Archive of Our Own

Jaune wasn’t used to so much riding on a board game, but… this was Beacon. There were a lot of things he wasn’t used to. And by Beacon standards, this was downright ordinary!

It was the first RWBY/JNPR Joint Friendship Activity (Subcategory: Recreation; Semi-Competitive) since, well, Jaune had started dating a member of Team RWBY. But as he was discovering, dating Yang meant that her already exuberant personality was made… even more boisterous because now she needed to show off. Show off to her team that she was part of a couple now, with plenty of PDA, show off to Jaune that she was a fun, free-spirited girl who he should be thanking his lucky stars that he got to date her.

Not that Jaune needed more reason to be absurdly grateful for his good fortune when Yang agreed to go out with him…

But Ruby had proposed that Yang pick out their Friendship Activity for the month, and Yang had been quick to propose a board game night. Jaune had been down for that, he thought it might be fun and, more importantly, he didn’t know Yang was into board games. He was eager to learn more about her, but as she slapped the box down, Jaune realized… it kind of suggested a few things he already knew about her.

“REVOLT IN THE HAREM” it said in a pseudo-Vacuan font. On the cover, in a desert palace setting were two women dressed as Harem girls, but one held a dagger behind her back and the other offered a platter of grapes… with a bottle of poison behind her. Both women looked like they were well prepared for murder. And Yang looked thrilled to present it.

“It’s an asymmetric board game where one side is playing the girls of the Harem, who’ve had enough of the Sultan’s cruelty and boorishness and now plot to overthrow him!” Yang explained, “But one player…” she gave Jaune a look, one he’d gotten really familiar with in dating Yang, “gets to be the Sultan, who seeks to thwart their revolt and remind them who's really in control!”

There was little question about who Yang saw as the Sultan in this game, and Jaune wasn't sure what to make of his girlfriend having him play the man with a harem… but also a man who was about to get stabbed by his harem. So… evens out, he supposed.

“She's wearing an Early East Vacuan style outfit, but her veil is totally from the Revivalist Era,” Blake said, folding her arms over her chest as she pursed her lips in disapproval.

“And that dagger’s terrible for murdering a Sultan,” Nora added, shaking her head, “The blade's all scriggly when you're totally going to want to get one quick- stab, yah!”

She violently pantomimed stabbing Jaune in the gut. Which was actually pretty ordinary for Nora. Even odds she’d try to stab him for real at some point in the game.

“What do you think, Ren?” she asked, “If I was stabbing Jaune, what kind of dagger would you recommend? …Ren?”

But Ren didn't respond. Instead, he just stared at something behind Jaune… something evidently more shocking than what Nora was saying.

“So… you all see that girl at the table, right?”

Jaune turned to look too see… a girl with green hair sitting at the table, looking dead ahead and not making eye contact and visibly uncomfortable with everyone looking at her… while still very clearly being at the table as though she was trying to fit in and not be noticed.

Slowly, she turned to look at them, trying to put a smile on her face as she practically trembled with nervousness.

“Umm…” Jaune said, looking at the girl whose cheeks were growing shockingly red for her dark skin, “Do- do we-”

“I’m Emerald Sustrai!” she bolted out, still not looking at them, “I’m from Haven and I was… sent to spy on you?”

They all stared at her for a minute as she got redder and redder. All while Jaune tried to imagine what sort of reason she had to be here where she thought that would be a more approachable thing to say?

But with a sigh, her shoulders slumped and she admitted the truth: “I’m… I’m like the biggest fan of Revolt in the Harem, but it’s impossible to find a group that wants to play it! Either it’s sexist or orientalist or confusing or has too many rules, but it’s actually a really smart and interesting board game that has some really good mechanics! So when you guys were going to play it, I just… I really want to finally be able to play the game!”

Jaune held up a hand. “Wait, how did you know we’d be-”

“Game’s for up to 8 players, so hell yeah, sister, you’re in!” Yang cheered.

“Uhhhhhh, Yang?” Nora cut in, “There are 8 of us already, so… if you were thinking to leave Ren out, that’s gonna be a problem.”

But Yang shook her head, putting up her arms peaceably. “No, no, I totally thought Ren was in… though sorry about probably making you play a Harem Girl.”

“It’s cool.”

“But I just figured…” she jerked her head towards Weiss.

Who, naturally, became affronted.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” she asked, “I- I’m fun, I’m good at board games, why would you even imagine I might not want to be a part of this?”

“Weiss… look at the front cover,” Yang said, gesturing towards the picture of busty, scantily clad women who decorated the box, “I kind of took it as a given you wouldn’t-”

“Oh, is that why you picked the game?” Weiss asked, bristling with anger as she balled up her fists, “You thought, ‘Of course Weiss would be too much of a stick in the mud, I can trick her into making a fool of herself when she refuses to play it!’ That’s what you thought?”

“No, Weiss, I-”

“Well it didn’t work! I’m in!”

“Oh…” Emerald said meekly from behind them, reminding Jaune that she was still in the room, “N-no, no, it’s- it’s cool, I don’t- don’t want to get in the way of your team bonding…”

The room suddenly became very awkward as nobody really knew what to do about the ninth person who’d… kind of inserted herself into their Team Bonding activity, but at the same time, she did actually want to play the game. And she had the feel of a kicked puppy whenever Jaune looked at her, so he couldn’t help but feel sympathetic.

“How about…” Jaune ventured, hesitantly, “How about Ren and Nora play a character together?”

“But not together-together,” Blake quipped, which Jaune ignored.

“They could play the Sultan,” he continued, “Nora and Ren as a team would make a really unpredictable and wily foe!”

It was, in Jaune’s mind, a good and well-thought-out compromise position, one that would make everyone happy, so of course…

“Nah,” Nora said, “If I’m playing a character, I’m with the uprising, the revolution! And Jaune: come on, we all know you’re going to be playing the Sultan. How else is Yang going to mess with Weiss all night if it’s not you?”

“Well somebody has to play two characters!” Jaune protested, gesturing to the eight figurines—seven pewter harem girls in different, decidedly lascivious poses and one large token for the Sultan, a fat and powerful-looking man. “Well, how about… Pyrrha and I could- no, actually, Ruby and I could do a team up as the Sultan, cause we’re both Team Leaders, o-or Yang and I, cause, you know…”

Jaune blushed. He still didn’t feel like he was allowed to say girlfriend when talking about Yang, though as he looked around the room, it was pretty clear… it was not a popular idea. Particularly with Pyrrha, who was usually one of his biggest supporters when it came to proposing compromises. He looked at Ren, desperately hoping he’d have a solution, and fortunately, he gave Jaune a quick nod of understanding.

“I can drop out,” he said, “I was never that much for board games and I suspect…” he took up the game’s surprisingly thick rulebook and flipped through the pages, “you’ll need someone who’s reading the rules to keep on top of things.”

Jaune looked at Nora, who'd been very animated just moments earlier that her partner would be in the game.

“Eh, so long as everyone acknowledges that Ren totally would make an awesome Harem Girl, I'm fine,” she said.

“Seconded!” Yang said with a laugh.

“He does have good hips,” Blake teased. 

They all laughed at that, and setting up the game continued. Ren began distributing pieces—Jaune knew not to contest that he would be the Sultan—and the girls each took a character based on color. And before there could be any awkwardness on who would take red, Pyrrha, naturally, deferred to Ruby and took orange for herself. Yang took lavender—”It matches my eyes!”—and Nora took yellow while making thunder noises. Colors distributed, Jaune looked over the… complicated plastic doohicky in front of him, with little notches to hold the various cardboard tokens and show certain scores moving up and down the track. It… was pretty inexplicable to him, but Jaune had a sense he'd figure this out the way he figured out most complicated board games: guessing what seemed right and figuring it out as they went.

Hey: it had worked for Beacon, and this was a situation he was way less likely to get killed in.

“The game starts when the Sultan begins with a Positioning Roll,” Ren explained, gesturing to the dice, then at Jaune, “The Roll will establish which of the Harem Girls is First Wife, who will then lead the turn order.”

“And First Wife gets priority on any Influence Contests, winning on ties and getting to initiate a Test of Seduction if she chooses to in the Bargaining stage,” Emerald less-than-helpfully rattled off, “But she can lose First Wife status if Jaune rolls-”

“I… think we should start the game and see if that comes up,” Weiss interrupted, “Let's just get the game started.”

After all that, Jaune was happy to finally begin the game, taking up the dice in his hand—they were surprisingly heavy for game dice, apparently made out of solid metal for some reason, surprisingly expensive compared to the cardboard tokens and pewter figures, but even more oddly, they felt rather warm in his hands as he shook them. He hadn’t been expecting that, considering that they certainly felt like metal. But as he released the dice from his hand, it felt like he was almost expecting them to glow as he cast them into the air.

They hit the dice tray with a strangely heavy thump rolling dramatically as they settled to-

“What's that!” Blake cried.

Thick white smoke rose from the board as Jaune’s eyes darted around the room, looking to his teammates, to Yang, to Emerald, hoping that one of them might know more about this game and whether or not it was supposed to catch on fire. But they looked just as bewildered as he felt as the smoke quickly filled the room, somehow no smelling of smoke, choking him, or stinging his eyes, but making his vision nothing but white before it cleared and…

Jaune realized that this was not an ordinary board game.

They were still in the Beacon Common Room, the board was still open on the table, their pieces still where Jaune had seen them last, the dice in the little dice-roller, but… very much had changed.

For starters, the game board suddenly seemed much more substantial, carved wood instead of cardboard, tokens that seemed to be elegant works of art… and much more importantly, the girls were now dressed in outfits that matched the women on the front cover! Skimpy tops made of gauzy silks, heavy golden bangles on their arms, and thin veils over their mouths, all color-coded to match them with their character pieces. Ruby in red, Weiss in blue, Blake in purple, Yang in lavender, Pyrrha in orange, Nora in yellow, and Emerald in green. And Jaune was wearing the white robes of the Sultan, very much unaware how it had gotten onto him or where his clothes had gone. Though his Pumpkin Pete’s hoodie was the least of his concerns as he realized that while the Beacon Common Room was largely unchanged… the walls no longer had doors. Which was… not good.

“Oh, gods-damn-it!” Yang cried, “This is one of those cursed board game situations!”

“Mmmmm, yep,” Ren said, flipping through the rulebook, “Incidentally, the book actually has rules for this exact scenario: we have to beat the game to return things to normal… and also, now we have to actually act out the ‘Challenge’ and ‘Punishment’ cards… oh, and we can still use the optional rulesets, but I think most of them just make the game longer.”

“Is this… normal?” Blake asked, eyes wide as she looked at her new outfit, “Em-Emerald, you’re a fan of this game, is this something that has happened before? Ever?”

“Wh-what?” Emerald asked, blinking as she seemed to come out of a daze, “Oh, no- no, I don’t… I didn’t think this could… ever happen…”

Jaune didn’t miss how the corners of Emerald’s lips kept twitching up into a delirious smile.

He sighed. “Alright,” Jaune said, “So we just have to win the game and it’s over, but it’s just… it’s still just a board game. A weird, uncomfortable, magic board game, but it’s just… a board game.”

“Welllllll…” Ruby said, stroking her chin, “It’s a competitive board game, so one side wins and the other side loses, so… does that mean we need to kill Jaune? I- I guess I could improvise a knife from-”

“Maybe we don’t have to kill me!” Jaune cried, very concerned with how quickly Ruby went to the execution of the deed, “We’re- we’re Huntsmen, remember.”

“And… and Huntsmen don’t kill and all,” Emerald added with a nervous chuckle, “Definitely not any murderers in this room!”

“Yeah,” Nora said in a disturbingly emotionless voice, “Nobody here has ever killed before.”

Ren flipped through the rules with a calmness that would have astounded the Jaune who first arrived at Beacon, but now he well knew that Ren was just extremely level-headed like that. He scanned the rules, then pursed his lips and gave a grim nod. “Well, there are three outcomes here,” he said, “If the Harem Girls win, there are no permanent, real-world penalties for the Sultan-”

“So we don't have to stab Jaune,” Ruby said with a nod.

But Ren continued, “But that’s only for the Revolt victory condition, where the team remains united and they all win together.”

“So we go for that one,” Jaune said.

“But in the Escape victory condition,” Ren explained, “any Harem Girls who’ve been caught by the Sultan will forever be trapped as his Harem Slaves for the rest of their lives.”

“WHAT THE HELL?” Jaune choked out in utter disbelief.

“And if the Sultan outright wins,” Ren continued, uninterrupted, “All of the Harem Girls are doomed to forever be his slaves. So… the Harem Girls should probably win.”

“Who the hell made this game?” Jaune asked, feeling light headed and overwhelmed… doubly so because he seemed like the only one who was having a reaction like that.

“Can I just say for the record that I don’t think Jaune should throw the game?” Nora ventured, proving that there were no limits to what insanity she’d commit to, “I mean, definitely don’t want to become his slavegirl forever, but… you gotta have integrity in board games.”

“And maybe the board’ll get mad if Jaune isn’t playing well enough,” Ruby added, “So yeah: no throwing, Jaune.”

“Don't even think about it,” Blake said.

And even- even Weiss send to be against the idea!

Jaune looked around the table in disbelief. “But… but… did you not hear the-”

“No offense, babe,” Yang said, giving him a pained look, “But… I don’t think most of us were expecting you might win if you tried.”

“I-”

“Cept for Pyrrha,” Yang corrected, “P-Money believes in your ability to permanently enslave us all as your Harem Girls.”

Jaune glanced at Pyrrha, who turned the familiar shade of beet red that only Yang could bring out of her. They were in a crisis situation featuring actual magic and they were busy making jokes rather than try and address the very real crisis. Which… was kind of comforting in its familiarity.

