You have declared this old ladies’ house as your team’s Home Base. As a basic human striving to compete with supernatural beings, you are automatically a card-carrying member of Clan Mystic. Your clan’s color is, by default, blue… and no, it was not chosen to match your eyes.

  

  

As you fortify and upgrade your Home Base, you and your teammates will be afforded skill bonuses, unique gear and additional benefits derived from rest and recreation.

  

  

You will also be expected to register with your clan’s Headquarters, pay your dues and be obeisant to Clan Mystic leadership. Welcome to the full game, my friend!

  

  Shelving the need to deal with whatever ramifications this new Home BaseResourceResourcesstressedAgilityFatiguedBrawnFortitudeInjuryFatigueResourcepartial healing because his status as an InitiateAttributeFatiguedResources Resources

  Betty, it turned out, did not have any clothing that would fit him as all four of her adopted children had been gone from home for decades. Nor were any of her six grandchildren big enough, or lazy enough, to have left clothing behind during their visits. That meant Robin needed to see if his sewing skills were good enough to fix the Santa jacket.

  Still retaining her dark beige coloring, Betty graciously took on the sewing job though it took her a while to complete. She spent a lot of hours sleeping, likely far more exhausted from their mad dash across the suburb than she was letting on. As the only non-colored thing in her home, she stuck out as an oddity. It took her most of a day to fix his jacket so he spent the time shirtless in the sunny outdoors pulling weeds and doing small repairs on the fences. Robin wasn’t sure, but he suspected the beige daughter in the house behind them was spending an unusual amount of time lingering on her deck watching him labor in the yard. He waved a couple times when he caught her looking, but she pretended to be engrossed in her phone.

  Wondering if he should get a cell phone, Robin stood up from a protracted weeding effort. He groaned as both knees gave him a winge of pain and one hip cracked loudly. He slowly bent to brush dirt from his exposed knees when he noticed his torn pants had turned blue. Like cerulean blue. They were no longer red!

  “What in the donkey dick daffodil hell is happening now?”

  Betty shuffled out onto the back patio. “There you are, sweetie. Look at all the wonderful work you’ve done out here. Thank you.” She shaded her eyes from the bright sun and surveyed her domain. “Things haven’t looked so good back here in ages.” She tossed several air kisses his way with her wrinkled old hand. She was so cute and endearing Robin wanted to go hug her.

  She smiled. “Oh! And I finished this for you.” In her other hand she held his Santa jacket which now had no sleeves but was also a rich blue color. The fluffy white piping along the hem and the zipper was still present, but looked all clean and extra puffy. Maybe she had replaced it as well. “And I have another gift for you inside. Come, come. Take a break and have some tea. I’ll get to work on your pants next.”

  It turned out the additional gift was a knitted Santa hat, also blue, with a particularly large white puff ball dangling from its tip. “I started this while you slept your first day. I think it compliments the outfit nicely, or at least it will when I fix them trousers. Come on, off with them and let me get to work. It’s the least I can do for all the effort you’re putting into the yard.”

  “Thank…you,” Robin said, hopefully not too slowly. He was not thrilled at feeling obligated to wear the hat, but at least it was quite soft and the fluffy trim on it didn’t make his head itch like the old red one had.

  Robin handed over his torn pants and wrapped a towel around his waist. No way was he going to give the under age neighbor-girl a VDL show in his boxer briefs. He decided he would tackle dusting the innumerable knickknack shelves in the den next. But first, he consulted the Instruction Manual to see if he could get an answer about the color change of his wardrobe.

  

As a member of Clan Mystic, your outfits will default to blue no matter what you wear.

  

  

And congratulations, by the way, you have gained your very first piece of Equipment!

  

  Robin had guessed the color shift was due to his clan affiliation, but the news about Equipment

  

Your nameless old lady has made you a new hat and the Leviathanic powers-that-be have deemed it time to grant you a powered upgrade.

  

  

Your new Santa hat is imbued with the ability to, once per day, let you reuse one Fatigued Attribute card.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  

  “Ha!” Robin declared snatching the hat off his head. “It’s my ED Fedora. Let’s me get a card again and go a second round.”

