“It wasn’t worth it,” John suddenly blurted out, causing Rave to look at him like he was taking crazy pills. “The edging, it really wasn’t worth it,” he explained further, yawning a moment later. He had stayed up way too late yesterday, having sex and playing Stardew Valley, sometimes at the same time.

“You’re an odd one, tiger,” Rave said and poked his right cheek with repeated stabs of her index finger. She hit a number of different spots and would have shook John’s vision if he had currently been watching with glasses rather than contact lenses. Contact lens, to be more accurate, as he had one eye closed right now. “Why ya figure that out a day later? Also, ya really seemed like ya thought different in the moment. Went all cross-eyed and all that.”

“Oh, the orgasm was FANTASTIC,” the Gamer agreed within a heartbeat. “Competes with the ones I have when really getting into the whole punishment routine. The hour I had to lie there, however, was the absolute worst.”

“Well, I thought I would be done in like twenty minutes tops,” Rave stated, somewhat apologetically. Crossing her arms, she stood straight again, the wood echoing hollowly as she shifted her weight, changing the position of her feet slightly. “But ya seriously came so hard, ya couldn’t move. That was awesome!”

“For you, yes,” John responded. “I like doing that to people, not having it done to me.”

Aclysia caressed John’s left shoulder. “If Master so desires, you can do whatever you want with me,” she whispered, the head maid inching just a little bit closer than was publicly appropriate. John just grabbed her by the hips and pulled her close, hand resting on her juicy ass.

“I’ll come back to that later,” he promised, able to feel her warmth easily through the short-sleeved white shirt he was wearing. It was simply too hot to go about business in a complete suit. He had even exchanged his shoes for sandals. Even in the name of comfortableness, he could not exchange the pants for shorts, though.

Fashion or appropriate clothing were things Rave didn’t care about. Neither did she have to, being the kind of sexy that could have worn a potato sack and still looked good, somehow. Today, John’s girlfriend was rocking a tight, skimpy top of a sky-blue colour, revealing a good bit of her midriff and her shoulders, together with hot pants of the yoga variety.

That she owned these clothes was just another sign for her suppressed exhibitionism that John could have caught up onto much earlier. Well, not just owned them, she had previously worn them as well. Rave was still covering twice as much skin as Metra, not a particularly disproving comparison, but she was still showing off almost everything of importance.

And John really liked that.

Not only did it give him something to look at, in addition to Aclysia and the lesser maids, it also meant everyone they welcomed would look at his girl and see exactly what he got to tap every day and they didn’t. Played right into his power fantasies. To emphasize, and because his right side felt lonely, he pulled Rave close to himself in the same fashion as Aclysia.

“To put a closing statement on the edging,” John said, “I have just as intense orgasms choking people and getting them into that… ahegeo stage.”

“Ahegao,” Rave corrected him. “Its so awesome to see or be in that state, John, no idea why ya complaining about that right now. Getting fucked to the state ya feel like your brain is frying is just… sooo gooood.”

“Which just shows that you are much more of a switch than me,” John stated. “Because I much prefer doing the fucking than getting into that stage. I’ll remain here on domination island, thank you.”

“Oy! As your girlfriend, I have the right to do the dom-ing every now and again!” Rave complained, pushing her lower lip out in a pout that was just mean with its effectiveness. “Ya saying I can’t ever edge ya again under any circumstances?”

“…No, you can,” he sighed deeply, caving on the subject. “It’s not like I think it doesn’t feel good… just not my preferred way to climax. As long as you don’t make me wait an hour again, I’ll play along with your sadistic episodes.”

“Got it, only 59 minutes next time,” Rave joked, then yelped when John pinched her ass to punish her. “Harder,” she gasped lustfully, leaning up to John and kissing him on the cheek. “Give it a nice slap, if ya feel that hurt about yesterday.”

“I don’t need a reason to spank you, you enjoy that way too much anyway,” John pointed out with a grin, winking with his one open eye.

“As ya said, I am way more of a switch than ya,” Rave grinned and winked back. “Just good that you’re willing to be dominated every now and again. It’s just more fun with you than the girls, ya know?”

“Oh, I feel that,” John said. “Nothing against dominating the wilful but…”

“…but it’s just so much more ecstatic if it’s a rare thing,” Rave finished his sentence for him. “Kinda like… having really awesome sweets every day but there is this one treat ya only get once a month.”

“Yeah, something like that,” John agreed. He would have loved to continue the conversation about their sexual preferences, it was one he didn’t get tired of no matter how often they had it, but the sound of a suddenly appearing motorboat cut him off. Nevertheless, Rave needed to get one last word in.

“Also, I love ya and your stupidly big dick,” she whispered into his ear, playfully snapping her teeth and leaving John grinning like an idiot. Every decision he had ever made that had led to size increases was once more validated.

