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The next day or so was mostly downtime. Now that I was up to two million points I kind of wanted to splurge and spend them, but I decided against it. I wasn't done with my acquisitions yet by half, and now that all three gangs had been contacted we'd laid the groundwork for the plan to move forward. It took the entire next day and a half before Zee finally broke down and asked. "Alright, what are we doing? The plan is officially off the ground right? Shouldn't we be pushing the factions to actually attack?"

I snorted in amusement as I watched her walk across our room, enjoying the view of my still naked sorceress. "Hardly. Don't forget, the plan requires multiple moving parts. The gangs are taken care of, but Opal is far from vulnerable to that kind of thing. No, we're waiting for the sources I've arranged to start leaking more information. Carmine has to have spies in the city, not doing so would be absurd, but they aren't people we can find easily. The smarter play is to let them come to us. Which Cherry and the others have been arranging while we had our down time."

My pet psycho stirred from her spot against my side, just as naked as Zee. "He's right Zatanna, calm down. We've been spreading word that the pills came from Carmine. Sindara and Gioto have both gotten the information to everyone they can safely manage, and I've been picking up the slack. Carmine WILL hear about the pills, and once they do, the next part of the plan will go into effect." She snuggled against me, staring up into my eyes adoringly. "Right daddy?"

I chuckled at her shameless pandering and leaned down to give her a quick kiss. I always thought Cherry was adorable when she was being a conniving snake. I could tell she was baiting Zee a bit, but it was harmless fun. She actually liked the sorceress, she just enjoyed a little spicy fucking and seasoning with some frustration and annoyance was her favorite recipe for a threesome. Zee, for her part, pouted at the blonde. "I'm calm. I just don't see how Carmine finding out anything will be a benefit to us. Them realizing that Opal has access to a force multiplier like that will encourage caution, won't it?"

"Not exactly." I said patiently. "You're missing a few factors. First up is The Empty Door. The leader of that gang has Carmine blood in him. While he would be too obvious as a spy or even a sleeper, there's no chance that he isn't in touch with SOMEONE he can call about the issue. Second is that the other factions both got the pills, which will put him on the defensive. Third is that Carmine knows they didn't supply the pills in the first place, which makes their appearance alarming to them."

Seeing she hadn't put the sequence of events together yet, I smiled and spelled it out. "The Empty Door is connected to Carmine, vulnerable, and in a position to actually need to receive aid from Carmine because of the power imbalance. For their part Carmine has a neighbor who has suddenly gained access to a massive advantage and a powerful ally inside that kingdom with an axe to grind. Given all of those factors, what do you think we're waiting for?"

Despite enjoying her pussy, I'd always planned to corrupt Zee into something more like a partner, someone who could help me steer the League from the outside until such time as I no longer needed them around. Part of that was teaching her how to think critically in situations like this. Morality tended to blind people to properly executing their goals. Machinations should be clean and cold. If you looked at everything objectively, it was easy to corral people into the course of action you wanted. Zee hadn't learned to look at things with that lens yet.

She turned around to look at me, chewing her lip cutely. Being from the magic side of things Zee was much less persnickity about ethics than most heroes, but she did have a conscience. I'd structured this plan to avoid any direct intervention on my part specifically for that reason. We weren't going to be doing anything but robbing a dictator. Carmine and the gangs would be the ones to do the actual damage to this place. I'd steered her in that direction with my question already, and I just let her reach the conclusion herself.

Her eyes lit up quickly. She wasn't stupid or anything, just not used to thinking about things this way. "Carmine is going to support The Empty Door in a revolution! Rather than wait for the other gangs to attack with their now superior numbers of powerful nobles, The Empty Door is going to contact Carmine, and once the leader finds out he won't be able to get more pills he'll look for a solution that lets him survive. Carmine would be idiots not to back the play and even bigger idiots not to take advantage of it to sneak a force into the capital using it as cover."

I grinned at her. "Exactly. Sadly we don't have an actual mole in The Empty Door, but Cherry has been casing the place since I stopped, and has an ear to the ground. The big boss over there is too loyal to his people to blindside them. He'll prepare his crew for any incoming attacks, so all we need to do is keep our eyes peeled and wait for them to start acting out of the ordinary and we'll know the time to strike is near. In the meantime I've got Sindara and Gioto taking turns making trips up to the palace, or as close as they can get, whenever possible. When Carmine attacks, they'll push their groups into action and we'll take advantage of the gap to slip in and steal what we need cleanly. No muss, no fuss."

Which wasn't really accurate. There would be LOTS of fuss. It would just be other people's fuss. Growing up in a world with League I suspected Zee would underestimate the sheer chaos a plan like this would cause. When you have people like Superman to impose order you tend to lose track of exactly what the ceiling for anarchy is. Even on the magic side people avoided being too overt outside apocalyptic nutjobs. There was no cap like that here. The nobles gave zero fucks about the peasantry despite their presumption of rule. This would be a bloodbath without a doubt.

Not that I cared at all. If Zee got upset I would just pretend to be shocked and act like I'd fucked up. Zee didn't really care about people. She just had an ingrained reflex for empathy. That kind of thing could be trained out over time, and I'd already started that process. As long as I gave her an excuse she could cling to she would happily believe that I'd overreached with this plan. Once we were done we'd be heading back to Amaranthine and then hopefully on to Gotham before the week was out. At that point this would all just be a sad memory of a time we were in over our heads.

