Iris opened her eyes and was greeted by the vast underside of low-hanging clouds painted in the dusk's purple and orange hues. From the sun's position, she guessed that she was knocked out for a bell or two at most. She collected her thoughts as clouds slowly passed over her before she decided to look somewhere else.
Sleeping peacefully beside the elf Kia made strange noises which were a mix of satisfied moans and pleasurable purrs as she rubbed her legs off each other.
"I overdid it, didn't I?" Iris said to herself as the girl moaned in her sleep from the elf's light touch.
Iris sat up and instantly felt her damp clothes clinging to her body, especially the fabric on her lap. With Kia still slumbering peacefully the risen decided to undress fully, leaving only her boots on. With a few familiar motions, she loosened her jacket enough to pull it over her head with one hand alongside her thin white undershirt which appeared translucent, with a quick hand movement her belt was unbuckled causing her soaked trousers to slide down her legs.
She moved away a little from her fair companion and laid her clothes flat on the grass. As a magical flame was about to appear in her hands she looked back at Kia, shuffling back to the girl, Iris examined the long black dress shrouding the porcelain body of her beautiful saviour underneath. The elf gently grabbed the hem of the dress with two fingers and lifted it slowly. The girl's panties were between her knees where the elf had left them, to get them off the tall risen slowly unfastened the many buckles holding the girl's black knee-high boots before sliding the soaked underwear off her long, slim yet well-defined legs.
"Mmmm~" The petite undead shuddered in bliss as the hoplite's gentle finger accidentally brushed against her soft snowy skin.
The beautiful reaction caused the elf to entertain an idea which had snuck its way into the diligently working maid. Lifting the luxurious dress even further up. She exposed more of the girl's bare physique to the world. The curious risen drew in a deep breath before blowing the warmed air at the girl causing the girl to make one of her many blissful notes as she turned away from the gentle breeze while quaking from delight. Iris watched as from between the girl's lower lips, a clear liquid began to slowly pour out onto her thigh, leaving a glistening slimy trail behind it as it flowed down her pearly skin.
Iris was slightly jealous of Kia's sensitiveness and wanted to punish the helpless kitten for it but she decided that the girl needed rest and wouldn't appreciate being played with as much without it. With that thought, she gently covered the girl with the dress and returned to the task of drying their clothes as much as possible.
An orange flame danced in the elven hands as they hovered above the neatly laid out clothes slowly drying them in its unnaturally powerful light.
The elf patiently watched her mana drain in case she needed to take a break. At the start of her task keeping a medium-sized flame in her hands was a struggle with her clumsy control of the spell. She would often overcompensate for a momentary distribution, causing a vicious cycle of overcorrections to occur with the only way of stopping it was by cutting off her supply of mana and letting the fire die before having to restart. She guessed that small fire was much more forgiving with her novice understanding of magic.
She learned that maintaining a spell was much more forgiving on her limited mana supply than recasting a spell over and over again, yet even with dulled senses she began to feel something flowing inside her hands like a small tributary supplying a much larger river. At first, her hands felt funny but as time passed the small size of what she thought Kia referred to as mana links began to cause a problem as they began to ache with an unreachable pain.
"I can't anymore." Iris sighed heavily as she sat down, feeling actual exhaustion for the first time in her recent memory. "Kia?" She turned toward the girl after hearing an unfamiliar hiss. Out of instinct, she swivelled her entire body around against her mind's phoney pleas for rest.
Behind the elf, grass followed an unseen shape of a being stalking low right behind her. As her amethyst eyes sharpened on the vague outline a circular maw the size of Iris's hand-filled sharp triangular yellow teeth appeared with a long string of saliva dripping onto the grass. Before the unliving hoplite could react the floating maw lunged at her. The elf's body moved her arm in front of her face before she could process what happened. The circular mouth latched itself on Iris's forearm and began to move from side to side slowly cutting through her flesh as her body was sent backwards from the impact.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Disconnected from her body's feelings, the elf's mind coldly wrapped itself around what was happening and proceeded to use the force of the impact to turn her torso around, dragging the predator behind.
As Iris pinned down the thing to the ground and managed to leverage herself on top of the beast, its grey body appeared. Suddenly three pairs of glowing yellow eyes angrily stared at the risen as she noticed her arm was pinning the beast's muscular neck. Her defenceless body had no chance of deflecting the kicks and swipes of the creature's clawed limbs offering a meagre resistance, as much as her old mind screamed at her to try to defend herself she straightened her palm into a knife as she raised it away from the flailing monster before sinking her nails into the predator's neck.
"Go to the abyss." Iris replied to the monster's gurgled whimper as she stood up. She instantly looked toward Kia finding the sleeping girl still sleeping as peacefully as ever beside her spear. The elf rolled her eyes in disbelief after checking if any more of the strange creatures were not lurking around.
