Chapter 243: Leaving the City

***Calvin, semi-professional kidnapper***

+1 Body

Body is now 36!

12/36 Warp remaining

“Okay, you’re free to go,” Calvin said, dropping the Bolesian princess unceremoniously onto the castle walls, where she rose to her feet, knees shaking uncontrollably.

“Will I ever see you again?” She asked, glancing up at him hopefully.

Calvin glanced down at his Battle form, a custom made chimera using several different creature’s body parts to achieve the appearance of a near-perfect human man with muscles so defined they could almost be described as ‘jagged’.

“…No.”

He flew off, leaving the princess shivering in the rain.

Welp, got that taken care of, Calvin thought. Kidnapping a princess reminded him that he hadn’t selected the last six of his princess-related Abilities.

I swear, someone was messing with me on that one.

Once Calvin got back to his room, dismissed the battle form, and feigned ignorance as to the whereabouts of the lord of the city’s daughter until she reappeared, he settled down to check what he had available for the Skill.

Your princess is in another Castle has reached level 45! 225% correction!

No wonder it was so easy.

Please choose up to six abilities and/or mutations.

Stockholm Syndrome: YPiiAC correction now also applies to the emotional bonding of captive princesses with the User, as well as the resulting allegiance.

Not Heavy at All: User automatically redistributes(Correction%) mass of princess to pursuers when attempting to flee with a stolen princess.

^ From Shifting. Max 98%

True Love's Kiss:  2 Bent, heals a princess of any curses, poisons, or afflictions, including foreign Bent, restores  condition and heals similar to a week's bed rest, potentially sealing otherwise lethal wounds.  Consumes princess' remaining Bent, but restores User's Bent at level/10 efficiency. 

Princess Radar: 1 Bent: User ‘pings’ the local area through the System, .1Mile/level of YPIIAC. Any being that counts as a ‘princess’ to the System’s criteria will be highlighted in the user’s awareness for a moment. The User will also be highlighted to the princesses subject to this ability.

If the Shoe fits: 1 Bent: Use this ability on a princess’s article of clothing and the user will intuitively know the direction and distance to said princess.

Welcome to my Lair: 1/8 YPIIAC Correction is applied to User’s minions fending off attackers as long as both you and a princess allied with you or kidnapped by you are inside your seat of power.

The Plumber: YPIIAC correction is doubled as long as User is actively pursuing the recovery of a princess from an adverse situation/kidnapper. This effect extends to the Safe and Sound Ability.

In Shining Armor: YPIIAC correction now creates a passive aura that cares for and maintains armor, appearance, clothes and equipment. User will appear clean, well-groomed and presentable under any circumstances.  1/8th Correction bonus to damage resistance and shininess of worn armor, as well as a small chance to blind attackers.

Mutations:

Bloodline: Consume Princess blood to potentially gain access to Skills and Abilities unique to their bloodline.

Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: User is able to adopt a role that make them appear to belong in a given setting, and behave in a way that draws no attention as they aim for the princess...  From Playboy.

Not the Princess You’re Looking For: User may shapeshift into the physical form of any princess logged by The Bowser.

^From One of the Guys

Hmm….

Could’ve fucking used The Plumber with Carem. Elliot muttered.

I agree, Calvin thought, looking it over. Currently with 225% correction, Ella and Kala, -and maybe Nadia, who knows – each took approximately 66% less damage than they should.

If he got The Plumber, then if they were ever in a pinch, their damage resistance would shoot up to roughly 77.8% while he was trying to get them back.

That and the bonus to retrieving them convinced him.

I choose The Plumber.

Calvin’s mind tingled for a moment as he reviewed the rest of the choices.

Five more.

I choose True Love’s Kiss.

You sap.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a free healing skill. Calvin would very much like for no more of his wives to die if he could help it. Dying was a traumatic experience, and coming back to life wasn’t much better.

It left scars.

The scars are how we know it’s still them, and not a soulless fuckdoll you made in a lab.

Well spoken, if a bit crude. In any case, no more dead wives. And…maybe it can help with mental problems….

