A New Home – 10

At the exit, you let them go out one by one, repeating the same phrase over and over.

“May you be cured of your afflictions.”

“May you be cured of your afflictions.”

“May you be cured of your afflictions.”

…

On and on, it continues.

Every time, you’re drained a bit further, adding onto the massive drain on your mana those full-power blows had taken from you. At some point your demonic flesh begins to burn your hand as you bless them, yet you continue. Setting things right is worth the temporary pain.

The cured stare at you in amazement as you wince, unwilling to waste energy to heal yourself before curing the others. At three hundred, boils have ruptured all over your hand and you’re bleeding black.

At four hundred you’re exhausted and your entire right arm is bleeding all over. You switch to your left and continue, ignoring the ants driving acid spikes into your bones.

And when you’re done with the five hundred and twelfth, you collapse on the ground. With a shaking, blistered left hand holding you up, you concentrate on keeping your appearance the same and summoning a flame to burn the drug pouch into nothingness.

They stare at you in amazement, marveling over their cured forms.

“Miss…how can we possibly repay you?” A larger dwarf asks you quietly.

You shake your head.

“It was the right thing to do.”

And instantly, you feel better.  Lighter. As if you had reached enlightenment.

You suddenly know why. You’ve done enough selfless deeds for your blessing to grow.

Whereas demons grow strength short-term through consistency, angel blessings apparently work in periods of stagnancy and exponential growth.

In gamer terms, it’s comparing leveling up via stacking your mana bar that doubles as an experience bar versus sudden, quick growths through consistent, unrewarded effort.

Level up versus evolution.

You still have virtually no energy, but you know your blessings will be far more powerful. You even have minor matter manipulation, so long it’s non-lethal. Struggling to your feet you address your audience.

“For those who want to go back to Hacksonville, go, and tell them about this mine. For those who feel as if they won’t be able to fit in society anymore, those who have nothing left in Hacksonville or even Prillia, those who are willing to go through many trials for a place where you can belong, follow me.”

They look at you with a variety of emotions varying from hope and admiration to sorrow and indecision.  In the end, little over a hundred people decide to follow you, while the rest trek to Hacksonville.

You wave them goodbye and limp, too tired to fly, a nervous crowd following you. You find your three youngest demons and a sex-reeking dozen of criminals in the warehouse. The crowd is apprehensive at the sight of the horns, and more so their previous captors, but you assuage them.

“They know their wrongs, and we will decide a proper punishment when we get to Haven.”

Curious, they keep quiet and you ask them to make sure everyone is touching each other.

Blip!

You’re here.

They all gaze in amazement at the sight of the city before them. The energy in your realm replenishes and heals you.  You tell them to sit still and you’ll get the immigration forms out. Most don’t hear you, their mouths agape at everything, despite how much smaller it is than Hacksonville. Maybe because the buildings are massive. You rush over to your home and to your console.

You immediately create two new buildings, directly on the road. One in the north and one in the south, both identical. Top floor will be for portals in separate rooms. The hallway that connects them all leads to a staircase to the second floor, where a receptionist will be waiting. The path splits right and left, the left path wrapping around through three big rooms leading back into the right path downstairs and outside.

You stop to think a bit and split the last room in two, but with entrances and exits side by side. You form something completely new as well. You fly back to them and enjoy the sight of their astonished expressions. A building just appeared in front of them, after all.

It looks strange, being a box on a pair of stilts in the middle of a field. But it fulfills its intended purpose.

“Come on up, we’ll get you guys settled.” You walk up the ramp and into the building. The others tentatively follow, spouting questions all the while. They gather in front of you as you use the receptionist desk as a soapbox.

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions. I can’t answer them all, but I can take care of a few. Where we are is Haven, an entirely different plane.” The are impressed mutterings and gasps from a few of more magically-inclined, mostly elves.

“There are already about forty residents, so it’s only a small town now. I hope that we can change that. Food is readily available in the crops, and for the kobolds, there’s a forest you can hunt in. Unfortunately, none of this is free.”

They hold their breaths.

“You will be indebted…but you can pay it off whenever you want, with no interest.”

They let out their breaths, afraid they’d been tricked.

“You’ll have to pay it off if you want to emigrate out, so now’s your last chance if you want to go back. Any takers?” There is some more whispering, but they all stand firm.

“Okay, cool. Now that we’re starting a burgeoning society, it’s time to explain how the money here works. You will find it strange, among other things, but remember, we’re quite literally in another world.”

You hold up four different colored, diamond-shaped plates. Even in your smaller goblin hands, the flat pieces fit easily in your palm. They stack comfortably in your hand and you pick up the red one first.

“The red one is what everyone starts with. It represents your debt. When you buy something, with nothing else to offer, you will accumulate debt. One red token is worth one-hundred orange tokens, but it’s the only time you’ll be directly given one. This is the price of citizenship, which comes with housing, healthcare, free food, and no taxes.”