Ren cleared his throat. “Either way, the game must be played now, and as Jaune has made his roll…”

Jaune looked at the dice in the table. A six and a one, which meant…

“Pyrrha will start the game as Jaune’s First Wife,” Ren announced, saying it as though it was not a deeply awkward thing to say!

“Way to go, Pyrrha!” Yang whooped, “Though if you think you’re gonna steal your partner back from me…”

She wrapped her arms around Jaune’s arm and playfully stuck her tongue out at Pyrrha who… tried to laugh it off as a joke. But Jaune knew his partner and especially knew the subtle ways she hid her feelings—it was painfully clear that she wasn’t comfortable with the implication that she and Jaune might be in any way romantically linked, especially in the context of a magical game that could make that a permanent reality!

But this was what Jaune had come to expect from Beacon—where he saw insanity, everyone else saw a fun little diversion. Didn’t matter if their freedom was on the line, these women threw themselves into mortal danger with even less of a care! He once, while desperately trying to keep two Beowolves from eating him, got dragged into a conversation with Yang and Nora about whether it was odd that Beowolfs didn’t bark, and if Jaune knew if real wolves barked or if it was just a dog thing. Jaune tried to give an answer while frantically bashing away at a giant hellmonster with teeth as long as knives and murder for eyes only for Yang to crush its skull without a thought before asking if he knew if foxes barked or not.

That was just… that was just Beacon life.

So Jaune did the thing he was becoming increasingly experienced in: took the part of himself that was screaming for sanity and forced it back into the recesses of his mind. Putting on a front of confidence, he picked up the dice and began his turn.

Of course, once he rolled his dice, he then had to look at the board and try to figure out what he was doing, looking at his piece placed at the Throne Room with little pathways criss-crossing over the board. He didn’t want to win, but he wasn’t sure how to lose, either. So all he could really do was move his token three spaces in a random direction and… hoped for the best.

“An aggressive opening…” he heard Emerald mutter under her breath, making Jaune curse himself for… for something, whatever he’d done that was accidentally a good play as judged by the one person who knew what she was doing.

But now his turn, at least, was finished. The girls rolled the dice, one at a time moving in clockwise order from where Pyrrha sat. Jaune… became aware of how complicated the board was, with multiple winding and branching pathways as the characters moved through the Palace. The board was divided into several zones, with the Harem obviously being where the Harem Girls started, but Jaune wasn’t sure what to make of the Kitchen, Treasury, Armory, and Throne Room… among other places, but he was sure they were somehow important for different phases of the game. Many of the squares were colored in and Jaune knew that had to be important too. By the time everyone had rolled, they were all spread out around the board and now…

Jaune looked to Emerald, hoping for some explanation on the next step.

“It’s simple,” Emerald said, “Now that all the Harem Girls have rolled their movement action, we can count every red tile we’ve crossed as our Influence Gains, but since that number is odd, that means we have Plans In Motion, which means we can also count any blue tiles we may have crossed. We average that out among the seven of us, and then we know if we’re Ascending or In Decline if we’re above or below the average. If In Decline, you can use Treachery cards, but you can’t make any Appeals To The Sultan, Ascending is the opposite, but you also can elect to not use your entire…”

The words came at Jaune like the waves of the ocean, smoothing out the sand and leaving no trace of any distinction behind. It was all so much noise and calculation as Jaune just tried to keep up, quickly learning it was vastly beyond him. And Yang had said this was on the simpler side of things! 

Even if it wasn’t for the fact that the game was cursed and they were all risking abject disaster, Jaune was really wondering why they couldn’t have just played Remnant: The Game instead. This never happened with Remnant: The Game.

“...and then any prime numbers we’ve accumulated can be exchanged for Prestige Tokens on a one-to-one basis. Make sense?”

Jaune wasn’t sure he understood a word of that. Jaune wasn’t sure anyone caught a word of-

Ren cut in. “But what about the Rev-”

“The Revelation of Faith can only happen before the Childbearing Stage if we’re playing either with the Desert Prophets Expansion or using the alternative Mistralian Rules… I assumed we were playing Vacuan because Jaune didn’t start with any Treachery Tokens on his Vizier bar.”

Ren quickly looked over the rulebook. “Ah, yes, I see my mistake—I’ll move to the proper ruleset.”

…he had a Vizier bar? What- what did that even mean?

“But the short of it is,” Emerald continued, “Now that it’s Jaune’s turn again, he gets to move, and if he passes any of our tokens, he can opt to give us Favor tokens or advance his Control Track, but if he lands on our square, that's when he draws a Punishment card, which… has special rules in the magic cursed version of the game?”

Ren nodded. “They’re going to be substantially changed from the standard version of the game,” he explained, “They now include specific challenges that, from my inference, are much more sexual in nature.”

Emerald nodded in return. “That’s why it’s such a big deal that Jaune opted to beeline towards the harem-”

Oh hell!

“-which means we’re pretty much all in his path, I’d assess that his strategy is to wear us down with Favor and Punishments rather than build up his own defensive position. Considering the challenges are changed, I’d say it’s a clever strategy to neutralize our side’s natural advantage of being familiar with the standard rules.”

“It- it wasn't-”

“C'mon, Jaune,” Yang said, giving Jaune a punch in the arm, “Take a compliment!”

“Compliment?” he choked out, “I'm trying to not win-”

“Tsk, tsk,” Nora shook her head, “I thought we agreed there'd be no throwing.”

“Yeah, Jaune,” Ruby said, “Not cool.”

He stared at them in disbelief… but in his silence, the girls started rolling dice again, moving this way and that across the board until the game circled back to Jaune. It was, even for Beacon, a bewildering situation, but if nobody else was going to react like he was… he supposed he had no choice. Like every other time at Beacon when someone suggested something insane, all he could do was take a deep breath and face it with some kind of dignity. When the turn came to him, he rolled his die and had to move… 4 spaces. Onto a… green square? With a fancy golden trim making it-

“Ooooh, game’s gonna start spicy, isn’t it?” Emerald said, rubbing her hands together in a way that told Jaune he was about to learn just what he’d accidentally done, “Jaune, you landed on a Vantage Square!”

Jaune just blinked, looking over to Ren for some kind of clarification.

“It means you get to draw a Challenge Card!” Emerald quickly added, her voice indicating that this was something Jaune should have obviously known. But that just led him to look over to the very many decks of cards, all with different backing and no words on them. Just a bunch of symbols, none of which matched the tile he was on.

“The red ones,” Yang helpfully whispered in his ear.

And with that guidance, Jaune drew a card off the top of the deck, feeling what once felt like a flimsy piece of plastic-dipped cardstock now felt more like… well, he didn't know the names of different kinds of paper, but it felt firmer, weightier, just like the dice. He turned it over, seeing the text that looked like… handwritten words on parchment, words he felt compelled to read aloud.

“Sultan! Your Harem girls adore you and live to cater to your every mortal desire. Spin the Scrutiny Wheel to select two Harem Girls and… compel them to dance for your amusement.”

Jaune looked up from the card, half expecting someone to disbelieve that he was actually reading it correctly. Then he looked down “The loser gains one Scrutiny.”

“That’s really bad,” Emerald murmured, like that was the bad part, “One Scrutiny this early could set off a death spiral that you can’t get out of… like, sacrifice one for the good of the rest bad.”

“So one of us… is basically screwed?” Blake asked, a note of worry entering her voice, “From one card draw?”

Yang snorted from beside him. “Oh, come on, kitten, like you’re at risk of losing this challenge…”

“I- I’ll have you know! That I am a classically trained dancer,” Weiss piped up, “And even- it’s all the same principals, I could do very well in dancing in a more… Vacuan inspired fashion, particularly if I was familiar with the musical accompaniment!”

Jaune didn't know what to say to that, but, hoping to stave off a fight, he just took up the spinner—he was also fairly sure this used to be plastic—and gave it a whirl. A hard spin felt more… he didn't know what to say, but it seemed less guilt-inducing, like it was less his fault when the spinner turned into a mess of swirling colors, but then it slowed…

Jaune couldn't breathe, seeing it pass by each of his close friends… and also Emerald, until…

“Awwwwwwwww, yeah!” Ruby cheered as it landed on red, “I'm gonna break. It. Down!”

Not… not anything Jaune expected from this, but Ruby seemed thrilled at the prospect, and if Yang had any objections to her 18-year-old sister dancing for her boyfriend… well, her applause seemed to answer that.

So Jaune just turned his focus to who Ruby would be going up against. He took hold of the spinner and flicked it to see who'd be the second. Ruby, of course, looked anything but worried as she eagerly watched the swirl of colors. The wheel slowed once more and finally… landed on orange, making Jaune blanch as he put his partner into the risky- holy shit, he had just compelled his partner, Pyrrha Nikos, the Invincible Girl, to dance for him! And he had no doubt what kind of dancing the game meant. He tried not to look Pyrrha in the eye as she took this with stoic determination.

“Oh hell yeah, I've got this on lock!” Ruby cheered, maybe not really getting what this meant, but… Ruby and Pyrrha exchanged a look. Jaune respected both women, respected them so dearly that he felt an overpowering feeling of guilt that they were now compelled to dance for his amusement, but that respect also meant that he knew that both women were competitors. Even if they did not have anything like Weiss’s probably-mistaken confidence in her dance background, it didn't matter. For both women, they were not about to lose.

Both girls rose up, making Jaune remember they were wearing skimpy, shimmery outfits made of near translucent fabric, outfits that really emphasized the surprisingly generous curves they both had. Curves that Jaune should not be looking at! Especially as they both stood before Jaune, his chair magically rotating to give him the best seat in the house as ethereal Vacuan music began to play and they… began to dance.

And it was…

Not great.

Ruby immediately started something that… looked like she was dropping it down, but kind of just crouching up and down really quickly? It was not even remotely in time with the music and it did not appear to be coordinated even as she was saying things like, “Hell yeah!” and “Check this out!” before she… did not appear to do anything Jaune was supposed to follow?

But in contrast, Pyrrha just… shimmied her shoulders from side to side, an aimless, jerking motion. While Ruby was moving her body too much, Pyrrha seemed to be hardly moving at all! Jaune was confused. He knew Pyrrha was self-conscious, but she had exceptional control of her body and could move fluidly. She could dance and Ruby… very much could not. Yes, she was a very reserved woman who put a lot of stock in propriety, but Jaune had actually gone out dancing with her—as friends, of course—and Pyrrha had shown him she actually had some moves. She knew how to make her body lithe and, honestly, seductive, but right now, she was just-

Jaune’s eyes went wide.

She was throwing the contest.

The loser would take a Scrutiny token and from what Emerald was saying, they’d be the one most at risk to enter a no-win scenario. As much as Pyrrha was a competitor… she was also the most giving woman Jaune knew. The prospect of Ruby, at the start of her career, barely even into her own adulthood, being condemned to be Jaune’s sex slave… Pyrrha clearly couldn’t bear it. Even if- even if it meant that she might receive the curse…

It moved Jaune deeply that she could take on extraordinary risks like that without fear, without even hesitation. While Ruby danced wildly about, Pyrrha had a serene, confident smile even as she aimlessly drifted from one foot to the other until the dance was done.

“Sorry Pyrrha!” Ruby said with a wildly unearned smile, “I know we're on the same team, but I wasn't going to hold back when it came time to show off my sick dance moves!”

She whooped and… tried to spank her own butt? Then looked to Jaune as she defiantly awaited his judgment.

Blake gave Jaune an annoyed look. “Tell the magic board game that if it did that on purpose, we were all deeply underwhelmed.”

Jaune gave her an incredulous look. Half because she thought Jaune could somehow communicate with the game… half because they were in a situation like this and Blake was complaining about being underwhelmed by the striptease! But she… wasn't alone.

“Yeah,” his girlfriend whispered in his ear, “Don't tell me you weren't hoping for Pyrrha to really give you the business…”

He- be certainly did not- 

Jaune shook his head, focusing up. He did not want to risk finding out what the game would do if he tried to get out of his role.

“I, um, I…” Scrutiny token. Death spiral. “I think the winner is, um…”

“We know it's me!” Ruby cried.

But Jaune was looking into Pyrrha's eyes. She had a soft smile on her face, one that suggested… she trusted him. And she… knew what she was doing.

“It is,” Jaune said hoarsely, “Ruby wins.”

Ruby clapped her hands together and gave the worst display of sportsmanship—and dancing—he'd seen. “Oh yeah! Oh yeah! Uhn-unhs-uhns!”

“Wow,” Blake said dryly, “No wonder Pyrrha lost.”

“I bet Emerald has some moves…” Yang murmured, giving Jaune a sly glance, “Hmm? Was my boyfriend ranking which girls he wanted to see dance for him? Was I number one? Or do I have to prove myself to my Sultan?”

Jaune choked out an answer as Yang’s smile grew wider, enjoying nothing more than making Jaune turn red. How many times had she asked him to compare her butt to Weiss’s or suggested that Pyrrha, of all people, might be down for a threesome just to make him turn red? Was it any surprise that they were trapped in a magic sex board game and she was acting like she was at home with-

“Hold on…” Blake murmured, “Emerald, your outfit… you’re the only one without a gilt trim on your top… it's not like ours!“

“And that’s costume jewelry, not gold,” Weiss cried out, ignoring Blake’s eye roll and of course you can tell under her breath, “Emerald, why is your outfit different from ours?”

Emerald’s eyes went wide as all the attention in the room immediately zoomed in on her.

“What? No- ha- who would even, haha,” she laughed nervously, “it’s not like I own my own harem outfit, that would just be- that would be crazy! I certainly haven’t- don’t wear this kind of thing and… I don’t own anything like this!”

