WAY back in book one, the first interlude was actually me padding the story, using a failed attempt for a different version of this story as an interesting way to alert the reader to baddies in the world. Since then, I've found them an easy way to give tension in an otherwise fun erotica story.
PREVIOUSLY ON BM: The compound is attacked, but Honoka is not the helpless girl she used to be.
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Chapter 50.5: The Deep Guilds
Boston was a large city, the greater Boston area holding seven million in a Post-Change world. Which was a significant increase in population despite the devastation following the Change, an obvious indicator displaying the importance dungeons played in the modern day. The mayor of Detroit has vocally tried to move a dungeon into their suburbs for years.
Skyscrapers lined the Charles as it emptied into the Back Bay area, downtown a packed city center as dense as Manhattan or Tokyo. Most of those high rises were clearly marked, businesses proud to label themselves in the rich historic city, to be known as
American
with ties to the original colonies. Prudential Tower's tall rectangle outline, the blockiness of the Boston Public Library, Trinity Church sitting beside blue glass covering the John Hancock building (locals will quickly remind newcomers that the name is still John Hancock, no matter what idiot decides to rename it). Boston was a major city with a magnificent history.
Nevertheless, it was easy to hide inside that concrete jungle.
In one of those buildings late at night, on a floor somewhere in the middle, the elevator opened with an innocuous ping. Inside, a short and dumpy African woman - wearing a velvet skirt suit with white blouse underneath the buttoned coat - marched out of the elevator. Her graying hair was cut short in a crew cut, no makeup except for light eyeliner and blackberry red lip gloss. She also wore a necklace with three small pearls looped through a thin silver chain. Though heavy enough to appear over three hundred pounds despite her short height, she carried herself well with a military posture.
"Ms. Walters, the Council is wondering when the quarterlies will be finished." The girl who trailed behind the fat black woman was a contrast in every metric. Over six feet tall (183 cm), made taller with stiletto heels yet slouching heavily, clearly the subservient to her militant superior. Her bad posture was in part caused by a large stack of binders she held with one arm against abnormally plump tits that appeared as if the girl smuggled a pair of honeyed hams into the building. All while juggling a phone in the other hand, scrolling a flurry of text messages pinging every other second. Aside from her massive juggs with more silicone than flesh inside them, the girl was anorexic thin with unhealthy pale skin and long blond hair kept in a tight bun. Even in a tailored canary yellow pants suit alluding to false maturity, anyone looking at the girl's face would know she wasn't a day over twenty. With all this, the top-heavy girl wobbled after each step as she tried desperately to keep up with the other woman.
"Tell them they can suck my fat clit, and you can quote me." Turning a corner, the curt woman put her eye against a panel, opening a security door and marching in, her companion following. "I asked you to call me Mistress, Lily. Do I have to make it an order?"
"No...Mistress."
Mandy Walters was not someone who suffered fools or time wasters. She was still putting out fires after the Council's last disaster when they demolished the famous guild
Vedic Starlight
. That came back to burn them when Arun Nair's widow killed Enoch and sunk the Bone Castle. It wasn't even about the money - although they lost
billions
in assets. It was the loss of a Herald they could control that hurt the most.
The corridor these women walked along was long and narrow: cameras to monitor them, mounted gun turrets open threats if they didn't pass scrutiny. Lily was terrified, hunching even further, yet Walters was irritated and bored. Without fanfare, the door on the other end of the corridor opened and the two women stepped into a dark room with numerous screens lining one wall.
Mandy hated this room. Too much effort on useless pageantry and it made no sense to her. Each screen displayed a separate contact for the various interests of the Council. None of these people were part of the Council itself - Mandy wasn't either - yet each were vitally important to ensuring the Council functioned as an entity. They were middle management, and Walters thought middle management worked best in a boardroom, not a supervillain's collection of blurred out screens in an empty theater.