The only real potential blindspot was The Empty Door themselves. I'd studied them for quite some time to make sure this plan would work, and while I couldn't be sure, the information from both their actions and from the appraisals bore out my predictions. More than that though, the nature of an organization worked against them. Any large body of people would betray leaks or clues when performing a wide scale operation. Based on the information I'd gathered when I was casing the place they were pretty touchy feely for a gang. The boss wouldn't let them all twist in the wind during the attack, and as long as he tried to prepare them, SOMEONE would let on details, no matter how accidental that might be.

My only real gap was the boss himself. The man in charge of The Empty Door was something of an enigma. I had managed to get a name, Cameron, but other than that I was completely in the dark on the details. I'd put together all the info I had from appraisal notes and hearsay, and while I trusted those sources to a point, until I laid eyes on him personally he was going to be a potential problem. No plan was perfect though. I'd left a ton of wiggle room in this one, and I'd done it on purpose.

My particular style of planning was always a bit slapdash. Micromanaging and coming up with perfect strategies was nice, but I rarely had the patience. I'd leaned more in that direction this time, but I'd tried to stick to broad strokes in terms of action and response. The more room I had to improvise within the bounds of the actions I needed to take, the more my natural proclivity for turning situations to my example had to work with. The biggest downside to being a perfect chessmaster was that a lack of unpredictability made taking advantage of spontaneous opportunities more difficult. As someone touched with the blood of Apophis I'd come to believe those situations cropped up more often around me.

Regardless, I had preparations to make. I had a few thousand points to play with after converting Gioto and then Sindara. While that wouldn't be enough to make any grand weapons or anything, I could swing a few necessary utility items before we had to begin out heist. The better I set up the preparations the easier it was to react to whatever got in our way or take advantage of the opportunities that might come our way. I hopped up out of bed, getting a pout from Cherry, and headed over to get dressed giving Zee's fat rump a smack on one cheek in greeting as I passed by where she was bent over rifling through a bag of her own supplies.

She wiggled her ass at me enticingly, arching a challenging eyebrow over her shoulder, but I ignored it for now. "Alright girls, we have a few days at most to get ready. Carmine won't miss their chance, which means they're going to be rushing to put together an expedition before the Bone Barons and Shadow Lords can stage their assault on The Empty Door. Cherry, head back to watch The Empty Door's base, you know what to watch for. Zee, get in touch with Gioto and Sindara, let them know to stay back during the fighting, Sindara's cute little ass is mine, and Gioto is surprisingly useful at times. No use breaking my stuff if I don't have to."

I glanced at each of my girls, getting nods from both, and I headed for the city market, ready to pick up whatever odds and ends I needed to put together my toolkit for this job. I had more than a few ideas, but I didn't want to focus on anything too specific, mainly utility items that would be useful in a number of situations. I checked the pouch, confirming I still had more than a few opals to spend.

As I walked I looked around at the Opal capital. The place was...drab. Amaranthine was a beautiful series of amethyst spires, but the Opal capital was made from boring dark stone. The designs were boxy and utilitarian, and the whole place had a gloomy vibe to it I didn't enjoy at all. Dark Opal was your run of the mill tyrant, lording over his people with an iron fist. Not that I cared enough to save them. Still I couldn't help but smile wickedly as I looked around. I wasn't a bringer of salvation, but this place was far too orderly for my taste, and I was absolutely equipped to bring a little chaos to people's lives. They could thank me later.

March 23rd 2016 Gemworld 10:00 AM EDT

It was time. We'd been keeping a weather eye on The Empty Door for days, and starting yesterday they'd begun making 'subtle' preparations for a conflict. Buying up supplies, reinforcing structures, clearing out dependents. All really obvious shit that anyone would read into, and which everyone naturally ignored because people are stupid and don't pay attention to anything that isn't right in their face. Still, it had been plenty of time to get prepared, and I'd even converted a few other gang members Sindara and Gioto had managed to isolate for me with the chalice, after I'd vetted them of course.

I'd gained a few thousand points, then spent even more, and I was sitting at pretty much exactly two million now. I wasn't worried, given the valuable shit we were going to be stealing I'd be more than topped up soon, even given the absurd amount of points I would have to spend for my big move once I got back to Gotham. In the meantime, I'd at least put together a few necessary and versatile G-rank tools for upcoming heist.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Relentless rope- G rank. An extremely tough length of rope that can extend of contract as the user sees fit. A perfect tool for a thief on the move when face with entering or exiting from a great height.]

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. False flag decoy- G rank. A small doll that takes on the image of its owner and escapes in the opposite direction, drawing away pursuers. Lasts approximately an hour and will be reduced to scraps if damaged, but otherwise indistinguishable from a real person through most means of magical detection.]

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Ignorance draught- G rank. A bottle of spray perfume that creates an overwhelming impression of boredom or dismissal in anyone who smells it, causing them to ignore the wearer barring any legitimate reason to pay attention. Loses effectiveness if the wearer makes direct contact either physically or through interaction.]

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Boots of springheel Jack- G rank. A pair of boots that absorb falling impact perfectly. Useful for escapes and evasion, side effect of muffling footsteps absorbed while walking.]

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Portable window- G rank. A window frame that can be set against a wall and opened, creating a temporary opening that till vanish once the window is closed and removed. Does not function properly on warded barriers.]

There were a few more situational objects, but for the most part that was my entire kit. It was a series of the most diverse and useful items I could put together, and with all of that gear and Cherry's Hand of Glory I was pretty sure we were as prepared as we could be. I'd even considered upgrading my blonde thief, but I decided against it in the end. In case anything went wrong I wanted that nest egg as a backup to get us out of trouble.

Getting everything together and slipping it into the pouch was easy. Once we did I waited for our last two team members. They'd been commanded to come find me around this time, because I wanted them out of the way when the fighting started. Once we got outside it only took a few minutes for the two of them to show up. I was easily able to perceive them, but I decided not to interrupt Sindara as she did a flying tackle from my blindspot so she could wrap her legs around me and lean down to kiss me senseless.

