I was miffed about my shorts, but upon returning to the first room and waking up, I was determined to focus on circulating my EXP through my other loci and seeing how many I could aspect. If I was in a fantasy game world, I wanted some fantasy game powers.

  I tried to focus on the feeling that I had doing the push-ups and letting the hot tub flow. It was easier said than done. It took me a good deal of time to get the image of loci into my head. Every time I started to get the image, I would lose it, like a soap bubble popping in my mind. It was like I'd just get started, and I would start to anticipate the powers I would get, and it would all fall apart.

  I needed to calm down. I tried to do the lotus pose that the yoga instructor (no panties) started us with. It did not work very well. Mainly because every time I sat in that position, I would remember the class and start doing math on the ratio of panty vs. no panties and the correlation of hotness to panty wear. While that was very distracting, what came next tipped me over the edge. I must have started to drift into sleep because slowly, one by one, the girls in the memory of the class disappeared. I mean, I'm pretty sure there were guys in the class, too, but I don't think they made it into my spank…I mean memory bank. One by one, they disappeared, and then it was just the instructor and me. She was in a downward pose, the dog, I think, with her ass up in the air. I was trying to replicate the position while not breaking eye-to-ass contact. I had to check if my feet were in the right position and make sure my shorts were adequate coverage. As I tilted my head back up, my eyes traced her leg line up. From the black Converse, up the fishnet on pale skin to just where the thigh-high stopped and the dress began. I was trying to redetermine panty or not when she giggled a familiar giggle, and suddenly, the scene shifted. I was quickly very small, or Vex was very large. So large that I was in my ridiculous pose in her hand as she lifted me up to her face. I could still see the electric blue in her eyes. It was faint, but it was there.

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  “Hello, blue eyes.” I tried nonchalantly. And failed. I did at least shift back to Lotus. I even think I did it correctly. No-panties the instructor would be proud. Vex even had the presence to blush. Blush and giggle. Mind you, a giggle from a hundred-plus-foot-tall full-on god is something to behold.

  “You are one of a very few to see even the hint of blue. Of those, you are the only one still alive. And the full blue is yours alone.” To emphasize this, her eyes flashed the full blue I knew before settling just to the hint of it.

  “So you can talk to me?”

  “Alas, only after certain thresholds have been met. If you want another face-to-face or face-to-…, you will need to get stronger.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I even saluted her, and her innuendo was not lost on me.

  “You have done well, my paragon, but I'm only allowed a moment to congratulate you on your first Aspect. Runes, eh? I am excited to see what you do with them. Make me proud!” She punctuated her pride by bringing me to her face and giving me a kiss—a kiss that was somehow both one hundred feet tall and five at the same time. Needless to say….I woke up in a gray room.