Monster Hunt NYC: A Fantasy Harem Adventure

by Harmon Cooper

  Iris clapped her hands together. “I can’t wait to meet them! Should we go to the Dojo first, or do you want to hunt? I’m down for either.”

  “Hunt.” Aya placed her hand on her neck and cracked it. “Definitely.”

  “Dojo,” was Lady Cassandra’s reply. “I want to meet Iris in person.”

  “Well?” Iris asked.

  “Let’s hunt around for a bit. We’ll hit the Dojo a bit later, deal?”

  Iris nodded. “Let’s do it!”

  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

  “It’s strange hunting with her around,” Aya said after we’d walked together for a few minutes.

  “Relax, Aya.”

  Iris looked at me and crossed her arms over her chest just as a cold gust of wind moved over the East River. Her face went from a smile to a curious stare.

  “What is it?” I asked her.

  “That’s no ordinary breeze!”

  Aya gulped just as Lady Cassandra drew her blades.

  The wind’s humanoid form flashed into view.

  It resembled an old man with blue skin, a white beard and a demon-like face with bulging yellow eyes. He wore a leopard skin as a toga and the claws jutting from his toes were sharp and yellow.

  Rather than move through the air, Fujin danced, two clouds billowing around him as he moved.

  “Wait,” I told them both as I looked its stats over. “This one is high powered. It’s listed as ‘Fujin.’”

  Aya cracked a grin. “I can test my new technique against this Fujin,” she said, her orange eyes tracking the breeze moving away from us.

  “You said Fujin, right?” Iris asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Let me see what I can find out first. Let’s just track it for a moment.”

  Lady Cassandra considered this. “It does seem to be moving relatively slowly. What do you think, Aya?”

  The Thulean shrugged. “I guess we'll see if this Iris girl is helpful or not.”

  The four of us followed the dancing wind mythcrea through the park, keeping a good distance as Iris did some research. Fujin stopped in front of a shrub, observed it for a moment, and moved on.

  We passed an Asian woman walking a Frenchie, the dog barking as soon as it saw us.

  “Okay, to confirm,” Iris said, after the woman dragged her dog away, “Fujin’s class is Ventus and subclass is Glacio. Right?”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay then, wind power as a main class and ice as a subclass.”

  “That’s what Ventus and Glacio mean?” I asked.

  Aya shook her head. “You, of all people, should know this.”

  “He’s still learning,” Lady C. reminded her.

  “Fujin is a Japanese god of wind, with possible relations to Vayu, the Hindu god of wind,” said Iris as we curved around a bend.

  “Any weaknesses?” I asked. “We can get into the lore later.”

  As we reached a clearing, Fujin stopped and turned to us.

  His eyes flared iceberg blue, his bushy eyebrows growing in size as a snarl formed on his face.

  Suddenly, he was airborne, twisting into a whirlwind of fury as he flew directly at me.

  “Fuck!” I was tossed backwards. Aya dove left, Lady C. right.

  Iris remained standing, a funny look on her face.

  “It’s getting away, Iris!” I said, trying to regain my composure. “Why are you smiling?”

  “I just, well, I’ve seen videos of it, but I had no idea what it would look like from my perspective if you got attacked. That was ...interesting. I’m jealous!” Her face dropped into a frown. “I want to be attacked by Japanese wind gods!”

  “Tell her to shut up,” Aya said as she took off towards the wind god, Lady Cassandra following Fujin with both blades at the ready.

  Aya tried the move she’d just learned. She catapulted herself up into the air and turned towards the ground. Before she could activate her new ability, a giant gust of wind through her off her trajectory, causing her to crack her skull on the ground before being swept up into a mighty gale.

  “Aya!” I shouted as her body landed in the East River.

  The woman nearby with the French bulldog looked at me funny.

  “Shhh,” Iris said, hardly able to contain the excitement on her face. “Look, give me the quickest play by play you can. I’m almost onto something here. I’ve got like six search engine assists running!”

  “Um, Fujin tossed Aya into the East River,” I said hurriedly. “The wind god has whipped himself into a tornado and is chasing Lady C. Maybe we should fall back.”

