[Vol. 3 pt. 14]
Admittedly, Thera did an infinitely better job than me at decorating the dungeon. Just how bad I made it look was only really obvious after she invited me in to take a look when she was done. Compared to what she did, I made the dungeon look like a tacky casino trying to swindle money from people while putting in the bare minimum amount of effort into making it look nice. Alternatively, it could have been compared to a motel from a hundred years ago with carpets and wallpaper that looked like they were from an arcade that served cheap pizza to high school kids after school.
What Thera did to the place was beyond impressive.
All that tacky red and gold was replaced with white marble. She elevated the dungeon from looking like a sleezy hybrid of an old motel and arcade to looking like some sort of classical Greek bathhouse. There were marble columns to hold the ceiling up spread around the place purely for decoration, statues of babies with angelic wings pouring water out of the pots they held, glowing stones embedded in the ceiling all throughout the dungeon to give it a very natural looking light that fully illuminated the place, and the occasional green in the form of potted and hanging plants.
Thera made the dungeon look more appropriately Greek than the game’s own dungeon designers did for one of the dungeons inspired by Greek mythology. I felt like I was walking through a museum replicating what it must have been like thousands of years ago.
And, of course, the monster rooms were all overhauled as well and given more privacy. Each room had curtains that could either split the room up or be pulled back to open the space up, allowing multiple potential clients to use the rooms at the same time while having more privacy than before. Not to mention that the rooms also had beautiful, grand beds large enough for an entire party of players to fit on.
There was even complimentary wine and huge bowls of fresh grapes on tables next to each bed.
“Wow, Thera. You seriously outdid yourself,” I said as a proud, slightly smug Thera stood next to me.
“I know, darling,” Thera replied.
“What’d you do with all the stuff I had in it before?”
“I returned it all to my inventory and then destroyed it so that it would never see the virtual light of this world again.”
“You… you could have sold it to a vendor and made at least a bit of money back.”
“I had no intention of tainting my coin purse with money made from those abominations.”
“Come on, I know it was bad, but it wasn’t that… alright, that look on your face is telling me that it actually was that bad.”
“Good. You need to understand how grave of a sin that was.”
“Wow. It was so bad that it’s turning you into a religious woman.”
“On the contrary, the existence of your interior decorating tastes proves that there is no god. If there is, he is not a just god worthy of worship as he has already abandoned us to damnation.”
“I don’t know if I should feel proud or upset that my tastes are so horrible that they disprove the existence of a just god.”
“Well, I’ve already had a few different prudes try to get me canceled saying that I’m damaging youth morality and all that stuff. So I guess that my existence being enough to disprove god adds to that.”
“Ah… I forgot that such people existed.”
“You mean those crazy religious types who have nothing better to do than get offended on the internet?”
“Exactly.”
“Yep. Not sure they’ll ever go away. There are always going to be extremists for every type of affiliation that there is. Now that I think about it, I should do another video with that one pastor I collabed with before.”
“I think I remember that.”
“Pastor Alex. Great guy. While I might not be religious, we talked all about how progressive views on sex can still work with religion and faith in God and all that. He was really cool. You know, a lot of people see what kind of person I am and assume that I’m some anti-God atheist who wants to corrupt everybody and turn the youth into sexual deviants. Really, I just personally don’t believe in God and have zero problem with those who do, and all I want to do is educate people and make sure they’re being safe. If teaching teens how to use condoms makes me evil, then so be it. I’d rather them not get knocked up by accident when they get lost in the heat of the moment with their first love and have a baby that they’re not prepared for. But as long as they’re being careful, they can believe whatever they want. Heck, I think it’d be awesome if God existed.”
“Oh? You do? I haven’t heard you say that before. Do you care to elaborate?”
“One of my favorite movies of all times. What Dreams May Come. I want to believe that a Heaven like that exists. But you know, I also figure that if there really is a just God worthy of worship, then he’ll accept good people regardless of their belief in him. And I like to think that I’m a good person, as arrogant as that might make me sound. But yeah. If there’s an afterlife like in that movie, sign me up. Have you seen it?”
“I cannot say that I have.”
“We should have a movie date and watch it sometime.”
“Oh? Hmm. A movie date with you. You know, that almost makes it sound like an official date between the two of us.”
“Then let’s make it one. Me and you at a virtual theater.”
“Actually, if it interests you,” Thera stopped for a moment and slightly turned her head away from me, “I will be going through your area next month. I have a funeral to attend to, and I could stop by on the drive back.”
I felt myself getting way too excited for a plan that wasn’t even set in stone yet. “Seriously? Wait—first, if somebody close to you died, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Worry not. It is for one of my great aunts who I was never close to the in first place. I am only going because I know I will not hear the end of it if I fail to show up. So, if you wish, we can have a proper date then.”
“Well, we wouldn’t be able to find the movie in any theaters since it’s pretty old, but you can watch it with me at my place if you don’t mind having our first real date in my house.”
“I fail to see any problem with that. After all, I know you would never try anything that I would not approve of.”
“I suddenly feel nervous.”
“You are not the only one, darling. Now then, I spent more time in-game than I had planned for, so I have other matters I must go take care of.”
“Sure. Just uh, send me the day you’re thinking of stopping by over Fiscord so that I can make sure my schedule is open for you, alright? I want to make sure to reserve that day for us.”
I only got to see it for a split second since Thera turned her head even more to hide her face from me, but she definitely smiled when I said that. “I will. Goodbye, darling.”
