When the four hunters came back to the road where they left the former bandits, they were greeted by the site of their cart fully repaired and ready to go.
“Damn sis, you and your ‘minions’ work quick!” Lilie said appreciatively.
Rayna looked back from the impressive work of her underlings with a smug grin. She then proceeded to do a double take when her eyes fell on her ‘little’ sister.
“Okay seriously, I’m going to need a fucking explanation right the fuck now! I’m not letting myself get distracted this time!”
Lilie’s face flushed a deep crimson. She tried a couple times to open her mouth to speak, but it was as though the words got caught in her throat on the way out. Sade patted her on the shoulder. “I did promise I would explain properly for you. Just jump in and comment if I fail to give proper context.” Lilie nodded and gave a grateful smile.
“Alright.” Sade said, locking eyes with an expectant Rayna. “To start, you were aware of your sister's condition, how her constitution was permanently locked and she always felt hungry even when she ate a full meal?”
The crimson bandits' eyes grew wide. “I knew about the eating thing, but what do you mean her constitution was locked?”
“As in, no matter how she leveled or trained, her constitution score on her status could never be raised.” Sade raised her hand to forestall further comments. “Please let me catch you up to what we learned about all this before you ask further questions.”
Sade then gave a brief overview of the night after the battle with the crabs and their conversation on the ride home. Lilie commented occasionally, but otherwise remained quiet and still blushing furiously, especially when Sade started to describe their first night in their new house.
When the subject of the glowing mark came up, Rayna couldn’t help but interrupt. “Wait, you found your aspect?” She dashed forward and hoisted Lilie up by her armpits. “You found your aspect!” She proceeded to twirl around with her poor sister still trapped high in the air. All the shaytoni around them started to give great cheers and congratulations to the thoroughly confused healer.
“There was a bit more that we discovered, but I believe it is time for you to explain a few things.” Sade said as Rayna finally set her sister down and enveloped her in a fierce hug.
Rayna grunted in agreement. “Right, so! What we’ve found out is that all shaytoni are born with a part of themselves that develops separately from the body. We consider it a seal that needs to be unlocked before we are allowed to become our true selves. This is our aspect, our true calling. Once we discover our aspect, we can cultivate it to develop new abilities we never dreamed about!” She stood proudly, her head tilted upwards and her hands on her hips. “I was actually the first in the group to discover my aspect.”
“It’s using your dick to plow a girl's pussy, isn’t it?” Lilie asked dryly.
Rayna flinched at the accusation.
“And you discovered it by accident in the bedroom.” Rick added.
Rayna stepped back as if struck.
“Specifically the first time you and Jamie got together.” Sade concluded, looking at the woman in question.
“Oh come on! It shouldn’t have been that obv-” Jamie coughed and Rayna froze up mid rant. “I-I mean, I h-ha-have absolutely no idea what you are talking about!”
“So, is everyone’s aspect all about sex like ya and yer sister’s?” Tyr asked dryly.
“What? No!” The former bandit leader shouted back. “Jamie found her’s after practicing some advanced ice spells, Glaive got his when he fought a strong monster in single combat, Anders… well we don’t talk about his aspect much.”
“I showed her a live crab I bought at the market and she freaked the fuck out.” The young blond man shouted out with a chuckle.
“I thought we agreed to never speak of it ever again!” Rayna snarled, her hands erupting with that interesting dark fire. “Or do we have to reenact what happened right after that incident once again?”
“Nope! All good boss!” Anders said as he quickly ducked behind one of his larger companions.
“Perhaps this is a good time to introduce everyone. We’re about to set out together and I only know a few of your names.” Rick said diplomatically.
Rayna huffed at her cheeky subordinate one last time before turning back to the hunters. “Good idea, but we should do it while we head back to our base. We left Kitten there alone to watch over things.”
“Kitten?” Tyr asked.
“The youngest member of our group.” Jamie answered. “She drew the short straw today and had to guard our meager hoard while we were out.”
“And is her aspect related to kittens?” Rick joked.
Rayna snorted. “Nah, lightning actually. But she’s just so damn cute and feisty that the nickname just fits. She’s almost as strong as me and Jamie, so don’t underestimate or piss her off or you’re likely to get fried.”
With that comment, they all loaded up on or near the cart and started to set off towards the bandits hideout. Rayna assured them it was nearby and wouldn’t delay them much to gather all their things from the base before marching back to Shatak. While they traveled, she started to point out all their companions and gave a brief description of each.
“The big blond lug is Glaive. Don’t ask why he uses an axe instead, it's just a running joke at this point.” She pointed to the handsome man with the saber. “That’s Faris. He and Glaive are hopelessly in love, so don’t try to get with him.” She seemed somewhat serious, but none of the hunters had eyes for anyone but each other, so Faris’ charms were not a factor to consider in the least.
“A-anyways, that’s John, Jamie’s twin brother. He’s a fan of spiders for some reason, keeps a big fucker as a pet.”
John gave his boss a rude gesture in response. “You leave Mallie alone, she’s never hurt anyone.”