Like Nadia’s deep-seated daddy issues?

Not who I was thinking of, but yeah, that too.

As soon as Calvin looked back to the list of available Abilities, He saw that a new one had populated the spot left by True Love’s Kiss.

Beauty and the Beast:  When User is kissed by a princess, The princess is given the option to sacrifice four Body. If they do so, the User is cured of any Physical abnormalities, curses, poisons, or mental afflictions, including foreign Bent. Restores condition to an ideal state and physically heals the user similar to four month's bed rest.  

Does physical abnormalities include being undead? Calvin thought, eyeing the new Ability.

Ummm… I don’t know.

Can’t you run it through your simulation thingy?

Yeah, gimmie a sec….Yeah, it looks like it could work.

That’s an obvious choice then.

Calvin picked that skill, anxious to try it. A permanent four penalty to Body was substantial, but not too substantial. He was fairly sure he could convince a certain princess to part with it.

Three more.

..I choose In Shining Armor, If the Shoe Fits, and Not the Princess You’re Looking For

Maybe Calvin was still messed up from not being able to locate Kala when she was dead, because he didn’t need to pick If the shoe Fits to find her, nearly a hundred percent of the time, given his marriage tattoo of a lotus gave him her direction and state of being at all times.

Still…He didn’t want to take any chances of not being able to come to a timely rescue ever again.

So he made the redundant impulse selection of Not the Princess You’re Looking For. The other two contenders were Welcome to my Lair and Bloodline. He still felt like using Stockholm Syndrome to affect girls’ minds was…morally grey at best.

The radar Ability he passed on because princesses in their natural habitat want you to know that they’re a princess. The only ones he would miss were the undercover ones, and they were few and far between. It was simply too little payout for the Ability.

The bloodline one…Calvin was a bit leery of sucking on Kala and Ella’s blood to gain access to skills, and he didn’t even have space for any.

Calvin chose Shining armor because it boosted his appearances and his armor, both good passive effects that would pay small dividends over the long term.

He chose Not the Princess You’re Looking for because it was always helpful to have a few more forms to switch between. Thirty-one of them, if he remembered right.

Pfft, you just wanna figure out your wife’s weak spots.

I’m not saying that can’t be a fringe benefit.

You know, speaking of Skill slots, I could package a few more of your magical Skills into Disciplines now that they’re high level, Elliot said. Clear up like, four Skill slots.

Calvin froze.

How about after our next Break? He suggested. I want to max out Trait Doctoring as far as I can before I set it aside. Since he could only select a new trait every five levels, slowing down it’s advancement would be a problem.

Sounds good.

New Skills…I could get new Skills. Holy crap!

User will be rendered unconscious while Mutation is taking place.

Calvin collapsed into bed, mind still whirling at thoughts of new Skills.

***Later***

“And then they found his daughter standing on the top of the wall, rambling about some kind of ‘divine beast’ that whisked her away in the middle of the night to make passionate love to her.” Tzen said as they waited for the line to leave the city to eke forward. “She says she’s expecting some kind of virgin birth.”

Due to unforeseen circumstances, security had been tightened. According to Tzen it had something to do with the lord of the city’s daughter vanishing for a good three hours.

“That seems exaggerated,” Calvin responded. “I’m guessing It was a cocktail of stress and Abilities that induced mild psychosis. Likely the kidnapper did no more than hold her in place for a few hours before sending her on her way.”

Tzen fell silent and stared at Calvin sideways.

Calvin shrugged.

“I see.”

“Elder!” Said one of the guards near the front of the line as he spotted Calvin, rushing up to Bow in front of Calvin momentarily before speaking, his voice cutting through the chatter.

“Elder, you’re a guest of Lord Zhin’er, we couldn’t possibly ask such a great man to stand in line with the rest of this rabble.”

Calvin glanced up and down the line of hired Hunter’s that Tzen had recruited to his cause, compounding the slowness of the line with their sheer numbers.

“I’m standing in line as a show of respect for your lord’s authority,” Calvin said imperiously, “as well as a show of trust in your skill at finding the criminals responsible – ” Calvin dumped a bag of Nem stones into the guard’s hand. “ – In a timely manner.”

