In which I almost make headway

While we were talking, Qual was slowly piecing himself together. Once more, he resembled a dwarf, albeit a battered and bloody one. He surveyed the scene before him, with Ev and Aliandra making out uncontrollably on the floor. He moaned and tried to reach for his weapon, but he was still too weak.

Sorel continued with her harangue. "Quinn, you just can't fuck with people's lives like this."

"I beg to differ I said." I had always heard how remote gods were for mortal morality. I had no idea I could change my values so fast. Yet, try as I might, I had a hard time seeing how I had any obligation to return things to the way they were. I had the opportunity to turn the Wilderlands into an erotic earthly paradise. I was not about to blow my chance.

"What makes you so different than the monsters we fight, then?" Sorel challenged. It was kind of cute, the way she stood up to me, but I was not going to tolerate it forever.

"I'm a hell of a lot stronger, for starters," I said, smiling slightly. So what if Sorel didn't get the joke. "And I'm trying to bring pleasure. It may not fit your rainbow-and-unicorn vision of what happiness should be, but Tama Hama is not a rainbow-and-unicorn kind of goddess. Would you rather the lich had this kind of power? What kind of world would he create?"

"You're missing the point," Sorel says, her lips tight.

"No, you're missing the point. Ask Aliandra and Ev if they want to go back to the way things are."

"Fine," she says, "I will. Ev? Aliandra? Um, mind if I interrupt a minute?" The amazon twins looked up from their lip-lock, but their hands remained roving over each others' bodies. They continued to shudder as orgasm after orgasm rocked them.

Sorel drew a breath. "Guys, Quinn said taht she will return you to the way you are, but you have to ask for it. Please, forget about the sex for just a minute, and try to concentrate on what's right. Please?"

The amazons stared at Sorel uncomprehendingly. "But it feels so good," one said.

"We want to continue like this forever," the other added.

"Try it. You'll agree. Quinn can bring us all to paradise, if you let her."

Sorel looked at me. She seemed helpless. She knew she could do nothing to stop me, but she was terrified of what I would do next.

I embraced her. "I won't do anything to you," I promised. "I want you to choose me freely. But give it time. Trust me."

Sorel looked at me, wanting to trust me, but something held her back. She trembled as tears filled her eyes.

Then Qual rushed at me with an axe, and everything went to hell.