Descend- Coming Together

by David Burke

  He started parsing the lessons he had learned while practicing as much as about the dangers Jasmine presented. Even knowing that, he still felt the residual compulsion to want to help her. He figured that her hips didn’t help make things easier on him.

  Instead of thinking about all the beautiful women around him though, Jay wanted to turn his thoughts inward. He wanted to get a better handle on his powers and thought that it wasn’t just as simple as continually hitting trees and killing monsters. He thought there was more to it.

  Heck, he was literally rebuilding his body. He had the skills. He could become better than he was. Better, stronger, faster. He was already six inches taller and at least fifty pounds of muscle heavier than he had been.

  These physical traits had come in handy many times and he wasn’t going to discount them. Yet, Jasmine proved the deadly power of purely mental skills even more pointedly than Meikiyo’s flames. Sure it was all situational, but he felt like he would be left behind if he didn’t focus more on his mental-type skills.

  The mind was what set man apart from monkeys and he wasn’t going to be a monkey. So he cleared his mind. Then he focused his Life Sense into himself while at the same time maximizing his Iron Will to practice that and his Hardened Body. Whereas before such a thing would have made him pass out he was almost able to do it on instinct now.

  The Life Sense automatically wanted to expand from him. That was how he had used it so many times before. So he narrowed the focus. He bent it to his will and turned it first into a cone. Then he refined it further into a slender beam and finally into a knife-thin sliver.

  It helped that he had done this earlier with Jasmine but it was still different to do it to himself. It felt unnatural, but he forced it inward. Of course, introspection had never been Jay’s strong suit. He had always felt like things were his fault. That was after all what his dad had told him and so he never really wanted to think too much about himself for fear that he might come to truly loathe what he found.

  He visualized the Life Sense as a beam extending from his head and that made it easier, both the visualization and the way that he could then project it as a flashlight at his feet. He could feel the effects of his Hardened Body. It wasn’t just about skin, even the bones became stronger. Yet he didn’t appear to have added more mass. It just appeared that their structure became stronger, more resilient.

  This was definitely out of his depths when it came to science but he could tell what he felt. The bone structure seemed pretty much like what he remembered from biology. He had an interest in science but more for sci-fi purposes than for any practical application.

  As he ran the scan up his legs, he saw the flow of blood and how his muscle fibers seemed more tightly spun. At least that was the only way he could think of to describe what he was sensing. The most interesting thing he had found came when he reached his knees.

  The meniscus in his knee seemed more fibrous and stretchy, perhaps more durable. Then there was the fact that there was an almost-crystalline casing around the joint itself. It was a given that it would be stronger but also seemed designed to absorb kinetic energy from impacts. This would be something to talk to any of the girls who might have more knowledge of biology. Huong was great, but she knew more about things at a cellular level.

  As the scan ran up his legs, he skipped past his junk. He wasn’t sure he was ready to see if there had been any changes in there. He already knew that it had grown proportionally with the rest of him but that was enough for him now.

  The scan showed the functioning of his organs and this was where he got the third shock. His liver, stomach, lungs, and heart all had strange nodules growing off of them. One per organ. They were attached to the larger organ and almost looked like a miniature version of the full organ. The heart one was even beating in rhythm.

  He watched and tried to magnify his power as much as possible as he looked into those organs. He got only an overwhelming sense of health and wellness from those little mini organs. Jay just wasn’t sure what their purpose was.

  In his shock about the little organs, Jay almost missed his fourth shock. There was a very nebulously defined core in the very center of his being. With his Life Sense he could see tiny tendrils of power flowing into it and then back out to every bit of his body from the tips of his toes to the ends of his fingers.

  Time seemed to be lost to him as he felt the flow and ebb of the power through this core. He knew subconsciously that this was the center of his Stamina. It was what powered his Durability and Metabolism-based skills. It was also the life-giving force that animated his cells and kept his body in its constant state of change, while still maintaining the same form.

  His mind almost seemed to become disembodied as he lost the larger picture of the world around him and for an unknown amount of time he rode the currents of this strange yet oddly familiar energy as it traversed channels in his body. It was separate and distinct from the electrical impulses that he felt running through his nervous system or the blood coursing through his veins.

  Yet it was no less fundamental. If anything this seemed more fundamental. It was like learning that the bread crusts didn’t really crawl out of the trash to get you if you didn’t eat them, like his dad had told him as a child. His eyes were opened and he realized that he had never truly understood the universe at all.

  He exulted in the feeling of traversing back and forth and all around in his body. Over time he began to realize that the ebb and flow of the energy was not random. There was a pattern to it, a cadence of sorts.

