Early the next morning…
"Now, boy and girls, let's not act awkward here after last night." Ingrid said, she sat across the three in the kitchen table as they enjoyed their first coffee of the day. The four of them were in fluffy bathrobes after a leisurely bath and shower after they got up from the best sleep they've probably had in years. Ingrid herself looked like she was glowing and so radiant, as if all that sex had rejuvenated her ten times over.
"We're not." Zefir said, still bleary eyed. He put an arm around the wolf girls who affectionately leaned on his shoulder and nuzzled him.
"D'awww!!" Ingrid said, the sight of the three kemonomimis acting so cuddly with each other soothed her soul. Cats and dogs living together, she thought.
Teaching the wolf-girls how to use the appliances in the house weren't too difficult. It didn't take much deduction to recognize the signficance of a refrigerator's ability to keep things cold, or operate a stove or by simply turning knobs, and their bath had already taught them how faucets work. Kinu insisted on making the omelets as she had smelled from the spice rack some ingredients that she used for her usual fare with Kvaris. It was well spiced and was dotted with bits of strong onion, her sense of smell allowing her to know just when to take it off the heat. Ingrid got to work on the bacon and sausage, Kvaris was busy cleaning up their armor while Zefir had laid everyone's clothes on the living room sofa.
"Don't mind if I do!" Cecil said, picking up a sausage with a tendril and bringing it into his body, turning opaque as he did so.
"Where have you been?" Ingrid asked.
"As soon as you love birds got to humping I wanted to see how far I could get, I had no trouble reaching New Gorpisal and went drinking with George and friends again! What about you Ingrid, did you feel anything while I was out?"
Ingrid shook her head. "No, I just assumed you were nearby but I didn't feel drained or anything… I mean.. I had quite a handful last night."
"A mouthful" Kinu said, closing her eyes and smiling at the memory.
"Hmmm…" Cecil thought for a bit. "Sex isn't exactly a leisurely jog, so if the four of you were banging like rabbits, then I guess there's no need to worry about maintaining my portal after all."
"What about you, Cecil? How'd you get here? Did you just Recall to teleport?" Ingrid asked. He never did answer her yesterday.
"I just flew in." Cecil said. I homed in on you. Strangest thing actually, I could SEE Autumnhollow, but it looked a little smoky and distorted from a distance."
"Interesting…" Zefir remarked "I guess it's because you're still connected to Ingrid in some way. Kvaris couldn't get in much less see this place last night when she wandered off."
Kvaris nodded "Their scents completely vanished. I didn't even know I was being turned around. Not that I want to risk it, but if there's a Red Moon there's a chance we could sit one out right here. Waste of money though…"
Cecil then headed most of the conversation as they took their breakfast. It was mostly second- to third-hand funny anecdotes from the orc. He had also met with Millarna, the guild's top wizard at the tavern and she had mentioned about the Red Moon coming in possibly as early as tomorrow.
"We should hurry up then and get Tunk and his crew out." Ingrid said "The journey back probably is just an hour or two's walk, add a few more if they're carrying heavy equipment and..." she turned and saw the three playing Rock-Paper-and Scissors in who gets a turn first for the pre-mission quickie.
Seeing everyone was distracted, Cecil quickly grabbed more portions then settled to eat his lion's share of breakfast. This wouldn't be the first time Ingrid had a "one-for-the-road" before sortie'ng out, and he could only imagine her jumping out the door with an extra spring to her step.
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As Zefir settled back on his chair with a satisfied face, Cecil spoke up as he helped himself to some more OJ.
"Say Zefir, when we return to town, I have an idea for improving my weapon. Assuming we get paid enough." Cecil suggested.
"What do you have in mind?" Zefir asked, turning to him.
"Balls." Both of them chuckled.
"H-hey! No making jokes while I'm-" Ingrid said from the other side of the room, panting.
"Balls make the world go round." Zefir agreed.
"Metal balls for your slingshots?" Kvaris asked, her eyes were half lidded and her tongue was slightly lolling out. It should've made her face look funny but the way she and Kinu did it, it wasn't the exaggerated cartoony expression they saw back on Earth. Theirs looked more...natural and cute for their faces.
"Yup," Cecil replied. "I only had got myself some pebbles randomly picked off the ground. I figure we could have the blacksmiths commissioned to make some, shouldn't be too hard."
Zefir nodded in agreement. "Dain's it is then" Zefir said, he was about to say more when Ingrid delightfully squealed in the background. Now Kinu was the one with the not-funny-but-cute-expression as Kvaris skipped over to the table to refuel herself.
