Descend- Bursting Out: A litrpg adventure

by David Burke

  “What did that mean, lover?” Meikiyo asked Jay as she knelt next to Mia, placing her hand on the other girl's forehead.

  “What does what mean?” Mia asked before Jay could answer.

  “I have no idea. I felt Mia borrow from my abilities but, I couldn’t tell you which one or how it caused that. Do you feel okay, Mia?” Jay said.

  “Perfect. Better than perfect. How long have you known how to do that? You have to do that to me every day,” Mia said with clear excitement.

  The others all exchanged a glance that she obviously didn’t remember the words that she had said. Jay first explained to her and for the benefit of Madison and Daphne about merging channels and what it meant that they were PSI catalysts. Then he told her about what she had said.

  They talked about it but simply didn’t have enough to know what to do about it. It was clearly ominous. That wasn’t enough to go on though.

  Once it was clear they couldn’t do anything about it now, Madison asked, “Can you refresh me like that? I’m past the fifth threshold so I should have the PSI catalyst ability.”

  “I don’t know. It works with my wives because we are fused. Even then it was easier to do with Meikiyo because I learned how to do it when fusing with her. I worry that I might hurt you if I pushed too hard,” Jay answered.

  “You know I like it when you push and it isn’t like I haven’t asked you to fuse with me. Surely Kathryn would like it if her parents were closer,” Madison pleaded. She looked up from the ground where she was sitting exhausted, her eyes begging Jay.

  “Jessie is next. I know you are tired now, but I have always respected you for understanding that I won’t go behind my wives’ backs or go around them either. And before you say it, Trina was an accident. She was dying. You are tired but you won’t die.”

  Madison frowned and when he looked over at Daphne he could see that she was disappointed too. It killed him because he really liked both these girls. They were definitely near the top of the list for the ones he could have seen himself in a relationship with.

  Jay relented and said, “If you are willing to take the risk, I am willing to try. But please let me know if this hurts.”

  He grabbed Madison’s hand and reached out to forge a bond with her. His skill level was almost up to two hundred now so it was beyond easy and with a simple snap he had a permanent bond with Madison. Her eyes bulged wide when she felt what he had done.

  There was no need for him to ask if he overstepped as he might have once upon a time. Instead he could feel her joy and gratefulness blossom through the bond. Then he pushed his power into her. Her channels weren’t fused like those of his wives. So he could only work with her smaller PSI channels.

  He fed the energy in much more slowly, allowing her to adapt to it. Bit by bit she took the power into herself and her channels expanded. Her flesh was suffused with his energy and then her catalyst ability kicked in. The power resonated back to him. It was weak compared to the others but still a rush even for him.

  A moment later she was overcome by bliss, but the bond assured him that there was no harm done to her. He ran a scan just to make sure but it was true. She was refreshed and her energy was restored. She would wake up in a minute or two.

  By the time Madison was awake, Daphne was bonded, refreshed and lying on the ground recovering from the shock to her system. Rather than wait for her to come to on her own, Jay picked her up and they all started to walk back towards the housing area. From the telepathic communication he had received he knew that each of his wives were upset with him for being anything from reckless to boneheaded depending on who was speaking.

  Still they agreed to gather everyone so that he could address them all at the same time. Ironically it was Amelia and Trina who were the most unwilling to listen to him and most vocal in expressing how they felt about his training stunt. It was priceless when everyone else had stopped talking in his head and they realized that it was only the two of them in perfect agreement. Silence reigned after that.

  Daphne had started to wake up and when she realized where she was, nuzzled up against his chest and smiled up at him. She pressed her ample breasts against him presumably to encourage him not to place her on her own two feet.

  When his wives realized what he was doing, Mia said, “See I knew you liked her.”

  Meikiyo just shook her head and gave one of her rare grins. “Our husband spoils any pretty girl around him.”

  There wasn’t much point in denying it, so Jay just remained quiet. He already had to prepare what he was going to say to the others. Of course it looked like that time was over because by the time they made it to the houses, everyone was gathered and waiting for him.

  After setting Daphne down, Jay leapt into the air and then slowed his descent with his kinetic dampening field so that he landed next to where the council and Amelia were standing up front.

  “Okay, everyone get comfortable because I’m gonna do something and then you won’t be able to leave the area for a while,” Jay said. As he spoke he looked around and did a quick headcount coming up to the full ninety-one. When he was sure he nodded and then activated a tempus fugit field with a radius of forty feet for a duration of one second at 1536:1 so they would have a little more than twenty-five minutes.

  Everyone knew what the field was like, all having been inside of one or at least having seen Jay use them in the past. That didn’t mean that there weren’t murmurs running through the crowd. So Jay said, “I believe that inside a time distortion field that the A’snkarnt can’t see or hear what we are doing. I can’t confirm this but it is our best chance for privacy.”

