Chapter 617 – Photoshopping

Chapter 617 – Photoshopping

“Oh, I really like this one!” Gnome exclaimed as everyone went through a mountain of recently developed photos that had been brought into the suite by Aclysia. As to what the photos depicted, they were all different shots of Aclysia, sometimes with Beatrice in the frame, doing poses either wearing or next to numerous products. As the article line was quite expansive, both happened pretty often.

The photo the earth spirit held up was a pretty cute presentation of Aclysia in a winter outfit, a thick scarf wrapped around her head. Hands in oversized sleeves pulled up the scarf to her mouth, half-hiding her face, leaving her adoring green eyes to stare into the camera.

“You are adorable in this!” further specified the soil elemental and showed the one she meant to the weaponized maid. “How did you look so cute?”

Who cleared her throat in a clearly embarrassed way. It was really odd to see their roles reversed like that. Apparently even Aclysia could be a bit shy when they inspected a number of photos of her. “I was told to think of whatever I loved the most.”

“Let me fucking guess,” Salamander picked up another photo and stared at it for a few moments. “You thought of a perfectly clean kitchen the size of a family home?”

Aclysia had no mind to pay to sarcasm, “No, I thought of my John, as is natural.”

“I personally like this photo the most,” the Gamer voiced, holding up one of Aclysia and Beatrice together holding a salver, both of them smiling nicely for the camera, wearing their maid outfits. The actual product sold was some kind of washing detergent, but John really just liked seeing both of them smile. “What did they tell you to think about there?”

“I was given no instructions for my thoughts in that picture,” Aclysia responded with a respectful bow. “They did, however, promise that I could take home some sample products. It was the idea of free things that thusly propelled my mood.”

“I was told to copy her expression,” Beatrice added to the explanation. That it was such a perfect replication was one of the reasons why John liked that photo so much. He was a sucker for symmetry.

“Did you like going there?” John inquired as he looked through a number of different photos, just out of curiosity. Most of them were cute, some of them were sexy and just a few of them were hilarious. At least to John, seeing Aclysia with a chainsaw in her hands, posing as if it was a holy relic she had successfully lifted from the pope, was worth an unhealthy number of chuckles.V/\IssịT n0(v)eL/b(i)(n).co/m for the b/est novel reading experi/en/ce

“It was an interesting part-time,” the weaponized maid proclaimed. “Were it not for my obligation, however, I would have rather spent the time at your side, Master.”

That was the expected answer, “What about you, Beatrice?”

“It was a photoshoot,” she gave the most unhelpful answer anyone received ever. It was also a statement of truth. Regardless, it was annoying.

“But did you like it?”

“Pondering,” she announced, staring ahead while she did exactly that. When she had come to a conclusion, her eyes suddenly went back to John. “Result: it was interesting to some degree. I don’t dislike being used for advertising purposes. Simply taking orders to look good was a level of pastime I can agree with. Counterpoint: appears tiring over long stretches. Would prefer to stay around and do nothing after a while. More importantly, I do share the baseline that being with you is more enjoyable.”

John hummed his understanding; this was a much better and more formulated answer, one that he could actually work with. “Not going to lie, I was thinking about using some of you girls for advertisements,” he confessed while watching Beatrice’s eyelid twitch, a gesture he had never seen from her before. “You don’t like that idea?”

“My irritation is a separate issue from your statements,” the passive maid let him know. “Do pay it no mind.”

“Sure?” John decided to get his explanation done first. “I was just thinking that messages would be paid a bit more attention to if there was a cute face attached to it.”

“Ya wanna sell your propaganda more successfully?” Rave joked, but she wasn’t even that wrong. There was no answer for her, though, as Beatrice suddenly knelt down next to the low table and picked up a number of photos.

She neatly stacked the equally sized pictures, created a number of towers that way and sighed as if she had just relieved a full bladder once she had started doing that, although there was no sign that she was stopping.

Sylph flew over and landed on one of those stacks of photos. “What are you doing? Is it fun to stack photos? Is there anything that is so great about the surface of the table that you want to see? I mean, it is pretty shiny. Shiny stuff is cool. Like glazed sugar on cakes. That’s pretty cool. Although I prefer my cakes hot and freshly baked. Those are the best cakes. Ah, but I am not allowed to eat entire cakes anymore. I get all scramble-brained when I do that.”

“Well, no, Intelligence isn’t a directly translatable Stat to my own Mental Stats...” John heard the triumphant laughter from the other side, followed by the sound of a bottle getting guzzled down. It was highly doubtful that it was simply beer she was putting in her face there.

“Don’tcha worry, playeeerrrr,” Scarlett sounded progressively more drunk with every passing moment. “Ya’ll’ve something to do soon. Everything will escalate and then the trap snaps.”

“...I feel like this is something I should know about,” John suggested, feeling that this entire thing was getting way bigger than he had signed up for. All he needed was an end to the hate mob so that the council would meet with him again without fearing public outrage. Whatever Scarlett was setting up here sounded bigger.

“Would ya really be satisfied if I just fucking told ya?” Scarlett teased.

“Her slurring is getting so bad she sounds like you, Jane,” John allowed himself a little joke.

“Such a charmer of a boyfriend I have,” Rave answered in a sarcastically dry tone.

“You’re the perfect girlfriend that is relishing in my intellectual loss over here.” His tone was a copy of hers down to the letter. They started playfully fighting with hands and feet, something that she eventually won by stabbing his forehead with her toe. “Anyway, no, I wouldn’t... so you’re sure you got that under control.”

There was a sound of shattering glass. “Don’t worry aboudit.”

“What was that?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“No, I mean the glass.”

“The empdy rum boddle... Whew, my liver is really out of form... didn’t think I’d get thish drunk this quickly, better put some vodka on top!”

“That sounds like a horrible idea.” And John was infinitely sorrowful that he was not around to see the androgynous technomancer get absolutely smashed outside of her normally so collected mindset.

“Yes... know what doesn’t sound like a horrible idea right now?” Her question was followed by a series of urging vibrations from the same phone they were speaking through right now. Slowly John picked it up and could read the scrolling text, ‘You, me, a latex outfit, a bottle of oil and a riding crop.’

“Wouldn’t the latex outfit and the oil clash?”

“Mhmmmaaybe,” Scarlett said, then there was a sudden trashing sound. “Shouldn’t get so drunk around places I don’t know.”

“What... wait, you’re not home?”

“Nope, Planned Spikes headquarter, Boston, Mishter Prezzident.”

John refused to think about that name too much. Planned Spikes was the ninth most powerful company in Amacat at this point. Planned basically sounded like Plant. Plant Spikes. Thorne. The company was named Thorne. It was Scarlett’s pre-existing local company from her days before John came about and such a stupid pun. Of course, conspiracy theorist would use that to create a (oddly enough correct) connection. Like all evidence that Scarlett leaked, however, it was so stupid and required such an amount of brain bending to get to it that most people would just dismiss it.

“So you’re in Boston... which is probably why you delayed the photoshoot despite winning the bet yesterday,” John tried to tie things together. Why would Scarlett go anywhere herself? “Hey, you aren’t thinking about...”



A loud snore interrupted his theory, the technomancer had passed out completely.