Most people, when asked, would describe the most beautiful day with a perfectly clear, blue sky and a warm sun shining down. When they were asked what the perfect day was, they would have vastly different answers. Some would stay with the blue sky and the sun. Others would talk about soft autumn rain that pattered on an umbrella. Yet more would romantically report about that one day they spent next to the window during heavy snowfall, enjoying the cosiness of their home.

Personally, John found today to be quite perfect (and he didn’t just say that because it was his birthday). It was summer and he liked summer more than the other seasons. That hadn’t been the case when he had been a loner, his preferred season then had been autumn, late autumn specifically. When it started to get cold enough to turn on the heater but snow wasn’t yet making walking anywhere a total slog.

With the access to hot girls that just looked too good in tight pants and cropped tops, he had come to love the summer. Plus, outdoor sex was fantastic. Anyway, John wasn’t the greatest fan of the days the sun seared down and made an already hot environment even hotter because that was how heat transfer by radiation worked. A day that was both warm and overcast, that was where it was at. The layer of clouds blocked the direct sunrays, keeping the grilling and the overly bright ball of plasma from reaching the people walking on the earth.

It had all the advantages of summer without any of the drawbacks.

In fairness, it had to be said that only a few of John’s girls were actually affected by the weather, as far as their choice of attire went. Among those few affected, however, was Lydia, and seeing the usually uniformed queen wear a summer dress was just fantastic.

It was a one-piece thing, in the colour of her hair, with a long skirt and designed with comfort over sexiness. That would have bothered John a little bit on a girl like Salamander or Siena, who loved to flaunt their curves, but with Lydia it just fit. It was backless, however, and her orderly braid dangled down the line her spine laid out. Everything about her was aligned.

John was flying the Mandala Sphere far above the island and looked around. For having only two days, Scarlett had put on quite the show. Numerous tents joined the buildings all over the island to create a landscape between city outskirts and a fun fair. While most of the buildings were north and east of the Guild Hall, in the Commercial and Transportation districts, the tents concentrated in the (currently empty) Residential district in the southwest.

‘Smart, that way the people partying don’t get in the way of the people working,’ John decided. Along with the tents of all shapes and sizes (well, not quite all, the sleeping tent variety was nowhere to be found), there were also stages scattered about. Currently, all of it was vacant, except for the workers making the final preparations. John walked up to the edge of the star-fortress’ walls and peeked over with his own eyes. The different perspective revealed nothing new, but it looked prettier than the bird’s eye view. “When are things starting?”

“At 9, with the arrival of that oversized rat,” Scarlett answered, reaching for the breast pocket of her red shirt. Due to the warmth of the day, she had foregone the jacket and tie. The upper two buttons, she had opened. Had she had more than a petite note of breasts, she would have created quite the cleavage that way. “So, in about 30 minutes. We should get moving soon.”

“Richard, always making sure I plan my day after his needs,” John grumbled and watched as Scarlett pulled a strip of gum out of her breast pocket. He had actually expected a cigarette.

“You made a deal with the proverbial devil,” Lydia told him. “As it stands, you have no justification to be surprised about that development.”

“Surprised isn’t the word I would use to describe my mood,” John countered. “Irritated is much closer…” He squeezed her waist a little bit, and they began walking. Looking around, John noted that Magoi had quietly taken his leave, likely during that whole initial kissing thing. He could see the old Fateweaver walking away while shaking his head and jokingly mumbling something about young people. Something else occurred to him when he looked between Scarlett and Lydia. He came up with a little scheme. “So, how are you two doing?”

The thing with Scarlett was that she was absolutely horrible at socializing in the harem. Not because she was awkward or anything. It seemed more like she was uninterested in things like friendships at large, so getting close to a clique of girls was outside her usual zone of operation.

“Well.” “Good enough.” They confirmed in their individual ways and that was it. Somewhat to John’s disappointment. The two were kind of similar in some ways, like Metra and Salamander were similar or Nia and Beatrice. With a bit of honest mischief, the Gamer had looked forward to seeing whether they would kick it off. In the past, their interactions had been rather limited. Really, the two had only been together for the duration of the boat ride from NYC to DC.

Right now, it seemed the two had the same reaction as most people that met for the first few times, despite belonging to the same circle of friends. That being, measuring each other up, sticking to people they already knew and just slowly gauging the other’s behaviour.

Of course, they knew a little more about each other than that short boat ride. Lydia had learned about Scarlett through John and Scarlett was herself, having learned all about Lydia’s public and a lot of her private persona through all the communications she oversaw. Despite that, or because of it, they were still keeping a moderate distance.