  He was sure of it. Yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He knew the rhythm was there but couldn’t time it out just right. Somehow he felt that understanding that cadence would be a fundamental breakthrough, but it escaped him at the moment.

  Then he was brought out of his inward view and found that three irritated girls were looking down at where he sat as Amelia shook him. He smiled at them.

  “Oh, now he smiles. First, he makes us wait for almost two hours and then he smiles,” Amelia said in one of her more caustic tones.

  “Well it is a nice smile,” Huong said.

  “That’s beside the point. He said to meet us here but then he goes off to dreamland and sleeps while we stare at him.”

  “I wasn’t really sleeping,” Jay objected, “I was using Life Sense to explore inside my body rather than out of it. But what do you mean by two hours? I have only been sitting here for like two minutes. I mean maybe five or six if I lost track of time.”

  “See, I told you he was meditating. It is like Elder Tanaka did in the village my parents grew up in. They told me the stories about how he could sit there motionless for hours in the rain or snow or even with children trying to tickle him with blades of grass,” Meikiyo said.

  “I don’t know anything about old men or meditation but I do know when someone stands me up,” Amelia said.

  “How could I stand you up? I had lunch and debriefed the group I took into the dungeon and then I came up here. Since I got here before all of you, I just sat down to practice a few skills while I waited. I swear it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes ago.”

  Amelia huffed, “He swears.”

  “Actually, Jay, this time she is right,” Huong said hesitantly.

  “Of course I’m right, slut.”

  Meikiyo got a slight grin on her face at the banter between the other two girls before saying, “Maybe check the clock on your Status sheet, Jay.”

  So he called out Status and then looked at it. Sure enough it was 2:20 in the afternoon so he had been sitting down for two hours. Actually a few minutes more than two hours. Jay shrugged at them. “I’m sorry. It only felt like moments to me, but I learned all kinds of cool things.”

  Amelia and Huong looked at each other. The former like she was asking permission to throttle him and the latter shook her head almost imperceptibly. Meikiyo was the first to speak though, “I personally want to hear all about that under the stars, lover, b
ut shouldn’t we focus on what we are supposed to be talking about, namely adding another Eve to our team.”

  Still focused on what he had been perceiving before and even feeling the flow within his body without looking at it, Jay took a second to catch her meaning. “I mean, aren’t we just trying to add another member who will help us on dungeon dives.”

  The three girls looked at each other again and strangely enough it was once again Meikiyo who spoke, “We had plenty of time to talk about it while you were meditating and have decided that at least for now it wouldn’t really be fair to add another member to the core of our team and not count her as another sister.”

  “You mean another wife,” Amelia said, cutting Meikiyo off.

  “Whoa, whoa, since when did I get any wives let alone another wife,” Jay protested.

  “Be fair, Jay, and be smart. You are both those things,” Meikiyo said.

  “The dungeon messages and you yourself have pointed out that this is likely where we are going to spend the rest of our lives. However long that may be. Hopefully we all grow old together, but it is unlikely that we are going to be able to escape from here and if we do, it will be a good long time from now,” Huong said.

  Jay started to mention his dreams but Amelia cut him off, “No, I don’t want to hear about the dreams now. Yes, they are important, but so is living in the now. We have a goal. Descend the dungeon and try to find a way out. Get ready for whatever new threat is coming. Oh and find the behind, whatever that means. But, I for one am not willing to give up on having a life. I will work just as hard as ever. I just want us to acknowledge that if this is all the life that we have that our prior plans and pre-conceptions just don’t work anymore.”

  “Fair enough but what does that have to do with the entire wife thing. I thought that you decided we were just enjoying each other’s company,” Jay said.

  “We are,” Huong said, “but we also all care for you.”

  When Amelia crossed her arms, Meikiyo lightly slapped the back of her head. “No don’t clam up again, we know that you feel at least as strongly as the rest of us about this.”

  “Fine,” Amelia mumbled.

  Huong looked at her to make sure she was done before continuing, “Since you gave us so much time to talk when you went and hid in the dungeon and again now we decided that we want to make this formal. We want you to marry all three of us.”

  “Isn’t that rushing things a bit? I mean I care about all of you. I want to be with you. I may even be falling in love with you, but marriage?”

  “You sure don’t mind being inside of me, and if you want that to continue this is my condition. I want a formal status with you announced to the entire community,” Amelia said.

  “Me too,” Huong added.

  “And me,” Meikiyo chimed in.

  “Uh, we don’t exactly have a church or flowers or fancy dresses or anything like that.”

  “We aren’t asking for some fancy ceremony. We are asking for a brief exchange of vows and a commitment made in front of the entire community. They should all know our standing with you. They shouldn’t think that we are just opportunistic sluts who are spreading our legs to get what we want from you,” Amelia said. “Well except for Huong. That description fits her to a tee.”