The boat pulled on to the pier and soon found an empty spot at one of the many sidearms. There were only two people inside, a guy with sandy blond hair and a raven-haired hottie. The power dynamic between them was pretty clear, with the woman sitting in the backseat despite the guy having an open one at the side.

Interestingly, as John noted, in the cases that a woman was the current owner of an island, the guys she dragged around with her were usually much fewer in number but more equally treated. There was some lesson about sex differences there, but the Gamer didn’t really want to look into it. “You all remember the plan?”

The question was triggered upon seeing that this newcomer had a sizable bruise on his face. As everyone who Aclysia had threatened was marked with cutting wounds, this must have made this guy the declared second strongest of the Small Lake Pact. The deduction was made much easier by him being the last person on the guest list they were missing.

“Do I remember your paranoid over planning? Yeah,” his girlfriend agreed when the guy bound his boat to the pier.

“As do I, Master,” Aclysia assured, making an unwilling face. “I dislike this plan, but this opinion has already been voiced.”

John kissed her. “Don’t you worry, nothing bad will happen.”

“It’ll be humiliating.”

“That I can live with, given the likely pay-off,” John grinned and, with one last squeeze of both butts, parted with their bodies. He took a few steps towards his last guest. “Hello there, Zensie,” he announced, causing the sand mage to turn his head. By the time he had done so, John had opened his second eye.

He managed to take one step, two steps, then his field of view experienced a whole slew of problems. The half-working synchronicity of the Possessed lenses allowed him to stay on course, at least in the broadest possible sense.

Like a slowly escalating drunk, he first swayed a little bit, getting worse with every step as he instinctively overcompensated, only to almost fall over the handrailing of the pier by the time he had arrived.

Although he could have saved himself by just holding onto that railing, he purposefully, and very inelegantly, half-hugged the new arrival. “Terribly sorry about that,” John said, patted his shoulder in a fatherly fashion. It helped that the Gamer was a fair bit taller than the guy. “You just seemed like you would be useful this way.”

And just like that, without them having even greeted, John had already accomplished having his guts hated by the guy. Exactly what he wanted. “Oh, no problem,” Zensie responded, his voice dripping with poison. “I am sure you can stand yourself now, your excellency!” he attempted to slap John’s arm off his shoulder.

The Gamer grabbed the shoulder with more strength, his arm didn’t even budge at the feeble physical strength of the sand mage. “Don’t be like that, just because I am still bumbling around doesn’t mean I can’t absolutely wreck you,” John threatened in a friendly tone. “My blindness cripples my grace, not my power. Here, let me help you for your troubles. Undine, could you?”

Rising from the nearby water of the lake, Undine was a female upper body on a long tendril of water. The green tinted healing slime covered her right hand when she touched Zensie. A simple few seconds, during which the sand mage looked afraid but was unable to move, and the bruise on his cheek was gone. With no further words, Undine pulled the water pillar back into the larger lake and continued to relax within the expansive water.

With the festival, and all its noise, within the walls, the seclusive water spirit preferred to keep to herself out here.

“There, all better,” John stated and then turned around. Upon a mental signal, Aclysia came hastily to help him walk, as if he actually needed the help and couldn’t fix it by just closing one eye.

He had put on plays like this for everyone, whenever they had arrived. In every other case, however, he hadn’t done a bunch of things to create an absolutely horrible first impression. That he just wanted in this one case.

“I am really sorry about all of this,” the Gamer repeated, albeit a bit mockingly. “Aclysia, could you give me my glasses?”

“Certainly, Master,” she confirmed, pulling the shades out of her inventory. The moment he put them on, Possession working seamlessly through his fingers, he suddenly walked like a normal person again.

“Shouldn’t have been so arrogant as to not put them on, but, you know, wasn’t like I was expecting anyone important,” the Gamer added insult to healing an injury.

Zensie’s expression was one of red, hot rage, his face as red as a tomato. The average looking guy was clearly grinding his jaws. That was when Rave swooped in. “Ya ever been to this island before?” she asked, stepping up and taking the lead of the conversation.

“I have been here a few times to fight the former owner, yes,” the sand mage answered, ironically more willing to talk to the woman who had beat him up yesterday than to John now. His face went down to an almost normal skin colour as Rave pointed out the improvements they had made to this area alone.

“Ya must remember the old ‘harbour’ then,” the pink-haired half-Asian stated. “As ya can see, we upgraded a little bit. Room for more than two boats now.”

“Yeah, you also put up a new wall,” the girl with Zensie noticed. “Very impressive thing, I have to say.”

John could only agree. The completely black wall hadn’t even been made just by Gnome. Rather, Gnome and Salamander had combined into Smlere to create a solid, smooth barrier of hardened volcanic stone. Of the extremely solid variety, with no air bubbles anywhere inside.

