And holy, Natalie didn’t think she spent more time deliberating than most, so it wasn’t like The Bestower had to be overly long-suffering. Natalie would never call herself a meticulous person. It was only because of the moal circumstances—her unlog—that she gave the decision the sideration it deserved. Most situations, she’d go with her gut. Jump in with much less forethought than appropriate. The Architeew Jordan had pined about Natalie’s brashness more than ohrough their adolest adventures across the Entwining Forest.
Natalie sighed, then stood.
“Okay,” she said. “I accept.”
An unsurprised nod. Had she known Natalie would agree before even she had? Though, the ck of surprise might just be from a stoiature. Or disi. Natalie might be reading into things.
Certainly, the decision Natalie had made wouldn’t be a given for all people. Despite the css being guarao be powerful, not everyone would take it. Not knowing the css you were pig … there was serious risk, there. Even three choices weren’t enough options to make people fortable.
The plinths holding Natalie’s csses sank into the gss-like water. Natalie’s heart jumped, seeing her potential future vanish, for everything to bee so suddenly unknown. She vibrated with nerves.
“So,” Natalie said. “What is it?”
“Goodbye, Natalie,” The Bestower said, turning away.
Natalie blinked, not expeg the response. She opened her mouth to call out—
***
And her eyes shot open.
The empty, moonlit church greeted her.
For a moment, she sat there in silence, perched atop the cushion Elder Britt had pced down for her.
Her unlog had ended, and she didn’t even know what css she’d received?
She scrambled to her feet. Adrenaline doused her, and she tried to fight through the panid shock, to wrestle some sort of clear-mindedness back. It took effort. Natalie had never had great trol over her emotions. At least the dead-silent church provided no distras.
Okay.
So.
The Bestower hadn’t told her what css she’d got, but there was a way to determine one’s css and skills. Obviously. Unlogs were a oime event. How would people know their level and skills as they progressed, without something of the sort?
Looking inward, Natalie quested out. It was something she’d never done before, but everyoh a css—so, everyone over the age of eighteen—was given a basic skill, [I].
***
Natalie / Level 1
Padin of Lust
Stats
Furor: F
Tenacity: F+
Prowess: F-
Gear
on Slot 1:
on Slot 2:
Equipment Slot 1:
Equipment Slot 2:
Equipment Slot 3:
Equipment Slot 4:
***
Natalie’s brain locked up.
‘Padin of Lust’?
Huh?
That was her ame?
The oddity of having the information pced in her head—at experieng the [I] skill for the first time—went ignored over the much more shog item of i.
Padin of Lust?
What in the world?
What kind of css was that?
‘Padin’. That was the easier part to digest. Padins were, to Natalie’s knowledge, rare, but not unheard-of. They held to a specific god, which their powers were derived from. Or, ‘held’ in a loose sense. Natalie didn’t know if it required actual worship. But padins revolved around an aspect—a theme—which were tied to a specific goddess.
So, ‘Lust’? Who was the god of lust? Truth told, there were too many to keep track of, and Natalie had never paid attention to Elder Britt’s lectures. She khe Upper Pantheon, of course, because everyone did. But only the most on of the Lower: Setrus, The Trickster, or Thorne, God of the Fe, and so on.
But it didn’t matter who her patron was. What mattered was … what it meant. Implied.
And weren’t Padins half-mages? A fighter-mage hybrid was the most accurate way to put it, but padins were definitely spellcasters, as a whole.
Natalie, a mage? Even as a hybrid, the idea was ughable. Proficy with magic was so … antithetical to her … that Natalie felt like she ought to ugh.
It was what she’d been worried over, accepting an unknown css. Getting something unsuited to her. Natalie didn’t know how to cast spells. Csses only amplified, not created from nothing. Even someohout a mage css could cast a spell, just o the level of a real mage. It was how pces like Te sorted for didates before they reached their unlog. Aptitude roven before a css was obtained. And Natalie had aptitude in fighting … but definitely not casting.
What had she expected? She’d known it would be a mystery what she received. Holy, at least a Padin was half a fighter. She fit somewhat with the css.
But Natalie was shying away from the actual problem.
The whole … ‘lust’ part.
What the hell did it mean? Or entail?
Surely not … ?
What other interpretatiohere?
Natalie didn’t get to stew in silence for long. Adrenaline and shock had masked something obvious from her, but as she came down—slowly, aainly not all the way—something attention-grabbing forced her focus away from her css’s name, and all the implications.
Something … somehow even more shog.
Her body.
Something had ged.
Somethiween her legs. Something was there, that hadn’t been, before.
What?
For the sed time, Natalie’s brain bnked out.
She pulled on her waistband and looked down. The fabric to her pants didn’t yield much, only letting Natalie pull a few inches out, and it was dark ihe moonlit church, but it was enough to identify the problem. To … dis the invader.
The piece of biology that had definitely not been there before.
She had a cock.
A dick. Tucked into her underwear. It sat there, soft and wrinkly and … dick-like.
Natalie went dizzy. She let her waistband snap baow that she’d noticed the ihe sensation couldn’t be ignored. She felt it. She felt her pants pressing against it. Maybe someone who’d had oheir whole life would be able to ighe pressure, having growo it, but Natalie had never had something pressed against her cock.
“What the fuck,” Natalie said.
Natalie didn’t have a habit of talking to herself, but sidering the circumstances? She felt she could be excused. The words escaped her mouth without her input.
She had a cock.
Her css had given it to her. Her ‘Padin of Lust’ css, the impossible fourth option.
The gods had given her a cock. As if things hadn’t been strange enough.
Even through her paralyzing fusion, she had one questiole to the forefront of her mind:
But why?