  “No,” Iris said, “let me just … that’s it!” She looked at the Asian woman with the Frenchie and decided to yell something crazy anyway. “Lady C., run sideways!”

  “Sideways?” Lady Cassandra did a one-armed cartwheel and narrowly avoided a fist made of arctic wind.

  “Trust me!”

  Much to my surprise, Lady C. started doing a side shuffle; the wind god chased after her, making the same exact skipping movement.

  “Where am I supposed to go?” she shouted to us.

  “What’s happening? You have to remember to give me play-by-play, Chase!”

  “She’s running sideways and… shit! She fell over.”

  “The movement should confuse Fujin, at least that’s what I’m reading here,” Iris said, her pupils darting left and right as she read the information she’d curated on GoogleFace. “If it freezes, try to catch it.”

  A tornado scooped Lady Cassandra up, and just as it was about to body-slam her on the pavement, it stopped.

  Fujin’s eyes glazed over, Lady Cassandra still in the air above his body. A look of confusion spread across his fierce blue face and I knew my time had arrived.

  “You’re a genius, Iris!” I ran toward the mythcrea with a charging hand. I stopped, took a step back onto my back foot, and willed my power forward.

  A net of light sprayed forth from my fingers and engulfed the wind god.

  He disappeared in a flash, and Lady Cassandra fell to the ground with a solid umph!

  “Did you catch it?” Iris asked, excitedly.

  “I did!” I raced over to Lady Cassandra and lifted her into my arms. “Sorry I wasn’t fast enough to catch you.”

  “It’s fine,” came her reply, her dark eyes softening. “You’re here now.”

  We both turned our heads just in time to see Aya walking out of the water, sopping wet and pissed as hell. She sheathed her sword, the bitter scowl on her face showing no signs of leaving.

  “Are you okay?” Lady Cassandra asked, still in my arms.

  “Not a word,” she told us both as she strained water out of her hair.

  “I wasn’t going to say anything,” Lady C. said genuinely. “I’m glad to see you’re okay, though.”

  “What are they saying?” Iris asked.

  “Aya is pissed that she got thrown into the water; Lady Cassandra is, well, she’s her normal self.”

  Lady C. looked at me and smiled. “You’re cute, Chase, you know that?”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “You are, and I can totally tell that Iris has a big crush on you.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “Can I set you down?”

  “No, you may not. I’m comfy where I am.”

  “Let’s get to your Dojo,” Iris said. “Don’t you want to see what it looks like?”

  “Sure, but where should we dive from?” I asked.

  Iris shrugged. “My place is closer and I have two visors.”

  “Her place is probably nicer too,” Lady C. added.

  “I’m not carrying you all the way there,” I reminded her.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Chapter Six: Dojo with No Mojo

  “Interesting,” Aya said as she stepped into Iris’ efficiency apartment. “There is no pipe here. Look, Lady Cassandra, I can walk without having to limbo. American women have style. American men are slobs.”

  Iris’ apartment was basicall
y one long room about fifteen feet wide. There was a kitchen cut into the wall on the right, adding two more feet of space, and a bathroom near it. Rather than a bed, she had a futon at the back of the room, pressed against the wall. A single window near the kitchen gave the space some light.

  A couple of instruments rested in the corner, a small collection that included an acoustic guitar and a ukulele.

  “Limbo?” Lady C. stepped in the room, her sheathed blades clinking as she walked. “I am unfamiliar with limbo.”

  “Draw your sword and hold it at chest level.”

  Lady C. drew her sword and Aya walked over to her. “A limbo is when you do this.” Aya spread her legs wide and leaned backwards, revealing the tops of her breasts to me. She caught me looking, raised an eyebrow, and started shuffling forward.

  I started to chuckle.

  “What are they doing now?” Iris asked as she dropped her bag near the door. “Also, shoes off.”

  “Got it,” I said as I slipped out of my Vans. “And to answer your question: Aya is teaching Lady C. how to limbo using a sword.”

