"You are a person, right?" The girl asks, tilting her head with a genuine curiosity.
He nods an affirmation.
"Bouncing basilisk balls!" she squeals, her body quivering with delight. "I can't believe I actually did it!?"
She grabs his hand and traces a finger across his metal palm. "Can you actually feel that?"
He nods again as her soft, gentle touch seems to actually tickle his new metal skin, beeping at the sensation.
"Great Mother's Mercy!" Vuvi gasps, "It can even feel! A construct that can feel! This is beyond amazing!"
"What exactly is… it?" Her mother cuts in with a sneer as she slips into a robe.
"A soul." her daughter exclaims proudly. "The divine crystal has the power to absorb large amounts of magical essence. I focused its absorption abilities with a complex array of sub-light energy accumulators, a Grangel-beam transmitter array, and enough raw mana to power an army of golems—"
"I swear child… if I find coffers empty again!"
"But look at it, Mother! A pleasure construct that can actually think. That can feel. Adapt! Imagine the possibilities. The satisfied customers. The profit!"
She sneers at her daughter, eyes like crystal daggers.
"Oh, great and gorgeous Maribelle Blackthorn, Twilight Blade of the Northern Kingdoms…" Vuvi suddenly cries as she drops to her knees, prostrating herself before her mother. "Please grant thy infinite mercy to me… your genius daughter, who will make us stinking rich and save the world from the curse of The Demon Queen!"
"You stole my money!" Maribelle barks, tossing a crudely shaped effigy of a non-human phallus at her ducking daughter.
"He's a miracle!" Vuvi shrieks. "I promise. We'll have women lining up from here till the gates of the Royal Palace. One taste of this… Prince of Pleasure, and they'll be hooked! Admit it! He's good."
Maribelle rolls her eyes and nods reluctantly. "Really good."
The Prince just stands there, nodding in blind agreement, silently making sense of the situation while sneaking glances at Maribelle's mind-meltingly beautiful body.
"Oh… shit! You're a person and we're talking like you don't even exist in there." Vuvi admits as she grabs his metal hand. "You'll help us, right… please?" Her bright, emerald eyes quiver with uncertainty as she looks at him longingly and full of hope, softly stroking his hand with a tenderness he never knew.
He nods softly and beeps in agreement. Absolutely no thought given beyond trying to help the emerald-eyed red-head before him.
They needed his help.
How could I possibly say no to a family in need, he thinks to himself, staring at Maribelle, searing the vision of her naked body into his neural circuits.
"Thank you…" Vuvi breaths. "Um… hmmm… do you have a name?"
He nods again.
"Oh… right. You can't talk." She groans. "Your audio modulator only arrives in a few weeks. Can you write?"
He beeps, harder.
She shuffles through some shelves and retrieves some parchment and a piece of coal, setting them neatly on a small desk.
"Go ahead." she smiles, gesturing toward it.
He quickly steps beside her, and with the most elegant handwriting he can muster, scrawls down his name in perfectly legible lettering.
Maribelle struts over and peeks at the page. "Scribbles. Probably has the brain of an infant. Clearly knows nothing."
"But… he was looking at the books. I thought he could read." Vuvi frowns. "Can you read?"
He nods, but then quickly shakes his head.
"Can you read… but not our language?"
He beeps and nods with head and hands this time.
"Are you… not from here?"
His whole body shakes and clanks as he nods his head furiously.
"How far away?" Vuvi asks, her eyes narrowing as she begins making mental calculations.
He brings his palms together and slowly moves them apart, opening his arms wide.
Her eyebrows jump. "Beyond the Elven Kingdom?"
He stretches his arms wider.
"Beyond the Northern Continent?" She gasps, eyes stretching to their limits.
But he keeps stretching his arms.
"B-B-Beyond…. the world?" she shudders.
He slowly nods his head as his arms slump down beside him with a loud clunk.
"Oh, Mother's Mercy!" Maribelle cries out, falling to her bed. "I had no idea my daughter would be such a damning disappointment! To steal a soul from beyond? What have you done, Vuvela?"
"He is our prayers answered, Mother!" she snaps. "A being from beyond. Born of a divine crystal. What greater sign of the Great Mother's blessing. She has brought us salvation!"
"I should never have tangled with that damned dwarf!" Maribelle groans, tossing pillows onto her head. "You made him, you'll pay the consequences when The Maiden Mother hears word of this. I'm not taking the fall for this one, Vuvi. You've gone too far."
Vuvi scoffs, flicking fiery curls from her forehead as she turns face and struts out the door.
"Come, my Pleasure Prince. Leave the boring, old hag. We have lots to discuss!" Vuvi smirks as she crosses her arms.
"Old hag this, you gear-gremlin!" Maribelle sneers, flicking a ball of fire at Vuvi.
"Ow!" she shrieks as it snaps at her backside, burning her already tattered overalls. She slaps at her behind as it sears and smokes, a charred hole now showing the crack of a peach-pink bum.
"You monster! You're never getting a turn with him again!" she yells, storming off through the house.
The Prince turns to Maribelle who sees him off with a sultry smile and a nod, blowing him a kiss and smokey wink before disappearing under silk sheets.
His vision is suddenly shaken by the arrival of cascading messages that rain down his visual interface.
[Pleasure Performance Rating: A-]
[Pleasure Points Earned: 66]
[Pleasure Power has leveled up! Current Pleasure Power Lv: 002]
[New Skill Unlocked: Sensual Scan Lv. 1]
First power-up, he thinks to himself as he slips out of the room.
But only after sneaking one last glance at Maribelle's flawless figure, her captivating curves hugged by the silk sheets.