“Yeah, uh… we’re not saying that,” Yang said, giving Jaune a glance, “Just that… maybe it signified something-”

“Well it doesn’t so we should all start rolling to keep the game moving before the game gets mad at us let’s keep the game going no questions now Pyrrha has to roll!“

Jaune was about to stop her, to really try and get to the bottom of what was going on with this girl that they didn’t know and had a connection to the game, but… once again, he was the odd man out as Pyrrha took up the dice and started rolling, moving her figurine down the path with… what almost seemed like a very pleased smile on her face considering she had a Scrutiny token on her character track. But… if anyone had a plan to turn it all around, it was Pyrrha! And… there was some comfort in that.

They continued rolling dice, moving around the board as Jaune tried to keep up with all the capitalized words people were saying. Especially from Ruby, whose enthusiasm in life carried over into this game, now doubly so that she had “bested” Pyrrha, and Emerald, who actually knew what she was doing. Jaune hoped that his obliviousness was an advantage here: he was trying to lose after all. He rolled some dice, tried to put himself in an out of the way place and was relieved to see his card only required everyone to move their tokens to the kitchen zone: no weird, sexualized challenges, nobody weakening their game position… Jaune was almost optimistic until his turn came back around, he rolled his dice… and realized that he rolled a 9. And 8 squares away was… Yang.

He looked up from the board to his girlfriend, heart stopped, unsure if what to say, what to expect, what to think…

But Yang just smirked. “You know, this could be really fun, Jaune,” she said, then turned to look at the deck, “Come on, evil cursed board game, give me and my boyfriend something hot to give our friends a show!”

How was she always so confident in everything? Even in this, she was utterly fearless… it was honestly kind of intimidating to just date Yang, much less whatever the card was going to make them do. But he did the best he could to be as fearless as Yang was as he moved his piece the nine tiles to right past where her piece was, then reached for the relevant Challenge card, drew it and…

“What’s the card say, Jaune?”

Jaune just stared at the card, trying to make sense of how this was what the game was throwing at him after-

“What. Does the card. Say?”

Jaune shook his head before reading, “Ah… ‘Sultan! Tend to your Harem Girls like the pretty baubles they are. Brush the Challenged Girl’s hair for fifteen minutes while complimenting her beauty…’”

“What.” Blake said in deadpan disbelief. “What?”

“She may not moan at any time,” Jaune said, his mind struggling to put the words together in his mouth, “Or she will receive a Decadence token.”

“Well, that’s gonna be easy!” Ruby cheered, “I was really worried it’d all be weird sex stuff, but if all we’ve gotta do is shake what we got and get our hair brushed, this game’s as good as won!”

“A Decadence token isn’t as bad as Scrutiny, but it would limit Yang’s options… her character’s becoming more enamored with the Sultan or the lifestyle he offers, so she’s less inclined to revolt or escape,” Emerald helpfully clarified, “But if it’s just ‘don’t be a weirdo while getting your hair brushed…’ well, that’s as good as a win!”

But Jaune looked at Yang and saw that, unlike the previous rounds where she had a breezy confidence, like the game hardly mattered when she was so untouchable. But while she had a smirk on her face, it was one a little too stiff to be sincere, a note of unfamiliar hesitation in her lilac eyes as Jaune saw the hairbrush rising up from a compartment in the table. Yang's chair was turned around as Jaune took up the brush, once again, an artifact of the game feeling unnaturally weighty in his hand as she-

“Oh come on!” Weiss cried, “This game is ridiculous enough without acting like this is a bomb defusal! Just hurry up and get it over with!”

Chastened, Jaune put the brush to her hair and began to stroke. He knew Yang was rightfully proud of her hair and was very choosy of who was allowed to touch it. But Jaune had seven sisters who had given him a not-inconsiderable education in cosmetology. He might not have come to Beacon with as much experience with a sword as, well… anyone, but he did know how to brush a girl's hair.

Which meant that Jaune also knew what it was like when a girl got her hair brushed. Girls like Blanche who were always composed and sedate, girls like Chrys who were tomboyish and energetic, girls like June who couldn’t sit still… Jaune had enough sisters to get a sizable sample of what kind of girls there were, and Yang’s response was… something else. She was keeping still, unusually still, and while Jaune first chalked it up to Yang being very picky with who was allowed to touch her hair, but now he was thinking, much like her earlier smirk, that Yang was trying to… hold something back. She was trying to hide something about-

“You're supposed to be complimenting her,” Nora said, “No throwing the game, Jaune!”

Jaune gave Nora a why would you even say that look, then remembered that there was a magical board game that would not take well to being cheated.

“You have beautiful hair, Yang,” he said softly as he continued to brush, “Is just… very full, and bouncy! You have- you have such nice hair.”

Put on the spot, Jaune didn't really do the best job telling his girlfriend how beautiful she was, but he wasn't used to the experience of brushing his girlfriend's hair in front of all their friends!

“Just… when I see you, see your… your blonde locks cascading down your shoulders, all I can think is…”

Jaune's words trailed off.

Yang was starting to pant.

Jaune didn't… didn't know this was a thing Yang was into, but it was getting really hard to act like it wasn't something she was super into! He'd barely even brushed her for… there wasn't that much sand in the bottom of the hourglass, and Yang was already starting to tremble beneath his touch! He didn't dare keep complimenting her, but he feared the game even more!

“H-how lucky I am t-to date you…”

He could feel everyone staring, just as shocked as he was that, with every brushstroke, Yang was visibly becoming more and more turned on. And the compliments… it was something Jaune had been starting to suspect about his girlfriend, but in spite of her tough exterior, when they were alone and Jaune could cuddle her, she had a softer side that was right now…

“You're beautiful, Yang,” he said, more sincere than intended, “The most… most beautiful girl-”

“Oh, Jaune…” she moaned, a deep, lusty noise of arousal that Jaune had never heard from her before! They’d been… well, they’d been intimate of course, but Jaune had no idea Yang was- she was this much into this!

To Jaune’s horror, he saw as the Decadence token appeared on Yang’s character tracker, a red stone with the image of a serpent wrapped around an apple. The sand in the hourglass hadn’t even gotten a third of the way through, she hadn’t even lasted five minutes from brushing her hair, but at least the challenge was finished and-

“K-keep going, keep going, please keep brushing your little girl’s hair, please Daddy, please I’ll be good, I’ll be so good!”

Jaune did not remotely know what to do in response to that but keep brushing Yang’s hair, long, slow strokes that Yang no longer felt even the slightest need to hide her pleasure as Jaune genuinely worried she might cum in front of everyone, particularly as he made his brush strokes stronger. Having already gained her Decadence token, Jaune assumed she figured… it couldn’t get worse, but seeing the look on Weiss’s face as she watched Yang melt under Jaune’s touch, he knew she’d never look at Yang the same way again. But nobody, least of all Jaune, knew what to say or do in the moment, so he just… kept brushing her hair as Yang sighed happily all the while until the grains finally ran out of the hourglass.

“And that's time,” Ren announced, as unphased as he always was.

“Thank you, Daddy,” Yang said with a delirious sing-song voice, “I’ll be good now…”

Her seat rotated as she gave everyone a beaming smile… that slowly faded out as she realized everyone was staring at her. 

Because of what she'd just done.

In front of everyone.

And then she seemed to crumple in front of Jaune's eyes as her enthusiasm and confidence completely collapsed, her face turning bright red as her eyes shot to the table, unwilling to look any of them in the eyes.

Jaune had never seen Yang seen vulnerable, meek, mild… any of the words he'd use to describe her now. It wasn't like she was humiliated, though, or at least, not just that. Instead, as she turned her gaze back to him, her eyes not rising all the way to meet his, she gave him a faint, timid smile… and blushed.

Then her eyes shot right to the table as she turned redder and redder, looking more mortified than Jaune had ever seen her. It made him wince in protective-boyfriend shame, the sense that he hadn’t been able to protect Yang from this, but… the game was the game, and it wasn’t about to stop at this.

Not when they weren’t finished.

More dice were rolled, more pieces moved, and Jaune did everything he could to try and minimize his advantages, only to be told by Ruby and Nora that they would not allow him to try and strategize how to minimize the risk of another challenge. Jaune was afraid to even look at Yang after that last round, and yet, Ruby seemed determined to make everything worse—and the girls were all behind her! Even Weiss refused to change direction just because it would move her piece into a chokepoint that Jaune would have to pass by because… because she was going to collect Fruit Tokens and so she had to go to the Kitchens. But then she'd rolled poorly and Jaune basically… well, he was six tiles from her. So now there was a 1 in 6 chance his piece wouldn't just pass hers, they would occupy the same tile. And he didn't recall Ren's explanation of what would happen then, but he figured it was bad.

Bracing himself, Jaune tossed the die, watching the heavy metal cube tumble and roll as it lost energy until-

…did his die just move on its own?

Jaune could have sworn it didn’t have enough momentum to turn, that it had stopped on a 3, only for the die to tip over and become a 6. A 6… which would mean he now landed directly on Weiss’s square.

“Punishment card,” Emerald said grimly.

“Did you not see-”

But Pyrrha cut in, “And since we're in the Collaboration Phase, it'll be a Vengeful Punishment.”

“Seriously, the die just-”

“It… will be rougher, most likely,” Emerald said warily.

“Officially, it can only add complications,” Ren said, “Since Weiss hasn't made any formal alliances with other Harem Girls.”

“But she did decline to pledge to Jaune in the Watching Phase.”

Ren flipped through the rules. “It's… some cards might be affected, but not all.”

Jaune just stared as he took in that nobody cared about the die seeming to move on its own. Well, maybe not its own, but definitely not in a natural way! In a magical cursed board game, he had to accept that this could be a thing!

“Wait.”

Jaune looked up to see Weiss with her face red and her eyes squeezed shut.

“These- these cards are magic, right?” she said, “I mean, it knew that Yang had a thing for getting her hair brushed…”

“I’m- I don’t have a thing about getting my hair brushed!” Yang protested, “Jaune- Jaune’s just- and there’s a lot of adrenaline and- and the cards are magic! The game made me-”

“Nobody’s buying it, Yang, just own it,” Blake said, rolling her eyes.

“But the card will be… the game will have picked it out for me, right?” Weiss asked, putting her face in her hands as she reckoned with the implications of that.

Jaune had to reckon with them too, his hand hovering over the deck.

“I… don't think we can stop it,” he said, already seeing the embarrassment on Weiss's face. 

And he respected Weiss so much that it hurt to see her in this state. She was a proud girl who'd done so much to accept her vulnerable side. She deserved better than this, they all did, and Jaune would do everything in his power… he would get them out of here. He'd get them all out of here.

“Hey,” he said, giving her a soft smile, “No matter what, you're still you, Weiss. An accomplished, incredible Huntress with achievements that can never be taken away… just like your character can never be taken away.”

Weiss blushed, something Jaune would have given anything for when he'd been… disastrously courting her, but now, her friendship meant so much more. He took up the card, and…

“Sultan! Your favorite Harem Girl comes to you with the… stench of deceit on her breath,” he read, “She must answer the following questions truthfully, or she will… be made to wear the bonds of truth?”

Jaune looked around in confusion. The card didn’t have any more words, so…

“Well,” he finally asked, “what- what does ‘the following questions’ mean, am I supposed to make up questions?”

“I figure it's a magic game so you just draw more cards and it will show you some questions to ask,” Ren said with a shrug, “The rules don't say it so overtly, but that's what I'm assuming.”

Jaune stared at him, still struggling with his calm Ren could be in any situation.

“And… what does it mean by ‘the bonds of truth?’”

“I'm guessing it has something to do with that rope that's appeared right there.”

Jaune turned to where he was looking and saw… a coiled length of silk rope. On the table, like it had always been there.

“The rules do not say anything about a magic rope for bondage or otherwise,” Ren said dryly, “but I would assume being tied up would impede Weiss's ability to play the game.”

Still gawking at the rope, Jaune asked, “And I- what, I’m supposed to tie her up, this game is-”

“I can hogtie someone,” Nora chimed in, “Ren can tell you: I’m real good at it.”

“I don’t think Weiss would mind some of the knots I could tie…” Blake added melodiously, giving an outraged Weiss a soft and suggestive smile.

Realizing that violence was likely on the table, and imminently so, Jaune just grabbed a card off the top of the pile and hoped the magic board game would work the way Ren seemed to think it would.

And it did.

But it was a question Jaune was… a little apprehensive towards asking.

“Ummm…” he said, trying to put the words together as he forced out, “‘H-have you ever had a sexual thought towards me?’”

“No!” Weiss gasped, reeling backwards as though the question slapped her across the face.

It was… the answer Jaune was expecting, but it still stung to hear it so bluntly. It-

BOOMP!

A noise came from all around them, a noise that didn't sound like a good noise.

“Wait…” Pyrrha said, “Weiss, do you…”

Weiss turned a furious shade of red as she spat out, “The- the game is lying! It's- it's a perverted, cursed game, why would- why would we trust-”

“How often do you think about Jaune like that? Blake asked.

Weiss sputtered a protest, but Jaune wasn't really listening, turning to his girlfriend to… well, Jaune didn't know what he was trying to tell her, I'm not enjoying my old crush having sexual thoughts about me! Or perhaps, I wouldn't compare her to you!

But looking at Yang, he saw how… reserved she looked, almost… shyly looking at him for his approval! And he saw the very many Decadence tokens she'd picked up, a situation that Emerald had described as one getting worse.

He drew another card.

“Tell me… have you…”

He froze as he saw the card.

“Just ask it,” Blake said, no sarcasm or jab in her voice, her concern for her friend driving her to tell Jaune, “No sense delaying, just read the card.”