“That’s to share, by the way. Don’t let me find out you didn’t share.”

“O-Of course Elder,” the guard made a quick bow and hurried away to the rest of his crew who were carefully searching every single person leaving the city, trying to find a ‘spirit’ that matched the princess’s description. When he arrived and showed them the money, there was a surge in activity and more than a few fingers pointed Calvin’s direction. In a matter of minutes, the line started moving at triple speed.

“Ah, the power of bribes,” Calvin said, watching them only stopping the suspicious looking folk and passing the vast majority of the people in line.

“It seems counter to the lord’s best interest for his men to accept bribes so readily,” Learner said with a frown. “How does this system stay stable?”

“Maybe he taxes the bribe income?” Calvin suggested.

“It’s because everyone knows they’re taking the bribes,” Ella said, “So it’s just the same as a toll at this point.”

“You’re both right, and wrong,” Tzen said. “All those may apply, but the system is not ‘stable’. Even with bribes being regulated, corruption takes a thousand different forms. It grows and grows, feeding itself, until inevitably either the entire city is toppled, or the ones in power are overthrown as they lose the mandate of heaven. There are dozens of empty, hollowed out cities sprawled across Boles, where human nature overcame good governance.”

“Interesting, so you are saying that humans can’t be trusted to govern themselves?”

“No, no, Tzen said, shaking his head. “Nations age and die, is what I’m saying.”

“Oh that’s a metaphor. So what you’re saying is corruption is analogous to telomerase degradation in aging. Very interesting.” Learner said, nodding.

“…sure.” Tzen said, giving Learner a funny look.

Geez, biology majors, am I right?

They made it through the gate in just a few more minutes, and the rest of Tzen’s mercenaries were assembled behind him in about half an hour.

Calvin could have airlifted Tzen’s little army over to the northeast in a matter of hours, but that would most likely be interpreted as an act of war by both sides, and closely observed by the other Royals of Boles, who might decide Airlifting an army into their territory was a violation of ‘the rules’.

Plus, Calvin wasn’t particularly interested in being a ferry for a bunch of dudes, and he wanted to leisurely hunt a few Warped monsters while they were travelling, as well as spend a few nights camping with Ella like old times.

So they went on foot.

The first thing Calvin noticed about Tzen’s leadership style was that it was better than his, but he had a hard time recognizing how it was better.

Stupid low natural intuition.

Calvin knew he had a blind spot, but knowing didn’t do much to fix it.

The prince spent a lot of time talking to the troops.

Check.

He knew all their names.

Check.

He got inside their heads and used mind-games to separate the wheat from the chaff, choosing the best men and women for the job and preventing several attempts to steal the pallet of Nem they carried along with them.

Not check.

Calvin didn’t know how the guy did it. He thought it had something to do with active mind-fuckery. Rather than simply observe his men’s behavior to determine who had what predilection, he would go out of his way to arrange shit to come their way and watch how they dealt with it.

But how he did it, and how he interpreted the information was a complete mystery.

It was like the prince had a complete map of each soldiers personality displayed as puzzle pieces, and he was able to fit them together in the most ideal possibly way in real-time. Calvin had no idea how he could gain an ability like that.

It sure as Abyss didn’t come naturally to him.

Come naturally…COME NATURALLY!

I’ve got it! Elliot, we can use a Warped creature with a highly specialized social mutation and distill it down into a formula that we can use to modify my brain so that people make more sense!

So your plan to get better at leadership: rather than, I don’t know, practicing leadership, is to do a bunch of eldritch chemistry on mysterious beings with good social skills, boil them down into some kind of concentrate and then inject it into your brain? Hah! You are such a wizard!

You could’ve just told me it was a bad idea.

Are you kidding? It’s a fantastic idea! Fuck practice! Let’s track down Alexander the Great and bottle his essence.

Macronomicon

On the other hand, I've got 11 chapters of AGS 2 on Patreon already. (Sam Elliot voice) Big, meaty chapters, only one under four thousand words.