  “Good to know…”

  “Ah! That’s a limbo. I understand your joke about the pipe in Chase’s room now,” Lady C. said as Aya stood.

  “Yes. While it is an eyesore, it is useful for exercising. Maybe we should put a pipe in the dojo.”

  “Come on,” Iris grabbed my wrist and led me over to her futon.

  “An intimate gesture,” Lady C. said as she watched us walk past her. “I’m noting that.”

  Aya shrugged. “I’m not convinced he would know how to handle a real woman. His arms don’t have a lot of muscles and he wears glasses.”

  “Hey!” I called over to them as Iris let go of my arm. She quickly turned the futon chair into a bed and instructed me to lie down. Just to fuck with me, Aya climbed onto the bed and leaned on her hand, her red hair falling over the side of her face.

  “You ready for us?”

  “Get off the bed,” I started to tell the Thulean.

  “I’m not on the bed, yet.” Iris was now rummaging through her closet. “I need to change sweaters.”

  I looked over at her just in time to see her sweater come off, revealing a Mitherfickers tank top.

  “You bought one of their shirts?” I asked, recalling the Mitherfickers were a punk band we played a few shows with in Williamsburg. While our band, The Lenins, had a sound that didn’t mesh well with The Mitherfickers, the concert was still one of our more lucrative performances.

  “Their merch lady gave me one.” Iris pulled a sweater over her head which read BRUNETTE.

  “Brunette, huh?”

  “Blonde was taken,” she said as she moved over to the bed. “Where is she? I don’t want to lie down on top of her.”

  “Aya, get off the bed.”

  The Thulean huntress pushed herself up, glared at me in a flirty way, and used her ghost limbs to push herself away from the futon.

  “She’s gone now.”

  “Good,” Iris grabbed an Neuronal Visualization Visor she had next to her bed. “I have an extra one.” She cleared her throat. “It was Thad’s – he brought it over and never came back to get it. It’s next to your side of the futon.”

  I sat up and found the NV Visor.

  It was possible to log in to the Proxima Galaxy, where my Dojo was located, using the internet that played out on my retina, iNet. But the NV Visor allowed for better immersion.

  Iris’ visor, or rather Thad’s, was a newer model, sleek, lightweight, and gunmetal gray.

  I strapped it to my head and ignored the fact that I got a scent of Thad in the process. He always wore some cologne, not too sweet and but also not too musky.

  The visor’s sleek design made it easy to lie down. I tried to ignore my olfactory senses, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to smell anything once we reached the Dojo.

  “You log in first,” she instructed, “and once you do, give me access.”

  “Got it.”

  Sine waves appeared as soon as I placed the visor over my head.

  The famous Proxima tone, created by famous ambient musician Brian Eno, played in the background. I made sure the earbuds were in, and using the handshake between my iNet operating system and the Proxima dashboard, I scrolled down to the Dojo icon.

  Everything started spinning around me.

  Soon, I stood in an all-encompassing black space, not unlike the space where I first met Aya and Lady Cassandra. Before I could do anything else, I focused on the semi-transparent “settings” icon at the top of my viewing pane.

  I selected “other users” and allowed access to Iris Snout, who had already made a request. Seeing her name there made me briefly remember how much she hated her last name. Personally, I thought it was cool, that it complemented her first name. But she didn’t agree with me.

  As Iris’ avatar spawned, my vision pane lit up with instruction prompts on how to set up my Dojo.

  “You know how to do this stuff, right?” I asked her.

  “Yep.”

  “Then I’ll ignore the prompts.”

  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

  Iris’ base Proxima avatar looked a lot like how she looked in the real world.

  She still wore glasses, although her glasses here had bigger lenses, and the sweater that covered her upper half was double the size of a sweater she’d wear in the real world. On her legs were a pair of tights, which dipped into ankle-high Converse, the laces untied.

  “She seems a little frumpy.”

  I spun around to find Aya standing in the darkness. As soon as I saw her, the square beneath her feet lit up.

