The Big Daddy with no drill, that was Santigo, lumbered towards Motherly-Wolf. With each step the rustle of shifting plates and the thunder of metal on stone sounded. He created enough noise to drown out a concert. -At least I think so, never did go to one back on Earth-

He stopped in front of The Pompous elf and proceeded to relay his canned instructions only muffled by the his heavy duty protection

 

"Ma'am, please place your feet shoulder width apart so that I may begin the auguring process."

 

She hesitated for a moment but did the smart thing and spread her legs. Santigo bent down and started to trace the outline of her right leg going up. Every other second it emitted an audible tick.

 

"Thank you ma'am. Do you have anything you would like to declare on your person to expedite this process?"

 

"Uh.. I have an enchanted box of holding."

 

"And where is this enchanted box of holding?"

 

"It is underneath my corset, between my bosom."

 

Santigo halted his wanding at that.

 

"You're serious?... Fine... Ma'am I am required to augur your bosom to ensure the enchanted item isn't leaking. Do you give me permission to pass my augur over it?"

 

The woman gave a Rye smile at his question.

 

"You may, handsome."

 

Santigo let out a suffering moan at her attempt and methodically passed the wand over her ample cleavage, and to the surprise of everyone there, the metronome like sound turned into a full-blown Chernobyl Geiger-counter. Mateo and Santigo both jolted away from the Elephant's Foot, thoroughly startled, though Santigo stumbled more than Jolted. Even Motherly-Wolf went wide-eyed at the reaction of the augur. Mateo rounded on the walking reactor core meltdown, his once-hidden thick Spainard accent became fully apparent.

 

"DE DIOSES! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU STORING IN THAT BOX?! BETTER YET, WHO ENCHANTED THAT PIECE OF SHIT!?"

 

"I DON FUCKIN KNOW! I'M JUST AS SURPRISED AS YOU ARE!"

 

"Ah PORRA! Santigo, stay back, even the suit won't protect you from-from whateverthefuck she has. Ey Tiefling, can you please secure her box? I've already been exposed for far too long an' I don't want to be turning aberrant. Despite your group being made up of Mana-tolerant persons, only two of you are free from crimination, and you're the tallest. Should make things simpler."

It certainly did make sense; Tah'Styr's height would allow her easy access to the shorter woman's goods. The fact that in this fantasy world falsified sexual allegations were still a thing kinda surprised me. Then again, there are probably more incidents of people getting handsy with suspected criminals as well, judging by the presumed timeframe.

Tah'Styr hesitated for a moment, probably weighing the risk of her apparent mana immunity; no, tolerance. She steeled herself and began to step forward... only to be stopped by my arm still wrapped around her slender waist. -How did I become so used to holding her? What's going on?-

She tapped my hand to inform me of her intentions and I forlornly withdrew my arm from her comforting embrace. -What, am, I, doing?!-

Tah'Styr warily walked towards the Elven reactor No.4. She got in front of the knife-eared fuel rod, plucked off her virgin-white glove, rolled up her sleeve, and gingerly reached a perfect vermillion hand into the pillowy abyss of the other woman's cleavage, to play a very fleshy version of a claw machine. Her forearm was halfway buried in the eggshell peaks by the time a minute had passed, really fishing about for the culprit. I won't lie, My leather-plated pants were beginning to tighten by the time she slunk her slender arm out of the cushioned chest. The whorlet panted slightly from the brief intimate exchange between the two.

Held between her petite thumb, index, and middle finger was what looked like a wooden Altoid tin. Fine golden filigree arranged skillfully on mahogany panels that even from the 10 feet away that I was, glowed with the same color of the giant ball of energy that floated over the city.

And, Most importantly: it was the same box she was sniffing nose sugar from earlier.

 

"Ma'am, de Dioses what do you have in that box of holding? And it'd better not be Thyne, or so help me!"

 

Motherly-Wolf fidgeted under the combined glare of everyone present. After only a moment, she broke and spilled the beans.

 

"Y-Yes it is Thyne."

 

"H-How much do you have stored in there?"

 

Mateo asked the Elf, looking like he was about to regret the answer he would receive. Her response came out like a machine gun, so quick in fact, that it was hard to understand what she actually said.

 

"IhavesevenstonnesofThyneinsideit!"

 

Despite me not understanding what exactly she blurted out, Tah'Styr did understand.

 

"Seven stonnes?... Seven... Stonnes! Th-That's 44 kilos of-of whatever "Thyne" is!

 

After performing her fast-maths, she reared on the chained woman.

 

"YOU-You have half a person's weight stored in this box... Of Thyne?! Also, What the fuck is Thyne and why do you need 44 kilos of it anyways?!"

 

Mateo let out a groan filled with souls of countless desk-jockeys the world over. He pointed to a metal case strapped to Santigo's armor, one that I just now noticed.

 

"Santigo please put that malignant box into the warding case, please. To answer both of your questions, ma'am: Thyne is a mana rich ore that the elves of Thyne-Lænd have found a secondary use for outside of forging Orichalcum. That use being refining it into a powdered form and snorting it in copious quantities. It's one of the reasons why Elves are so good at magic related tasks, and also why they tend to shake hands with hatters on the daily. This, High-Elf here brought enough Thyne in her bag of holding to purchase an armada on the Shadow Market. Though I suspect she’s just a stupidly addicted Powder-nose and that's her personal stash. Ain't that right?"

 

Instead of replying the elf just nodded her head with a face contorted in guilt, like a puppy who's been chastised by their own for chewing up a pillow.

Santigo efficiently collected the little box and secured it in the warding case. He finished sweeping across the elve's body in search for anything else. He then started on Tah'Styr, who to help with the wanding by grabbing the hem and lifting her robes, to the guards’ amusement and my resentment especially since she gave me a saucy little wink when she did it. -Fuuuuuck!-

Her enchanted Daisy Dukes got some pings but nowhere near the Rad-Zone levels of pings the box got.

Wanding finished and radioactive element properly secured, He quickly waddled back into the guardhouse, probably to put the evidence away and to un-equip his the HAZMAT suit. Mateo secured Motherly-Wolf as we all waited again for Santigo to be finished. I decided to make some use of the time and go through some of the other [Menu] tabs, namely the [Map] tab...

... It was... sparse, to say the least.

So far, it showed me a colored hand-drawn winding-worm like path starting from the glade we were in and ending in a massive bulb where the city was, everything else was just empty space. The parts of the map we had no visual on were slowly greying out. The glade was already monochromatic. Over the greying drawing of the city in big bold and flowing cursive was the name: O'Carón... That was it. No other point of interest not even a name of the glade we were dropped in... Well there was a name at the top of the map.

One which had a very familiar feel to it.