the catalog after the song is over and finds a duet. "Do you know Incredible Star?"
He bounces slightly on the balls of his feet. "I do! I've been meaning to find someone better than Safi to sing it with on-and-off for ages!"
She queues it up. "Safi? - oh, do you want first part or second part -"
"I mentioned her earlier, she's one of my drunk coworkers who sings badly. I'll take either but if you don't care I like second part."
Nod nod four three two one "Oh incredible star -"
"My incredible star--"
Peka spends the song shimmying a little closer to him with every couple of lines.
He gets progressively blushier and blushier but at no point does he drop a note or step away.
And on the last chorus she faceplants on his shoulder! "Karaoke is the best thing ever," she says.
"Karaoke is great," he agrees, and then, before his nerves can stop him, "--but you might be even better."
"Awwwww, better than karaoke? I must be having a real good day." She pecks him on the cheek.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. "Well, karaoke isn't half so fun without a good partner," he says shyly.
"Do you think you can sing if I'm sitting on your lap?"
"I--uh--probably. I'm, ah, better at keeping my composure when I don't have to, um, pick my own words."
"That's what the prompt's for! I won't make you do a patter song." She scrolls through options. "Sixteen Roses?"
He squirms slightly. "Sure."
Well, if he'll sit down she can take back the baby, hand over the mic, and wriggle into his lap and put on Sixteen Roses.
He will absolutely sit down. And stare at her like she's the most wonderful creature in the world and not miss a beat on Sixteen Roses.
She croons the harmony parts.
"You're absolutely wonderful can I kiss you," he says, all in one breath, when the song is finished.
"Yes you can!"
So he leans in slightly and kisses her, soft and sweet without loss of intensity.
Mmmmmmwah.
Eeeeeeeeeeee.
He pulls back slightly and looks at her like she holds the secrets to planets.
Nuzzle. "Do you think they have 'Underneath' or do karaoke places not have racy stuff?"
"Ooh, it's a long shot, but..." he checks. "...Oh hey they do have it!"
Peka manages to put it in the machine despite baby and Peshak. Katin seems to have fallen asleep and can be set down on one of the soft padded benches during a chorus.
Gosh, it's a really springy song.
It is such a springy song. Hey, do karaoke room doors usually lock from the inside? Well, these ones do.
How interesting! That means no one will bother them if they sing this verse very close together.