“Have you ever touched yourself t-to thoughts of me?”

Weiss stared at him with horror, as though Jaune had been the one to come up with the question. He showed her the card, but he knew that it was just her last, desperate attempt to refuse that this was the wisdom because…

“N-no, no, of course no-”

BOOMP!

“It's not true!” Weiss shrieked, “I've never- I would never- y-you're dating Yang and- and I don't have any feelings for-”

BOOMP!

“THAT WASN'T A QUESTION!” Weiss screamed at the sky.

But worse… before Jaune's eyes, the rope rose up like a charmed snake, the magic that transformed the room and took their clothes evidently also capable of tying them up if the game willed it. Weiss was a capable and experienced fighter, but resisting the penalty might be even worse… and Jaune could tell that Weiss was weighing the risks as she stared at the rope, frozen in indecision before-

“Wait!” Emerald cried out, “Weiss, I have two Intervention Tabs to play, and while the game is a little off standard play, I’m still pretty sure if you confess to a lie you told earlier today, that will negate this penalty!”

“Will it?” Ruby asked.

“It's with a shot,” Ren said with a shrug, “Since we're in the Collaboration Phase, it would stand to reason that Weiss could attempt a… variation of a Public Retraction move.”

“But- but-” Weiss stammered out, “But it’s not a… I wasn’t…”

Her words trailed off, eyes darting around the room as she seemed to internally debate if it was worth trying to insist that the game was wrong once more. But as the rope hung menacingly in the air before Weiss, she decided to give it a shot.

“I didn’t… I didn’t object to Yang assuming I didn’t want to play the game because I thought she was saying I was unfun! The- the real reason…” she took a deep breath, “The real reason I wanted to play is because… the girls on the box were super hot and I wanted to spend more time looking at them! A-and I… I really enjoy wearing this outfit!”

Weiss was blushing furiously at that, eyes downcast and unwilling to meet anyone’s gaze, but surely, surely that had to be-

BOOMP!

“What?” Jaune gasped, “Emerald- I- I thought she-”

“Maybe she’s not telling all the truth!” Emerald cried, “Weiss, is there- is there anything you’re not-”

Weiss shook her head, but as a coiled rope began to rattle like a cobra about to strike, she suddenly blurted out, “A-and- AND I HAVE A SECRET FANTASY ABOUT JAUNE ENSLAVING ME!”

Jaune's eyes went wide at that, but Weiss kept going, tears in her eyes as she added, “After we became friends and you started dating Yang, I… started noticing that you're… a really good boyfriend and you have- it’s all just fantasy, I don't actually want you to-”

BOOMP!

The rope lunged forward, looping around Weiss faster than any of them could react. In an instant, it was wrapped tight around Weiss, binding her arms to her side as she gave a squawk of surprise. Her efforts to wriggle out of the rope were for naught—she was stuck tight. Though that didn’t stop Weiss from protesting against the game.

“Lots- lots of girls have fantasies like that, it’s nothing to be ashamed about!” Weiss protested.

“Yeah,” Yang said softly, gazing at Jaune, “It’s… not weird at all if you trust someone enough to… have power over you…”

“But if it’s true, why didn’t it work?” Blake asked, “Ren, there has to be an explanation, Emerald knows this game inside and out!”

“Yes,” Ren said with a nod before pointing at the rule book, “but I suspect the game wanted you to confess to one of the lies you just told. You were allowed to lie to Jaune before the game started.”

“But I did!” Weiss wailed, “It asked me about my fantasies about Jaune-”

“Oh no,” Ren shook his head, “You got one chance to retract a lie, because Emerald only had two Intervention Tabs to play. So telling us about your attraction to the girls on the box was considered your ‘attempt,’ and it did not retract a lie, at least, not the lies you were currently facing a punishment for.”

“So this was for nothing?” Weiss shrieked.

“I mean, I wouldn't say nothing,” Nora said, “We all learned something about you, which counts as a friendship-”

“I hate this game!” Weiss wailed.

BOOMP!

…

“Well now the game's just being a dick,” Blake muttered.

“You will have to play like that,” Ren said, while Weiss tested her ability to reach her cards and otherwise get her hands over the top of the table. It didn’t look particularly easy, but it did seem possible, at least.

“...for the whole game?” Weiss asked, her tone of voice conveying that she knew the answer.

But before Ren could answer, Emerald cut in: “There are actually 17 ways you can- well, there are four ways that will get you out of the rope and thirteen that will adjust the ropes, you see-”

“Forget I asked,” Weiss grumbled.

But even with this, the game continued, still going on until they reached… whatever made this game end. Emerald had announced what Phase they were in, but they were really all the same to Jaune, just so many… words. Words that got more confusing as Ruby would ask things like, “Am I understanding it right, I need to hold my Vizier Knife until the Voice of the Faithful Phase?” and Emerald’s answer… and then Ren’s answer… and then Emerald’s answer again… all just became so much noise in Jaune’s ears.

It wasn’t exactly the best situation. 

Jaune looked at the board. He… did not understand the game. Not to the level Emerald did, or even Ruby for that matter. But he wasn't a fool, and assessing a tactical situation was his wheelhouse. Looking not at the board, he turned his gaze to each player's trays, seeing the various tokens and beads that the players had acquired. It was a dizzying array, but he was starting to get a sense of things. Emerald and Ruby had clear strategies coming to form, but the dark horse was Pyrrha. She'd received her Scrutiny Token and that had negatively impacted her, but at the same time, she'd kept quiet and made her moves without commentary, fading into the background. But unlike Weiss or Yang, it was clear that Pyrrha had a plan in motion, one that Jaune couldn't puzzle out, but if anyone could be their-

A harsh red light suddenly illuminated the room, causing Jaune to finch reflexively before looking around for some cause as… his eyes stopped on Blake as he realized she had… a Victory Token in her hand.

“Cheating…” Jaune exhaled.

Blake blushed. “It's… I figured I could be quick enough nobody would notice...”

“In a magical game?” Weiss cried out in disbelief.

But Emerald… Emerald looked at Blake with hate in her eyes. “You… you would cheat at a-”

“I cheat at every board game!” Blake protested, “Is that so wrong?”

“Extremely!” Nora cried, “I'm with the board game—we're killing Blake!”

“Wait-”

“No Jaune,” Emerald glowered, “There is nobody lower than people who cheat at board games!”

Jaune was about to protest to try and restore order, but a piercing shriek sounded as the game gave its judgment, a compartment opening in the table and revealing… a dark, metal object, pointed and spheroid with a flared base that showed off a sparkling gem. It was… it was a buttplug. And Jaune had a sense of how Blake was about to be punished for cheating.

But while it made one thing clear, Jaune had no limit to questions about… about how he was going to… because obviously, it would come to him to do it.

He turned to Ren.

“The rules… this couldn't possibly be-”

Ren simply flipped through the rulebook which… seemed more and more like a tome as Jaune looked at it. Had it been that thick when they’d started the game? But Ren carefully studied a page before dispassionately saying, “Yes, it does seem to be within the bounds of how the game is played.”

“I mean,” Nora shrugged, “it’s that or cut her hand off.”

Jaune turned to Yang, certain that… that she’d have some objection to Jaune shoving a thick, metal bulb up her partner’s butt. But after the hairbrush incident, Yang had only gotten more and more cowed in Jaune’s presence, and the look on her face, if anything, was reassuring. She gave Jaune a soft smile as he put her hand on his arm and whispered, “She’s always been unruly… she needs a strong hand to straighten her out.”

The horrified look on Jaune’s face only prompted Yang to give his arm a loving squeeze as she rested her head against his shoulder. When… when had this become… was this the game, or was Yang just always, secretly… like this?

Rather than wanting to deal with that question, Jaune instead turned his attention back to the object he was expected to… yeah. He didn’t have a lot of context for buttplugs, but this… thing seemed to be particularly large and imposing, in a way that made Jaune’s own butt feel uncomfortable as he imagined being on the receiving end. And while Blake might flaunt her reputation as a kinky girl, Jaune wondered if he was about to discover the limits of her interest.

“Surely…” Jaune said, his voice hollow, “Surely the game won’t… it’s not going to force me to… to force Blake, that…”

“It might,” Ren said darkly, “The punishment has been set. It’s on you, as Sultan, to carry it out.”

Jaune stared at the plug, wondering how the game might punish him for disobedience, and if, as a Huntsman, he had a duty to endure any amount of punishment for the sake of his comrades. The game held all the cards, but wasn’t a Huntsman’s duty to hold against impossible odds, to stand up for the principles that mattered, even if all seemed lost?

“I suspect, however,” Ren added dryly, “the game will ensure that Blake has no objection to her punishment.”

They all turned to look at Blake. But looking at her, Jaune saw that Blake was looking at… the buttplug. And more so… her eyes shined with an unnatural light that left Jaune deeply unsettled. A feeling that got worse as she opened her mouth.

“O-oh Jaune…” she whimpered, “I- I can’t- Oh Jaune, I need it inside me, I need that in my butt right now!”

She sprang up from her seat and clambered over the table, wasting no time to get as close to Jaune as she could!

“I believe the game is basically compelling her to desire it,” Ren explained, “So… I would recommend that you carry out her request, Jaune.”

“Yeah… compelling,” Yang whispered, “Like she needed a push…”

Blake was already pulling down her outfit’s bottom so that she could show off her butt to Jaune and, in a weirdly cat-like move, she thrust her asshole into his face. It was a dark, puckered ring that sat between two shapely cheeks, soft and inviting and practically begging Jaune to play with them with how Blake swayed from side to side. Jaune well knew Blake’s… predilections, and Yang knew them better than anyone, so if she said she wanted it… needed it…

His hand reached out to hesitantly pick up the plug, feeling the weight in his hands, a literal weight of metal and a heavier weight of implication, unpleasantly similar to the weight he felt when holding Crocea Mors. Jaune held the plug in his hands, running his finger over the… pointy bit, finding that it seemed to be slippery and lubricated, but… Jaune didn't know anything about this kind of stuff. He never thought about it, and he couldn't imagine ever even discussing it with Yang! Though as he turned to her to… ask advice or seek reassurance or something, but the look on her face, so passive and demure, he knew that Yang was not in any way going to be normal.

And it was… hard to pull his eyes away from Blake's butt.

Placing one hand on a cheek, trying to ignore the moan she made… or perhaps the moan Yang made beside him, Jaune took the plug and placed it against her asshole, hearing Blake’s sharp, sudden intake of breath… and then he started to push. Blake made a gasp, but it didn’t sound like she was in pain as Jaune applied more and more pressure, slowly watching as the plug vanished into her well-gaped hole until it hit the thickest point—as Blake basically chanted, “oh gods oh gods oh gods” —and Jaune continued to push it in.

“Oh, yesyesyesyesyes, oh yes,” she moaned as Jaune pushed the last length of the plug into her, leaving only the jeweled handle to show it was in there, “oh Jaune, if yes, oh Jaune, punish me, oh yes, punish this cheating slut, yeah give her a lesson so she'll be good for you, so good for you!”

Alright.

Punishment- punishment done, he could get back to-

“Spank me!” Blake suddenly cried.

“Wha-”

“SPANK ME!” Blake howled, “PUNISH THIS NAUGHTY KITTY, TEACH HER A LESSON!”

Jaune blanched, but he knew that this was the game compelling them to act. It made Blake beg for it, just like it made her beg for the plug, and if the game demanded it…

SMACK!

“Yesssssss!” Blake hissed in pleasure as Jaune's hands met her backside and Jaune… cringed as he realized how good it felt to leave a handprint on her round, shapely cheeks. He could have stopped with one, but…

SMACK!

SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

Blake howled in glee as her whole body quivered. Jaune looked away, only to find himself looking Ruby right in the eye and saw her silver eyes looking at him, wide and almost alarmed at his behavior.

“It… the game made her beg me to spank her…” Jaune offered lamely.

“No, that wasn’t the game,” Ren spoke up, “The penalty was only the buttplug. The spanking was all Blake’s request.”

Jaune turned to look at Blake, giggling as she rubbed her bright red buttocks and showing off the sparkling plug inserted into her anus. It… sort of dawned on Jaune that he kind of should have expected that?

“I'm naaauuughty,” she giggled, still wiggling her butt.

“But… but you…”

“Thank you Jaune…” she purred, “I've learned my lesson so well.”

With that, Blake clenched her butt and clearly enjoyed the feeling of the plug up her ass before she climbed down from the table and resumed her seat. 

Jaune closed his eyes as he took up the dice, praying to the Brothers or whatever power that might compel this game to give him some mercy. He'd seen his friends humiliated, heard- no, brought one of them to orgasm, and the threat of winning seemed to loom even more heavily over his head!

He just had to… one thing at a time, one thing at a-

“This is boring!” Nora cried, shattering Jaune's thoughts as his eyes shot open.

There were a million things objectionable with this game, but boring really wasn’t one of them, but… with everything else going on, Jaune had been too overwhelmed to keep track of the Guiding Star of being JNPR’s Team Leader: A Bored Nora Is A Dangerous Nora.

He’d even needlepointed those words on a throw pillow because he desperately needed a project that wasn’t related to monster-slaying.

But in all the Nora Recourses he’d developed alongside Ren, he knew that 99% of the job was deflecting a problem before it got to this point. Once Nora was at the stage of declaring her boredom, it was only a matter of time before Magnhild came out to make things more “interesting.” And even without her hammer… it might even be worse that she didn’t have her hammer!

“I think this game is a pussy bitch!” Nora declared, “Cause I'm a hot girl with thick thighs and an ass that won't quit and still it hasn't made me do anything! Cause I think the game's scared! Scared to make me twerk so hard it destroys Jaune! Scared to make me work a brass pole like the rent is due! Scared to make me fistfight a bear, which isn't really in line with this game's deal, but I could still do it—if the game wasn't a bitch!”