  Much to his surprise instead of Huong exploding or anything she leaned in and kissed Amelia on the cheek while saying, “Aw, I like you too.”

  Equally surprising was the fact that Amelia actually smiled bigger from the kiss than when she was delivering the insult.

  Jay shook his head. The world was turning upside down around him. “So can I have some time to think about this?” he asked.

  “Yes some,” Huong said.

  “If you have to,” Amelia added.

  Meikiyo walked over and looked up at him. He now towered over her by almost a foot and a half but somehow her look made him feel like he was shorter than she was as she said, “Don’t wait too long.”

  “Okay so why are you calling the girl we add, another Eve?” Jay asked, trying to buy himself time to think.

  “Because whoever we choose is going to be spending a ton of time with us and she is ultimately going to want to be made into a wife as well. That means it is important that she can be a sister to us as much as a good part of our dungeon team. Getting along with us is just as important as you liking to be with her. Don’t you think?” Huong asked in response.

  “Uh… sure… I guess so.”

  “Oh bonehead, if in doubt just do what your future wives tell you,” Amelia said. “Actually, no scratch that. Even if you think you know what you should do, probably run it by one of us.”

  Jay almost would have been offended by the way she continued to talk down to him but then she pinched his butt and flashed him a smile. No way could he be mad at that. “Or at that,” he thought as his eyes trailed down to her ever-present cleavage.

  “I thought we were going to add three or four alternates to the team to round out our skill sets and in case anyone is ever down and needs a replacement. You aren’t expecting me to marry every girl who joins the team. Are you?” A note of panic must have entered Jay’s voice because they all giggled at him.

  The more he thought about it the more he realized that he might love these beautiful women in front of him, each as unique as the powers they wielded. Sure it might be a love forged of shared turmoil and being forced together, but it could have been worse. Back home he would have dropped to one knee for a chance to get with any of these girls. Not only were they gorgeous, but they were fun and smart and caring.

  “Oh boo hoo, poor Jay is gonna have to fuck more girls. I’d play my violin for you but they didn’t bring it when we got kidnapped by aliens or whatever,” Amelia said.

  Meikiyo stepped in, “No we actually aren’t asking you to marry all of them. Maybe some. Well maybe all. Who knows exactly how it will work out? But just cause we all get along so well with you doesn’t mean that you will hit it off with every girl who joins the team. So we sorta thought there would be three levels.”

  Huong seamlessly took over speaking for her. Even Jay realized it was never a good thing when the girls were so in sync that they could do that. “Really more like two levels with an intermediate step. There would be wives. They get full privileges with you and can expect romance not just sex. Then there would be concubines. I mean we wouldn’t actually call them that but that is sorta what they would be.”

  She paused to make sure that he was following what she was saying so he politely nodded along even though his head was spinning. “There would be two types of those. First would be the ones who are on the dungeon diving teams but just don’t click it off with you that much. They might or might not want to sleep with you but given what’s in the water it’s pretty likely they would want to take you out for a spin every now and again.”

  “And the second type?” he asked.

  “The ones who are too afraid to go into the dungeon but still wanna have babies with you.” Amelia answered, obviously taking pleasure in the way he threw his arms up in the air and started walking around the small room at the top of the ziggurat.

  Before he could speak though Meikiyo said, “You know this is inevitable. If this is where we will spend the rest of our lives then we are going to need more people to colonize this place. There may be other clusters but from everything we have heard they all are mostly women with only a small number of men. So each of you are going to have to sire many children. Don’t worry though, it isn’t like you will have time to change diapers or anything. You are going to be busy trying to descend the dungeon.”

  Shaking his head again he said, “Okay and what is the in-between category or whatever you are calling it.”

  Amelia grinned again. “Those are the concubines who want to become wives, but they will have to first convince the other wives that they are committed and worthy as well as being able to get along with the rest of us.”

  “Don’t I get any say in this?” Ja
y asked.

  “Of course, it’s not like we can force you to do anything, but you know what the old saying is. My dad used to mumble it under his breath all the time, ‘happy wife, happy life’ and you are gonna have a lot of wives to keep happy unless I miss my guess.”

  Jay didn’t know why she was getting such a perverse pleasure out of this unless she really just liked messing with him that much, but then she reminded him of the Amelia that made him so crazy when she said, “But I still get first dibs.”

  Jay shrugged and the other girls laughed. He thought for a second and said, “Ok, I just need to think on this, okay?”

  They all nodded until Huong said, “So who do you think we should add to Team Jay?”