  “I think she’s cute,” said Lady C., who was a few feet away from Iris and to the right. Just as it had happened for her counterpart, as soon as she spoke, the tile beneath her feet lit up.

  A quick glance down and I saw that I too stood on a backlit tile.

  If I took a step forward, I’d step onto another tile and the one I’d previously been standing on would disappear. I turned, trying to understand the vastness of this place.

  I could see nothing except black for miles on end. Above me, I saw the twinkle of stars and streaks of purple and blue. Below me I saw utter darkness, aside from the tile I stood on.

  It was a bit overwhelming.

  I can see now why they don’t like being here, I thought as Iris introduced herself.

  “Iris,” she said as she thrust her hand out to the Thulean. Iris’ hand moved up and down, but it didn’t seem like Aya was actually shaking her hand.

  Ah, her ghost limb.

  Lady Cassandra performed a small curtsy and extended her soft hand to Iris.

  “Nice to meet you,” she said with a big smile on her face.

  Iris turned back to me. “Okay, let’s get started. So, you should have starter funds to get your feet wet. Proxima dollars are tradeable on various coin exchanges, but you’ll want to spend these ones because this place sucks at the moment. You should have ten thousand.”

  I looked at the lower right-hand portion of my viewing pane and saw a silhouette of a house. Focusing on this kicked the house to the left and flashed a new set of data on my viewing pane.

  Proxima Dollars: $10,000

  Spent: 0

  Loan: 0

  “I can take out loans?”

  “Yes, but let’s not get into that yet. The interest rate is ridiculous, and unless you know you have some cash coming in, I wouldn’t do it.”

  “Got it, we can mess with that later. Okay, so ten thousand.”

  Lady Cassandra approached me, her breasts bouncing once she stopped. “I’d like a small personal cottage with stained-glass windows and a library.”

  I felt Aye’s ghost limb land on my shoulder and lightly touch the side of my neck, sending a spark down my spine.

  “It would be better for me if you created a two-room cabin that had an attached gym.”

  Iris laughed. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, ladies.”

  Thank
you, Iris, I thought as I moved away from Aya’s ghost limb.

  Aya turned to Iris and glared. “I see whose opinion matters more around here.”

  Iris continued smiling at her. “Don’t feel like that. We have to set up some basic things like a training ground before we can start really customizing the place. We also need a mythcrea quarters.”

  Lady C.’s shoulders slouched forward. “I hate being responsible.”

  “Okay.” I clapped my hands together. “So, basic training ground. Will it be indoors or outdoors?”

  “Indoors would be nicer,” Aya said, “but it probably doesn’t fit your budget.”

  “She’s right.” Iris raised her hand and several designs appeared before her. With the flick of her wrist, the design zipped over to me.

  Stopping on a design caused it to enlarge so that it filled the space between us.

  Each design was outlined in red and green, the green signaling areas that made the design unique, things like a track, a sand pit, a large pond, and so on. Portions rimmed in gold meant that this area had further customizable features.

  After looking through them all, I chose a space called Base Field B that featured a large field, a track around the field, and a starter pond in the northwest corner of the space. The cost? A quarter of my budget.

  Proxima Dollars: 7,500

  Spent: 2,500

  Loan: 0

  “Not bad.” Iris’ glasses turned white as she researched basic Dojo design on GoogleFace. “Just as I suspected, there are bonuses that come with choosing certain designs and add-ons. The space you’ve chose, Base Field B, has the perk of doubling the roaming space available if you add a meadow.”

  “Roaming is nice,” Lady Cassandra said. “For animals and humans.”

  “And, by adding a meadow, you are naturally given a rocky terrain good for Ventus classes, aka wind classes, and you’re given a meeting ground. Further, back to the meadow part, adding a meadow will allow for organic life to begin to flourish in this space. Eventually, you’ll be able to add a sun and basically build your own world, but that’s another day. You have to first get the seed planted, literally.”

  “Cool, so I’ll add a meadow. And we need to go over classes.”

  “We will later.”

  The meadow cost fifteen hundred, but it seemed like a good investment for the Dojo. I noticed there were other options for different levels that were grayed out.