Arrival of angry Masters looking for revenge… t-minus roughly five days.
Sigh.
It seemed virtually impossible to believe that none of them had derived pleasure from sex at all in their lives, but it was true. This world had a heavy imbalance of males to females, and the males went around trying to kill each other all the time. Auralla had never personally spoken to a male before me, and only seen a few from afar. They were incredibly dangerous, after all. It was pure insanity, but resulted in scenes like this.
We spent the rest of the daylight at chores: firewood, foraging, hunting, skinning, and when those were done, training. After the movie was over we had a good half hour of lazing around doing absolutely nothing (except turning Mack off and saving on precious fuel). The only clock was the sun, and it freed my mind in a way I wasn't ready for.
No social media, no endless run of Tweets or Grams or whatever. No politics or arguments over the direction of the country, the world, the war. Just insects buzzing outside, slow measured breathing, and me wondering when the other shoe would drop.
The other women of Giskennen's
coterie
, whatever that was, would be halfway back to the city, or getting back tomorrow. They would be reporting my presence. We had to pull up stakes and get moving.
That was the easy part. After a no-frills evening of good roasted food and some conversation about the city, it was time to sleep.
This time I didn't want to separate out. I had felt something shift in Mack's cab, an indefinable change starting with the sharing of Avya's feelings and sensations with the others. So we slept together near the fire.
I'd gotten a number of system messages, but only a few of them were surprises.
Congratulations!
Your relationship with Avya Dalewind of Sunspire has reached Bronze tier. Avya has enjoyed her role in the events of the last two days as peacemaker and kingmaker. She also enjoys a good challenge, and your manhood had presented her with a mountain to conquer. Your abilities associated with Avya have also progressed.
The
Empath's Mark
would gain a new ability, but the other relationship messages were even more impressive.
Congratulations!
Your relationship with Velleth of Surrek has progressed.
Congratulations!
Your relationship with Dallinya of Surrek has progressed.
Congratulations!
Your relationship with Hellera of Surrek has progressed.
You laid the groundwork for breaking through barriers of distrust and disbelief, and past great amounts of trauma in a short amount of time, with the help of your two staunchest allies, but there are still hurdles to overcome.
Congratulations!
Your relationship with Fayeen of Surrek has progressed. The driving force has been Avya, though your behavior towards her has contributed greatly to this change.
Astonishingly, I now had three stars with Fayeen, nearly two with Velleth, and both of the reluctant Giskennen girls now had a star plus a bit of extra. Dallinya looked to be roughly a star and a half.
Behold
, I thought,
the power of pleasure.
We began in a ring around the camp fire, the better to speak with all of them and see their faces. Soon though the fire burned down, and their faces gradually disappeared. First it was just the glint of coals off their eyes, but after a while they picked up their sleeping bags, pillows, and came nearer to where Avya, Auralla and I were trying to squeeze into two open, fully unzipped sleeping bags.
I felt a pair of hands touching my hair, ear, and down the line of my jaw, and realized Fayeen and Velleth had bedded down in tandem as I had, and were close enough to reach out and touch. Then I felt another hand on my ankle, and looked down to find Dallinya and Hellera doing the same. They'd unzipped their sleeping bags and made little beds so they could share body heat, but as close to me as possible.
It was easily the strangest sensation I'd ever felt. You don't generally notice, or maybe you do. I hadn't been in a press of bodies, touched by more than one person, for
years
. Not since playing varsity football in high school, and that wasn't skin to skin. This was as alien to me as this situation was to all of them.
I could feel the eyes on me while the fire burned down and I told them how life under me was going to be.
"Tomorrow I'm going to grant you all freedom," I said. "But first we have to share gifts. Your gift to me, and mine to you. From there, if you want to, you're free to use that gift to get as far away from Surrek as you like. I think the sharing of gifts will fade over time if we're not in contact, but maybe it's permanent."
"That goes for you as well, Sunspire villagers. You're free to return to your home, and just as free to return to me after you visit."
I'd felt Avya stiffen up against my chest, then relax. And Auralla just clung to me tighter.
"If you stay with me, nothing will be the same. Everything changes. You need to be ready for that… I'm bringing my world into your lives, if you stay. Sometimes that will be very uncomfortable. It might be dangerous."
I caressed the hands currently massaging my scalp.
"Pff… who am I kidding? It's definitely going to be dangerous. Surrek is going to attack me and I need as much help as I can get," I went on. "The first essence sharing is needed, but you keep your magic, and you get some extra from me. That's something I have to do, but you've seen that it can be good. Tomorrow night will hopefully be fun instead of frightening."
I sat up and scooted down, so I could give Dallinya the same touch she'd given me. I stared down at Hellera at the same time.
"Sleep well."
***
I still didn't wake up dead from one of these former slaves trying to murder me.
We packed up the next morning, and before we got moving away from the place where Giskennen's slaves would direct Giskennen's friendly Masters, and I took Avya and Auralla aside.
"You two have been just amazing." Avya first. "Thank you for being the lynchpin to this entire thing. You made this happen. Way more than anything else I did, you did it all but better."
I knelt down and gave her a soft kiss, the kind you reserve for lovers on Valentine's Day when you're reminiscing about how things have gone well, and how you met, and how sparks flew, to keep that candle burning bright. She was near to tears when I opened my eyes again.
