"Okay, well, it sounds like this is the ...."
{Wait! Husband, how dare you deign to contract with this fool!}
The Morrigan stepped between Hal and Georgie
(Umm, sorry???)
Georgie seemed confused wondering why he was being held up at this point.
{You must promise to keep every female being alive through the detox! And then you can contract with my husband!}
Saying something weird when everyone thought that the Morrigan was going to start a fight Hal blinked wide eyed as the Morrigan laughed and looked back at Hal. Before his eyes she turned back into her maiden form. Smiling she beamed at him as if proud of her addition to the conversation. Her nakedness and seemingly genuine smile was so bewitching it took everything for Hal to close his eyes and look away.
(Ummm, sure? That is no problem. Here, sign this contract.)
Again these god type beings were too easy with their contracts, but Hal only wanted all the suffering to end. Within seconds the contract was signed in blood and Hal checked his stats.
[Name: Hal Genisfelt
Level: 0
Class: None
Title: None
Health points: 100/100
Stamina points: 61/100
Mana points: 23/116
Will points: 0/2
Physical: 1
Mental: 1
Soul: 1
Will: .4
Talent: Survival Instinct
Ability: Bone Realm, Soul Requiem, Array Intuition
Magic: None
Skills: None
Pets: Goblin Soul * 68, Banshee * 29
]
Sure enough he had a new ability, only it was not the magical healing ability that he had thought would be there. Instead there was something about arrays.
[Array Intuition - GGG
Attribution: Gained after contracting with the demi god Georgie
Description: You have an natural aptitude for arrays.]
After reading the description for [Array Intuition] even Hal who just accepted what the system told him thought the description was a little sketchy. However, he had to put his questions to the side for now and focus on healing all the beings in his camp.
"Right, so will you start healing everyone so they can survive withdrawal syndrome?"
(Oh, you must be mistaking me for an all powerful god like Eir. I am just a newly risen demi god. I can't influence the mortal plane yet, at least not directly!)
Scandalized Georgie protested
"Ahhh, okay, but you said..."
Hal started to say.
(Yes, yes, they will all survive. But you need to do the work. That means gathering the materials, cooking the various potions, creating the array, and then following up to make sure that each of your women receives the right potion at the right time.)
Hal just stared at Georgie wide eyed.
(Yes, you can do it. With my help it will be easy.)
Reassured the lab coat wearing demi god.
But Hal wasn't hung up on the work. Instead he was hung up on something else.
"But, they aren't "my" women, I mean well, they are in a sense now, but they aren't "my" women if you know what I mean."
(No, mortal, I don't. They are your women and you will have to take care of them. Who else is going to do it? Everyone else is gone. The men who survived were allowed to live, but outcast. If they aren't dead yet, they will be soon. And the kids? They were sent into the forestto collect wood. They are probably all dead too! No, you are on your own for this one.)
There was no way to break it to Hal easy. This new Lord had to get with the program as fast as possible and Georgie was willing to shake up Hal a little bit. Hal was not taking this seriously at all.
Bowing his head Hal realized that he had indeed made a mess of things, but he swallowed and looking up called for Priol. It took Priol a few minutes to come trotting back, but when he did he knelt and bowed respectfully to Hal.
"Priol, send your skeletons out into the woods. Gather all the children back here, they will probably be with some goblin minders so there might be some fights. And if you can find any of the men, bring them back as well."
Priol clacked his teeth without saying anything and then stood to the side. Almost immediately afterwards the goblin skeletons who were standing around the camp suddenly started moving out into the woods. They fanned out most moving away from the lake, but some followed the shore line to get around the lake before heading out in the other directions as well.
(Good, now lets get started emptying all of these cauldrons. We need to keep the [Goblin Grease] though, so the first thing we have to find are some containers to store it in.)
Georgie explained the first task.
"Keep it?"
(Yes, keep it. Everyone who was fed this vile potion by the goblins is addicted to it. And not just a little addicted, a lot addicted, they will most likely die if they don't get it.)
Starting to get a little impatient with all of Hal's questions Georgie quickly answered.
"Okay, I get it."
(The shop isn't open yet, and you probably don't have enough coins to buy any containers. What can we use?)
The demi god looked around the camp.