“Later, Thera. Wait. Does our previous conversation about me touching your boobs still apply in real life?”
“I have changed my mind. I will drive straight home instead.” Thera vanished right after saying that, going offline and leaving me alone to smile and laugh.
“I wonder what sort of stuff I should get for our date. Maybe some wine? Champagne? Chocolates? Flowers?”
I was standing in the middle of my redecorated dungeon just waiting to be filled with the sounds of sex, but I couldn’t think of anything except the date instead.
Then a text message from my phone being linked to my headset popped up in my vision, letting me see that it was from my mom complaining about being hungry despite having a kitchen full of food.
That meant we were ordering something.
Back in the real world, I went downstairs where I saw my mother sitting on the couch scrolling through different places to order from. “I don’t know what I want. You?” she asked me without even turning to look at me.
“You know there’s a kitchen full of food, right?” I asked in response.
“But I’m not in the mood for any of it.”
“I swear I feel like I’m the parent and you’re the child.”
“If you were the parent then you’d be paying for it.”
“Yeah? You’re paying? With what, your credit card?”
“Exactly.”
“And who pays off your credit card for you?”
“Don’t worry about the little details.”
“No, no. I’m just curious. Come on. Why don’t you say who pays your credit card off?”
“All of your viewers do.”
“And who does their money go to?”
“You.”
“And where does my money go to?”
“Me.”
“So, who pays for it?”
“Me, because I gave birth to you and you wouldn’t have money in the first place if you didn’t exist.”
“You’re lucky that I love you.”
“And you’re lucky that I pay for everything. Now, what are you in the mood for? Pizza? Italian? Chinese?”
“Pasta sounds good, so Italian?”
“Hmm. I’m not really in the mood for Italian. Let’s get Chinese.”
“I want to hit you.”
My mom stuck her tongue out at me before easily adding everything she wanted to the order as if she knew exactly what she wanted all along, and then handed the phone over to me so that I could enter what I wanted.
“You could have just said from the start that you wanted Chinese,” I said while putting in my usual order. Honey chicken with chicken fried rice, pork lo mein, an egg roll, and crab rangoon.
“I wanted to give you the illusion of choice,” she replied. I gave the phone back and then she placed the order.
“By the way, I might have a date coming over next month.”
“Oh! Is Lily finally coming over?!”
“Not Lily.”
“Eh? Did you break up?”
“No, we’re still together.”
“So, let me get this straight. You have a girlfriend. You’ve never seen her in real life yet. Instead of bringing her over for a date, you’re bringing another woman over for a date.”
“Alright. When you put it that way, even though I know Lily is alright with this, it makes me sound pretty bad.”
“Yeah. From everything you’ve told me about that girl, you should know how lucky you are. She might not get pissed off at you for pulling something like this, but I will. I’ll get angry on her behalf. I know you’re in an open relationship or whatever, but you need to see your actual girlfriend first. Understand?” As friendly as my mom was, she also knew how to act like a serious parent when she felt the need to.
And I couldn’t refute anything that she said. When I thought about how I would feel if the roles were reversed… I would be jealous. I mean, I wouldn’t be upset if I explicitly gave Lily permission and encouraged her to hook up with somebody else like she did with me and Thera, but I would still feel a little jealous.
So, I pulled my phone out of my pocket, bought a plane ticket for the next week, and sent it to Lily over Fiscord.
“There. Just sent her a plane ticket for next week,” I said.
My mom still wasn’t happy as she shouted, “Did you even plan it with her?! You can’t just buy a plane ticket and send it to her!”
“What? I figure that she’ll be happy when she wakes up and sees it. And if she’s busy or can’t accept it for some reason, I can just refund it.”
“From everything you’ve told me about that girl, she’s probably going to feel pressured to accept even if you tell her you can refund it! Geez, Damian. You jump into things way too quickly without considering other people’s feelings. This is why you couldn’t hold a girlfriend down before.”
“I—well… I guess that I can’t really deny that.” Sure, I always made sure people were comfortable and consenting during sexual matters… but she was right about me making plans with people and then diving deep into said plans without really waiting for anybody else’s input.
I even did it with the dungeon. Sure, I might have owned it, but Thera played a huge role in helping me with it. She was basically its co-owner. Then there was Cani. She had her restaurant in there now. I completely redecorated the place and moved everything around without seeing either of them first.
“Alright, you’re right,” I said and took my phone back out to delete the message I sent to Lily. I then sent a new message asking her if she wanted to come and stay with me for a few days. “There. Deleted the message and asked her if she wants to come over instead.”
“Good,” my mom said. “That’s better. You need to—”
“Wait a second.”
“What?”
“I got this from you.”
“Got what from me?”
“Me making plans without others’ input. You already had all your plans set up for ordering food figured out before I ever came down here and only pretended to give me a choice.”
It took my mom a few minutes to figure it out as she blankly stared at me, but the hamsters in her head eventually saw my point. “Oh. Crap. Why couldn’t you have inherited my good lucks instead of that? Wait! That’s not important! What’s important is that Lily is finally coming over! Oh my gosh, we have to do so much with her! I wonder if there are any local events next week. Think she’d like to go to a museum or zoo? We could take her to the city! I wonder what movies are playing…”
As I watched my mom set up an entire week’s worth of plans involving Lily before Lily could even have a chance to reply to my message, I confirmed that I absolutely got my problem of jumping into plans from her.
And if I was anywhere near as bad as my mom was, I needed to work on that.