I was awoken in the morning by the feeling of Beatrice's curvy form burrowing into my blankets, but it seems the actual thing that had her move to begin with was Seshat who came into the room and was silently walking/stalking towards us. But as my eyes snapped to her, she stilled like a cat in the midst of pouncing but ended up getting caught.
The cat goddess pouted at being caught but she shrugged and continued to walk to us with a sway to her hips as she finally stood over Beatice and I.
"Beatrice it's time to wake up you little morsel." Seshat spoke aloud making the cow beastkin burrow her head into my chest and pull the blanket over her head as she attempted to avoid waking up.
"Come on wake up." I chuckled as I gave her a good shake, which made her groan as her eyes lazily opened up with her dull brown eyes staring up at me. "It's time for you to get your tag of ownership I guess," I spoke looking up to Seshat who nodded before leaning down to pull off the blanket that lay atop us.
"Uhm can I at least get a shower first?" Beatrice asked embarrassedly as the scent of our joining let alone the sticky feeling was a bit of a mood killer for the event of her getting her own Falna.
"Bah, fine take Jake with you. Bell is already up and ready to go to the Loki Familia as the whole Boss Party event is today." Seshat reminded me making me groan at how the weekend had crept up on me too damn soon.
I wanted to pad out my stats more, that way when I killed the next three bosses in the Eye and Brain of Cthulhu and the Eater of Worlds. I could level up with damn near or perfect stats. But I suppose it will all work out even if I take a couple more days.
-
After fooling around for a bit with Beatrice in the shower where I got to explore her body in brighter light, we both got cleaned up with us separating after she got her Falna with nothing special upon it.
"Alright, Bell you ready to go!" I called out as I finished making the daily couple hundred health potions by just taking a bottle I didn't even need to make, and I had literally rigged up a tray so I could push the tray with bottles attached to it into the tank of Health potion fluids so I could fill a dozen bottles at once.
Thankfully I had finished the boss spawners for those three bosses in my free time though I had to hide the corruption and crimson altars I made out of fresh and rotting flesh because... Well, they were alive and could get grabby when you weren't looking.
And neither Hestia nor Seshat were into tentacle play, thank all the deities within Tenkai for that.
As me and Bell were heading towards the Loki Familia's mansion of the Twilight Manor as that was where we and the caravan of people heading towards one of Orario's neighboring castles were supposed to meet up, Bell asked me for advice as she knew even with her grappling hook she could get caught and smashed as I very clearly told her I had new boss monsters and that they were dangerous.
"I will explain when we get into things, so I don't have to repeat myself a dozen times... Just keep moving no matter what." I left it open-ended, as I really had no 'perfect' advice for any of the bosses other than fly way above the Eater and bomb the crap out of him, but who knows if that will even be possible here in a 3-dimensional world.
Once we arrived at Loki's Twilight Manor it was a bit of a madhouse as the whole street in front of the manor was filled with covered carriages obviously for carrying supplies and people from Orario to the site of the soon-to-be-destroyed castle. To say nothing of the crowd of people loading up into the carriages along with supplies.
"Let's go find Loki members to see where we need to be," I muttered to Bell as I wrapped an arm over her shoulders, so I didn't lose her as horses trotted to and from along with the people rushing in and out of the Twilight Manor.
Not only that but the guards were so swamped with directing the goods and people that we literally walked through the front gate with no issue as we walked in with purpose.
Once we got into the enclosure of the Loki Manor, I saw Riveria directing some female elves that were looking to her worship on where to store and transport the potions that were being taken to the site.
"Riveria, I wanted to know where Bell and I should be in this caravan," I asked and Riveria looked up to me from her clipboard and blinked in surprise seeing me in the middle of Loki's compound.
"How did you get in here; shouldn't the guards have directed you? No, it's irrelevant now, yes Finn is at the front of the caravan, and he wanted to speak with you about how this is to all go anyway." Riveria explained before waving her hands at us for us to shoo or something.