"What about these hoses, they are already hooked to the cauldrons anyways."
Offering a suggestion, Hal went over to touch one of the hoses that lead along the ground to a cage. Immediately he found the answer to his question. The hose was already completely full. The goblins had been using pressure to force the [Goblin Grease] through the piles.
"Oh, I guess, that is not going to work."
(There isn't anything else big enough, is there? I guess I am going to have to ask you to use [Bone Realm] to create some large storage containers.)
Suddenly Georgie came up with a good idea.
"Umm, that is going to take forever. Let's think of another way!"
However, the answer that Hal gave was not what the demi god was expecting.
It would take Hal a long time to get into the right mindset to use his ability and then coming up with some kind of bone container. It was exhausting to Hal to even think about how to do this.
"I mean slowly changing a preexisting skeleton is all I can really do. Making bone containers from nothing. I am afraid I don't know how..."
Thinking that he was being humble Hal said something that came across very differently from how he thought it should go.
(Whine much?)
Georgie was incredulous.
(This is your area and your people. They are your women and you can't do it because it might be a little hard?)
"Ummm, well when you put it that way, it sounds a little bad. But still, I really don't know..."
Beginning to justify himself, Hal was again cut off.
(Look, I made a promise to save these women, it isn't going to get done if we can't be a little more flexible and get the hard work done!)
Becoming a little more firm in his insistence Hal's newest demi god laid down a bottom line.
"Ack, well it doesn't matter how much you insist. There are things I can and can't do. I can't ..."
For the third time Georgie cut Hal off.
(That is it. I am not going to listen to this any more. No more whining. You are okay if I possess you and get it all done for you, right?)
Frustrated Georgie finally just asked to possess Hal. They weren't getting anywhere and it was plain that Georgie would be risking breaking the contract if he couldn't get everything done.
"Uhmmm, sure. No problem."
Unthinking Hal just agreed to being possessed. A couple of empty text boxes showed up right in front of his face, but they all had a weird message.
[Censored]
[Censored]
[Censored]
However, Hal just ignored them waving his boney hand through the boxes to clear them.
'Good, you will still be aware of all your senses, but you just won't be able to control your body for a bit.'
This was Georgie explaining a few things to Hal.
From that point on for the period of three days Hal became powerless to move and act. Instead all he could do was watch as Georgie spoke and acted in his name.
First of all Georgie didn't need a long protracted effort to even start using an ability or skill. Instead it was as simple as thinking for a skill to become active. Second within even a few minutes Hal's body had already started to hurt. Not from any weird possession stuff, but just because of the sheer amount of work that his body was performing.
His muscles started to spasm right away and then they went into shutdown mode. It wasn't just that Georgie was forcing his body to move heavy loads it was also the speed at which everything was happening.
[Bone Realm] came up and a huge bone cauldron was melded out of the skeletons that were lying around. Nothing absolutely nothing went to waist though. Instead of letting the meet burn away from the use of [Bone Realm] Georgie was able to use the skill to preserve the meat while also still also deboning the carcasses. Then Hal's body was put to work manually separating out different pieces of the bodies strewn about.
Children started showing up within even a few minutes. It turned out that most of the kids hadn't gone very far into the woods. The goblins hadn't forced them or at least hadn't yet had to force them. There was still enough twigs and branches laying around that the kids could bring back.
Once the kids were there Georgie wasn't shy about putting the kids to work. Yes it was the medium sized kids that Georgie taught the most to. Most of the older boys had to work to keep the littlest kids distracted. Until their mother's could come out of their drug induced haze the littlest kids had been and were distraught. It was heart wrenching to hear many of those little kids screaming for their older sisters and mothers. Some of the kids went numb and didn't cry. Those were the kids that were the scariest.
But at the same time Georgie never even suggested that the kids be taken away. It wasn't safe out there. The most that could be done was to separate the kids away and set up a wall of cloth that could be used to block the kids from seeing the pens full of women.
The kids from ages 5 and up couldn't be spared even the sight, though. There was too much to be done and lives were on the line. More then a hundred kids between the ages of about 5 and 12 were conscripted to transport bone buckets full of [Goblin Grease] from the four large metal cauldrons to the one huge bone cauldron.