When his girlfriend and the guy started getting along okay, which was only natural with Rave’s Charisma and likeable attitude (as long as the person she was talking to didn’t have the stern personality trait), he nonchalantly put his arm around her. This was not part of the plan, he didn’t even do it for Zensie to get even more annoyed, he just wanted to act a bit possessive of her because that was one of those things love did to the mind.

“Well, if ya think this much is impressive, come with us inside. Now that everyone is here, we can start with the whole festive stuff,” Rave said. Zensie and his girl showed a moment of unwillingness. They probably thought that the wall was the most impressive thing they had renewed, with everything inside being the same old trash heap.

They were satisfyingly stunned when guided through the gate, however. Left of them, the expansive garden sprawled out. Bees had settled in just this morning. Bees that not only knew better than to bother humans, they also produced some pretty nice honey that they were willing to share with their landlord.

Yes, John hadn’t bought smart bees off some biomancer, he just found out that there was some bee-fairy people looking for a place where the rent was cheap. While the drones were basically the same as normal bees, in appearance, the people inhabiting the hive were small mixtures of insectoids and humanoids. They had an actual court, with a queen, a king, a bunch of princes and princesses, diplomacy with hives in other barriers and so on.

There was a bit more to them, but that was something he would have ample opportunity to get into later. Some butterflies also flapped around, but those were actually just normal butterflies that had been delivered into the barrier by the Abyss Auction.

Beyond the garden, replacing the trash and car tire littered grass area, was John’s mansion. Then, to the right, was the arena. The location they were also heading towards.

Although it was the facility John wanted the least to be necessary, it was also the one he was the proudest of. Surrounded by six obelisks, currently useless but to be engraved with security enchantments eventually, was a structure defined by three ring segments. The outermost was simply the viewing area, a bunch of benches circling around the actual fighting pit. After a sharp drop-off, they looked down into the, currently so-called, ‘trick area’. Itself segmented into six sub-areas, themed after the six elements, in exactly the same arrangement as Fusion’s emblem, the middle ring was supposed to give fighters the opportunity to take advantage of their unique magics. Alternatively, to allow at least some dirty tactics.

John wasn’t one for just straight-forwards skull bashing, he actually preferred it if the wittier person won over the theoretically stronger one; as such, a battlefield that allowed for creativity was much preferred. All he wanted was to get rid of all the assassinations, first strikes and other dishonourable engagement tactics the people around here employed.

The innermost ring was the most boring, just a brown area of flattened dirt. A basic fighting pit for those that preferred their confrontations to be as direct as possible.

Sadly, the entire thing wasn’t all that big. In total, it had room for maybe 250 viewers. 400 if they really cramped people on the seats and stairs. Right now, about a hundred people were gathered, clearly separating themselves into cliques. They could have easily filled the arena with the entire population of the islands, something between 300 and 400, now that the mana factories were disbanded, but a lot of people had stayed at home, willingly or unwillingly.

John went down into the arena, not to fight anyone, just to be seen, and pulled a microphone from his inventory. Flipping the on switch, he tapped on it a few times to make sure it had connected to the speakers hanging around the place. “Alright, thank you all for heeding my invitation. Even those of you that needed some extra encouragement,” he started jokingly. “As you can see, with the help of everyone else who lives on this island, I quickly had it developed from… well… a stinking place of trash and dried cum stains to this, an island of luxury.” He made a wide sweeping motion around. “…Which you’re welcome to see more of as we’re going to do several tours over the course of the day to make sure you all have seen everything. Meals will be provided for free at the mansion at any hour, feel free to go there whenever, my servant Aclysia will have something prepared for every taste.”

The weaponized maid used that moment to take a quick bow, although only a few people even noticed that gesture. Next to her, Rave giggled and friendly punched her on the shoulder, probably cracking some joke that John was too far away to hear. Sure, he could have moved the replacement sphere over, but he was currently using that to observe the crowd’s reactions from the sky.

“That’s the program for just today, however. I heavily encourage you to participate. Not only because this is what I will finance if you’re under my rule but also for reasons I will get into tomorrow. There’ll be a press conference, a bunch of reporters from the outside will be here, and I can just tell you: it’ll be a lot of fun.”

He deactivated the microphone and began walking away. There was some chatting up above as the Gamer headed towards an open exit tunnel. Shortly before he arrived at it, when people were still paying some attention to him and he was in view, he took off his glasses again. The result was predictable, although John took it a lot slower this time. He didn’t fall, he just tumbled a lot, there were some giggles above, but he ignored them and reached a wall to support himself.

The Gamer grinned when he went out of view. Sure, this was the easy part of the set-up, but it was going well regardless.