[Inspect]
[Nightmaw young Level 44]
{This creature is native to the land known as eastern Edor and is influenced by the magically infused wind sweeping that part of the world causing it to possess an ability to become invisible. It is one of the apex predators of the plains biome.}
"Great." Iris touched her temple as she glanced at her painstakingly cleaned clothes dyed with a fresh coat of crimson paint.
Looking down at her own body, it too was smeared with fresh blood which slowly rolled down her body. From the large open wounds on her stomach and legs puffs of white mist rose into the air. The risen thought she must look like some sort of a beast from a story told around the comforting orange light of a campfire.
She walked up to the motionless nightmare with a hand size hole in its neck. The creature's limbs were very lanky with long hind legs and even longer front legs, each of the four limbs was tipped with arrowhead shape claws with the most inner claw being the largest and in a shape of a hook. Its upper body was shaped similarly to a dog with well-defined muscles which allowed the creature to pounce on Iris with great speed which were partially hidden under the surprisingly thick grey skin which was smooth to the touch. Tucked under its curved stomach was a pair of arms with two fingers and a thumb tipped with thick dull claws. Unlike the long legs, these strangely positioned arms were not as skinny resembling human arms than anything else.
Shifting her gaze onto the creature's head Iris saw a long deer-like head supported by broad shoulders, the similarities with the peaceful animal quickly ended passed the nightmaw's small yellow eyes which lacked irises. Even further down the creature's head, a circular maw awaited pulled straight from someone's nightmare. The circular mouth or the inner part of its maw appeared to be loose from its jaw as it was laying outside like a tongue, the other stiffer part most likely housed the strange fleshy organ when the creature wasn't hunting.
Iris picked up the lifeless corpse and threw it into the tall grass, causing the large hound size predator to disappear into the endless green sea around her.
"Wby Soft not bhere?" About half a bell later a soul-moving grumble reached the elf's pointy ears from behind.
Turning around Iris saw Kia's half-open eyes piercing the darkness with a dim glow in a search to find Soft. The girl's adorably confused and frowny face she was making while searching the ground around her sunk into a terrified mask with all of her exhaustion disappearing in an instant as her colourful and suddenly wide-open eyes pierced the darkness and saw the standing elf.
"Did you sleep w-!"
"Iris!" Kia jumped toward the taller undead and began to franticly pat the elf's naked body in search of something. "Did I do this to you?! I-I am so so sorry Iris! I just felt too good and- and I didn't know what to do! Don't move I can feel your mana links leaking! Oh no, no, no-" The panicking girl rapidly alternated between hugging the elf and rechecking, re-examining Iris's blood-covered body from head to toe, smearing bloody hand prints all over the pale elven skin.
"Kia!" Iris tore off the stuttering mage on the verge of tears, lifting her into the air as soon as she felt a deluge of mana pouring inside her.
"This is not my blood. You did nothing wrong." Her voice softened considerably after getting the girl's unquestionable attention.
The almost weightless undead opened her mouth to speak again but the calm hoplite covered the girl's mouth with her hand covered in dark dried blood. Seeing that her words didn't lessen the girl's worries Iris silently carried the girl to the nightmaw's body.
"See?" The risen asked the undead mage, who stared at the animal's corpse with pure unbridled hatred before softening a little as her eyes returned to the taller adventurer. "Then don't waste your mana on me." The tall elf commanded after letting go of the petite girl.
"You are never a waste of mana!" The girl shouted back in frustration before wrapping herself around the tall bloody spector in its moment of confusion.
"Thank you, but you shouldn't hugging me now." The still naked elf covered in partially coagulated blood said while wearing a small smile.
Kia gave Iris another look, her snow-white cheeks quickly flushing with red as she realised the elf's lack of clothes. "Ahhh!" She hopped away from the risen while covering her face with her hands while leaving just enough of a gap between her fingers to still see Iris's body.
"Cute." The risen said causing the mage to turn even redder. *Sigh* "I wish I could take a bath... Could you cast a spell to clean me? Please."
*Splash*
A deluge of freezing cold water hit the unsuspecting elf, violently washing away the muck sticking to her body. The ground underneath the elf's bare feet froze before it turned into mud as the sudden deluge ended.
"Thanks," Iris said as water dripped from her body causing it to glisten in the dim silver light of the moon. She expected the girl to cast clean but she couldn't complain at the brief wash feeling cleaner than what the spell previously achieved although she still didn't feel sufficiently cleaned. She sighed again at the memory of a proper bath which felt so distant in the wilderness of the demi-human territory. "Kia?" The petite mage was standing still in front of Iris, tapping her foot on the frozen ground as she scratched her cheek.