I laughed against her mouth and flipped her over my shoulder, making sure she landed on her feet, giggling the entire time at being manhandled so easily. Zee looked annoyed at the attention I was giving her, and I made a note to introduce them. Zee was pretty amenable to other girls, and I was pretty sure fucking the vibrating sex doll and the magical soul pussy at the same time would be the best three some of my life. That was definitely on my bucket list, not that I planned to die anytime soon.

Gioto stepped from the shadows quietly, giving me a low bow, and I nodded my approval. Little guy knew his place. I reached into a pocket and pulled out a pair of small packages, handing them over to the two newcomers. "Put these on. You'll need them for what comes next." They took the packages, opening them up to reveal a pair of thin plastic masks that looked more like skin than any sort of disguise. At my urging they placed them against their faces.

There was a slight shift in the masks as they clung to their faces and began to reshape, altering their appearance the same way ours had been altered. The masks were both H-rank, so they weren't as advanced as ours, but they weren't coming with us to the palace anyway. Once they had the masks on I looked them over critically and nodded. "Good." I said approvingly. "That should be good enough. Now I want you both to get the hell out of the city before shit goes down." I passed them each a map. "I marked a location for you each to wait for pickup. They aren't the same location, in case one of you decides to try to figure out some way to screw me over. Which, by the way, DON'T."

That last bit was an order, and I saw them notice it, but despite a small pout from Sindy, neither of them bitched. They knew I didn't trust them yet. Why would I? Setting up separate meeting points had the dual benefits of separating them so if one of them went rogue I didn't lose the other, and making sure that whoever DID try to turn on me would be obvious because of which meeting place was compromised. I'd even taken the liberty of merging in some cipher texts and a blood drop for each map, so only the owner could read it, not that I'd tell them that.

They both made their way out of the city, and I turned to the girls. "Alright. That's that handled, seems like its time to take up position at our stakeout point." I'd identified the best spot to wait for things to break out. Finding a specific location near enough to the palace to make reaching it without running into trouble easy, but without being in anyones territory or in the path of any guard deployments, had been challenging, but I had some time to kill.

We posted up on the veranda of a house about three blocks from the palace, and overhanging balcony that gave us a solid view of everything nearby. I pulled out a bottle of wine as we relaxed on the chairs and poured a few glasses, dripping a single drop of blood into the two I poured for the girls to make sure they were topped up. The surge of riotous green energy that pulsed through the wine as the blood was subsumed was easy to miss unless you were looking for it, but I could see trails of the color flashing through it when I was paying attention, even seconds later. It was an interesting sight.

The girls of course had zero compunction about draining the glasses, though given the lack of hurry they took their time. We all stared out into the sunshine peacefully as we waited. Based on the speed and urgency of the preparations I was fairly certain that the attack would be coming early in the day rather than at night, which I was fine with, despite being more comfortable with nighttime shenanigans on the whole.

The upside to a daytime heist was pretty simple. It was the same as the downside. People. We could run around all over the place and as long as we seemed like we belonged no one would question it. Especially with an attack imminent, no one would have time to try to question a few servants as the city was being assaulted. I had even managed to procure us a few uniforms to really sell it, though we had covered them in cloaks at the moment so we didn't draw too much attention sitting out here not doing anything.

Finally, staring out into the streets, I started to see signs of motion. Shadowy figures darting this way and that, and I smiled. I stood up, looking at the girls. "Time to go to work ladies." We dropped our cloaks and slipped down from the veranda via the built in staircase and headed for the palace. Since the attack hadn't commenced yet no one even noticed us walking by. We weren't in a restricted or classified area so even the basic distraction of the assault wasn't needed to keep them from bothering with us, though I was confident it would be available by the time it was.

As we approached the entrance to the palace proper, I had to fight back a grimace. The building was a massive dark stone edifice, boxy and utilitarian as the rest of the capital, albeit more edgy and imposing. Seeing it from a distance hadn't done it justice really, as up close I could see the rough hewn blocks and sharp angles. Realistically, that was a case of aesthetic dominating function, because smooth walls would have been much harder to scale. It just went to show how much of an edgelord Dark Opal was. Aside from having big fat mommy milkers, my future mother-in-law was also obviously superior in terms of maintaining morale, though I doubted Dark Opal would see that as a benefit. More fool him.

The entryway was made up of a winding path constructed of fairly uniform gravel, strung between a pair of expansive lawns with unusually dark grass that basically hummed with magic. I imagine stepping on them would do something unpleasant, though I was hardly anxious to find out. At the junction of the relatively tall wall separating the lawns from the rest of the streets and the path, there sat a single squat guardhouse, with a pair of large intimidating men standing on either side of it.

When we approached, one of the guards stepped forward to stop us. "Halt!" We did. "What are you lot doing out of the palace at this time of morning? Breakfast just finished, and the servants should be helping clear the table settings." He asked it more like he was hoping for some hot gossip than like he was actually suspicious, a bit of malice in the tone, but only enough to spice up his hum-drum day.

Most people try their best to be boring to guards, and we would do the same with the Ignorance Draught once we got inside, but walking past the guards without anyone noticing would in itself have been a pretty suspicious thing to do, especially before a big ruckus. In this particular instance the better play was to give the man an interesting story to chew on. Being a guard was boring most of the time, and hearing about some sordid affair was bound to put him in a decent mood.