As Kvaris ran back for seconds, Cecil and Zefir headed over to the Crafting Room and tried to see if they could turn some spare scrap metal into the ammunition he needed. He had an old sword he kept as a spare but even after he laid it on the crafting table, it didn't work.
"Well that's weird." Cecil said. Zefir was clearly trying but it didn't seem to be working. He tried pouring in more power but Cecil put a tendril on his shoulder and shook his head, indicating he stop.
"Maybe…" he said, panting a bit, "It might have had something to do with my wanting a comfortable peaceful life. Maybe it won't let me make weapons."
"That's fine. We'll make do for now and besides… Ingrid's our best fighter, nobody can mess with her…" Cecil said, playfully pushing him back to the dining room.
"Phrasing." Zefir chuckled.
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___
Cecil was the last to leave the house and then Zefir held up a clenched fist, causing the house to break down into particles of light. A pleasant breeze blew through the trees as The Whales made a bee-line towards the rocky hills; the site where Tunk and his crew was last seen working.
"It's kinda ironic we're taking this mission to learn the lay of the land here in New Gorpisal but we're taking a path that isn't in the maps." Cecil remarked.
"We'll be fine, that wizard tower is our landmark on where to go." Kvaris said, pointing at the thin-looking towers looming over the trees.
"What is in a wizard tower?" Ingrid asked. She had seen them before on their way from Ontala village to New Gorpisal but never knew their significance, they looked too narrow to have any stairs set on them, much less furnishings a wizard would probably need not just to live in but also conduct experiments.
"Those towers help the Returned travel past the limits of their necropolis." Zefir said. "Basically extension towers for the undead, think of the necropolis as the server where their souls are stored. They can't stray far from them."
"That's news to me." Ingrid said "Sounds like they got a nice duct tape solution to life after death, but how come the only ones I've seen so far are the Night Men?"
"A mind can't really handle existing past death without an actual living breathing body." Kvaris replied. "It affects one's mind and is expensive to maintain so even if one could afford to pay for it, they still need to be examined every now and then to assure they're still sane."
"Some keep their phylacteries on their person." Kinu continued. "That allows them to move about freely, it has its own set of limitations, but the biggest was the chance of being trapped and alone with no one to help. There's been many stories of Returned Men that have been stranded in cave ins or landslides, their minds slowly eroding long before their shell had. There's probably a quest or two to deal with such Returned and set their souls free."
"Phylacteries?" Ingrid asked. "Is it something like those channeling stones you've mentioned?"
"Something like that, yes." Kvaris answered. "Some of the returned to prefer to keep their phylacteries without any protection, figuring that once their shells have been breached they've reached a state where they should cross over… die a second time that is… while others prefer to keep their phylacteries with their own set of protections."
"By shells you mean armor?" Cecil asked. He had noticed all of the Night Men were like armored knights.
"Not necessarily," Zefir replied. "The phylactery holds the soul, it's then bonded to a body. In the old days they used their client's own skeleton, but bones outside of a living body have its share of disadvantages. Nowadays they use ones like puppets which are heftier and closer to their old living body's shape and size, but skeletons do have the advantage of having a good amount of compatibility since it's been simmering in their own mana for years…"
As they spoke, they had cleared out of the forest and the ground gently sloped into a rocky shallow valley. It reminded Ingrid and Cecil of rugged Icelandic glaciers with the abundance of rocky, mossy formations like little hills. Flowing all around the rocky ground were small but rapid brooks.
"The discovery of mines here have caused the goblins to dam up the Ontala river and redirect to another outlet leading out to sea. This water's mostly surplus coming from that river." Zefir explained. At the mention of a river, Ingrid looked up to check the sky. The weather was bright and sunny, with puffy cumulus clouds towering over the skies. As pleasant as the weather looked, she imagined that a strong downpour followed by a flooding of the river would make this place dangerous to cross.
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"I'm guessing the goblins are working at a lower level than this…" Ingrid remarked. Zefir nodded.
"Could be that's why this river got dammed up. It was called the 'spotted river' due to all these islands." he said.
The Whales nimbly hopped between the network of little brooks that slowly and steadily cut deeper and deeper furrows into the gravelly, mossy, ground. Their map had shown a bridge they could've taken but everyone was athletic enough to simply hop across the shallow valley that was once a raging waterway. Ingrid's Aegis aura in particular, gave her all the friction she needed to cross the ground with no problem and she simply strode along while everyone hopped and skipped.
