Malicious intentions is the difference between the getting a building to break on your head or getting to deal as much punishment and pain as you feel like to Yunan. Although Martin thought this point was attributed to the residual luck Debauchery gets from just being around the boy, the rest of Debauchery knew the secret long ago, when they could put the boy through harsh training and there was no bad luck retaliation even after he became a friend of Fortuna.
This time Debauchery chose the reason of keeping the boy mentally stable and reduce the chances of arrogance or reliance upon luck. A good excuse if ever there was one to beat up a child and teach him a lesson, no matter who protects you, there is always a loophole to be taken advantage of and Debauchery has already found it long ago.
After a good beating and a full heal, Debauchery and friends returned to the merriment of a party, well mostly they laughed at Lili who poured her heart and indignation about her few days in Debauchery. Things like how she was manhandled by the boys and was forced to take baths with them, or how on her first day as an official student, Debauchery took it upon themselves to do a level 2 battle drill, or how the shameless Fae burst inside the bathroom without even a notice. The pope comforted her and said "that is how adulthood is, one day you meet a person and by the morning they are taking your clothes off or helping you dress up, there is no need for shame between adults because they all know what is under your dress whether they seen it before or not, as for the mad training, life sucks and is not fair, get used to it"
Although the kindly pope said those words he still kept his daughter in his arms providing her with comfort and words of wisdom, as well as sneaking a glare now and then at Yunan and Leol for soiling the purity of his little girl. Martin was merely watching with fascination the weird ways Debauchery made their interactions or the subtle nuances between themselves and their juniors.
He saw a stronger bond than he had expected, although he dealt with Debauchery before he never seen them in their natural states. It simply was liberating to see the way they go about and how they have no regard to rules and customary behaviour, they just did what made them happy. It was the kind of stress relief he can never experience
Not long after the kids were taken away by Fae to sleep because they needed to wake up early and workout, and only the adults were left in the study room. Leader had gotten her hands on the now awake Drogon and was feeding it stripes of meat, Lucian, Balin and Bai were tossing dice and how too much luck ruined the enjoyment of gambling, while Dustan had leader in his lap and was using a weird massage technique with his meaty finger digging here and there on her skin and prompting the occasional alluring moan from her.
Fae returned with a serving of tea and served everyone in an elegant manner that was not there moments ago. After finishing their tea, the adults had a solemn mood replace the merry meeting.
"About that prophecy, what do you think will happen, and is the boy part of it?". Pope asked and was answered by Balin "we do not care about the prophecy or have any interest in knowing the future as for the boy, it was by mere chance that he became our student and mere chance was why we took a liking to him, he is lucky, maybe it is fate maybe it is not, we do not care, he is our student and if the prophecy says the world will die by his hands, we will spank him if he does it but not before, and since only the heart of prophecy knows the whole point of the last death, we in Debauchery can not muster enough willpower to care at all"
"But the world could end in a few years, are you not afraid?" Martin added and Lucian replied to him "We do not fear death nor do we care about world end, this world should have died in the race wars and the current world would have been something else. If this world was doomed then all that Hephaestus did was to delay the result for a few more years, fate doesn't miss no matter how far away we run with the target, so its futility itself to attempt to save a dead world"
"Fine just share with us the prophecy that was delivered to you, we know that you didn't want to hear it, and that you are not even trying to get away from it or actively seeking to fulfill it, so it must not be something very special or consequential" asked Martin
"Don't even dream about it" Dustan had a tinge of anger in his voice "that was a prophecy forced on us and none of us has uttered it or discuss it ever since the day we heard it, and we do not plan to discuss it until it is revealed. as for the prophecy we have more puzzle pieces and understanding but it will never be shared by us, so go torture that oracle who is keeping silent under your interrogation"
Leader had a more diplomatically correct answer " I think we all know how prophecy works and if the oracle who saw it chose to not talk about it then it means it is not meant to be known by anyone other than us, well, at least for the time being, so please take that into consideration. We are mostly waiting for the oracle to make the prophecy public so we can share the insights we gained about it but until then we prefer to keep it under wraps even amongst ourselves because there is always a possibility of someone listening on us, right?"
The relaxed old men had their senses spread around the estates but they were one step too late, the eaves dropping female was already standing between Bai and Lucian restrained and incapable of even blinking. Fae explained to the old men we found her when we came with the kids, she was stupid enough to try sending a message with us here, well we first thought she was with you, but when she made a report we figured she might want to hear more and baited her while we got our hands on her report, sorry for not telling you"