I pulled Zee against me by the waist, affecting a proud smirk. "Just stepping out to the market to get some herbs for my woman. I put a baby in her nigh on a week ago, and she's already feeling the sickness." I lowered my voice. "Trying to avoid notice though, she's got one of the nobles turning his head with those fat tits of hers, and we're worried he'd make some trouble if he finds out about the baby before we can get one of us transferred to another wing of the palace." I shot them a wink before nodding at Cherry. "Don't worry though, the steward sent a minder along with us, apparently breeding my girl means I can't be trusted not to hike up her skirt as soon as we're out of sight." I shot a meaningful glance at Zee's plunging neckline, very exposed in the servant's dress. "Though maybe he had the right of it."

The guard laughed at that, his eyes gleaming at the salacious details. Bored people love drama. He opened his mouth to either rib me about it or allow us to pass when there was a loud boom in the distance. The ground shook as a column of blood red flame rose up over a building not four streets over, stealing all the attention from us with perfect timing. The guards both turned to stare and my girls and I slipped past as one of them ran for a mirror hanging in the guardhouse to call it in. As we receded into the distance I produced a bottle full of dull grey liquid and spritzed us all, appling the Ignorance Draught. The heist had begun.

March 23rd 2016 Gemworld 11:00 AM EDT

Once we got past the entrance, we walked pretty unhurriedly. The biggest mistake people make when sneaking places is looking like they're sneaking places. If you look relaxed and like you're meant to be somewhere, then people will think you are. Granted, we didn't look TOO relaxed, we were supposed to be servants here, and strolling leisurely about would be as bad as sprinting. We kept up a competent, professional pace, fast enough to look like we had things to do, but not fast enough to be seen as suspicious or around interest of other types (people love drama, and if you look frantic they might try to find out why).

This played perfectly with the Ignorance Draught's effects, making it unlikely for any of us to be noticed. As we walked, I called to mind the map we'd managed to procure from the same place as the uniforms. It was pretty vague, but the servant we paid off had sketched the palace to the best of his ability, and given he'd been working there for years, it was at least mostly accurate. A quick merge or two had upgraded the thing to an H rank artifact that made this whole thing possible, and which, while useless in any other place or time, was absolutely integral here.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Mystic Map- H rank. A magic map of the Dark Opal palace, updated consistently with up to date information on open routes and defenses. Does not include information on non security related residents.]

It was going to be a lifesaver, and help immensely with finding our way, though the lack of information on servants and nobles was going to be a pain in the ass. Still, we had Cherry and the Ignorance Draught, and both of those should help us make our way through this place. I scanned the map for the proper pathway to the vaults, and found it pretty easily, but just as quickly realized it wasn't going to be a feasible point of ingress because there were multiple guards stationed at the entrance.

I traced another path, then a third, then a fourth. Each one had potential roadblocks, but they all led to the same spot anyway, where several guards were waiting. Eventually I decided on a secondary route to a spot that came out behind the vault tower. We'd have to scale the roof, which would be a bit dicey, but according to the map there was a natural wear point in the defensive enchantments on a small spot in the back of the vault. Not a hole or anything that obvious, but it was clearly the most likely place to pop a hole in the wards. Which I of course already had a plan for.

I'd considered about a dozen different ideas for getting us in there, and eventually decided on a risky one. I was going to rank Cherry up once we got there, using some of the gear I'd brought with me to hide it. It was a risky play to do it last minute, but we'd decided that it would be suspicious for two F rankers to be walking around as servants. My whole story to the guards had partially been feasible because I was an F ranked servant. It implied a high position in the court, which meant I could get away with pushing things.

If two of us were F rankers it brought our party to a new level of notoriety. It wasn't just a high ranking servant toting around some hot pieces of ass for his own amusement, it was a pair of powerful serving staff colluding, and that kind of thing would draw attention. Instead, we'd decided to wait until we got to where we were going and cloak her with the Ignorance Draught (it was way more effective when you swallowed it, and she was going to down the whole bottle) while she ranked up so she could get us in.

I'd even picked up a specialty item from Sindara to use for the merge. Nothing I made myself, but a specific infiltration tool that I was sure would make this whole thing a lot easier. We headed for the entrance to the building where the roof access was, and as we made our way, we passed a flood of armored forms, blue striped faces twisted in expressions of anger and determination. The guards were being called out. It seemed like Carmine had really put their back into this one, and I allowed myself a smug grin as we walked, since we were being ignored anyway.

Sadly, it was impossible for everything to go perfectly, and we found ourselves waylaid before we reached our goal by a hawkish looking man with a silver mustache. "You!" He said imperiously, staring right at us. I tried to keep walking, figuring her meant someone else, but he repeated himself. "I say, boy. Cease your walking and bring your strumpets to attention lest I lose my temper!" I stopped, pretty sure that meant us. Which meant he could see us. I didn't think it had worn off, which meant that this guy had some legit reason to look at servants like us, which was annoying.

Turning to him, I dropped into a low bow. I had no clue how servants should act to each other, but I'd yet to meet anyone who was unhappy being bowed and scraped to here. This guy was an F ranker himself, which made him important as far as servants went, and while I could easily kill some rando Opal being the dragonkin badass that I was doing so would draw tons of attention to us, so humoring him was the better call. I put on my best lickspittle tone. "Apologies, sir, I was simply distracted by the commotion. How may I be of service?" I kept myself lowered in a bow so he didn't see me rolling my eyes as I asked the question, because I'm a master of subterfuge.

I could hear the sneer without even needing to look up, and confirmed it when I did. The hawkish man wasn't bothering to be subtle with his disdain. "You can attend your assigned noble as per the emergency protocols boy, I'll not have you slipping off to rut your whores while an emergency is going on. You'd best hope I don't decide to report your to chief steward Raggan for this. If you were the first I'd seen attempting it I would, but so many of you lazy little bastards are trying to take serious matters as an excuse to slack off I can't be bothered to learn all your names."

