A moment of silence passed between Lulu, Folke, and myself. The wolfkin remained stationary within the doorway and preoccupied his gaze with some unknown thing off on the far wall of the room. Lulu’s attention too strayed, but her focus was on the towel she’d kicked away in her efforts to keep the thing from me. Stretching a foot out, Lulu curled and uncurled her toes in a hapless effort to grab the towel.

                “Stop that!” I scolded Lulu, tightening my grip in order to keep her still. My arms pressed into the soft under flesh of the woman’s naked bosom, causing my face to heat up and redden further.

                “Hmph.” Lulu sulked and dejectedly gave up on retrieving the towel.

                “We’ll leave when the both of you are dressed. I strongly advise that the two of you not keep Zavis and the others waiting.” In contrast to his behavior just before, Folke assumed a commanding tone and stature. He’d now set his gaze directly upon to the two of us.

                “W-we’ll get dressed!” I stammered, my verbal composure shaken by the increasing skinship I now shared with Lulu. She was naked, I was naked, and Folke continued to stand in the threshold with the door wide open. “G-get out!” I demanded.

                “I won’t condone you’re dawdling. Zavis has called an important meeting and the two of-”

                “-Out!” I interrupted, pulling Lulu behind myself I raised my right arm and jabbed a finger into the air towards Folke. I wasn’t quite certain what’d come over me at this instant but I suddenly believed that I couldn’t allow this man to continue laying eyes on Lulu’s nakedness. “Out. Now. Unless it’s your intention to ogle Lulu’s naked body while she gets dressed.” I stormed forward.

                “What-no! I wouldn’t do that!” Perturbed and taken aback by my accusation, Folke took a step backward. Raising both hands, he promptly yielded to my demands. The moment he passed beyond the threshold I closed the door.

                “Lyssa is also female so… Folke would have been ogling Lyssa’s naked body too.” Lulu stated, matter-of-fact. With the door closed and wolfkin safely secured outside, her eyes drifted back to the towel on the floor.

                “Th-that’s not the point! Folke is a male and doesn’t need to be seeing either of us without our clothing on.” In my reaction to Folke laying eyes on Lulu, I’d completely blinded myself to the fact that I was physically female now as well.

                “Mayv’lar and Zavis are both male and Lyssa and Lulu were both completely naked in the bathhouse with them earlier. What’s the difference?” Lulu’s monotone words were blunt and viciously struck me to the core with their unbridled truth.

                “That’s…” I fished for a retort but my efforts to do so fizzled out. Lulu’s words were a truth I could not feasibly refute. She was right and it made me wonder why I’d even gotten upset with Folke in the first place. “Let’s just get dressed.” I sighed, resigning myself to the Chester drawer that held our assigned clothes.

                Lulu shook her head sharply in disagreement. “Lyssa dresses Lulu.” She stated, raising both arms to her sides.

                Of course she would go and make me the one responsible for dressing her…

                I examined the clothes left out for Lulu and I. The fabrics closely matched what I’d seen Zavis wearing earlier, except they were of a markedly more feminine design. The top half fit comfortably and appeared similar to a mini dress. Much to my dismay, the black pants to go with it were form fitting. Surprisingly though the pants were made of an incredibly flexible material that moved freely and felt as if I weren’t wearing anything at all under the dress… Whether intentional or accidental, Marla had actually forgotten to provide any undergarments with the clothing sets. It made me feel self-conscious because I wasn’t used to wearing tight fitting clothes let alone anything remotely close to resembling a dress.

 

*             *             *

 

                “Are you certain we’re going the right way?” Every hallway inside the castle looked identical to me. One door’s design and color appeared exactly the same as the last and I could swear we’d been going in circles since leaving the preparation room.

                “Yes. No. Sorry. Give me a moment…” Folke paused to gather in his surroundings. Wolf ears perked and facing different directions while his snout scrunched up.

                “Folke saw Lulu and Lyssa naked.” Lulu stated bluntly.

                “Shut it!” I hissed, feeling my face flush. Sure she was right and I wasn’t arguing with her about what had happened back in the room, but I didn’t see what need there was for her to bring it up again.   

                “That is not the issue here.” Folke stopped, nearly causing me to bump into him. “You are the issue.” Turning to face the two of us, the wolfkin raised a hand over his snout and locked eyes with me.

                “What? Me? Why? What the hell did I do!?” Was he seriously blaming me for his lack of focus? I mean sure, he’d seen more of my body than he needed to, but that was no reason to blame me for his current predicament.

                “You stink something foul!”

