The dark violent skies overhead were finally starting to lighten up, the sun had reached the horizon inching closer to the edge. Jack frowned at the weakening storm, it had caught him by complete surprise. It had formed unnaturally fast, almost as if something had generated it. Yet Jack had not detected a trace of magic in it, nor divine energy in it.

Wondering if something was slowing them down for some reason, Jack turned around and took a look at the place they were staying at. When they had first arrived, all Jack could see in the pounding rain was that it was a large overhanging rock that managed to fit the entire expedition under it.

With the skies clearing, Jack could now see it was a pillar of rock that had fallen against another large pillar. The pillar looked like it had been sliced off its base a very long time ago, and was now creating the shelter they were going to spend the night at.

When they had arrived, Jack had helped set up a series of tents to help block up the storm from reaching the interior of the space. Jack could see several fires dotting the interior of the space. Alexia had helped dry some firewood they collected. A cold chill was in the air, so they would need the heat tonight to keep warm. Ritalassa hated the moist air and was currently staying inside their tent.

Stepping forward back under the rock shelf, he saw Lady Niadas was in a heated conversation with Princess Falean. Jack noticed that Princess Falean had wrapped a blanket around herself. Going to them, he greeted them, "Princess Falean, Lady Niadas, it appears the storm is letting up outside."

"That is good to hear Sir Jack." Princess Falean said.

"Is there a problem?"

"There is a problem. Princess Falean deemed it necessary to sleep with my servants without gaining my permission." Lady Niadas glared at the Princess.

"I hardly see why I needed to gain your permission. They willingly agreed to it. If anything you should take it up with them."

"What is the matter Lady Niadas?"

"I signed a special contract with my servants. They must have my permission to have sex or they will be punished by the contract."

Princess Falean said "Who establishes such a weird contract? If you desired that, you should have just bought slaves."

"I made them sign that contract, because their seed is worth hundreds of gold coins. Do you know how often I have sent them out to breed other noble families servants?"

"Is this argument about money? Fine then I'm uncertain how many times each of them came, but I can pay any amount you wish."

Lady Niadas eye twitched and she said "No, it's about the fact that each of them loses a year of their life when they come without my permission. Look at them!"

Jack looked at the tent she was pointing at and saw three half-naked old men looking dazed and confused. One of them looked familiar, then Jack was startled to realize the now thin weak looking man in the middle was Teraka. Lady Niadas continued "Why didn't you stop when you saw them aging?"

"Why should I stop when they are still going strong? Am I to stop in the middle of getting railed to make sure they are doing okay? The problem as I see it is you had them sign an outrageous contract."

"It's only on, when they are on duty. Like they were supposed to be when you were screwing the life out of them!" Lady Niadas gripped her hands.

Princess Falean scoffed and said "Then that's their fault then. I only invited them into the tent. I did not threaten them to fuck me. They could have left anytime."

"Could they have? They must have come at least forty times each of them. That is impossible normally."

"Well, to be fair, I did offer them each a very special aphrodisiac. It's the only way I can get most of my lovers to last."

Jack was alarmed and said "Aphrodisiac? What kind?"

"Sir Jack, I wasn't aware you would be interested in matters of the flesh given your nature." Princess Falean gave Jack a look that made his skin crawl. "It's a mixture I produce from Snort. Due to Snort's nature as a hermaphrodite, it makes quite a potent aphrodisiac from its sexual fluids."

Lady Niadas rubbed her face and replied "Princess Falean, if you must you are allowed to sleep with my other servants."

"Was that so hard?" Princess Falean and began to head towards the area where the horses were stored.

"Princess Falean where are you going? Your clothes are still in the tent." Lady Niadas asked.

"Oh I'm still quite dirty. I need to get cleaned up, and I find Snort's tongue manages to reach every crevice." With that the princes walked swiftly away.

A disgusted expression flashed over Lady Niadas, and she said "I am regretting agreeing to come on this expedition."

"Now you know how I feel." Jack said.

Lady Niadas said "Unfortunately our circumstances have forced us to this point."

"What will you do with them?" Jack said pointing at her three now elderly servants.

"I will have to have them retire. I will provide a pension to them for the rest of their lives."

"Is there no way to return what they lost?"

Lady Niadas thought for a minute and shook her head "No, what the god of time would ask for, I could not afford. When we reach the next place to get horses, I will have them return home."

"Perhaps this will teach you a lesson in contracts."

Lady Niadas smiled demurely and said "Indeed. Though I do not comprehend why my men did what they did. They should have known better."

Lord Attomas came up to them and said "May I have a word with you two in my tent?"

Going to the obnoxious green tent, Jack stepped inside and found it was pleasantly warm inside. A fold up table had been put in the middle with a set of chairs. Jadai was sitting on one looking bored out of his mind. "Are you ready brother?"

"Yes, let's talk about the plans for tomorrow."

Lady Niadas took a seat as did Jack. She said "So how far back are we set?"

"If we continue as normal, we will be set back a day." He pulled out a map and laid it across the table.