  That seemed to put people at ease so he launched right in. “I’ve come to the conclusion that we aren’t going to win this by playing the game according to their rules. I have even heard some of you talking about whether we should give babies over to them. Let me assure you that is never going to happen. Not so long as there is life in my body.

  “So let’s move past that. Now the question is how we get control of this ship or the resources to build our own ship. With that in mind, we are going to begin trying to actively seek out the A’snkarnt and the parts of the ship that they control things from. We have reason to believe that there is a force of Forlorn on their way here that will be seeking to destroy us.

  “That is not going to happen either. We have been told we have a few weeks to a few months at the most. This isn’t very long and we all know that. But time is going to work for us not the other way around. As long as I can use them, we will start creating these tempus fugit fields. Currently I can create fields at more than a 1500:1 ratio.

  “So theoretically if I was able to maintain that for thirty days before the Forlorn got here we would have more than one hundred and twenty years to prepare. This is clearly a game changer and while it depends on me using this power, the plan doesn’t end there.

  “It is going to rely upon all of you. Some of us will be training for combat. Some of us will be trying to create the technologies or find ways to co-opt their technology to use against them. Others will be using skills to scan and search for our enemies or to learn as much about this ship as possible. Finally, there will be some who will be responsible for raising up the next generation.

  “Now, I hear lots of speculation in your thoughts. Don’t worry, no decisions have been made officially. That is part of what we are here for. Although we don’t have enough time to reach final decisions. Ultimately I am going to be relying upon the advisors that you all voted into place to set up the necessary teams.”

  Everyone was quiet for a moment to see if Jay was done then several voices started to speak at the same time. Amelia shouted out, “Before Jay starts answering questions you should know that the advisors and Jay’s wives have met and we have some proposals that we want to make also and two programs that we want to ask for volunteers for.”

  The crowd looked from face to face and then Trina began, “We are glad to hear that Jay is ready to use
the time dilation fields to help us. We are going to propose that some of our efforts should be spent on trying to find the rest of the clusters. And then beyond that we are going to request that two lists of volunteers get made over the next couple of days.”

  Harper took over then. “To be clear, Jay has not signed off on any of our proposals and we did agree that he was the leader, but we want him to give serious consideration to our proposals.”

  “I don’t see any problem with working into our system some efforts to find the other clusters. I feel my responsibility is for all of you, first and foremost, but I would like to save as many as we can,” Jay said.

  Amelia had a devious look on her face. “Yes, but you may not be as open to our other two proposals. But please listen.”

  “Of course, wife. I will not say a word till you finish your next proposal. Then we can talk about that before you make your final proposal. Remember this field only has about twenty-two more minutes.”

  Huong said, “Okay then we will be blunt. We want you to make the A’snkarnt think you are going along with their proposal. We want you to delay the tempus fugit fields for five more days until D’varn visits again. During that time you should be doing dungeon exploration and other activities as usual. Make them think that we are trying to beat the dungeon.”

  Jay looked on, confused. Seeing Amelia, Trina, and Huong all in agreement was scary. Huong then continued, “Of course if we are going to sell this, you are going to have to start making more babies. So we will be asking for a list of volunteers for that, but we are thinking at least half the girls and honestly, preferably anyone who isn’t going to be in combat. If they see that then hopefully they will give us more control and move things forward.”

  Voices started calling out that they would happily have his baby. Some even pleaded to get to. Jay had to keep reminding himself that they were only this eager because of the stimulants. The problem was that the biological imperative in him was unable to ignore the sound of at least fifty gorgeous women asking for nothing more than the chance to bear his child. It was intoxicating but level five Iron Will worked wonders.

  “Calm down, all of you. We will make a list and then Jay or whoever he appoints will get the final say so. You don’t all have to do this, just enough to make it look like we are taking the offer seriously. And that will include you and your girls too, Miguel, but we will let you sort out how you want to do that,” Trina said.

  Amelia looked at Jay as though daring him to refuse. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “I will agree to look at the list and talk about it with my wives. With all due respect to the advisors, this is a matter that I will defer to my wives on.”

  The cute blonde then looked at him and said, “Good and we hope you will maintain that policy of deferring to your wives in regard to the next issue because we have taken a vote and all six of us…”

  “Seven,” Ava said.

  “Excuse me?” Amelia asked.

  “Well, you said six and that isn’t technically true. There were seven of us who voted,” Ava said. The words came out in a rush.

  “Jay only has six wives,” Amelia replied sharply.

  “Yes, but he is fused with seven women and you were outvoted regarding her. Trina gets a vote too,” Ava said.

  Jay was impressed at how strong of a stance she was taking with Amelia. This might bear watching in the future.