His interest in their way of relationship as fellow workaholics aside, John wanted to break the ice. It wasn’t required that everyone in his harem liked each other, but he much preferred it. His harem was like a family he had built, and even if the members sometimes fought one another and there were some that wouldn’t really hang out only with each other unless forced to (Eliza and Nia came to mind), some sort of kinship would be good for all of them to have.

On that front, they were pretty successful. Only Scarlett made it difficult for herself to be integrated. She could be charming and John wouldn’t describe her as difficult to get along with, quite the opposite in fact, but the Technomancer tended to keep her conduct limited. This was something that had to change, as John didn’t want her to float around as some sort of semi-affiliated entity. He loved her, and as such, her fitting in was a task he had to fulfil. This current situation seemed pretty good at binding Scarlett a bit further into their social network.

‘Now what could a monarch and a CEO possibly have in common as an interest…’ he asked himself. ‘Well, that could easily be a set-up for a joke,’ he amusedly blew air out of his nose. That captured Lydia’s attention for a moment.

Before he could finalize the way he wanted to put a topic into words, she spoke up. “You have transformed more than I anticipated,” she said, and John felt a bit of him tense at that. “For the better,” Lydia eloquently added, and he immediately relaxed again. “You aren’t just taller. It appears that you… I struggle to formulate this well.”

“I fit my clothes better?” John suggested, since that was the way he had previously heard his increased Charisma state described.

“That and more. It may sound odd, but the way you stride, it pleases me as your partner.”

John looked down at his feet as they walked. By now they had gotten off the star fort and were walking down the road to the Harbour. “I don’t see it,” he had to admit. “Must be a fish in the water situation.”

“Indeed,” Lydia nodded and tilted her head just a little bit. A tiny strand of her hair fell, and she brushed it behind her ear as she looked up at him. “You look good. You are competent. You are powerful. You are intelligent and wise.” She wasn’t saying these things to make compliments. It was more a mixture of statement of fact and expectations she had of him. “You’re also petty, prideful and rigid at the oddest principles.”

“I was afraid there for a second, you’re not in the habit of making me look good,” John responded with a snicker. “There’s only so much of a birthday gift I can stomach.”

“You already have everything a normal man could desire in his life.” Lydia raised her chin in a royal fashion. “If I were not to offer you criticism as one of your women, who else could force you to improve?” John had no witty answer for that one. “I must admit that your current tanned complexion is also to my liking. That goes for both you and Jane.”

The Lightbearer interrupted her chat with Metra to give Lydia a smirk. “I know right? Seasonal skins are best skins!”

Lydia, missing the gaming reference, only furrowed her eyebrows, and the conversation died right there. Good for John, as he could now smoothly interject with the topic he had picked. “So I am thinking about reforming the tax system to apply mostly to companies.”

“WHAT?!” Scarlett immediately took the bait, shouting out. “Do you want to choke your fucking economy, you moron? Don’t just spout such bullshit without even consulting with me.” That she was immediately riled up by this was a bit more than John had bargained for, but it might work out in his favour.

“I must, albeit cautiously, agree,” Lydia immediate scolded him as well. “Overtaxing organizations, particularly those that can create employment, is a horrible strategy to gain revenue. A progressive tax system on the individuals that make up any sort of guild or corporation is much better.”

“Progressive taxes.” Scarlett scowled and rolled her eyes, gaining herself a challenging glance by Lydia.

‘Perfect,’ thought the Gamer, who had gotten them exactly where he wanted them. Something that Scarlett evidently noticed at that moment, giving him a long stare, but it was already too late.

“Do you have an alternative proposal?” Lydia asked with a mixture of competitiveness and genuine interest.

“Only tax goods as they are sold,” Scarlett responded directly. “All goods, for all I care, from groceries to houses. The people will have all of their money and the whole bureaucratic complex that everyone has to deal with dissolves.”

“This will lead to a volatile state income.” Lydia shook her head, not dismissing the proposal outright, but being clearly sceptical of it. “The state must be able to work with a steady stream of revenue. Being at the whims of buying behaviour will not do. Taking a share out of paychecks is a necessity to create a proper budget.”

“A vampire economy in action.” Scarlett produced a cigarette from somewhere and lit it with scorn in her eyes. “Your predictability bleeds my pockets dry during downturns. What you call volatility, I call the flexibility of the free market. Why - the fuck - should the state be exempt from that? Getting a cut out of all revenue should be good enough for you. Instead you want to get a cut on the business, private and transaction level. It's absolutely horrible, takes thousands of hours of calculation per month, and if you put the tax rate in some area too high, you potentially kill an entire economic sector.”