Ten of the oldest boys became Georgie's direct supports. They were the ones that were assigned different projects. Some of them were responsible for the cauldrons, some for skinning and dissecting beasts, and others collected ingredients.
Georgie never stopped. He just kept pushing Hal's body to output one hundred percent in effort at all times. There was no sleeping, no resting. The most that Georgie allowed were frequent mediation breaks. In minutes Georgie was able to replenish Hal's stamina and mana. In fact in a very limited way, the demi god could force Hal's body to repair even while doing other activities.
'I don't think I have ever possessed such a weak body!'
While working Georgie kept a running commentary going for Hal about what he was doing. Sometimes he threw in what seemed to be critical comments about Hal's body, abilities, or skills. There wasn't much to work with.
Still as the days past Hal was rewarded in many ways.
Even though Flo couldn't or wasn't allowed to talk to him she could still send him text messages as long as the contents were totally normal system related tasks. Except that she was teaching herself more and more how to embellish the text with a bit of her personality.
[You have learned a cultivation method: Array Mastering the Cosmos]
The words themselves were pretty plain. However, they came in cursive and with little curly bits that looked like flowers and cutesy little insects or mamals.
[+1 Proficiency in alchemy]
[You have become a novice alchemist.]
Only the background was black and the font were just stars and he had to mentally connect the lines between the starts to figure out what was said.
'Flo, I appreciate the creativity, but I really need need a map to help figure out what this says!'
At which point the text was repeated, now with lines between stars drawn in.
'Thanks!'
[+1 Proficiency in alchemy]
[+1 Proficiency in alchemy]
[+1 Proficiency in alchemy]
[+1 Proficiency in alchemy]
There were a lot of bonuses to alchemy. And then later when Georgie started working on the array he received a slightly different message.
[+1 Proficiency in forming arrays]
[You have become a novice array former.]
There were also talismans.
[+1 Proficiency in creating talismans]
[You have become a novice talisman maker.]
Hal didn't receive as much proficiency in making talismans. There was only one talisman that Georgie made, [Seal]. Which were made to seal each and every single female being in the camp area. There were two reasons for this.
First, without or at least without as much [Goblin Grease] there was too much noise. And sometimes there was even some cases where one of Georgie's patients would harm themselves.
The other reason was that it was a merciful act to seal each woman's sex drive. The goblin's potion had been magically refined to put a female body into a state of constant sexual arousal. Hal had never thought of a woman being sexually aroused before the apocalypse, but he was experiencing for the first time the concept of female sexual arousal. Accompanied by the potion's ability to dull the senses and confuse the mind and the result was a lot of sex.
On the second day Nitesh and his group of men were found by the skeletons and brought back to the camp. It turns out that instead of hiking out to a different Lord's zone they and stuck around and plotted to get their loved ones back. Of course when they saw Hal kill the Lord, but not immediately relieve the suffering of the women they had the worst sorts of thoughts.
It took Georgie hours to gain their trust and then enlist them in helping.
'It is worth it to gain their trust. They will be able to make an invaluable contribution.'
Georgie said in Hal's mind.
Hal had thought Georgie meant that they would be able to take much of the work off the shoulders of the little kids. Instead what he meant was that Nitesh, his father in law, his brother in law, and his three friends became studs for all the women.
'With time your women will gain their consciousness back, but in the meantime they will heal quicker if we don't have to [Seal] their bodies.'
Explaining Georgie said a few things to help Hal who was completely stupefied by what was just said.
'You mean that until they regain consciousness they are going to be stuck in a never ending state of lust?!'
Of course Hal was as excited as they were to help out in this endeavor. But in the end the Morrigan cut him off.
{You are my husband. I get to tell you who and when to f_ck. Besides you are not ready for this.}
And just like that the Morrigan appeared and cut him off from his sudden sex laden dreams of endless days and nights of heart pounding pleasure.
In the end it hadn't been to hard to take the fact that the Morrigan wasn't going to let him participate in the orgies that Nitesh and his group would have to go through. After all, he had never even made love to a woman, so he didn't really know what he was missing out on.
What was hard was the flippant way that the Morrigan decided that he wasn't ready.
'Ready? I am not ready? How am I not ready??'
But the Morrigan refused to answer Hal's mental questions. Instead in her crone form she just laughed and laughed.