                “…Huh?” I couldn’t begin to comprehend what Folke was going on about. I’d just taken a shower so my body was completely clean.

                “You reek of sableberry… I can’t stand the smell of sableberries.” Even with his hand in the way, I could see Folke’s muzzle visibly twist up in disgust.

                “Sableberry…?” I asked quizzically. Lifting my arm I took a whiff. A faint sweet and tangy, slightly fruity scent touched against my sense of smell. It was the remnant fragrance of body wash I’d used in the shower.  Seriously? This is what was bothering him so much? “It’s just body wash.”

                “Folke can’t focus.” Grumbling at me, Lulu stepped in front of Folke. “Lulu will lead the way.”

                “That’s rich coming from you. Just a little while ago you were complaining about not even wanting to go to this mandatory meeting.” I retorted. To make matters more confusing for me, Folke’s stiffened features relaxed at Lulu’s offer to lead the group and he willingly fell in line behind her.

                “Lulu will go to the meeting because Lulu is tired of walking.” Seeing Folke fall in line, Lulu’s lips formed a cute smile and she started marching forward.

                “Stay back. About six feet should be sufficient to keep my sense of smell from picking up your stench.” Waving a hand behind his back, Folke motioned his demands at me.

                “Fine, let’s just get this over with. I don’t exactly want to be here doing this either.” I submitted to the new head of our trio and to Folke’s unreasonable demands. The meeting room likely had chairs, which meant no more walking would be required. This made Lulu’s enthusiasm more believable. I was slowly catching on, Lulu only put forth real effort when the results of that effort included her being lazy. Folke on the other hand… I was starting to think he just didn’t like me.

                “Here it is.” Lulu announced, stopping in front of and triumphantly pointing to a gray steel door. We’d only been walking about thirty seconds since she’d taken over the lead.

                “Thank you Lulu. I apologize for causing delay.” Folke stepped forward, taking the lead once more. He placed a hand on the door and silver light illuminated beneath his palm and fingertips. The light spread, forming a vertical line across the middle of the door. There was a grating of metal on stone and the door opened into two halves before receding into the wall.

                “Good you finally made it. Take your seats.” Zavis’ monotone words reached out to us from inside the room and betrayed his irritation at our apparent tardiness.

                I’d expected to see a simple closed off room with a table and chairs, possibly a chalk or dry erase board. Upon following Folke and Lulu into the room, my dull expectations were found to be astonishingly incorrect. An oval shaped table did exist in the middle of the room but it was far from ordinary. Its smooth black surface sat atop a fat rounded pedestal. Seven tall and high-tech looking armchairs were aligned at equidistant intervals around the table. Embedded into the arms of each chair there appeared to be screens. Approaching the table, I could also see that the entirety of its surface was one large screen.

                Zavis stood beside one of the chairs and silently motioned for me to be seated there. I obeyed the subtle gesture and strode cautiously over to and sat down on the offered accommodation, pausing briefly to tuck in the tail I’d forgotten I now had so as not to sit on it. Lulu melted into one of the seats without first waiting for Zavis to make an offer, releasing a heavily relaxed sigh as she did. Folke didn’t take to a seat but instead took up a standing position next to Marla on the far wall, as far away from me as he could reach... Zavis sat in a third seat. We occupied three of the seven available seats even though there were five of us present. I wanted to ask about the positioning and why Folke and Marla weren’t seated but remembered Zavis’ instructions requiring me to remain silent…

                “It’s good to see that we’re all here.” Zavis tapped a finger on the screen of his chair and the black surface lit up, revealing a series of white colored symbols I didn’t recognize. “Or at least I’d have preferred to be able to say so…” Zavis grimaced.

                I followed Zavis’ gaze and noticed his attention was on one of the empty chairs, except it wasn’t entirely empty now. Whether by the tricks of lighting, or by some fabled future tech I couldn’t explain, there now sat the translucent hologram of a figure in the chair Zavis looked upon.

                A woman wearing clothes identical to the ones Lulu and I had been made to wear appeared seated in the chair. If I had to put a description to the state of her figure it would be that she was stunningly gorgeous with attractive feminine curves in all the right places. A beauty beyond compare, with long blue hair curled up at the ends. Like the other demons I’d encountered, she too possessed the telltale black sclera. Nestled into the dark depths of the beckoning black, brilliant sapphire blue irises returned Zavis’ stare. Pure black horns extended back from just above her long pointed ears at an obtuse angle before curling down and around each ear, ending in forward facing points. Both horns glistened with a reflective light, giving off the impression that they’d been freshly oiled.

                “It’s good to see you too, Zavis.” The woman cooed, blowing a kiss in Zavis’ direction before offering up a mock smile.