That got a blink from me as I looked up, meeting his eyes directly and realizing...gods damn it, this asshole actually was still under the effects of the Ignorance Draught. He didn't actually care or wonder who we were. Busting random servants was such a common occurrence to him that he was almost doing this shit on auto pilot. I swept into another bow, determined to play the role properly s0 I could keep him from becoming suspicious and we could get the actual fuck out of here. "My most sincere thanks for your mercy, sir. I shall of course hurry off to join the retinue of my assigned noble. He's decided to hole up in the D corridor, so we must make haste to catch up."

D corridor was where we were actually going, and this guy had given is a useful excuse for why we were heading there. He sneered at me a bit harder, eyes seeming to clear slightly for a second, but the Draught won out, and he just waved me off with a disgusted flick of his hand. "Go. It was hardly a surprise to catch you animals. As if being young is an excuse to act like mating rabbits." A small smirk tugged at one corner of his lips. "Though I suppose I can't exactly complain about promiscuity of castle maids. I was young enough to indulge myself once." The partial smirk was wiped away nearly as fast as it appeared. "But there's a time and a place boy, remember that."

I nodded again and we set off. As we walked away, Zee sidled up next to me. "Can I just say how offensive it's getting that everyone we meet assumes you're only dragging us around for fucking? Because seriously, even given our ACTUAL sex life, it's getting a bit insulting. Not to mention I'm getting pretty sick of people finding fun new ways to call me a whore right to my face." Her tone was waspish, and I didn't bother to fight back my snicker as I patted her on the back.

"I know." I said consolingly, patting her on the shoulder. "I think the servants here suffer from the same problems as the villagers to a larger degree. They get so bored and miserable they need an outlet. Add in abuse of power and I suspect someone my rank keeping a pair of beautiful women of lower standing around has certain implications. As for the whore thing, yeah, it's pissing me off too. If it makes you feel any better, we're going to rob the living shit out of these people. You can think of it as a way to vent your anger."

Even before her Branding, I'd disliked everyone here looking at Zee as a sex object. I mean, she often WAS a sex object, but she was MY sex object, and it was grating to hear people talk about her like she was something freely passed around. Now that I had bound her to me, it was even more irritating. It wasn't really fondness exactly, more that thinking of her as a sex toy ignored her usefulness. Zee was a powerful and useful sorceress, and people were debasing her value by ignoring these things. I knew that was useful here, but it still pissed me off. I was just as eager to rob them in retribution too.

I'd thought that I was pretty cavalier about how I thought of my girls, but even I was reaching a breaking point with the casual sexism here. I felt like I had to constantly be on guard against everyone lest they try to fuck one of my women, and I would be glad to be back in Amethyst, where people at least pretended they didn't want to fuck every pretty woman they passed. I mean, they still did obviously, but the Princess was female, so there was really only so overt the nobles could be about seeing women as tight holes to be used whenever they felt like it.

We made it to D corridor without any more interruptions, which was a relief because this part was always supposed to be the easy portion of the plan. We followed the map until we found a closet tucked away and then climbed up through a hole in the roof of that closet to an access to the parapet above us. They had these all over the palace for archers are long range attackers to mount the roofs in case of defensive necessity. Luckily the Carmine forces were pulling the guards away toward the middle of town for the moment, so the way was clear.

We followed the parapet around until we came to a spot against a wall that seemingly looked no different than the walls around it, and I checked the map to be sure before turning to Cherry. I passed her the Draught, which she took and tossed back like a shot, grimacing at the taste as a wave of...grey, began to surge over her skin, like she was in an old black and white movie. I had a good reason to look and plenty of intent, so fighting it off was possible, but even with the Brand to call my attention and my draconic will, it was kind of tough to keep my focus. Once it was done though, I reached into my pouch to fish out the needed item. Now to upgrade my thief.

March 23rd 2016 Gemworld 12:00 PM EDT

I had spent a while trolling around for the perfect item to use for Cherry's upgrade. Luckily, she was only F ranked, which meant I only needed a G ranked item to upgrade her. Buying it actually resulted in me gaining a thousand points to offset some of the upgrade cost too, so that was nice.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Skeleton Key- G rank. A skeletal key made to open almost any lock. Certain magical protections can render this effect null, but for the most part any normal door can be opened.]

This was the perfect item to use on Cherry for a simple reason. The hand of glory was specifically designed to open magical locks. It could pop doors with some effort sure, but that detracted from the magic it had to open wards. The skeleton key also had a partial effect on wards and mystical protections, just a less obvious one, so it worked nearly the inverse. Combining them should balance Cherry out and make her a much more effective thief. Since I had so many Branded minions, my best bet was to start specializing them a bit more. Cherry's role was already decided, so I just needed to improve it a bit.

I held up the skeleton key to my currently gray phantom lady and triggered the merge without bothering to build up to it. Unlike the chemical treatment I'd first used, actual merges didn't hurt so she didn't have to choke down screams or anything. There was a bit of a lightshow, but I didn't need to worry about that too much with the Ignorance Draught in overdrive from downing the whole bottle. I even briefly wondered if it might get mixed into the merge, but I could feel the gray feeling stick to the energy without joining in.