The crowd seems a bit apprehensive at first. When you mention the advantages, their eyes bug out and jaws drop.

“However, if you accumulate a debt of over one hundred red tokens, you’ll be forced to work it off. Not in some bad conditions, mind you.”

Some of them may like the pen. A woman raises her hand.  You point to her.

“Uh, yes? How do we get rid of debt?”

“Smart cookie. I’ll get to that in a second. But rest assured, it is possible for you to get rid of your debt on your first day here.”

The are sounds of surprise and merry chattering.

“As for this token—” They quiet down and you hold up the orange token. “This is the orange token. If you have nothing to offer, you will be given at most ten tokens. But it’s more likely to be in the one to five token range. And now for the green token!”

You show off the green plate.

“This is what you’re paid with. The natives of this plane don’t need such things, but if you want material goods, you’ll want some. And not just goods. You get these by working or through odd jobs.”

Like hand jobs, blow jobs…

“You get a hundred, and it’s worth one blue token. Interestingly, the jobs you guys can take to pay off your red token can be done as many times as you’d like.”

There are a lot of raised eyebrows.

“Here’s the kicker; get a hundred blue tokens, and you get to make a wish to the creator of this plane. If it is not detrimental to anyone and within her power, she will grant it. And considering she created this plane…”

You let the implications hang in the air. Suddenly, a lot of them seem quite eager to get tokens.

“So what do we have to do?”

A surprisingly eloquent kobold asks.

“First things first. I’ll need to get you guys to follow me into this waiting room. I’ll call you in, do a quick bit of questions about yourself and clean you of any contagious diseases or powerful spells.”

You do a quick count of them and find a total of 124 of them. There are only a dozen humans. 67 women, most of which are dwarves and elves. 23 men, weird ratio. 12 male dogs and 11 female dogs. You’re impressed how quickly you can count now. You lead them to the first waiting room.

“We’ll start with females first. Don’t worry, you’ll find this to be quite quick. Time in the next room moves faster than out here. Sixty times faster, in fact.”

One hour in there, one minute out here.

“Now get in line, it should take less than fifteen minutes to go through all of you.” You stop Peanut, Butter, and Rift from entering. “You three should go outside and meet your brethren. I’ll explain your duties to you later.”

You point towards the exit on the right and they do as they’re told. Entering the waiting room, you spot a circle of them glaring at the eleven criminals. Looks like they can’t quite forgive and forget. The eleven of them are fidgeting, in equal parts nervousness and horniness.

Like virgins!

Except they might actually get mauled.

“Woah, woah! Calm down. I understand there’s some resentment, but look at the sign.”

You point to the list of rules you’d placed in the room.

It outlines the value of tokens and benefits of living in Haven, as you said prior. It even has a red token dispenser below it, doubling as a numbered ticket for these two rooms.

You’re quite proud of the idea.

It also lists the rules. Get in line, come up when the buzzer sounds, and no fighting.

Simple.

“Miss, we get that you want to protect them, but they’ve done so many bad things. Why would you invite them here?” The elf that speaks up seems to be their de facto leader.

“I know that you’re afraid they’ll hurt you. Some wounds never heal, but people can change. I’m hoping they’ll turn over a new leaf. There will be punishments, but I won’t take away their rights just because of a spur-of-the-moment flare of anger. I’ve been locked up before, treated as nothing more than a slave. And I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

After a bit of personal perspective, the people kicked the ground guiltily.

“Now take a token, so we can get going. A number will appear on top, which indicates your place in the line. Let the accused go first, so I can tell them of the consequences of their actions.”

You walk through the door and settle yourself down. Relaxing, you release your form and lean comfortably back in your chair. On the desk is another computer, holographic display and everything.  There’s footage of the three rooms the interview room is connected to, but it’s incredibly slow. You spot the people slowly making their way to the dispenser and taking their numbers, before getting in order. A minute for them, an hour for you.

It’s agonizingly slow, but the most efficient solution. You’ll add a time acceleration slider when you get back to the console.

You smirk. Hopefully by then, you’ll have a lot more demons. You’re not going to corrupt them. Except maybe the first eleven, if their souls show no sign of change.

Either way, every one of them is going to give you a demon. You giggle happily and start touching yourself at the thought of creating over a hundred more children. It’s not like you really have a choice.

If you don’t get more demons, you won’t get stronger. Paradox nearly kicked your shit in, mostly because you thought you were a BAMILF with magic. More demons means more DESIRE. And a larger Haven, to house more non-demons, to create more demons and produce more pure DESIRE.

Plus, they were about to outnumber the demons, so you put in place a system that would make sure the natives are always in the majority. Hooray for your C in American History!

Oh, the first one is going to come in.

Very.

Very.

Very.

Slowly.

You put a reminder to definitely add a slider for time acceleration.