                “Nashida. While I appreciate having you actually respond to the call for once, I must remind you that these meetings are not the kind you can simply choose to attend at your leisure.” His neck visibly stiffening as he spoke, Zavis reprimanded the woman.

                “Boo. Stuffy and stiff as ever I see.” Nashida pouted, waving a hand back and forth dismissively. “These meetings have rarely, if ever at all, served any real purpose. I see no reason to believe that mandatory participation is even remotely necessary.” Nashida paused, her gaze meandering over towards my side of the meeting table. “Earlier today Lyssa reneged on her promise to never lose a fight. Rather than knowing what you want to talk about Zavis, I’d be much more interested in learning the reason behind her decision to throw a fight against some lesser creature.”

                I cringed. This woman believed the Minotaur to be a lesser being compared to Lyssa?  Furthermore, she’d been watching the arena matches today? If Lyssa was supposed to be that capable then I’d failed miserably to perform up to everyone’s expectations…

                “Ahem.” Zavis brought everyone’s attention back to himself with a single forced cough. “This meeting isn’t about Lyssa, It’s about the continued threat we face from the Charmolgrath.”

                “What continued threat? The Enforcers already subjugated and killed the thing that breached our city’s shield.” Nashida scoffed. Crossing both arms under her bosom, the blue haired demon laid back in her seat. “I feel I really have wasted my time answering this call today.” Nashida continued defensively.

                “Yes, we defeated today’s threat.” Zavis reached over the panel on his chair and tapped several lighted symbols. The tabletop lit up and the hologram of a floating landmass topped with a cityscape filled the space above it. “Thankfully the damages and casualties from the incursion today were minimal, covering a total of only nine city blocks.” Tapping another button on his personal console, areas of the three dimensional map lit up and flashed in and out with a red glow. “However, the long range scans we performed in the wake of this event have revealed this;” Zavis double-tapped one of the keys at his console, causing the map to zoom out and move up. At the bottommost section of the zoomed out map, two glowing red dots appeared. “Two more Charmolgrath signatures have been detected. From these scans it is evident that both are working to make their way toward the planet’s surface.”

                “And you didn’t detect the first Charmolgrath’s proximity to the city until it was too late to do anything about it because… Why exactly?” Nashida shot a scornful glance at Zavis through the hologram.

                Zavis sighed heavily. “The long range scanners require a massive amount of energy to operate and they eat dangerously into the city’s power reserves as a result. We can’t afford to keep them constantly active without negatively impacting the safety of the city and its population. The analytics team has worked out the calculations and predict that at their current pace, these two Charmolgrath will reach the city within the next twelve days.”

                “In other words you just need to monitor the situation and blast the things out of the sky before they get a chance to go topside like the first one did.” Nashida leaned forward with an exasperated sigh, leaning her virtual image on the table in front of her. “If that’s the case then why did you even call this meeting?” She cursed.

                “Yes, well, preemptive counter defenses aside…” Double tapping the same symbol he’d previously used to zoom out the map, Zavis’ action caused everything before us to zoom back in so that only the city surface was visible over the meeting table. He then tapped another button causing multiple blue dots to light up and pulse across the cityscape. “Enforcer reports state that the incursions indicated here were caused by hostile specters appearing seemingly in random places throughout the city at exactly the same moment as the Charmolgrath breach itself. Not much is known about this secondary attack or if they and the Charmolgrath are even related, but Enforcers were slower to respond to these threats than we expected. Because of this, I’m proposing that each quadrant leader keep at least three groups of Enforcers on point-to-point teleporter readiness. We’ll expand our combat capacity by advertising and recruiting openings for new Enforcer positions. Additionally I’ll be pulling Lyssa and Lulu from their previously indefinite vacation and reenlisting them both back into active service with the Enforcers effective as of right now.”

                I glanced over in shock at Zavis’ surprise announcement to the table. Lulu I could understand. I’d seen her fight and she seemed more than capable of handling herself even if the enemy was a hundred times larger. As a businessman, I had zero talent with fighting. Why was Zavis guaranteeing my involvement in this conflict after I’d already told him I didn’t want to fight!?

                “I think I grasp the situation now. It’s annoying, given a problem like this has never arisen before but I’ll see what I can do on my end to secure this quadrant of the city. I assume you want me to inform the others as well?” Nashida inquired.

                “You do seem to have a way with getting them to cooperate so, yes. Please do.” Zavis acknowledged his plea with a nod.

                “It’s all about that feminine charm.” Nashida responded with a devilish smirk and a wink. She then reached over to the panel on her own chair and her holographic form subsequently vanished.