"Sounds like you have an Idea brother." Jadai said.

Lord Attomas nodded and said "We can make up the day if we cut across this point." He pointed across a gorge.

"If we have to climb across that, it will take more than three days." Jadai said.

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"Who said anything about climbing? No, there is an ancient bridge there we can take across."

Lady Niadas frowned and stated "If it could act as a shortcut, why are you just now bringing it up?"

"There is a monster tribe living in the area. If we want to use the bridge, we will have to fight our way through."

Jack asked "What sort of monsters?"

"Arachne's."

Jadai squinted and said "Don't tell me this gorge is the lair of the spider queen."

"It is, but she lives deep within the gorge. We won't see her, the Arachne's we will face are the weakest of the bunch. Only the strong ones get the right to live within the gorge itself."

"How do you even know this bridge is still passable?" Lady Niadas asked.

"I hired several scouts to look for paths to the lost city when news of it reached me. One was able to sneak across the bridge. I decided against crossing the bridge initially as it would take time to fight through the spiders. But seeing as we are behind schedule it will serve as a way to speed up the trip."

"You want to fight through the spiders, with a carriage with pregnant women onboard?"

Lord Attomas nodded briefly. "Sir Jack I must ask a favor of you, currently your members are the most combat ready. I can have Yukali help you, please clear the path ahead of us, when we get to the bridge."

Jack thought for a moment and said "I will do so." This would be a good opportunity to get some experience for his users.

"Great. After we get through the bridge, we will be ten miles away from the last way station I have set up. When we get there, it will just take one more day to get to the lost city."

Jack asked "How has this lost city never been found?"

"Technically it's been found several times." Lord Attomas said. "However no path has been able to work the same twice. Sometimes nothing would be found the second time. It was only recently a true path was discovered."

"What do you mean true path?"

"Sir Jack, the city is shrouded in a massive illusion spell. The spell is so potent, apparently it's causing the massive magic contamination in the area. The tunnels to the city are a maze, and due to the Illusion spell have become impossible to navigate. That is until the a true path was discovered and mapped."

"How was this true path even discovered?"

"An adventurer reported it to the mission guild. I got ahold of the report and quickly verified it."

Jack nodded, and thought about the conversation he had with Alexia about her brother dying in the region. "Does the Mission guild send people to this region often?"

"Well not really. They really only began sending people out three years ago to my knowledge."

Narrowing his eye's Jack sank into thought. It is possible the mission guild discovered the illusion spell when they were searching for Alexia's brother. If that's the case, could her brother have been searching for the lost city as well? "Did you have anything else to speak about Lord Attomas?"

"No, I thank you for lending your Healer to me."

"How is the baby boy?"

"Doing well I hear."

"That is good. Will they continue with us to the lost city?"

"Yes. It is a good opportunity to observe what happens to a monsterkin child when exposed to large amounts of magic."

Jack said "I do not approve of your line of thinking Lord Attomas. I find the idea of you experimenting upon a child abhorrent."

"If you are troubled for the safety of the child, fear not. I assure you; the magic will have no lasting damage upon them. I have experimented on adult monsterkin, and found no lasting damage caused by high levels of magic. In fact we are at far more danger of magic damage then they are."

"Be that as it may, it is still morally repugnant."

Lord Attomas frowned and said "Your morals are not based on those of reality. Good? Bad? Those remain merely terms we developed to make people do what we require them to. Reality cares scarcely for what we do."

"Then you do not care about the judgement of the gods?" Jack asked.

"Ultimately they are just like us, if not more powerful. What is good to one is bad to another. Again, they are still subject to reality."

"Then there is nothing you consider absolutely wrong?"

Lord Attomas laughed and said "There is nothing absolute in this world. Not even the gods are absolute. There is a time and place for everything. I think we are done with this conversation. Thank you again for taking the lead tomorrow."

Feeling a little annoyed Jack said goodnight to Lord Attomas and left the tent. Jadai followed and said "I apologize for my brother. He has some unsettling ideas."

"His ideas seem to say he has no moral compass."

Jadai nodded and said "When my brother was young, he was kidnapped. He was missing for three years, when he was found in the forest, he was covered in blood. He has since refused to be touched by anything but monsterkin. I do not know what happened during those three years, but it has marked his beliefs."

"In that case he has issues that need to be addressed."

"That he does. Good night Sir Jack. I must get going, I have an appointment that I cannot miss." Jadai said and headed towards his tent.

Jack feeling a bit unsettled decided to return to his tent where he found Ritalassa lying on his cot and flipping through a bulky book.

"Where did you get that?"

"Alexia managed to borrow one from that Empire outcast. It's about mechanical golems, apparently he was using this as part of his research to alter his body."

"Is it interesting?"

"Yeah. In fact I was thinking if you can't create a living body for me, you might be able to build a body like this, well only more female." Ritalassa said pointing a tentacle at a picture of a golem.

"We will see. Tomorrow we will be fighting."

"Good, I am up for some fighting."

Jack sat down and laid, waiting for Megan to come, so he could talk to her about the plans for tomorrow.