"There it is, there is probably where Tunk and his crew are." Kvaris said. Her tail was wagging as she saw a wide tunnel cut into the opposite bank. It sloped upwards as the ground above turned hilly. If the river flooded then Tunk and his crew would have probably needed to dive down like beavers in order to exit the cave.
"You know, if this tunnel flooded, they wouldn't need to worry if they got caught in a Red Moon." Ingrid remarked, but Kinu shook her head.
"There's no telling if there's any Rifts underground, it can happen."
"Rifts?" Cecil asked. He was planning to move to the sunlit balcony of his room but the tunnel was properly lit by fairy lights embedded in the ceiling.
"There's permanent rifts found in Demon Cities… they're not what you think by the way..." Zefir said "And then during Red Moons, there's a chance of temporary rifts popping up. So leaving the goblins here isn't an option. Anyway, these Rifts connect to different worlds and bring in monsters. We don't know why every single monster that comes out is hostile, but they are. From what I've heard, it's probably due to the Rift's energies causing them to act like that, and there's some that are just simply dicks."
"Portals to other worlds you say?" Ingrid said, there was some hope in her voice but Zefir looked at her and shook his head.
"I don't think these Rifts can be a ticket home. Ingrid." Zefir said. "From what I hear from some adventurers back in Ontala, they've never heard of anything friendly coming out of those rifts. A few that I've heard relate to someone trying to step through only to get a lethal dose of mana burn."
"So much for an easy way out." Cecil sighed. Focusing back on the job at hand, Cecil noted the workmanship of the tunnels around them. They looked sturdy and the inside of the tunnel was reasonably clean, not enough for encourage one to roll around in but it definitely not muddy or overly dusty.
"Well, well, just what I thought." Kinu said, peering over a few hand-carts neatly lined up against a wall. She held up one of the hammers and picks and noticed they look quite worn and the pick in particular looked like it had been hastily re-sharpened so many times it's beak was noticeably shorter. "They really worked their tools to the bone. These are due for a repair, that's for sure."
After another fifteen minutes, Kvaris was able to find the goblins passed on an alcoholic stupor. Their gear had already been packed away and it looked like they just planned to spend last night finishing up their wine before returning home. This wouldn't have affected the Whales' reward since their objective, strictly speaking, is to ensure they were alright. A section of solid rock ahead of them had been systematically cut away, leaving an artistic-looking pattern across the rock.
Within an hour The Whales were escorting Tunk and his crew of goblins back to town. They couldn't pass through the same way they came as the goblins had hand-carts they needed to pull along. Instead, they walked along the banks until they found the incline that led them back to the road and over the bridge.
Predictably, Ingrid was their topic of conversation and about her, Cecil, and Zefir once hailing from a distant country called Earth. As the concept of electricity and other technologies would've been too complicated and outlandish, the three earthlings tried to keep their descriptions of Earth as non-descript as possible. Eventually the conversation drifted off to more inane things, such as Tunk explaining that he and his crew had been surveying the area beneath the riverbanks for possible gems to dig up.
"And quite a few soulstones, take some." Tunk tossed a small bag at Zefir. "Your pet succubus could definitely benefit if you convert these to channeling stones, judging from the stuff you clipped onto her Solenrala… must be a really strong girl to get a Drow's attention, that's for sure."
"Thanks, old man!" the catboy said, hefting the bag, it probably weighed like half a pound. He saw Ingrid looking at the bag and he said "Don't get your hopes up yet Ingrid, we gotta take these to the Atelier and refine them."
"Oh, just tell them to put it on my tab, care of Tunk Heathrock!" Tunk said, making a dismissive wave. "I'll be damned to let you kids make yourselves broke from trying to outfit your human."
"We're not pups!" Kinu pouted. "I'm already a hundred and two!" A few goblins stifled their chuckles as Kvaris made a witty quip and the two girls denigrated into literal angry barking and snarling at each other.
"Whoa!" Ingrid and Cecil chorused. Ingrid and Cecil huddled together with Zefir and began whispering to each other.
"They're actually barking like doggos!" Ingrid said, suppressing a giggle.
"I know!" Zefir said "but the funny part is that they're actually communicating!"
"They're so adorable!" Cecil added "And they're wagging their tails too!"
___
While the two girls are barking, the biggest bear that Ingrid and Cecil have ever seen burst into view from the forest. It was easily twenty feet tall and resembled a grizzly, but with a stockier body and it's fur was a more vibrant shade of red with mottlings of brown and black. It was barrelling towards the group, crashing through the trees the same way when Ingrid encountered that Tusk Boar.