                I wanted badly to rage on Zavis for his statements, for recruiting me to help out in his problems without my permission. Unfortunately I couldn’t. Marla and Folke were watching and I didn’t know how out of character for Lyssa that an outburst from me might seem… I looked over to Lulu to see if she’d voice any objections to what’d just happened and was taken aback by what I observed.

                I don’t know when it’d happened but Lulu was fast asleep in her chair…

 

*             *             *

 

                “You know you could make yourself useful and help me test these things…” Having donned a pair of goggles, Freyja had hastened to the castle’s laboratory and was fast at work unloading the mana detainers she’d received from Zavis into a metallic cylindrical contraption. The device sat on the table before the purple haired elf and stood no more than a foot in height. Clear windows broke up the solid monotony of the device and revealed the contents within. She had a single Mana detainer presently suspended within the device.

                “If I could aide you in your quest, I would.” Mayv’lar responded, lifting both arms up for Freyja to see his hands. “My services are quite specialized and I apologize but dexterous acts are not something I perform well at when lacking opposable thumbs.”

                “Right, I keep forgetting that.” Looking up to witness Mayv’lar’s display of three fingered hands, Freyja pulled the goggles up to her forehead. “What did you need me for?” She asked. Without waiting for his answer Freyja pushed a button on the side of the device in front of her. Immediately the mana detainer inside dematerialized, revealing a sinewy white cloud in its place. Letting out an irritated sigh, Freyja picked up a small rod topped with a carved and glittering gemstone. Twisting the top of the cylinder, the container hissed as it became depressurized. Removing the lid with one hand, Freyja dipped the rod into the container. Upon doing this, the free floating white sinews were drawn into the crystal and disappeared. Pulling out the rod, Freyja picked up another mana detainer from the half empty satchel on the table and dropped it into the cylinder before resealing it.

                “In the arena today, Lyssa suffered an unexpectedly crushing defeat against Kregnok.” Mayv’lar stated bluntly.

                “She did? Are you certain of that fact?” Freyja nonchalantly inquired, pressing the button on the tabletop cylinder to remove the next detainer from its contents.

                “I am. I personally saw to her recovery so I can attest to the authenticity of this information. Lyssa suffered a broken leg and damage to her-”

                “-Ah…! Ah! AH! This is it! This is exactly what I’ve been looking for!” Freyja interrupted, jumping out of her seat at the table, Freyja’s purple hues grew bright with unbridled excitement. Within the cylindrical device an orb of yellow light had been extracted from the latest detainer. From it, sparks of electricity coursed over the floating orb’s surface at random intervals and occasionally sparked a bolt out toward the container’s walls.

                “That is…” Mayv’lar’s features rebounded with curious surprise at Freyja’s excitement.

                “Don’t you recognize it Mayv’lar!? This is a Soulspark!” Scrambling up from the table, Freyja dashed over to a shelf on the far wall where beakers, bottles, and gemstones were stashed. “I need to capture this thing before it dissipates!”

                “I can’t say I’ve ever laid eyes on one before…” Examining the free floating object within the container, Mayv’lar noted that it did appear to be fading with every spark it released.

                “I’m surprised you don’t know. Aren’t you one of the oldest demons in Neth’Lareese?” Freyja asked. Returning to the table with a shaped crystal, she promptly unscrewed the top to the cylinder and dropped the crystal inside. Replacing the lid, Freyja knelt down over the table to observe the insides of the device.

                “It’s working.” Mayv’lar calmly observed, seeing that the sparks from the orb were now directed towards the crystal. Each spark lit up the crystal with an increasing golden brilliance. Each time the Soulspark released a bolt of electricity, it grew less brilliant and after several minutes of waiting it faded away entirely, leaving behind only the faintly glowing crystal gemstone.

                Releasing a sigh of relief, Freyja dared to open the container and removed the crystal. “Judging from the current glow, I will need to extract at least two more of these in order to fully rejuvenate this crystal.” Setting the crystal gemstone on the table, Freyja returned to the shelf and retrieved a box sealed with a locked latch. Placing a hand on the box she locked eyes with Mayv’lar. “I can use the enchanted gems in here to deal with Lyssa’s public display in the arena this time, but I really need you to look after her from here on out. I don’t think I need to remind you about what could’ve been had she died today.”

                “I fully understand. If need be I am prepared to sacrifice my life to ensure her safety.” Mayv’lar vowed.

                “Thank you. I’ll owe you big time for this.” Freyja dismissed herself, taking up the sealed box and departing the laboratory.