It took about a minute for it to finish, and the deduction of ten thousand points left me shy of two million by a small chunk now, but I wasn't worried enough to bother with that. I'd be making a windfall once we got inside, and I'd make it back times a thousand, literally, so I could just focus on the task at hand for now. Once the light faded, I looked over my blonde psychopath as she became visible to the naked eye again.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Wraithborne Brigand- F rank. A ghostly phantasm given human form, Charise dedicates her new abilities to her 'daddy' Nicholas Lord. Enthralled by his sexual prowess and dominating hand she is devoted to his every whim, the only caveat being her requirement that he find her ex to prove himself. Impossibly skilled at infiltration and theft, Charise excels in all forms of illicit acquisition, being uniquely suited to enter all but the most impenetrable of vaults.]

Her skin had taken on a slight bluish tinge, not enough to be noticed at a casual glance, but enough to hint at spectral origins. Her already beautiful features had become more refined and aristocratic, her face touched with an otherworldly beauty. Her body was corded with lean muscle like a jungle cat, toned but wiry, with slim, sculpted curves. Her tits were slightly bigger, not a patch on Zee's, but solid C cups with a gravity defying float to them that would be impossible for a pair that was beholden to the laws of physics.

Shaking off the distraction, I gave my psycho a smirk. "As amazing as you probably feel right now, we're in a bit of a time crunch." I pulled out the portable window and passed it to her, then held out my hand, green lightning rolling over me in the same way it had before I used that tree growth trick back during my fight. "I'll give you as much as you need. Can you use the window as a focus for your powers so we can get in quick?" I was pretty sure she could, and even if she couldn't we could brute force it, but this would save us time.

She pressed it to the blank stone wall, but didn't open it, holding out her hand. I took it with mine, and I fed in as much supercharging life energy as I could as she placed her hand flat on the window. The view on the other side was still rock, though it was sticking. Without any warning, her fingers all caught fire, the same way as before, but instead of just the flames of the hand of glory her flash around them grew darker, allowing the bone beneath it to shine through like I was looking at an x-ray.

As the flames flared up, the stone behind the window began to shift and warp, pulling and twisting like grey taffy. As it twisted it began to pale, clearing until I could see through into the tower inside. Cherry jerked her hand away, placing the other next on one side of the window, moving the one touching it to the opposite edge of the frame. Her voice came out strained and harsh as she bit out. "I can hold this for about ten minutes. Move fast. It shouldn't set off any alarms or anything, but if you don't get back in time we're going to be fucked. They'll realize we're here and come for us hard."

I leaned down to peck her on the cheek. "Fantastic job. I'll make sure to give you a fun reward later. Just sit tight while I rob these bastards blind." She chuckled tensely and I pushed the window open. I gestured for Zee to sit tight, knowing her magic would be able to help out if Cherry ran into problem, and slipped past my platinum blonde nutcase into the tower where all of Dark Opals treasures were kept. Or at least all the ones he trusted other people to have access to. No way a paranoid lunatic like that didn't have a private treasury, but since he'd had the rock for years it should be here.

I just had to look around at all the impressive shit around here. I decided to tour the place first, and get an idea of what I was stealing before I actually started grabbing things up. There might be internal security of some kind even my girls had missed, and if so I had to get the rock first, and then make sure to grab the most valuable shit possible after that on the way out. I walked around for a while, past literal piles of precious gems of various types, the occasional mountain of gold coins, racks of weapons, and several pedestals with interesting magical items on them, before finding the rock.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Manaborne Amethyst- C rank. A powerful collection of magical energy born from the depths of a mystical amethyst vein, ideally suited for use in a great working of the Amethyst bloodline. Several enchantments have been laid on the stone to prepare it be used as a material in a set of mystical armor, though nothing has ever come from the preparations. Mystical protections prevent anyone from laying their hands on the stone.]

I grinned. There it was. Ten million points. The mystical protections thing was annoying, but I could deal with it. I had other ways to retrieve items. It made my plan to grab the rock first a bad one though. If there were wards on that thing, and I bypassed them. People would know. It would need to be my last get, not my first, at least now that I knew my appraisal would identify warded objects. I did a quick second tour of the room, appraising everything, grabbing piles of stones and fold coins and stuffing them into my pouch.

Each object wasn't worth much, they weren't highly magical or anything, but there was a shit load of them, and my points skyrocketed from just shy of two million, to three million plus. I would have gotten more, but I was forcibly reminded that the maw of the hydra wasn't infinite, and once I had filled up a few of the compartments I had to stop to make sure I had room for the good stuff. My tour managed to identify a series of items that weren't under any protections at all for one reason or another, so I grabbed each of those.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Iron dragon cestus- E rank. A pair of battle gauntlets made from the fangs of a powerful earth dragon. Set into black star iron, these brutal striking weapons amplify physical blows by three times, and boast an absurd penetrating power against mystical wards and armors. Despite this, they are considered poor weapons due to the abnormal weight, which makes them a bad fit for most noble bloodlines.]

My eyes lit up at that. First off fuck Dark Opal for keeping dragon parts around, but I needed a weapon, and they would also provide a perfect merge material for me to use to get to D rank myself. The earth dragon thing even kind of went with my whole Vital Tempest vibe, so I wouldn't be spreading myself too thin. Until then, I could just use them in combat. I grabbed them greedily, and staggered a bit after I did. The description hadn't been fucking kidding about the weight, even I was having trouble lifting them. Something to worry about later. I moved onto the next item I'd found.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Cosmos Sapphire- G rank. An extremely rare stone possessing the power of the stars. Prized for its beauty and use as a focus in cosmic magic, it was given as a gift for Dark Opal's one hundredth birthday. Despite its appearance, it is considered mostly useless given its low magic density and incompatibility with any living bloodline.]