  “Fine, all seven of us voted unanimously for this next proposal,” Amelia said.

  Jay knew what she was going to say but couldn’t help himself. “And what exactly is this proposal?”

  “That you fuse with thirteen more girls to make an even twenty. We calculate that will push you past the recorded max level in the implant data and let us know if that is truly the max or not. If it is not then we will want you to fuse with more. The only requirement will be that they make a lifetime commitment to you on a vow confirmed by Samantha. But we want you to let us pick who. This isn’t about romance, but about who has the best powers to round us all out,” Mia said.

  The fact that Mia knew about the plan meant that this was something they had talked about earlier. She continued, “Of course Jessie would be next as planned and if you can find a way, we would have voted five to one that the next priority should be completing the fusion with Trina.”

  Jay was beyond being self-conscious about his sex life. It was just part of being the new Adam. But, fusion was far more intimate than sex and it was forever as far as he knew. He was giving away little pieces of himself and permanently implanting pieces of these women.

  It had already changed his personality. He could feel it. He was more inquisitive, bolder, more direct, more violent, more willing to listen. The only thing that was keeping him from being swayed too strongly in any one direction was that each of his fused partners was distinctive enough.

  “I don’t know if I will agree to this and I’m certainly not willing to hand over control of this to you. I understand that you have a part in it but so do I. I am the center of this crazy merry-go-round and there are times that I just want to get off of it. If that isn’t possible then I would at least like to have a little control,” Jay said.

  The girls were all staring at him, but he didn’t know what to say beyond that. So he turned over the rest of the meeting to the advisors and sat down to meditate for the few minutes remaining before the time dilation fell. It might be the chicken’s way out but he needed to look inside himself. He needed to decide if he was being stubborn for no reason or if there were genuine concerns here.

  By the time the field fell, Jay realized that there was a fundamental problem with the girls’ plan. If he didn’t implicitly trust the person he was fusing with then it wouldn’t work right. It might even go worse than his fusion with Trina. So he was going to have to have some say in who he could fuse with.

  More than that, they had to trust him. Although as he counted off the names in his head, he realized that while it wasn’t thirteen there were still nine names that came to his mind that he thought might have that type of reciprocal trust. He could only shake his head. This was gonna be a long night.

  Chapter 27- Purrfect

  Once the field fell, Jay managed to wander out. It was actually shockingly easy. He might be the subject of a very heated discussion but somehow none of the girls seemed to think that his input on the subject was very important. Truthfully, Jay was content to let them work out details and in the end he could always say no.

  As he was walking away though, a low sultry voice called out to him, “Where are you going, husband?”

  He was being called that by so many women now that he had to turn to see who it was. No, that wasn’t fair. He knew who it was. If he just opened himself up to the bonds he had, he could feel Jessie behind him. The thing was that fusions were so much more powerful than bonds that they tended to drown out the lesser connections.

  Jessie didn’t deserve to be drowned out by anyone. She was a gem of a girl. A gamer who knew the lingo, as fun as her blue hair suggested, and still compassionate. The former vet in training was staring at him with hunger in her eyes.

  “Nowhere. Just clearing my head. I haven’t forgotten about what is about to happen between us. And I know you feel like you are the more excited one, but the truth is that I am. You only think you know what fusion entails, but I am deeply aware of what it means and I can’t wait for us to be that connected.

  “Amelia, Huong, and even Ava demand more time for themselves, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t look forward to our time together as much as anyone else. After this, I will never be without your crooked smile and sense of humor in my head. No, the more I think about this the more excited I am. I could regret that fear kept me from doing this sooner, but the truth is I’d rather focus on the rest of our lives that we get to spend bound together,” Jay said.

  “Damn, you’re smooth. Back on Earth if a guy talked to me like that I would have assumed he was just trying to get into my panties. But with you
, I know it is genuine. You definitely know how to make me feel like I’m the only person in the world,” Jessie replied.

  “And because I want you to feel like that, I didn’t think you would want me to jump on you here in the middle of everyone else,” Jay said laughing.

  A serious expression suddenly came across her face. “I may not be Ava, but if my mate took me where he wanted, I wouldn’t complain. The strong get the best mates, remember.”

  “Yeah, but I thought we had already covered that,” Jay said.

  “What, not worth proving your dominance again? This fusion is a big step forward. I think an alpha might have to demonstrate his worthiness again. But watch out, I’ve learned a few new tricks,” Jessie said and Jay wasn’t sure if she was being playful or serious.

  He stared at her for a moment trying to get a read of the feeling that he sensed through the bond, then realized he should just try reading her mind. That was an interesting experience. Jay instantly knew that she was in that mood. Her mind was occupied with more instinctual responses.