“She tried to lay her eggs in my fucking hair! You’re lucky I didn’t burn her alive for that!” She shot back. “Moving on! The dusky lass is Willa, and the small lady next to her is Bai. They’re another one of our lovey dovey couples.” The couple in question were the two mouthy women who had the misfortune to have wrestled with Tyr during the earlier scuffle. They nodded to Sade, Rick, and Lilie, but shot Tyr slightly dirty looks. The elf just gave them a toothy grin in response.
“You all know Anders.” She said pointing to the smaller blond man. “Next to him is Reed, our scout, and Davie, the closest thing our group has to a healer.” Rayna concluded while pointing to the tan woman with a bow and a dark skinned man with a quarterstaff respectively.
“You four must be pretty high level to have taken us all on like you did. Do you mind if I ask how high?” Jamie said from her position on her lover’s lap.
Sade didn’t quite know how to best respond to the question. Sadly, the choice was taken away from her nearly immediately with a loud bellow of laughter.
“Ha! I’m tied for highest in the group at level six. The two humans are both five.”
“No fucking way!” Rayna shouted. “I’m level ten, and my little sister beat me at half that?!”
“To be fair, these madlads can’t be measured just by level.” Lilie cut in. “Each of them have at least one stat at sixteen or higher. And Tyr’s just a beast who walks on two legs.”
“Aww, thank you!” Said beast replied, genuinely touched by the compliment.
Jamie looked from Sade, to Rick, to Tyr, then back to Sade. “I can believe it.” She said, giving Sade a wary look. “I could probably learn quite a lot from you, if you would have me.”
Sade nodded politely. “Perhaps. My classmates have unfortunately already asked for my tutelage, and there are only so many hours in the day.” She looked at the two shaytoni sisters. “Speaking of magic, I honestly could not tell if your duel was staged or not. Those looked like real blows and lethal spells you two were throwing around.”
“Well… um.” Lilie said hesitantly. “Aside from that last blast of fire, Rayna wasn’t really holding back.”
“What?!” The three hunters shouted in unison.
Lilie held out her hands in a placating gesture. “It’s fine, it’s fine! The two of us practiced fighting together for years. While we were actually trying to beat each other, most of our moves were slightly choreographed, so it looked far worse than it really was.”
“And the flames?” Sade asked.
Lilie scratched her cheek nervously. “Well… there’s a reason my resistance is so high.”
“You burned your sister over and over until she became resistant to your magic? And you let her do that to you?!” Rick growled at the sisters with a surprising amount of vehemence in his tone.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold up! Let me explain.” Rayna said with her arms out in warding from the heat of his words. “First of all, shaytoni are mildly fire resistant, even for the magical kind.” When this somehow didn’t seem to make Rick’s mood improve in the slightest, she quickly added. “And she asked me to use my magic on her! Lill’s wanted to become a healer so she had me burn her just enough for her to practice her healing spells.”
To no one’s surprise, Rick was far from mollified at her words. He glared daggers at the two crazy shaytoni, causing both of them to look chagrined. Sade was merely wondering how their tribe gained the previously mentioned fire resistance, and why that was something two little girls knew about, let alone could exploit for their own gain.
“It seems that Lilie was a better fit for our group than I thought.” She said idly.
Rick rounded on her. “You’re not helping!”
Sade did her best to remain calm and composed while she placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. She knew his anger stemmed from being told someone he cared about was hurt repeatedly by a close family member. She tried to pour calm and soothing thoughts though their physical connection and eye contact.
“While I do not wholly agree with the methods, we do have to work on resistance training ourselves eventually. We could learn from their experience in the matter.”
He stared at her, disbelieving what his ears had told him. It was several tense moments of him staring her down before he hung his head in defeat. “Y’all are fucking insane. I’m just calling it out now.”
Tyr slapped him on the back gently. “Took ya long enough ta figure that out!”
While Sade felt mildly offended in being lumped in with the giant elf’s antics, she didn’t have the heart to really deny the allegation. It was somewhat true, in a sense.
“Um… there’s something I still don’t quite understand.” Rayna said tentatively. When no one stopped her, she turned to her sister. “Why the fuck did you get all skinny after our fight?”
Lilie jumped at the question suddenly directed at her. “Oh! Well… all this,” She said, gesturing to her enhanced assets. “When I feed on Rick’s mana, it's all stored like you see here. But we’ve found out that I can tap into all that magic to enhance my physical attacks or bolster my spells. While that big ass pillar of fire was hollow, so I wouldn’t get hurt if I just stayed put, it was still strong enough to burn through most of my remaining reserves to forcefully break out of it.”
Lilie gave a satisfied sigh. “That fight was so nostalgic. I remember we used to put on shows for our family and neighbors when we were kids. They had no idea that aside from the dialogue, we were actually sparring.”
It was Jamie who burst out laughing from Lilie’s confession from her comfortable spot on Rayna’s lap. “Sorry, I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that our dear overlord was overly dramatic, even in her childhood.”
“S-shut up!” Rayna stuttered, her cheeks and ears doing their best to match the shade of her long hair. Everyone around them laughed good naturedly at her embarrassment. Jamie reached up and gave her blushing lover a sensual kiss in apology. Everyone’s mood was high when the cave the former bandits used as a hideout came into view not long after.
Patreon
Mortuos· Mar 19, 2024