"Here follow us, Lady Riveria is very busy right now." A brunette elf spoke to us, and I just held up my hands as I nodded taking Bell with me as I left Riveria to her list as the Loki Familia elf escorted us out of the compound and literally watched us walk towards the lead caravan.
Once we reached the lead caravan, I wasn't at all surprised to see Finn also doing some check work for supplies for the literal three or four hundred people apparently as, to say the least people were hopeful for their chances to fight a weaker Monster Rex that could guarantee their level up without needing to force themselves to fight Minotaur's or Infant Dragons which could be more dangerous than a Slime King.
But the aspect that wasn't at all surprising was how Tione was hovering over her captain and all but growling at anyone who came to take up his time.
"Finn, I will be in the back of the cart so we can talk on the way. I got news of the new Monster Rex's I can summon and will need help clearing as they are more dangerous than the last two." I spoke up with Tione's face twisting into a snarl at my voice directly addressing her beloved captain but seeing it was me her face dropped the fierce visage and adopted a smile.
"Oh, new monsters... Alright just be aware that Freya's caravan will be catching up later, apparently, they will be guarding the Dian Chet Familia members who will be coming to set up a healing center." He told me even though I had no idea why he saw fit to share that information before I realized he was telling me that if the new monsters were so dangerous, we should leave them till Freya's adventures got there.
But he told me in that way he could save Loki Familia's face rather than just saying 'Just in case the monsters were too dangerous, let's just wait.'
-
On the way to the castle, Finn joined us in the cart allowing one of his level 3 Familia members apparently drive the cart so I began to explain to him the general abilities of the three bosses though I made sure to not share their names as the whole Cthulhu and Eater of Worlds bit could drive the deities of Orario into doing something... Stupid to say the least.
"So how long or huge is the new centipede-like monster you mentioned," Finn asked and I shrugged as my estimates for the Desert Scourge were wrong with the monster being almost double the size, I mentioned but people never really called me on it, as it was already so huge it made little difference.
"I cannot say but putting level twos and threes against it will only lead to their deaths probably. Even if it solo focused on me." I replied wryly as I realized I needed to get stuff that drew aggro away from me even if that would lead to other people's deaths.
Bell's hand that was on my arm flexed and she asked. "Jake but as a level one shouldn't you like not be summoning such a monster to begin with?" At that question, even Finn's eyebrow rose as he looked at me with interest and I knew he was going to take whatever I said to put in a bit of a psyche file or something.
"I would like some of the drops that come out of the monsters... Not only that but facing those will obviously give me the Excellia I need to level up as well." I added on with Finn nodding in understanding as fighting Monster Rex's and boss monsters always gave the best Excellia and high quality Excellia always made your stats grow by far the fastest.
Which is how Bell's cheat Liaris Freese worked. The amount of drive and desire she had would upgrade the lesser almost worthless low quality Excellia to high quality Excellia which would make her stats shoot up into the stars at an unprecedented rate.
After a while longer we finally arrived at the castle, and I could hear Tiona yelling out in joy at the ride ending but before me and Bell could hop out Finn spoke again. "Also, Jake, the Guild and other forces are very much interested in the tunnel you made through the dungeon into Rivira. The Loki Familia can hold our own, but a safe shortcut through the dungeon is a very appealing target to people especially with how you locked it down preventing anyone from entering despite people being able to see through the windows you left open on the walls."
Finn's calm eyes held me in place as he spoke very deliberately. "So be careful as you walk through Orario. That key you gave to Riveria has become a symbol to easily getting to Rivira without dealing with any monsters and supposedly the arrogant merchants are looking for assassins to take hits out on you to retrieve it."
I just sighed shaking my head. "If they want to die that's their business. I won't die so easily especially to a blade in the dark, but either way if something does happen... Thanks for the warning I can handle it." I spoke as I calmy stepped down from the carriage while Bell was waiting outside obvious to what Finn was warning me about.