Jaune did not see the wisdom of insulting the game like that, but Nora lived her life by different rules. She had been pursuing no coherent strategy he could follow, not in life, not in the game, and he well knew that in moments like these, he was just along for the ride.

“So I’m throwing down the gauntlet!” Nora roared, thumping her chest in a likely gorilla-inspired display of dominance, “Gimme something good or I’ll write a 2 star review on one of those nerd board game websites!”

The room was silent. Jaune didn't know if the board game was going to respond, but with Nora, it was not impossible that it would. Staring at the various decks of cards, Jaune wondered if one would simply flip over and tell Jaune how he would be demonstrating that the game was not to be mocked.

Ren broke the silence.

“I… suppose we need to do something to draw a card,” he said, “Though, Nora, you do have a-”

“I got a blue card when I rolled three fives in a row!” she cheered.

“You got it for landing on the blue tile in the Larder,” Ren corrected.

“But I still rolled three fives in a row!” Nora shot back, “But it gave me a card and I'm using that card!”

She threw it down on the table.

“So you gotta do the thing!”

Another silence.

“You have to read the card so we know what it says,” Pyrrha said.

“Or,” Emerald groused, “You could save those cards for a-”

“A COWARD’S MOVE!” Nora bellowed, “If I’ve got ammo, I’m using that ammo, so I’m gonna go all Magnhild on Jaune right now!”

But she did, in lieu of shooting anyone, pick up the card to read the text.

“It says that Jaune can draw a Punishment card and use it on a girl of my choice, but that girl is me!”

Weiss, struggling against her bonds, cried out, “That doesn't make any sense!”

“Ohhhhhhhh, now, now! Now we care about the game making sense!” Nora cried, gesturing at Weiss’s currently tied up state, “I don’t care if it makes sense, I care if this game has balls. Cause if it’s gonna flit around, giggling and whispering about putting a plug up Blake’s butt or tying up Weiss— oh no, please, please don’t do kinky things to me I’m secretly into! —I wanna see that it’s got what it takes to throw down with a real woman! Cause you know what?”

She fixed an iron glare on the board, one so powerful, Jaune could practically feel the crackle of static in the room!

“Monopoly would have the balls.”

The… the gauntlet was thrown.

May the gods have mercy on them now.

Well, no sense delaying it. Jaune drew the card.

It didn't have any of the features of the previous cards, didn't open with a “Sultan!” or even use a pseudo-calligraphy font because… because the game evidently felt hurt by Nora's insults.

“It, uh, it just says, ‘Suck Jaune's dick.’ …uses my name and everything.”

Jaune had shoved a plug up Blake's ass and made Yang nearly cum in front of everyone, but this felt like the step up to out-and-out sex acts that would-

“Cool,” Nora said, “at least it's something other than moving pieces around.”

“Nora,” Pyrrha suddenly spoke up, “Are- are you sure you… with Jaune?”

“Eh, it’s cool,” Nora said, “Rules of the game are the rules of the game. And besides, I’ve sucked Renny’s dick a few times and-”

“What?”

Jaune stared at Nora agog, then looked to Ren, who merely gave a nod of acknowledgement of the fact.

Nora rolled her eyes. “Ren and I are dating Jaune, we’ve been dating since before we got to Beacon. Everyone else has figured it out already, I think you’re the only one we’re still keeping the ruse up for.”

“I- I didn’t know…” Pyrrha said softly, eyes wide in surprise.

“Yeah, I didn’t know either,” Ruby said with a shrug, “You know about this Weiss?”

Weiss gave a muted answer as she tried to force out words through her shock, but could only shake her head no.

Emerald shook her head. “We didn’t even know and we’ve been surveilling- I mean,” she corrected, “I- I didn’t… didn’t know about it.”

“Huh,” Nora said, then shrugged, “Well, cat’s out of the bag. Anyways, get that dick out mister! I’m gonna show you the hurricane!”

“Wait!” Jaune cried, “Nora, if you- if you’re with Ren, you can’t… you can’t… suck my dick,” he said at last in a small and painfully awkward voice.

“The rules allow it,” Ren said in an extremely unhelpful manner, “Just as the game does not give any special standing to Yang for dating the Sultan’s player.”

“Get that dick out, Jaune-Jaune!” Nora cheered, “Cause I am going to town on you!”

There was something about Nora that inevitably just punched through all of Jaune’s attempts at standing up for sanity. She fixed her gaze upon him and Jaune parted his robes, not even thinking about the fact that his best efforts to not let playing an intensely sexual game with his extremely attractive friends was starting to have an effect on him…

“Oh ho ho!” Nora laughed, rubbing her hands together, “Yang’s a lucky girl, isn’t she?”

Jaune blushed, but the compliment went right to his groin, his blood following quickly behind as his cock continued to swell before everyone's eyes. Particularly because Nora shoved his chair back to make sure everyone got a good view without the table blocking anyone's sight as she dropped down on her knees, flashed Jaune a challenging grin, and then threw her head down and took Jaune's cock in her mouth.

It was sudden, it was forceful, and it was a reminder that Jaune had decidedly been affected by all of his friends in skimpy outfits and especially Weiss confessing that she fantasized about him. Humiliation, shame, and danger had kept Jaune from thinking about how horny he was, but Nora's warm, wet mouth and eager tongue brought it all to the fore. Nora… Nora knew her way around a dick and Jaune couldn't begin to…

But that reminded Jaune that he had someone. He had Yang and…

Jaune looked to Yang, but his girlfriend's eyes were locked on Nora, bobbing up and down on his shaft, but not looking like an angry girlfriend as she watched another woman suck her boyfriend off. He glanced to Ren and he…

“Nora, you need to move a little slower,” Ren chided, “A smooth, steady rhythm, and don’t forget to be making eye contact…”

“Is- is that for the game?” Jaune asked trying to figure out what the fuck Ren was doing.

“Oh. Yes. For the game, yes,” Ren said, and Jaune could swear he saw a hint of embarrassment cross his face, “The game… needs you to be a little more vocal, Nora. Make sure the… game knows how much you’re enjoying this…”

Jaune could deal with whatever that was about later, right now, his attention was very much commanded by Nora who was heeding Ren’s advice to start going slower and more purposeful in her blowjob and… oh gods, this was something Jaune simply wasn’t built for. He was not used to this, not used to this kind of suction as Nora made it abundantly clear that she was going to get him off. It was a freight train of pure Nora force that made him… made him…

“Oh fuck, Nora!” he gasped out as he gripped a fistful of her hair and came in her mouth. His balls clenched as he emptied them as fast and as forceful as he could, shot after shot going right into her as Nora made damn sure she wasn't missing a drop until he was wholly finished bloating her cheeks until she looked like a chipmunk, slowly pulling back to keep a tight seal around his dick until she pulled off him entirely.

Leaving Jaune to reckon with the fact that he came in her mouth and Nora…

Nora swallowed 

She sucked down Jaune's load with relish. Noisily swallowing before she licked her lips with a happy smack that was no different from how she did after eating a big, syrupy stack of pancakes.

“Alright,” Nora said with a lazy grin from between Jaune's legs, “That's a start… but I'm pretty sure I offered to put my thunder thighs to work. And if the game had the stones… Jaune-Jaune, you would not be walking tomorrow!”

But with that, Nora just skipped off back to her seat, leaving Jaune panting for breath and trying not to-

“So did Nora take a penalty or any kind of Token?” Ruby asked, “Cause the card just said-”

“I… think this was something outside standard rules,” Ren said, blushing as he…

Holy crap, had Jaune ever seen Ren blush before?

Still, as far as the game was concerned, the score was presumably settled. And if it wasn't… there would be plenty of cards to be drawn and plenty more opportunities to demonstrate that it was exactly as ballsy as Monopoly. But Jaune figured spite wouldn't be part of it—it would probably be a while before it got another chance with Nora, and the situation on the board might be a very different thing by then.

But while Jaune was starting to get a sense of the game's… psychology, he still didn't have a good understanding of the game as a game, but it was increasingly seeming like he was… winning. He didn't know enough to stop it, especially because every time he thought he knew how to sabotage himself, suddenly… Pyrrha would land on a red square in the kitchen and suddenly, Ruby would have to discard her hand or Emerald would inform him that his random move was actually brilliant.

Emerald was actually becoming essential to Jaune doing anything. Weiss was currently gagged, a gag Jaune had been required to personally put in her mouth, Yang was increasingly timid and submissive towards him, Blake was busy “enjoying her punishment,” Nora had no idea what was going on, Ruby was… hard to follow, and Pyrrha was keeping her cards close to her chest. Jaune was certain she had a plan, but she wasn't sharing it, and his confidence that she could win was… waning. So that left Emerald, who was the one explaining things to Jaune… particularly how bad things were getting for them.

But at the same time, she had a keen eye and impressive strategic mind that made Jaune wish they were in some other game, some vastly more normal game where he could pit his wits against hers. It wasn’t hard to pick up that, while Emerald was a curious mix of bluster and self-consciousness that, like many Huntsmen, spoke to a background of hard times, she really genuinely was an impressive strategist, and incredibly detail-oriented. Jaune had even complimented her on that, something that made her blush almost as much as Yang had while Jaune had been brushing her hair, but once Jaune showed that he noticed how good Emerald was… she threw herself into the game and made sure he saw just how capable she really way.

“Alright, Yang, I need you heading to the- a-ba-ba-ba, nope,” she said, cutting off Yang’s protest, “Don’t care, you’re going to the Stables to join up with Ruby. Pyrrha—you’ll be at the Armory, see about getting us Weapon Cards, Blake and Weiss are already in the vicinity of the Bedroom, and if they move-”

“That’s too risky!” Ruby gasped, “They’re both on track to be Claimed By The Sultan-”

“Ooooohhhhh,” Blake trilled, arching her back to… Jaune didn’t want to think about it.

“-and in the Bedroom, they’ll basically be sitting ducks for Jaune!” Ruby finished, shooting a glare Jaune’s way like he was trying to enslave her teammates, without any sort of censure for the teammate who sure seemed to not have any objections to being enslaved!

“Here,” Emerald tossed down a card, “It’s a risky play, but I’m going to use my Tearful Plea card I got during the Reminiscence Phase to draw the Sultan’s Scrutiny to me—so long as I roll anything more than a 3 with my 2 dice, Jaune’s not allowed to draw a Challenge card, and I can actually counter his next few moves, so long as I have a little luck.”

Emerald knew what she was doing, she understood the rules of the game even better than Ren did, so Jaune trusted she had a good strategy in mind. Still, he really wished he knew what half the words meant, especially when it came to the game’s phases.

But still—the strategy seemed sound. With two dice, there were only three outcomes out of 36 total that could put them in a negative position. She rolled the first die… and it was a 2. Not… not great, but not the end of the world.  There were still… still 5 options that passed compared to only one that failed. So long as she rolled better than a one as she shook the die in her hand before casting it, seeing it tumble, seeing it land on… on a 3, yes a 3! Which meant…

Which meant… meant nothing as the die tipped over to reveal a 1.

Okay, now Jaune knew that the game was cheating! That- that wasn’t even the direction it had momentum in!

“You saw that, you all saw that, right?” he said, “The dice- the dice moved, that wasn’t what Emerald rolled—she should have a 5, not a 3! A 5 would have passed the test, and- and the game’s cheating!”

“No, they’re not,” Ren said dryly, “the game has anti-cheating functions.” 

He gestured towards Blake, a soft, wistful smile creeping across her face as she remembered Jaune punishing her. She squirmed in her seat, almost certainly moving the plug inside her.

“But- but the game might be cheating!” Jaune said, “You- you all saw it, you saw the die turn over, that- it’s not fair! She had a 3, she should- she should have won the roll!”

“Jaune,” Pyrrha said sympathetically, “Sometimes… sometimes in very stressful situations, your mind gets ahead of you and you see things you want to have seen. It happens a lot in tournaments, nerves kick in and things just… don’t go how people expect.”

“And Pyrrha would know,” Ruby chimed in, “She’s so good at freaking people out, there are loads of stories of her opponents getting tournament nerves, drawing their weapon too slowly or their shots going wide… funny thing, it never happens to bare handed brawlers, I’ve always wondered about that, what it is about martial artists and their mental training that makes them fare better against Pyrrha…”

Jaune turned to Emerald, desperate that she might have seen what he did, but even though he saw that she was locked in and fully concentrated on the game… she didn’t seem concerned about the dice.

“Draw the Challenge Card, Jaune,” she said, “I can play a Turning The Tide if I perform well enough, and I'm… I'm determined to win!”

Did… did Jaune just hear a note of hesitation in her voice? And not the kind of hesitation Jaune would expect. It hadn't sounded like anxiety or self-doubt, but like her commitment to winning wasn't… no, no, that was insane. Emerald was giving him a challenging look and so he drew a card to read…

“Sultan! The treachery of those who owe you naught but their love and devotion compels you to… to, uh, to ensure their love and devotion… Draw again to find the specific challenge, but their punishment for failure will make sure they… will not cross you.”

A compartment revealed what seemed to be a gleaming gold… egg shaped thing, Jaune didn't-

“Oh wow,” Blake gasped, “that is… that is the classiest vibrator I've ever seen.”

Ah.

Obviously.

Another sex toy.

“And let me guess…” Jaune murmured.

“I bet you have to stick it in her!” Ruby cheerfully suggested.