I snatched it up without a seconds thought. I'd been mulling over how to upgrade Barbie, and this was clearly an interesting and gorgeous item I could use. With our discussion it was about time for me to actually merge her, and I could use the chalice to get her to G rank first, just to ensure her loyalty to me was as strong as possible. I was interested to see what an item like this would make bloodline wise, because it really was stunning. A deep blue stone with flickers of starlight dancing inside the nearly midnight depths so fast you could easily miss it.

I grabbed a few other G ranked materials, I still had to upgrade Dinah, Sindara, and given Barbie's regular abuse of the big breasted girls mouth, probably Hildie. My redhead would be furious if I didn't let her bring her toy home, and we'd just gotten to a good place. I also grabbed one more E ranked item that wasn't protected. A small hand mirror I was informed by appraisal had once belonged to a faerie queen and possessed some scrying abilities. It would be useful for sure, but I also felt strangely drawn to the thing, possibly because of all the creepy things that happened around mirrors near me already. Maybe one designed to look for things could help me figure that shit out.

Sadly, that was the last of the undefended items, leaving me at five million greed points exactly. It was a huge windfall, especially adding on the stone itself, which I prepared to take. I knew it wouldn't be approachable physically, so I stood to one side and channeled my magic into the air. The Vital Tempest crackled on my skin, and I reached out with my power, calling the green wind back to me after I let it out.

The air looped around the back of the pedestal in a current, and I pushed some more energy into it, focusing hard on the stone. The wind was a bit magical, but then, given what was in this place, the air in here was probably all magical, so it didn't seem to trigger anything. Slowly, surely, the stone floated up off the pedestal, the shimmering purple gem lifting from its setting and floating slowly over to me.

Nothing seemed to happen, until the thing touched my hand and then the air seemed to crackle with magic. A series of steel gates slammed down around all the pedestals and the entrance itself, sealing me in the room until the guards could be called. I just grinned and turned back to the window still open in the wall, completely unobstructed by the lockdown procedures. I winced as I saw the wall start to warp a bit inside the frame and bolted for the exit at top speed, barely making it through.

Catching Cherry as she collapsed from the drain, I slung her over my shoulder and turned to Zee. "Alright, I got it. Lets go." We grabbed the window and bolted back the way we came, fifteen million GP richer. Now we just had to actually get away with it. Even as we ran, I could hear the sound of metal boots crashing against stone floors. The guards were coming, whichever ones were left. Luckily for us, they were heading for the actual entrance. Hopefully that would buy us the time we needed to get out of this city alive.

March 23rd 2016 Gemworld 1:00 PM EDT

Getting out the way we came in would be possible, but it would take too long. We still have some of the Ignorance Draught, so I just grabbed Zee around the waist and jumped off the parapet of the castle with both my girls. Wings would have probably broken the effect, so all I could do was use wind magic to slow my fall and really hope people were too busy with the ongoing attack from a foreign country. It was draining as hell trying to create enough lift with just air to slow three people falling, especially without any preparation at all.

Of course I could have just tanked the landing, but it would have made a ton of noise, so I wasted the power taking the long way down. When we touched down I looked around frantically, trying to make sure we hadn't been spotted, before taking off away from the palace at a brisk but still casual pace, trying to seem like I belonged there despite the exhausted blonde over my shoulder and the bust brunette I was dragging by the hand. We'd pulled this shit off, now we just had to get away, but in my experience, things tended to go wrong at exactly times like this. I didn't feel like getting swatted like a fly by some asshole Duke, so we needed distance between ourselves and the palace before people started actively searching for the culprits behind the break in.

Fortunately, we were out of there, and the Carmine forces would be a fantastic scape goat, at least until we got back to Amethyst. I was really hoping that the obvious party to blame would offset some of the suspicion that would naturally be obvious after it was discovered what was missing. The only real hope I had for that was that Dark Opal would just assume they were trying to start a war with Amethyst to drag a third party into their attack to even up the odds, because it really would be the first thing someone would try.

All of this was predicated on us actually managing to get out of here though, because if something waylaid us in the city and we got discovered somehow, I doubted the dictator of this kingdom was going to be serving us tea and krumpets. Unfortunately, as we fled, we started running into the downside of chaotic distractions...that distracting chaos. Fucking Bone Barons, Shadow Lords, and members of The Empty Door brawling in the streets, with soldiers in blood red armor controlling large sections of the blood of slain locals to attack the first two groups.

Hemokinesis wasn't exactly a shocking ability foe the Carmine bloodline to have, so I didn't really worry about that aspect of things, but the constant potshots everyone kept taking would have been a pain in the ass if Zee hadn't taken the liberty of erecting a shield around us as we fled. Guards from the palace were trying to kill basically everyone using some weird kind of black fire that I assumed was the Opal bloodline. I hadn't looked into it much but I made a mental note to upgrade Sindara and do some tests on how that worked.

All of which would have to wait, as a pair of men appeared in front of us blocking our path. I blinked as I took in who they were. Crayken Lurk and his brother. Deacon was by far the bigger of the two, with a much more imposing face and piercing eyes that burned with anger. I got a sinking feeling as they got in the way. I'd been hoping to kill Crayken, but the middle of a city wide brawl was less than ideal as a place to have that fight. Hell, I'd considered just having Sindara put me in touch with an assassin to hire for the job.

In absolutely no scenario was stopping to fight this asshole right now while mid escape a good idea. So I went with the tried and true method for getting past idiots. I bluffed. "Excuse me friends, I apologize for the inconvenience, but we're from the palace. We've been sent to find a healer for my companion, I'm afraid she was poisoned. I really need to pass, we don't have time to waste." Dragons fighting was super fucking obvious, and it WOULD draw attention if I just leveled them with dragon breath. Safer to try to bypass this mess.