“Seeing the state as a solely incompetent actor, spoken like a true libertarian,” Lydia drily stated and was ready to follow that up with a retort of substance when she was interrupted.

“Seeing the state as your salvation,” that wasn’t Scarlett speaking, but Siena chiming in, “like a true German.”

Lydia’s eyelid twitched, and she separated from John to fall back a bit. Not before letting him know she had also realized that this had been his intent all along, by virtue of clicking her tongue in a semi-annoyed fashion. Regardless, they were already having a discussion. There was an argument to be made that politics and economy were not a great thing for people to get to know each other over. Between random people, a valid point, as John found.

There were a lot of people that were unable to have an exchange of ideas without getting genuinely offended that those ideas were getting challenged. He didn’t take either Scarlett or Lydia for such a person. Some side banter and Scarlett’s New York accent (read: curses) notwithstanding, they remained civil. Siena chimed in every now and again, sometimes saying something that just got either of them a bit angry or something that caused both of them to shut up and rethink what they had just said. If the nightmare elemental got too obnoxious with her interruptions, Gnome was there to mediate.

‘Mission successful,’ he thought with a grin.

“Mission successful,” Rave giggled and gently stabbed his right cheek with her index finger. “Ya manipulative dick you. Could have said ya had plans to get Scarlett integrated into the social circle. I’ve been trying for weeks!”

“More of a spontaneous decision, really,” he let her know. “We’ll see if this even sticks beyond this discussion. If it just took Lydia for Scarlett to build a bridge to the rest of you, that would be nice. Although, now that she can go outside, maybe you’ll have an easier time in general.” John opened his inventory while he said all of that. He had gotten two items that he wanted to check out, after all.

He pulled out the jacket first. “Fucking hell,” he mumbled when he touched the fabric. It alone was incredible in every aspect. The tactile sensation was softer than the softest cotton and the surface smooth, without any fuzz. Not slippery though, just smooth. Like a smartphone display or another kind of glass, all while remaining flexible.

In its appearance, it was a jacket for a suit. The only thing odd about it was that there were no seams anywhere. With its dark black colour, it looked less tailored and more like someone had managed to give a shadow shape.

Looking interested, his girlfriend raised her hand. “Oh, Gaia almighty,” Rave gasped when he handed her the jacket. “So smooth and soft… its super-ultra-wonderful.”

“Yeah,” John easily agreed and pulled out the pants as well. They had all the same attributes, from colour to cut (or lack thereof) to material. ‘What is this?’ the Gamer wondered and quickly Observed both, looking at the two windows.

The descriptions were largely the same, just a question what those Attributes were. Indestructible needed no explanation. Total Comfort was exactly what it sounded like, as was Shapeshifting (Shirt). The other three, John hadn’t encountered before. It was time for an inspection. The less interesting one first.

‘…Okay, yeah, that’s good,’ John thought. The ability to change the extra Attributes he would enchant on this thing at will was not to be underestimated in any way. He would do things with that later. For now, the other Attribute sounded WAY more interesting.

‘Awww… I had hoped for some bullshit Deus Ex Machina save for me, like a mechanic that saves me from death once a week or a random chance to get aided by angels or something,’ John thought. Not that this was bad. The part where it INCREASED his general Ire gain aside, it was quite useful. Having an emergency memory cleanser was useful, even if it was limited in scope. 100 people sounded like a lot, until he had a supersonic fistfight on Times Square. ‘I wonder if Romulus is going to throw a fit if he sees me in this.’

The emperor was just about the only person John could imagine that would be annoyed seeing him in something that radiated Gaia’s influence. If it came to it, the Gamer was pretty sure that Romulus would at least listen to an explanation. The two items simply looked too good and Modify was too versatile to forego them otherwise. Also, there was that last Attribute.

That would just save him a lot of headaches in the future. Currently, he only had Purgatories transformation from an armguard to a dragonclaw to take into account, but that had already been enough of a headache in the past.

John put on both items and looked so fly that even the devil would get jealous. With the ease of a thought, he made the jacket transform into a shirt. The white one he was wearing at that moment was automatically put into his inventory. The shirt was just as well designed, the buttons taking on that copper colour. After another thought, it switched from long to short sleeves, and was about as perfect for summer as it could be with its colour.

“Ya need to stop making hugging ya the best thing ever!” his girlfriend declared, wrapping both arms around him. “Ya smell amazing, ya have a firm body and now ya wear clothes that feel better than our bedsheets, and that’s enchanted silk!” She rubbed her face against his shoulder like a cat marking its territory.

“No can do, you would hug me less if I obliged there,” he declared.