“Ah, no, Ruby,” Blake said, “You see, a vibrator like this is probably best used to produce vibrations against Emerald's clitoris. So instead of shoving it in, Jaune will, mmmm, hold it against Emerald's cute little clit until the poor girl just melts into her Sultan's arms… our best hope of escape made his tame little pet…”

She wiggled her ears suggestively as Jaune just stared agog. Seriously, whose team was she-

“We still have Pyrrha!” Ruby replied, then gave everyone a smug smile, “And not to brag, but you're leaving out me, and I'm the powerhouse of the dance floor and the game board!”

BLAM!

“How dare you!” Nora said as she slapped her palms on the table, “If anyone is the powerhouse of our team, it's me! I'm Miss Mitochondria, I'm-”

“We might need to move things along,” Ren said dryly, gesturing to the deck of cards.

Jaune drew it, turning it over in his hand and reading, “Sultan! A clever Harem Girl is a prize indeed, but a sharp wit can so easily become a sharp dagger. See if this puzzle is challenge enough for her keen mind…”

He set down the card and watched as the compartment opened to reveal…

It was a silver statue of a monkey divided into three parts. A piece for the head, the body, and the legs, each with a little spike to connect the three. It… it was so obvious that Jaune couldn't even understand why it needed the hourglass Ren was now turning over.

But Emerald froze. It was so obvious and yet, Emerald wasn't moving. Was there something he was missing, some hidden poison needle or… bizarrely sexual element to this challenge? It would be a reasonable fear, he assumed, but Emerald quickly seized the middle piece and…

Tried to place it on the monkey's head.

If there was one thing Jaune knew, shouting advice while someone else was tripping up was not helpful, something Jaune had abundant experience with thanks to Ruby or Nora telling him to “guard your legs!” while Jaune was trying to not get his skull caved in by Cardin. Good advice that only added more sensory overload to his already overwhelmed mind, but Emerald was… come on! Emerald was trying to put together a three piece puzzle and failing… spectacularly! She was trying just about every combination but the one that made sense and Jaune could only watch as grains of sand slipped down from the top of the glass to the bottom.

Jaune buried his head in his hands. Emerald was not about to win this challenge and he literally could not understand how she was blowing this. Not as she tried using the head as the base again! Which made- his didn't she see that the head didn't have a piece to connect anything above it and it was all so-

She- she was stressed about the punishment! That was it! He could see how her eyes were locked on the golden sex toys and not the monkey (which she was still trying to assemble it with the head on the bottom). This was how the damned game worked, after all: it knew Emerald’s inner thoughts, knew what she feared, and Jaune had no doubt it knew how to needle her with the threat of humiliation as every fumble simply heightened her anxiety! He- he had to have something he could do to help!

“Emerald,” he said, quietly, yet forcefully, “Focus on the puzzle. You’ve got this. You can do this. I know you can do this.”

Emerald seemed to almost tremble at Jaune’s words, but with his encouragement… she took her eyes off the sex toy and brought them to the monkey! And put the body on top of the legs! She could do this! They could…

“Don’t think about sitting in Jaune’s lap,” Blake teased at the worst possible time, “Don’t think about him holding a-”

“You can do this, Emerald!” Jaune cried, trying to shout down Blake’s less than helpful words, “You can beat this challenge!”

Only a few grains of sand left. Only one thing that could be done. Put the head on the body. It was the only-

Emerald tried to put the feet on the head.

“Time,” Ren declared dispassionately.

“Wh-whoops,” Emerald said, her face getting more and more red as she couldn’t meet Jaune’s gaze, “I gu-guess I have to be… punished…”

Jaune couldn’t meet her eyes either. With Blake and Nora and now… now with Emerald, the game was determined to incorporate him into these “punishments.” Ren took up the golden vibrator and passed it to Jaune, letting him feel its surprisingly heavy weight, though he supposed it was gold. It had a button to activate it, but Jaune didn’t want to have it going before he had to…

He looked to Emerald. She looked mortified beyond belief, and Jaune couldn’t blame her. Now he had a sense of how he looked from the outside, and while he was full of sympathy, he knew the best option was to get through this perverted punishment as quickly as possible. He averted his eyes as Emerald pulled down her panties for… for all the good it would do once the punishment would begin.

Emerald gingerly set herself down on his lap. Jaune, in spite of everything in his life and in this game, suddenly found himself with a pretty, bottomless girl on his lap and… and he couldn’t deny the effect it had on him. W-was Emerald wearing perfume? Her soft hair was now so close to his face, he could so easily… no! The game, the damned game was rubbing off on him, and he would-

“Wait!” Ruby cried, “Ren, Emerald, wouldn’t this fall under a Tearful Plea, still? So if Emerald does a good job with the Punishment-”

“How?” Jaune asked, to no avail.

“-she’d be able to minimize the Scrutiny she acquires, right?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Pyrrha murmured.

Ren gave a thoughtful nod as he paged through the rulebook. “I would… yes, actually, that would be relevant to the rules. So long as Emerald can resist being brought to, as the rules describe it, ‘an orgasm,’ it would be considered resisting her Punishment, and so she would gain the minor Plea effects.”

“So that’s all you have to do, Emerald,” Pyrrha said warmly, “Compose yourself, clear your mind, and show Jaune how strong you can be.”

“Y-yeah,” Emerald said from atop Jaune’s lap, “Just… just have to be strong, gotta be… strong.”

Jaune wished he could give her some encouragement, but it all felt hollow while he still had the vibrator in his hand. So with his head bowed, he switched it on and felt the unexpected kick of the vibrator revealing that it was definitely not going to be an easy challenge for Emerald… especially because Jaune didn’t know if he should press it tight against her or hold it back a little… he didn’t dare try to cheat the game, but…

“O-oh!” Emerald gasped out as she felt Jaune press it against her sensitive bud, “Th-that’s- it’s-”

“Lucky,” Blake grumbled. Which he expected but…

“Mmm-hmm,” he heard Yang agree from beside him!

But Jaune couldn’t focus on the rest of the table while Emerald squirmed on his lap. She was tough, and Jaune didn’t doubt she could last for… he really should have asked, definitely should have asked how long he had to do this, but he knew that Emerald had it in her to hold her own!

“Ah- ah- ah,” she gasped, her thighs starting to tremble in a way that made Jaune think of a spring being wound up. It was a worrying sign, but Jaune knew not to pull away. He… he believed in Emerald, he had to believe in Emerald! She had the best shot of beating him, and he knew she wouldn’t get brought low by a ridiculous test like this!

“Nggggh,” she grunted, “I'm- I'm not weak, I'm… n-not-”

“You're not weak,” he said, “You can do this, Emerald, you're strong, you can… you can do this.”

But much like complimenting Yang…

“Oh Jaune!” she cried out, collapsing in an instant as her behavior turned from determined resistance to openly grinding her pussy against the vibrator, “I can't fight it, I’m weak! I’m weak! I’m a weak little gutter urchin who can’t help herself on her SEXY SULTAN’S LAAAAAAAP!”

Emerald did not resist the Punishment.

She bucked hard against him as she came, her body convulsing over and over again as she squirted, shrieked, and gasped, a total eruption of sexual pleasure… that made Jaune remember that he still had the vibrator pressed against her clit. Bashfully, he pulled it away and switched it off while… politely not noticing how Emerald tired to thrust her hips upwards to keep him from pulling it away.

But while Jaune was happy to politely overlook things…

“Oh, Jaune,” she moaned, “Oh, this feels good, this feels so good, oh, you're in control, you're in control! Tell me- make me give you my secrets! Make me tell you about Cinder, make me betray-”

“Okay, rein it in,” Nora said, rolling her eyes, “You got your punishment, we've all been there, don't act like you're better than us.”

But Emerald wasn't listening. Not as Jaune tried not to think about how he had held the buzzing device against her, her whole body twitching on his lap as Jaune tried not to notice. Not that Emerald was making it easy as her quaking thighs turned to full-on thrashing. Not how clearly she wanted- wanted him.

“Y-yeah,” he mumbled, trying not to think that, unlike Nora who wanted to contest with the game or Blake who was simply a pervert, Emerald had made it clear her pleasure was in him, “Let’s- let’s get you back to-”

“Nhuoooo!” Emerald moaned, “Have- have to satisfy you, I made you hard and now I-”

Jaune choked out, “I'm- I'm not-”

But it was a feeble lie as Emerald squirmed her soft butt against his lap, making it abundantly clear to Jaune and Emerald both that there was something very hard pressing up between her cheeks, and as much as it wanted to get better acquainted with Emerald…

“So hard…” she moaned, “A good Harem Girl would satisfy her Master's dirty urges… Cinder won't use me as her slut, but you're so much stronger than her, you're a man who knows that I belong on my knees and-”

“Emerald!” Jaune cried, gripping his armrests in an absolute death grip, “This- for the Brothers’ sake, it's just a game!”

Not that Emerald was listening as she spun around, planting her wet, needy pussy directly on his bulge and ground on it, hard.

“Conquer me, Master! Make this ratty little bitch into your best and most obedient Hare-”

SLAP!

Jaune didn't realize what happened. He heard the sound. He felt the sting in his palm. He realized Emerald had been slapped and… he realized he'd slapped her. And he head remained turned to the side as she processed that for a few, silent seconds before Emerald turned her head back to him, her jaw hanging open.

The guilt hit Jaune in an instant, striking someone- striking a visiting Huntress, a guest at Beacon, a woman who, in spite of her, ahem, apparent kink, was far, far more of a legitimate hero of Remnant than he was, that was a grave and serious misdeed. He cringed, frozen in shame as he felt every eye in the room fix on him.

“I… m-might have gotten, um… a little carried away…” Emerald said, blushing.

“N-no, Emerald, I'm- I'm sorry,” Jaune said, his face growing hot with embarrassment, “I shouldn't- I shouldn't have…”

His words trailed off as they both sat in the awkwardness of it all.

“Um, well, I think… I think that was… that was the Punishment,” Emerald said as she awkwardly slid off of his lap and returned to her seat. Jaune's face was hot as his embarrassment got worse and worse. This game… this game was wearing him down.

But of course…

“That was so hot,” Yang whispered in his ear, “Makes me so hot seeing you get authoritative with a girl… Sir.”

“Yang…” he rasped.

“But I'll just support my boyfriend, like a good girl should,” she said with a smirk, leaning back in her seat and leaving Jaune with a throbbing erection that had been denied a tryst with an extremely enthusiastic girl… with an ass that genuinely might have been as spectacular as Blake’s. He could have fucked her right in front of his girlfriend and she would have enjoyed watching him…

The game had to end. The game had to end. Because Jaune didn’t know how much more of this he could take, not just resisting temptation before he did something that would permanently change his relationship with his friends… but that the longer this game went on, the more Jaune started to wonder if he might just go mad from playing it.

And as they started rolling again… Jaune could see how he very well might.

It seemed that Jaune couldn’t not pursue Weiss, every dice roll putting him either on a trajectory to trap her token or on the token itself, and every Challenge he drew was, of course, the setup to ask more questions, force more confessions—she not only had very vivid fantasies of Jaune forcing himself on her, she regularly had fantasies of it, and so he was a regular feature in her self pleasure—which, in turn, led to more and more bondage until she was gagged, blindfolded, and tied up, and worse, now that both her arms were tied behind her back, Emerald had informed Jaune that Weiss would now require a proxy to roll for her… which meant that Weiss had to sit on Pyrrha’s lap and Pyrrha was required to put her hands on Weiss’s nipples or clit before she was allowed to roll.

Ren clarified that she did not have to put her finger on Weiss’s clit if she inserted it into her pussy. For safety reasons, Pyrrha did all three.

But worse than the groping, Jaune saw the Scrutiny tokens adding up on Weiss’s character. He didn’t understand half of this game’s rules, but what he did understand was that Weiss was effectively doomed, her character, in the fiction, evidently having been found out by the Sultan and now under the strictest guard. She could no longer aid a revolt, and in the event of an escape, she would have to be left behind. Which meant that there was almost no ending to the game that didn’t result in Weiss becoming his…

It was a dark thought. A thought Jaune should not entertain. His Beacon crush becoming his permanent property, bound to love, honor, and obey him without a thought of any reciprocity from Jaune. Even as a niggling voice in the back of Jaune’s head told him that Weiss had fantasies about a situation like this, that her clear arousal wasn’t just because Pyrrha was fingering her—and because Pyrrha wasn’t any better than Jaune when it came to the rules, she never seemed to know when to stop groping Weiss—but that… that thought led to a dark place. A place Jaune didn’t want to go.

Especially when the overall situation wasn’t much better. Yang in particular was in a situation almost as bad as Weiss’s, and just because she was already Jaune’s girlfriend did not mean that it was somehow better if she became his slave! But as the game went on, her confidence drained more and more, especially as the game seemed determined to expose her hidden kink for soft tenderness. She’d become meek and timid in her behavior, only speaking when spoken to and using a soft, indoor voice that Jaune had almost never seen her use before. And she addressed him unfailingly as “Sir,” with the exception of a “Thank you, Daddy,” she moaned after Jaune had been tasked with picking a girl at random and kissing her cheek. He’d thought it would have been a safe card, just give his girlfriend a peck, but then… yeah. She’d started passing her turns, telling Jaune that a good girlfriend would only do what her boyfriend wanted her to do, a situation Jaune had to make clear was not okay. She was back to playing, but… not well.

But if those two seemed doomed to lose… the rest of the girls weren’t faring much better. Pyrrha was struggling with the game—really, she never did well in board games—seeming to be making moves at random as she lurched across the board. Ruby and Emerald seemed to be adapting a strategy, rapidly talking out rules and cards and tokens that Jaune was pretty sure hadn’t been mentioned before the moment they said them, but they were so far behind, Jaune wasn’t even sure they’d be enough—plus, they both kept getting luck as bad as Jaune’s was good. It seemed like the dice favored him and only him and it was making things difficult for the Harem Girls. Nora clearly did not understand the game or have any interest in learning and had, more than once, started trying to suck Jaune’s dick because she just assumed that was what she was supposed to do at the moment.