Deacon looked over us critically. "He doesn't look like you described. I'll admit the woman's body is as...ample as you mentioned, but her face seems different as well. Are you sure these are the two you met?" He wasn't uncertain or flustered, simply examining every possibility to make sure he reached the desired outcome. No wonder Cameron was so impressed with this guy. I kind of wished I could recruit him myself. That kind of grace under pressure was pretty rare in low level minions.

Well...I say low level, but the guy was E ranked as surely as I was. Crayken, however, was shockingly just as effective. "Fuck yes I'm sure. Forget the girl, not that I could mistake tits like that, I tracked down one of the other players and found out they were all paid off. Those pills didn't come from Carmine, we know that, but someone wanted us to think they did. I had Maladia run a trace on the opals they paid with and tracked them to an inn in the city. We lost them earlier, but I had her make me an aura tracker for the two of them."

Fuck. That was a ridiculous amount of attention to detail. I'd seriously underestimated this guy. He'd been playing the moron on purpose I was certain, and doing it for a long time. His reputation as an idiot was well established, and I'd double checked with plenty of other parties. That was a big problem of mine. I considered everyone else stupid, and I was too eager to believe when they proved me right. Usually didn't cause problems, but sometimes I ended up accidentally falling into some shit like this.

I sighed and passed Cherry to Zee, cracking my neck. "Ok, look, I don't have time for the whole gloating thing. I need to get out of here and you two are in my way. Se we're going to skip the whole 'who me?' reaction, I'm going to congratulate you on managing to surprise me with your intelligence, and then I'm going to kill both of you, because I can't have that thing about the pills getting out to early. Sorry." I slipped a hand into my pouch and pulled out a small black metal orb, tossing it at the two of them.

Naturally, announcing that I was going to kill them made the orb a pretty big priority for them, assuming it was some kind of bomb or something. I closed my eyes as the flash stored inside the thing went off, eliciting screams of shock from the two men who had been focused on trying to get out of the way while still staring right at it. I mentally thanked the bandits for keeping a few amusing trinkets on hand as I crossed the distance between myself and Deacon in a flash, fingers elongating into claws as the flashed at his throat.

I couldn't do a full dragonkin transformation, but lots of things had claws. As long as I didn't pop my horns or wings I'd be fine in terms of leaked info. I didn't need my disguise to hold long term anyway, just long enough to get out of here and back to Amaranthine. Sadly, Deacon wasn't a pushover, despite the surprise, he managed to release a wave of that same black fire from his body to create a sort of temporary force field, and I jerked my hand back rather than risk touching that shit with my bare claws.

I was fast enough to change targets before they recovered though, and I used wind magic from my bloodline to push myself in the other direction, appearing in front of Crayken with a herculean effort and trying the same trick on him. Smarter than expected or not, he wasn't even F ranked, and he had no defense against my claws as they ripped his throat out, shooting me a confused glance as choked to death on his own blood. I heard a shout of warning and hurled myself to one side as a wave of black flame consumed the spot I'd been standing and Crayken's body all at once.

Deacon, who had recovered his eyesight roared in rage and grief, hurling another series of bolts of black flame at me which I sidestepped with a little help from some wind magic. I felt sweat bead on my body. I had a ton of energy in my bloodline, but it was harder to use when I wasn't transformed. My draconic form channeled the Vital Tempest better, and keeping up this expenditure in my human shape was fucking taxing. I wanted to get in close to attack him, but it wasn't a feasible option with him hurling fire like that. I began to slowly circle.

The tears running down Deacons face didn't seem to hamper his attacks as he hurled bursts of flame at me, which ironically made them easier to avoid. If he'd been carpet bombing the place he might have tagged me by accident, but with my reflexes and ability to read tells I was able to predict the attacks and get out of the way. As I did so, I slowly closed the circle with him, inching nearer and nearer as I did. Most of the nearby buildings were on fire, but then, he was hardly the only Opal throwing flames so that wasn't exactly an attention grabber.

I expected a speech about his brother or an oath of vengeance, but the man was just inconsolable. He couldn't be bothered to speak or monologue and he barely seemed to notice me getting closer, with the small exception of increasing the pace of his attacks, though not enough to matter. It was draining him too, I could see the sweat on his body as gasps wracked his lungs, his inhalations deep, bellowing draws on the air around him. He was barely standing by the time I reached him, but he never stopped attacking, flailing wildly with flame coated hands as I got close.

Sidestepping easily, I drove my claws into his eyes directly, not wanting to risk anything as slow as a throat slash with someone my own rank. Once my claws were in I pumped a high power charge of destructive lightning right into his brain, and let him fall to the ground dead. As I stepped over the body, I gestured to a troubled looking Zee, who brought Cherry back over and took the blonde off her hands, putting her back over my shoulder and putting my other arm around her waist.

As we walked away I leaned down to murmur to her. "I didn't much enjoy that either, but they would have gotten us killed." It was true. Killing the sobbing man after killing his brother had been necessary, but not enjoyable. I liked a good fight, but that had been more like a slaughter. It hadn't stopped me from doing it, but if it had left a bad taste in MY mouth I knew Zee must be horrified.

I was actually curious to see if she would blame me, but she just pressed herself into my side, taking comfort in my presence. As she watched the burning streets and dying civilians I was pleased to note she didn't turn any of that horror in me, or seem to be aiming it at herself. That was good, guilt wasn't particularly useful, and that wasn't just for me. I was worried I'd have to do some fast talking, but it seemed she was laying the blame on Dark Opal and his style of rule. As we swept out of the capital, bypassing the rest of the squabbling defenders and criminals, I let out a sigh of relief. It was almost time to go home. The hard part was over.