  

Congratulations on naming your first piece of Equipment! It has been logged permanently in cosmic reality as an Erectile Dysfunction Fedora.

  

  “Wait! What? You mean you name it with the first thing you say out loud? That’s stupid! Besides, I’ve never needed a little blue pill and I certainly don’t need a little blue hat leading everyone to the wrong conclusion.” He knew he sounded defensive and petty, but his mouth had, once again, led to unwanted results. “Can I change the name?”

  

You can go to the Cosmic System offices downtown and file, in triplicate, an appeal with the Registrar of Gear, Frocks and Armaments. All appeals take 10-15 business days to review and a response will be delivered via Instruction Manual notifications.

  

  

Would you like directions to the office?

  

  “Sod off, you ludicrous pamphlet. I just…” Robin didn’t know what he wanted. Actually, he did know. He wanted to go home. Back to the real world. Back to his own bed. Back to food that tasted like food and where monsters didn’t linger around corners waiting to suck the life out of humanity.

  As if on cue from the Director of Irony, he heard Betty cry out in the kitchen. The yelp was followed by the clatter of heavy cookware hitting the tiled floor with a ringing bang.

  Robin ran clutching one hand on the towel about his waist to keep it from falling off. In the kitchen Betty stood desperately panting and holding onto the counter for support. Just inside the back patio door — only four or five feet from the old woman — stood Zebryl in all his frightening redness, bat-like wings slightly spread as he sucked in the red Fear

  The demon grinned at Robin and gave a surreptitious wink in his direction. He finished the inhale of exuded Fear

  Robin put his arm around Betty’s waist to give her some support. Her panting slowed and she adjusted her glasses giving the devil another look. “Oh my, son. You really gave me a fright, you silly goose. You should do an old woman a courtesy and ring the bell at the front door next time.”

  “Mmmm, hmm,” was the demon’s indifferent response. He seemed to take no notice of the old woman now that he had fed. His fiery eyes lingered on Robin’s towel. “Speaking of topping off, maybe I could top you off next?” One spiked pink hand caressed his own leather-bound crotch.

  “Don’t be rude, man,” Robin flared. “What’re you thinking, barging in here uninvited? You could’ve given Betty a heart attack.”

  Without even glancing at her, Zebryl continued to eye Robin thirstily.

  “Oh my,” Betty gasped. “You’re the owner of the club from the other night. I’m glad you’re okay.”

  Classic Betty, caring about someone else’s well-being before her own. She still clutched the front of her sweater, probably one she had knitted for herself. Robin cooed and ushered her to the living room where she could sit down in the rocking chair next to his torn blue pants still waiting to be worked on.

  Straining to keep his own composure, Robin glared at Zebryl before taking a deep breath and calming down. His own heartbeat had been racing. “Firstly, I’m glad you made it out safely. I hope you’re actually okay.”

  “Of course I am, sweet boy,’ Zebryl replied, nonchalantly. Robin hadn’t been called ‘boy’ in ages. These days is was mostly ‘daddy’, at least when he was hooking up with backstage theater twinks and thirty-something audience members. “A couple ragged Ferals can’t actually me…or my sister. You haven’t happened to have seen her, have you?”

  “Uh, no. How could I? I’ve been recuperating here since the attack. Did you lose her?”

  Zebryl had followed them into the living room. He casually inspected one index claw without so much as glancing about his surroundings. “No, not ‘lost her’. More like we’ve temporarily each other.”

  “How did you find ?”

  Zebryl delivered a most quizzical look at him. “What do you mean? You’re hardly taking efforts to hide. You have quite grandly announced your presence with this ridiculous little house you call a Home Base

   see the world the same way I do, this little 3 bed-2 bath home has gotta be radiating like a neon beacon declaring me a . Robin groaned. “I did all this by accident. I had no idea what I was doing, or even what I doing. I’m royally screwed, aren’t I?”

  Zebryl’s lips curled into a wicked smile revealing small fangs. “Screwed, yes. But only in the fun way. You want the old woman to watch? Maybe join in?”

  The demon’s kink card probably itemized everything imaginable with an oft-filled checklist of libidinous activities. He had been running a nightclub and brothel after all. Robin was simultaneously off-put and turned on, but the notion of getting naked and going to town on the hot devil in front of Betty was a full dick-wilter. “Don’t be crass, Zebryl. I’m a little more worried about those wereMonsters finding me here than I am about railing your tail.”