It took Ren a frustratingly long time to tell her otherwise.

Blake kept stealing cards and kept getting caught which meant that Jaune was constantly being assigned new punishments to give her. Right now, she wore nothing but a collar and leash as she rubbed her cheek against Jaune’s leg and purred. He couldn’t remember if this was a punishment or not, and at this point, he’d stopped asking. Somehow, she was leading the other girls in points.

Jaune rolled the die, moved his character three tiles, and drew a card. Ah, yes, he now had “secret information” that could force any girl to discard a “Intrigue Token” which… he didn't know what those could do, but he heard Ruby groan in annoyance. At least it wasn’t a command to… finger the girl with the most victory points or make Yang smother Emerald with her boobs or some other act of compelled depravity. That would come almost immediately afterwards as Weiss rolled—well, Pyrrha rolled for her—and wound up on a tile that meant that Jaune had to pinch her nipples. Which meant Jaune had to loop around the table to where Pyrrha was holding her and see the rock-hard nubs poking through her flimsy outfit and give them a pinch. 

He was genuinely grateful that she had a blindfold on, so this way, he didn't have to look Weiss in the eyes as he did it.

But he knew whatever was coming next would be worse. As his turn came around, Jaune was certain that something worse would be coming to drive home just what was facing them at the other side of the game. When… well, it seemed inevitable. With every tile he moved his token down the path, he felt like he was being born ceaselessly towards a perverse victory. One where these girls would be made his Harem Girls for real, his adoring slave girls who would-

“Ah, Jaune?” Emerald stopped him, “You landed in the Throne Room.”

Jaune gave her a confused look.

Emerald gestured to the board.

Jaune gave her a more confused look.

Emerald sighed. “You have to draw an Action Card because you’ve moved into your Seat of Power while more than half,” she gestured, seemingly at random, to the rest of the table, “of us are currently in Disarray. If you had landed on any other tile, one of us, probably Pyrrha, could have declared an Overreach and attempted a Seize The Moment… but you landed directly on the Throne, so you get to draw an Action Card.”

She gestured to the deck that seemed to be the Action Deck. Jaune looked at yet another deck of cards, this one seeming like it ought to have something to suggest if these cards were more or less important than other cards, something in basic game design to add some sense of tension, but… who was he kidding? The girls drew cards that tied into various arcane subsystems, literally every card he had drawn had been some variation of sexual humiliation to inflict. And this card…

“Have sex.”

That- that was it? No dramatics, no addressing him as Sultan—Nora, at least, has pissed the game off, this was just… blunt. Even by Jaune's dwindling sense of expectations, this was blunt!

“It… it doesn't say anything else,” Jaune said, turning the card to the rest of the table as though someone asked.

“With-” Pyrrha closed her mouth, controlling herself before she asked, “With whom?”

“Since Yang has more than 6 Depravity Tokens, she’s required to participate,” Ren said, paging through the rulebook, “Which means this has to be a threesome, as Jaune has to also choose a participant.  But it's entirely your choice who's the third. Probably not Weiss, though, because…”

He gestured to the thoroughly bound Weiss who was so thoroughly tied up, it didn't really seem like Jaune could have sex with her… though, as he'd learned, she likely wouldn't object.

Not that he wanted to! He- he had no interest in cheating on Yang!

But he already knew he wasn't going to get any sympathy from the rest of the table, least of all from Yang. She placed a hand on Jaune's arm and gave it an encouraging little squeeze as though to tell him he ought to cheat on her with anyone he wanted, like it was her privilege to help him with this.

“Whoever fucks Jaune should have to do him somewhere we can all see them do it,” Nora announced.

“What- what the hell, Nora!” Jaune cried.

“Everyone got to watch me suck you off,” Nora said with a shrug, “only fair I get to watch this round. And my two cents, it should be Emerald. Unless you like edging her.”

“Oh gods,” Emerald moaned, biting her lip.

“Could do Ruby,” Blake said with a saucy grin, “Get that sisterly threesome…”

“You should do that!” Nora agreed, slapping her palms down on the table.

“Oh gods…” Emerald half-moaned, “Oh, I- I shouldn't- shouldn't- oh gods…”

“I- I wouldn't-” Jaune protested, “I'm not- I wouldn't be-

“If you want Ruby,” Yang whispered in his ear, her voice barely even audible, “I’ll help hold her in place for you.”

Jaune froze. That- that was- that was insane! Jaune stared at Yang agape, but he saw on her face that she was dead serious. Now that his girlfriend’s secret submissive side was revealed, it was out in full force, and that meant… if Jaune wanted another woman, even her own sister, she would… she would assist in… he couldn’t even name it, it was so wrong!

“Yang, that’s- that’s absolutely not on the-”

“I can do it,” Ruby suddenly, and loudly, announced, “I mean, come on, I haven’t done anything all game! I kicked Pyrrha’s butt at dancing-”

An… interesting interpretation of her performance, even as Jaune was still mostly thinking about what Yang had said.

“-and I’ve collected 4 out of 6 poison tokens, so I’m the best poised to be The Glorious Leader Of The Revolution if we’re gonna play for the Revolt Win, but, like, the only punishment I have are these things.”

She raised up her arms to show the many golden bangles and gestured to the big hoop earrings she was wearing because she… some rules thing Jaune didn't understand even as Ren and Emerald explained it.

“And that’s nothing! Nora had to suck your dick, Weiss is in bondage, Emerald and Blake are both wearing sex toys… everybody but me’s getting to do something cool with Jaune!”

“Not Pyrrha,” Blake cut in, “Pyrrha hasn’t gotten to do anything but watch.”

And thank the gods for that, Jaune couldn’t- couldn’t begin to imagine what would happen if he was put in a situation with Pyrrha that turned sexual… she was his absolute rock at Beacon, the person he most depended on, and as much as he didn’t wish to put any of these women through this experience… 

“And I promise to do all the sex things!” Ruby declared, punching her fist into her palm, “I'm gonna do stuff that'll knock your socks off, show you not to underestimate me just because I'm the little sister!”

“Yeah!” Nora cheered, “C'mon, Jaune-Jaune I wanna see all the sex things!”

“Do it on the cushions!” Blake added, fairing to…

Jaune saw the pile of richly plush cushions behind him that he was pretty sure weren't there a minute ago and definitely weren't in the original room. But… it would function for a-

With a gasp of surprise, Jaune felt a full-on Ruby Rose charge. She knocked him flat in an instant. Jaune had been in spars with Ruby and knew how it was taking a charge from her head on, but this sent him ass over ankles as Ruby collided with him in a flurry of rose petals. She mounted him, looking down at him with a wild grin and her silver eyes blazing as she began to… hump? him? It was, like her dancing, utterly without rhythm or direction, fabric grinding against fabric where their groins met… at least approximately, Ruby was a little too high up to properly reach Jaune's cock, but… but in spite, maybe even slightly because of her incompetence, Jaune couldn't help but feel his erection start to rise up, the prospect of a cocky, overconfident virgin throwing herself at him… and soon learning that Jaune was no pushover in…

No, no! He couldn't-

“Ruby!” he gasped out, “You've got to-”

“That’s not how you do it!” Yang tsked in disapproval, “You’re never going to please Jaune unless you learn your place, Ruby!”

“Yang, wha-”

But Yang actually made good on her promise as she grabbed her sister and pulled her off Jaune, grabbing her thighs and pulling them apart to present her to Jaune.

“Whoa, Yang!” Ruby cried out, a little alarmed at the sudden physical contact now being on the other foot, “Uh, I know you and Jaune are a thing, but I was definitely doing the-”

But Yang was not about to be interrupted from her task.

“We have to ensure you’re properly wet to receive Jaune,” she lectured, her hands running over Ruby’s body to pull her skimpy outfit away, “You’re going to be a good girl for him, and I’m not going to hear any objections!”

“Yang, you- n-no, Yang, this- o-oh, it's- it's-”

But Ruby's protests dissolved as Yang set upon her little sister, one hand on her breast, another between her legs, her mouth nibbling on her earlobe, all while Ruby's face turned redder and redder… and then her hand slipped into Ruby's panties.

“Yang!” she gasped, “You can't, you caaaaan't!”

But she absolutely could as Ruby squirmed in vain against her sister's powerful grasp. And quickly, Ruby found herself overwhelmed, moaning and squirming on Yang's lap as her sister fingered her… all while looking at Jaune, smiling warmly and clearly hoping for his approval.

“My Daddy is Ruby's Daddy,” she said proudly, “We're both going to be good girls for Daddy… Ruby's already being a good girl, she's so nice and wet, she's gonna make you feel so good…”

“Yaaaaang!” Ruby gasped as her sister's fingers pistoned away, but the look on her face was anything but protesting. Jaune could see her hips starting to buck… and hump.

“She's ready for you,” Yang whispered sweetly, “Your good girls are ready for you, Daddy.”

With that, Yang returned to nibbling on Ruby's earlobe as Jaune felt his erection strain against his robes. All thoughts of decorum were forgotten; all that remained was desire. He threw open his robe, brandishing his cock at full mast before the eyes of the girls before he swept onto Ruby and thrust into the pussy that Yang had spread for him. It was… gods above, she was tight! A sensation that made Jaune gasp out as she enveloped his shaft and Ruby's silver eyes roll in disbelief as Jaune simply plunged into her. She had no perspective for this, no experience of anything like this, but Jaune couldn't bring himself to slow down, not as it felt so incredible to start thrusting into her!

Jaune was no virgin—he'd come to Beacon with the sort of awkward experience common in teenagers and then he'd started dating Yang, a woman who was anything but all talk. He had a very active sexual history… but Maidens, Jaune had never had anything like this. A threesome with his girlfriend and her sister, with Ruby's virginal innocence and Yang's blazing sensuality on display, was almost too much to be believed. Jaune bucked his hips, pounding Ruby into Yang as both girls rejoiced in the carnality and Ruby… Ruby was brought to paroxysms of delight!

With Yang playing with her nipples and Jaune thrusting into her, Ruby quickly began to crumble before them both. She was panting and gasping, her cries getting hotter and hotter as Ruby struggled not to simply cum then and there. And it… it was affecting Jaune as he plunged his dick deep inside her. It was wild, it was mad, it was-

Ruby kissed him.

Her lips collided with his as Ruby passionately kissed Jaune. Unlike her earlier efforts, efforts that were forceful, jerky, and uncoordinated, this, while still bursting with the innocence of her inexperience, was so much more wondrous and pleasant. He could feel her desire for him pouring out as her lips pressed against his. They kissed as they fucked, their bodies moving in sync with one another, a fluid undulation of friction and pleasure where their bodies met. Jaune pushed his tongue into Ruby’s willing mouth just as his cock found a joyful welcome in her pussy. They were together, their bodies were together, their minds, their very-

A thought snapped into Jaune’s mind as he realized that they’d gone well beyond simply carrying out the card’s instructions!

He was kissing Ruby right in front of- on top of! his girlfriend! And she- she was-

“Make her cum, Daddy!” Yang pleaded, “Ruby's been such a brat and she needs to learn to be a good girl for you!”

Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, Jaune couldn't think about anything but making Ruby cum!

He drove his cock as deep into Ruby's pussy as he could and he made her cum.

She lit up, a bomb primed to blow and now she blew. Head thrown back in an ear-piercing scream as her pussy clamped down on Jaune's dick, still thrusting away until he couldn't manage a damn thing as he shook himself to pieces and then-

He came too.

All of their desire was brought to its pinnacle as they both released. Jaune erupted inside her, pouring his seed into her pussy while Ruby's entire body quivered and shook until they were both wholly exhausted.

It was… it was something else. Something even more than what Jaune had done with Nora, maybe something even more than anything that had ever happened in Jaune's life. Insane and unbelievable and permanently seared into his memory.

He couldn't enjoy it, though. As soon as he started to bask in the moment, he remembered the game, remembered all of his friends were gathered at the table right by them, and so he had to… had to get back to reality.

But after he withdrew from Ruby, he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder, turning him to face Yang.

“Daddy has to fuck both his girls,” she said with a smug smile, “the card says you have to!”

Jaune wasn't- wasn't sure it did, but Yang was showing off her arousal as she ran one finger around her nipple through her gauzy top as the other reached down for her very wet panties. He was weak and he couldn't hold himself back. Even the biological limitations of his body couldn't hold him back. He'd just ejaculated into Ruby and yet, Yang already had him hard and ready as she turned around to raise her ass high. Pulling down her panties, panties that were practically glued to her ass, she showed off her dripping pussy. Jaune had gotten her off by brushing her hair at the start of this game, and she'd only been getting more and more turned on since then. She wanted- she needed to get fucked, and Jaune wasn't about to deny her!

With a growl of desire, Jaune threw himself at her, seizing Yang and thrusting into her with pure, animal passion. It was like she wasn't his girlfriend, like he'd never slept with her before and she was still that unbelievably, unapproachably perfect exemplar of sexiness that Jaune couldn't even imagine being with. He fucked her like he'd never get this chance again.

And Yang loved it!

“Oh- oh, oh yes! Yes, Daddy, fuck me! Fuck me so good, I love it! I love it so much!”

Jaune just thrust away, hammering into Yang as he grunted out, “Oh fuck, fuck Yang!”

He could see her tits swinging with every thrust he drove into her, but even more so, Jaune couldn't handle how her pussy gripped him, especially as Yang kept her ass raised high, determined to best pleasure him as she bucked her hips backwards to take him deep. She was utterly submitting to him, completely taken by her desire to be his, and in exchange, all she wanted, all she asked for…

“Tell me-” she gasped, “tell me I'm your good guuuuuuurl!”