As Ingrid flared her aura to warn the bear, Kinu and Kvaris, still angrily barking at each other, drew their kriegsmesser swords and rushed the bear. Ingrid and Cecil stared wide eyed at the irony of the two girls bickering while working together to take down the bear. They were definitely holding their own and despite their arguing it seemed to have motivated them to fight harder as if to show each other up.
As Ingrid watched she was sure the bear was experiencing that nightmarish situation some humans imagine if an angry rat went doom-slayer and rushed them. The garms moved fast, like a stroke of black ink and gold glitter they moved, joined with splotches of red as they drew blood from the bear's forepaws as it tried to swipe at them and then at its soft underbelly. With a loud roar, the bear reared up on its hind legs but it was too late as it was already disemboweled. It was then that the garm girls hopped up its body, cutting along as they did before finally severing the spinal cord from the brain.
The goblins barely had time to react and by the time they saw the garms run under the bear's body saw the flashing steel they knew the bear was done for. Tunk then called for his crew.
"Go get some ropes! We're dragging this one back to town!" The goblin said and his crew murmured in response.
Tunk and his crew help turn the bear to its side, allowing kvaris to cut open the body and take out the pluck.
"What are they doing?" Ingrid asked "We're too far from town to be making bear burgers" she said to Zefir.
"They're taking out the pluck and leaving it for scavengers. It also makes the bear lighter. Of course, there's probably some organs that have some value. This one's too big to go into my table box, by the way."
Ingrid patted his shoulder "Don't worry about it." She turned to the rest of the group. "I'll take out the pluck." she said, heading towards the group. Her Aegis Aura made the bear's slippery viscera no problem as it generated friction where she needed it. "So which ones are we dumping out?"
Ingrid dragged the bear alone, with her strength it might as well have been a cardboard cutout. Her Aegis aura kept her clean despite the messy work of dealing with blood and guts. What organs they kept, they put into a big sackcloth (courtesy of Zefir's Table Box) and they continued their way back home.
"It's going to be real awkward if we get attacked again." Cecil sighed.
"I doubt it." Kvaris said. "Anything that doesn't see us is going to smell the carcass of red bear, and they're high on the food chain. Anything that can tangle with a red bear is going to think twice because we just killed one."
"Red bears huh?" Cecil said. "Why'd it attack us out of nowhere?"
"That's our bad." Kinu said "I guess our arguing made it think it was being actively hunted so it went on the offensive and tried to take us out."
"That's pretty different from where we're from," Ingrid remarked. "Normally you'd talk loudly so you'd let bears know you're coming. At least that's that's how it worked for us, most bear attacks happen because they get startled."
"Then again, the bears here can get that big and considerably smarter, it just got proactive." Zefir remarked.
"It's being smarter just got itself killed." Cecil said.
Approaching the gate Ingrid saw George yawn, reminding her of a hippopotamus.
"No entry fee for your adventurers" George called, seeing that Ingrid and Cecil were probably not aware of how things work. "And great job on taking out that bear."
"It's these girls that did the job!" Ingrid called back.
"Huh…" George said. As the party drew closer he noticed the garms' shields. "You two wouldn't happen to be Amaduscia Enthana's kids would you?"
At the mention of their father, the girls' ears perked up and they wagged their tails. "Why yes! You knew him?"
The girls stopped to converse with George as the rest of the party headed back into town, George waved them through.
"Your old man once came here about a few years ago. Mentioned that two of his daughters were starting to feel their oats, told me to watch out for a pair of girls bearing the mark of his two ancestral homes." The orc said, nodding his head at their shields.
"Oh…" Kvaris said in recognition. She held up her shield a bit, it was a metal round shield covered with in leather like her brigandine. Apart from the rivets that dotted the shield it bore engravings of metal, depicting a tower standing against a blazing sun. "Forgetower, his mother's house."
"Hearthspire." Kinu said as she held up her shield, which depicted a different tower standing against a crescent moon. "Grandfather's house."
The orc smiled and nodded fondly. "Don't tell your old man I said this, but he really spoke fondly of you two…"
Meanwhile, the goblins parted ways with Ingrid, with Tunk heading to the guild hall to vouch for their completion.
"Where are we going?" Ingrid asked as Zefir summoned the leash and started tugging her to another direciotn. She was still dragging the red bear along, With her other hand she had slung the big bag containing the bear's useful organs.
"To the dismantling house." Zefir said. "It's a shop where they do the butchering and processing into-"
"B-but I'm too useful to become glue!" Ingrid joked. Cecil laughed.
"N-no! Not that way, Ingrid!" Zefir said, flustered. "The bear! We're taking the bear to the dismantling house and they'll turn it into money for us!"
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