  In a faux-offended tone of voice, Zebryl clutched at an imaginary pearl necklace. “Why, that is very rude, Mister Robin. Mentioning a devil’s lack of tail in front of plainFolk. You’ll be getting nowhere near my rear anytime soon with that kind of rhetoric.”

  Not realizing a demon might be self-conscious about its tail, or about not having one in this case, Robin apologized. “I’m so sorry, Zebryl. I didn’t mean to offend about the tail thing. I never thought about such demon details. I’ve never even met a demon, until you, that is.”

  “Robin, adjust your tone,” Betty chided. “Mister Zebryl is no demon. He’s been through a very harrowing experience. I saw how you two were flirting the other night. You should be gentler toward him. He could have PTSD.”

  “Now IS offensive,” Zebryl said with much darker notes in his voice.

  Robin was becoming concerned the demon might have dangerously prickly sensibilities. Betty’s comment also lent insight into how she viewed things. Did she really not see Zebryl as a bat-winged, horn-headed, frighteningly sexy himbo?

  Zebryl turned with narrowed eyes to face Robin directly. “You would do well to take lessons in manners from this woman. I am no and it is extremely insulting to mis-speciate someone, especially a fellow Player

  Bedding, maybe? Gleaning more info from? For sure. Robin carefully chose his next words. “Again, I’m really sorry. I’m so new here and still have no idea what’s going on, and what sorts of… people, exist in this world. I’m tripping over my tongue every other sentence, it seems.”

  Still with narrowed eyes but a twitch to one corner of his mouth, Zebryl said, “Save your tongue-tripping for my fire hole. But let me elucidate you, at least in one regard. Where I come from, I am a of the ruby caste. And as such, an inhabitant of the Eighth Circle of Hell. True, my kind - the incubi and succubi - are half-breeds of mixed caste parentage, but we are still devils.”

  “So what then is a demon?”

  “Demons are lesser beings populating Hell. We devils rule over them as we see fit. Some rule with compassion and courage while others with malignant cruelty and spite. Most demons are limited in intelligence, though some do come in forms with wings, horns or tails in sad mimicry of their devilish betters. You saw one such creature in my club. Our bartender, who did not survive the attack, was a rime demon from the frozen Seventh Circle, where the sapphire devils rule.

  “Ah, good to know.” Robin didn’t know how else to respond.

  Betty clucked her tongue. She had been studiously examining Robin’s torn pants on her chair while the conversation took place. “You two could probably use some rest… and some private time…,” she noted with a glint in one eye. “I am sorry to hear about your employee, Mister Zebryl, but I do need to concentrate on these here pants. All your chit chat about circles and sapphires might be best held in the bedroom. Now git. Shoo!” She endearingly waved one hand at them before picking up a pair of fabric shears.

  Not bothering to ask if Robin was willing or not, Zebryl took him by the hand and headed toward the bedroom hallway. “Are you sure you don’t want to snack a tidbit to fortify your passions before we go?” The devil twitched its horns in Betty’s direction.

  “I’m going to scare Betty and Feed

  That perplexed look returned to Zebryl’s face once again. “Fair enough, Robin, but you human. Unlike me, you’re capable of gaining sustenance from more than FearFeyCelestial

  That last one — Celestial. It wasn’t entirely clear what he meat but the term was delivered with a sneer. Maybe Celestials were the same thing as angels? And if Zebryl’s home realm was actually Hell, like the Judeo-Christian Hell, then it would stand to reason that angels were the opposite of demons — no, correction, — and Zebryl might very well harbor a natural dislike for their kind.

  “I think I’ll be just fine, Zebryl,” Robin stated reassuringly. “Just be careful of my back, the wereBear scratches aren’t all the way healed yet.”

  Zebryl gently caressed Robin’s cheek with one back-hand spike. “Oh, my dear boy, its not your back that needs to worry. You’ll find it’s not only my hands that are spiked.”

  Robin gulped as the bedroom door closed softly.

  Do you think Robin will emerge from the bedroom wrecked or recuperated?