“You're my good girl!” Jaune roared, “My good- good- best fucking girl!”

“Oh Dah-DEEEEEEEE!”

Yang screamed as she came, her pussy clamping down on his cock as Jaune continued to hammer her with all he had to give! It wasn't just the physical pleasure, it wasn't just Yang's exquisite beauty, it was her absolute and total commitment to him! Her greatest pleasure was his pleasure, and Jaune… Jaune could only give in!

“Take it!” Jaune barked, bringing his hand down on Yang's rear with a crack! “Take it all!”

“Yes Daddy! YESSSSSSS!”

Jaune groaned as he came, putting his balls to the test as he discovered they still had plenty more to give. He pumped into Yang as he continued to buck into her from behind until he was wholly satisfied that he'd painted her womb white.

…and now that he had the clarity that came after an orgasm, Jaune remembered that this wasn't just a situation with him and Yang. Or… him and Yang and Ruby. Because this was something where all his friends were there. And had been there for the whole time, even if he'd sort of forgotten about them.

Jaune looked around the table. Everyone was red-faced and, yet, it was clear they had all watched intently as he’d fucked Ruby and Yang. Blake, Weiss, Emerald… even Nora looked at him in awe. Even Ren was only pretending to scan the rules as he caught his breath.

And then they… had to go back to playing the game.

Jaune awkwardly got up and adjusted his robes to give himself some modesty… perhaps shutting the barn door after the horses had well and truly bolted, but he didn't feel like he had any other option in this. He closed his robes, sat on his seat, and watched as Pyrrha rolled her die.

An odd trace of a smile on her face, but… Jaune figured, no one knew how they were supposed to respond to that, and a bewildered, incredulous smile made as much sense as anything. She moved 5 tiles, grabbed a… token of some kind, nobody seemed to be really paying attention to the game, and then it was time for the next turn.

The game continued in a state of what was normal for the game. Jaune didn't have to have sex with anyone, but, of course, every few rolls was some new kink all while Jaune got the sense that the situation was continuing to turn towards the inevitable. An inevitable that… after being with Ruby, he couldn't help but look at Weiss and wonder… but as soon as he threw it out of his mind, he caught sight of Blake and thought… and then Nora and Pyrrha, he couldn't stop thinking about Pyrrha in that outfit, on her knees, the Invincible Girl, conquered! She would do for him what-

“Wait…” Emerald said, “Wait, Jaune, when did you… when did you get your fourth Prestige token?”

Pulled from his darkest thoughts, Jaune glanced at his tray, trying to make sense of the various pieces and tokens he'd acquired over the game. Prestige tokens sounded… sounded familiar, he thought he remembered hearing it when he was busy having to put clamps on Blake's nipples after she got caught—again—trying to swipe a card from Weiss's hand.

But however he’d gotten them, he saw four tokens on his tray that were probably Prestige Tokens. Which meant all of nothing to Jaune, but from the tone of Emerald’s voice…

This was bad.

“Four Prestige tokens and a successful Throne Action…”

“We’re in Endgame,” Ren said darkly.

…

Again, none of that meant anything to Jaune.

“That… that can’t be…” Ruby said woozily, getting back up to her seat, her top still out of place and her breasts exposed. Jaune opened his mouth to point it out to her, but…

“Statistically speaking, the game won't last more than a few rolls,” Emerald said, “We might not even get another roll if someone has a Finale to play…”

“Awesome,” Nora said.

“But…” Ruby murmured, trying to focus up, “But there's… there's no way we could pull off a…”

“You're not suggesting…”

“It’s the only way,” Ruby said grimly, shaking her head in dismay, “It’s… it’s every woman for herself. Jaune’s position is too strong—our only hope is to deny him a total victory. Some girls are… some of us are going to become Jaune’s slaves. We can’t… we can’t even try to work together. Only way to ensure you won’t be enslaved is if… if you’re willing to fight for yourself and only yourself.”

“S-so some of us could like…” Emerald nervously spoke up, “You know, sacrifice ourselves? For the others, I mean, just… lose on purpose? So- so maybe someone else doesn’t, I mean!”

Ruby gave Emerald a mournful look, one that suggested she wasn’t exactly picking up the subtext here. “You’re very brave, Emerald,” she said, giving her a slow, dolorous nod, “You’re a true Huntress.”

Emerald fidgeted. “Y-yeah, and if Jaune has to keep one of us, it- it only makes sense if-”

“MMMPHF-MRRFF-MPPPH!” Weiss defiantly said through her gag, saying… something, Jaune couldn't really tell.

He told himself that it was Weiss insisting that none of them would end up as Jaune's slaves.

He didn't want to think about what she was probably actually saying.

Fuck, he'd just- how was he getting hard again?

“Let's..  let's find another…” Jaune tried to say, “Nora, do you…”

Nora gave a slow, grave nod. “You're right, Jaune-Jaune,” she said, “How do we make sure Ren's included?”

Jaune sighed. What was he expecting? What was he, after all this, seriously expecting? He was clinging to expectations and assumptions of sanity that had been disproven over and over again, insisting that, surely, surely it couldn’t be that a half-dozen girls wanted to be his-

“What if there was another way?”

Jaune looked up at Pyrrha, his eyes wide with a desperate hope that, if anyone could find a way out of hopelessness, it was her.

“I… I don’t think there is, Pyrrha,” Emerald said, the voice of experience cutting Jaune deep as she shook her head, “The only Win Conditions left are Jaune's victory and an escape-”

“There are alternative winning conditions.”

Jaune's eyes went wide. He didn't know there were more options, but he didn't know a lot of things about this game until after they'd happened. But Pyrrha..  of course Pyrrha could find another way. She always won, she was the Invincible Girl, and she could save them all from-

“One alternative win condition is where I betray my Harem Sisters as a declaration of my love for my Sultan,” Pyrrha said, a dark, wicked gleam in her eye as she revealed her masterstroke, gesturing to the collection of tokens she had in front of her, “I’ve assembled all the necessary elements of the win condition, and since Ruby’s score can be expressed as a cubic number, she cannot use the Esprit de Corps card she doesn’t think I know she’s holding, while Weiss, I have four Strings on you that I can play if needed to cancel your Save My Own Skin, not that you can even hear what we’re talking about, and Emerald…”

She smiled, a cruelly angelic sweetness on her face.

“I have nothing to stop you. You could thwart me, could deduct your Loyalty points from my score and make this gambit fail, but… can you? Can you truly? Would you even dare stop me in my hour of glory as I condemn you all to defeat at the hands of your Sultan?”

Emerald’s only answer was a weak, gasping twitch. Jaune had… little faith that she could be prompted to stop Pyrrha right now. Not when Pyrrha could likely make her cum with a sufficiently forceful look.

“Pyrrha…” Jaune weakly protested, not able to comprehend what she was doing as she looked at him with the serene queenly confidence of a woman who knew exactly what she was doing.

“Can anyone stop me?” she asked, embodying The Invincible Girl more now than Jaune had ever seen her, “Will any of you feeble little girls stand in the way of me presenting you all as gifts to my beloved Sultan?”

“No…” Yang sighed with pleasure as she wrapped her arm around Jaune's.

“No…” Emerald echoed in a daze, a… smile forming on her lips.

Ruby fidgeted, clearly struggling with… things as she answered, “N-no.”

“Nope!” Blake said with a grin.

And Nora…

Nora wiped a tear from her eye.

“I should have known, you clever bitch…” she said under her voice, then added, “No, I can't!”

Weiss thumped in her seat, which… sounded like the last no.

Pyrrha looked at Jaune and smiled as she rose from her seat, looking truly glorious in her outfit. Jaune’s mouth hung open as he took in the sight of the Invincible Girl, clad in harem attire and with eyes flashing with uncontestable power, a Djinn in the form of a girl as she opened her mouth and spoke:

“By my hand and through my scheme, I present to you your loyal and adoring Harem and have the honor to declare… You win, O glorious Sultan!”

There was an instant flash of light as everything went white. Jaune reeled, blinded as he blinked furiously, trying to figure out what was happening. But as his vision cleared he-

He was wearing pants!

Jaune looked down to see that, rather than the white Sultan’s attire, he had… blue jeans on! And his hoodie! And looking around the room, he saw all the girls had returned to their original outfits as well, no more bondage outfit for Weiss, no more gag in her mouth, and-

And the room had doors! It had doors! They could leave!

If…

If the victory condition hadn’t resulted in…

“Is…” Jaune asked hesitantly, “Is everyone- is anyone… you’re n-not my… my slaves. Right?”

He looked around the table, from girl to girl, seeing them reacting to the sudden return of their original outfits and the removal of all sex toys and bondage gear, but his question brought to the forefront the unresolved stakes of their situation.

“I… don’t think so?” Yang said, tilting her head from side to side as though she was trying to shake the disorientation from her head.

“No… no, I don’t… I think I’m not your…” Emerald’s voice suddenly became shaky as she stumbled out, “s-slave.”

“So… so we won?” Jaune asked.

“Yes,” Ren said with a nod, “It was an ingenious play by Pyrrha—only the Escape Victory and the Sultan Victory ended with any girls becoming Jaune’s slaves. With the Revolt Victory off the table and Weiss and Yang both basically doomed in an Escape Victory, much less with a Sultan Victory where all seven of you would be his slaves looking more and more likely thanks to Jaune’s incredible luck with some of those rolls, the only way to have an ending where no one became Jaune’s obedient sex slave for the rest of their life was to ‘trick’ the game with an Victory that, technically, wasn’t any of those. If it wasn’t for Pyrrha… all seven of you would be declaring your undying love and worship towards Jaune.”

“Wow!” Ruby cried, giving Pyrrha a slap on the back, “Way to go, Pyrrha! The Invincible Girl took on the game and won, you saved us all from a life of sexual servitude to Jaune!”

“Yes, I… I did… I did that…” Pyrrha said, her voice a hollow echo as she stared at the game.

Had she actually… only Pyrrha could have come up with a strategy like that. Only Pyrrha. Anyone else would have focused on the tunnel vision of winning or losing, how they could “defeat” Jaune or save their own skin, but Pyrrha… she saw how she could win by losing. She took up a… some kind of crazy betrayal strategy and forced everyone to follow her lead, and in that, she had saved the day.

“We… we owe you a debt, Pyrrha,” he said, his words hushed with humble awe, “That was an incredible strategy, and you… you saved us all.”

Pyrrha didn’t answer, seeming to be in a bit of a daze. She was staring off into the distance, and Jaune figured… if she needed some time to come down from what must have been a stressful, high-risk strategy, she'd earned that for sure.

But he felt a hand on his arm and turned to see Yang, a… troubled look on her face.

“It was… it was weird, but Jaune… those were my real feelings,” she said, “I’ve never had the courage to say them to anyone… even myself, but… I want to be sweet and demure to you. I want you to take charge of me and protect me and make me… feel just like I was your, um, you know… your little girl who you doted on and coddled.”

“A-and, you know,” Ruby cut in, “We- if you wanted to, like, you know, with me… it was good. I'd do it again. If you… and Yang, if you and Yang were okay with it.”

Ren clasped his arm. “And if you want to do anything with Nora, any of her holes, her breasts, whatever you're into, Jaune, you should absolutely use her-”

Jaune put a hand up, “Guys, listen-”

“I don’t want to ever talk about this day again to anyone, ever,” Weiss said, then sighed, “But… I wasn’t lying. There’s no sense in lying about it, you know the truth and I won’t lie about my feelings. It’s not something I’ll ever act on, you have a girlfriend and I want you both to be happy, but I… do kind of have a thing for you.”

“I think my thoughts on this are already well known,” Blake said with a shrug, “Though, honestly, the costumes really needed to put a bit more time towards historical accuracy, because, really, a magic game ought to be able to do a period-accurate harem outfit.”

“Jaune, or- or anyone,” Emerald mumbled, “If anyone was… into that and wants to, um, has a need for… if you want a harem slavegirl, I want to be that. I want to be that very, very much. A-and if anyone- anyone wanted to, um, m-make me confess to s-some r-really impor-imp-portant-”

“Guys!” Jaune cried, a little louder to try and take control of the conversation before it got too out of hand.

Obviously, to no effect.

“I don’t really have any deep personal secret to confess,” Nora said with a shrug, “But I really appreciate that you didn’t hold back and almost managed to turn us all into your harem of slavegirls. I’d rather face someone who gave their all to a bad cause than someone who didn’t—you put it all on the field, Jaune. You should be proud of yourself.”

But with that… and with Pyrrha still just staring off into space, it seemed like everyone had said their piece.

“Guys,” Jaune repeated, “This was a really stressful, highly unusual experience and I think we all need to take a little bit of time to process what happened. Now’s not the time to be making any declarations or decisions, we should be taking things slow and taking the time to figure out what our real feelings are and what were just… the product of a really crazy situation.”

He looked around the table, seeing the girls all glance to each other, taking in what he had to say as they considered what had just happened… and what it meant for their future. Jaune saw the nervous, indecisive looks and wondered if maybe… maybe they were serious. They all seemed so sincere, and the way they were looking at each other, as though they were tying to work up the courage…

Well, not Pyrrha. She was still just staring at nothing.

He'd… give her some time.

Well, whatever this led to, they'd face it as Huntsmen, not slaves to a board games demented whims, which-

“Heartfelt confessions, stronger relationships, we now know that Jaune’s got an amazing dick: that was fun!“ Nora said with a smile, “Let’s play again—hey, board game, we’re-”

“NO!” Jaune shrieked, but already, a cloud of white smoke was billowing up from the board…