"And you're my OG," I said to Auralla, and stood. "Without you there's no Avya, there's no Jerry the jiddara, and that fight against the orc from Surrek would've gone much differently."
She wasn't ready for the tenderness in my kiss. Tears were brimming, and she stared into my eyes with those brilliant emerald gems of hers.
"What is happening?" she asked. "Are you leaving us?"
"Absolutely not… I thought you might want to return to Sunspire and wanted to give you the choice. Tonight…" When we have the orgy, I didn't say. "…all of you will have the choice to stay or go. You grew up there. Your people are there. I wouldn't dream of tearing you away from your entire lives, and putting you in danger."
"Oh!" she cried. Literally cried. She wiped tears from her face and jumped into my arms. Avya had embraced me by the waist and was definitely nuzzling my sleeping dick to see if he he would spring into action.
"I mean you can visit Sunspire, head back there, and rejoin me later if you want, or you can stay there. I mean it's totally up to you."
Now Auralla was grinning.
"But!"
The smile fell away.
I tried to keep this sounding gentle and soft instead of what I really wanted to do, which was scare them. "I don't want any more recruiting out of Sunspire. It's going to be just as dangerous if you go home and start telling tales, or spreading rumors. You might have close friends there, but I can't… I can't have the Domi as my enemies."
I looked down, to where Avya was rubbing her face against my midsection. "And you had better quit that before something terrible happens."
"Oh no!" Avya feigned shock. "Whatever will I be subjected to? Will I be held down and have my body plundered by this big strong man? Will he brutally ravish me and flood me with his beastly essence?"
Auralla snorted.
"Please, giant male, please don't grind me into the dirt with your magical tool of sharing essence, and please, oh please don't make me scream your name over and over again."
"Hell," I complained, and swatted her hands away from my new skirt. "You're insatiable too. We need to get back to helping pack up, before the other four think they're really slaves again."
The ladies could all fit in the cab, and while it was not very comfy, it was more comfortable than being crushed to death by the shifting contents of whatever was in the trailer. Our summoned creatures sat atop the truck, and here's a part I missed: that morning, when Jerry jiddara was supposed to come bursting out of my chest, I was given a choice instead between the striped jiddara and the little black creature I'd caught as part of Auralla's training. I still picked Jerry, of course, but the option to have a shadow finnet was something I'd consider.
Not.
"Can we view more tales from your world?" Velleth asked.
"Oh… sure," I said, "but I can also give you a taste of some of the strange music that comes out of my world."
I selected the one CD I'd forgotten to give back to my ex after I'd broken up with her and began the hellish purgatory of having her still sharing my apartment. Soon the ladies were bobbing their heads to some cheerful and somehow angry pop from someone with a bunch of record deals. I didn't know if it was Katy P. or Taylor S., but the women heard it and they listened. And then, because pop is predictable, they began to sing along. One of them began to make up lyrics.
I just drove. The music went from pop song to pop song, all uplifting and empowering, all of them pretty bland, and once again I faded into that robotic driving mode where you see things and avoid smashing into them, but the miles disappear and the outside blurs into monotony.
The girls got this, too, watching the landscape pass by faster than they'd ever seen it. I was only doing about thirty miles an hour, but it was fast enough, apparently.
Once we parked, we stretched out and got to training. This was physical training: running long distance, spear throwing, sword fighting with the foam swords (which were far easier to break than I imagined) and then sword fighting with sticks wrapped in fabric. Auralla supervised this, where she turned from an adorable bubble butt marshmallow with rainbow tints in her hair to an absolute demon.
After lunch, Avya took us through guided meditation, which I initially thought was going to be a pointless exercise, but as soon as I sat cross-legged and stopped imagining Avya in my lap, the world of magic exploded into my senses.
I could hear magic. It sounded as though tiny sparklers were fizzling off in different directions. I could smell magic. The scent coming off Avya's aura was different than Auralla, was different than Fayeen. The tiefling smelled excitable, and that's not something easily put into words. The smell was like nothing I'd ever experienced, but the part of my brain that was now Attuned seemed to have trouble fitting the smells into a neat box. She smelled like potential energy, like a coiled spring.
Of course I could see magic in the air, and I'd tasted it when getting down and dirty with my two favorite Sunspire villagers.
Avya helped clear my mind of all distractions with her Broadcast Empathy power. Immediately, the magic became clearer. I sensed it farther away, could pinpoint the sparkler sound of it better. For the first time, I noted a slipstream of radiant energy that wasn't just sky or clouds, but a rainbow hued line of magic energy running in the direction of Surrek.
It was a ley line, of course, but I just needed Avya to say the words. I knew what it was subconsciously, but once she spelled it out it made complete sense. We weren't directly beneath it, which would've been bad apparently. There were a lot more floating rocks along them, for one. The girls also explained that beasts were transformed into monsters along ley lines much more frequently, or magical creatures just came into being on ley lines.
The one overhead wasn't the largest to be found. That record was held by another line beyond Sunspire, beyond the far villages, to a landscape where people rarely ventured. The really nasty, big monsters lived out there, and the landscape itself got a little… twisty, like gravity being strange and the veil between worlds thinning.
I hoped they were talking aliens, because I could do with some aliens.
Near the end of my meditation it was time to check up on my abilities. The
Empath's Mark
had changed, and I hadn't looked at
Drifter's Mark
either.
Empath's Mark
*Special ability, magical*
*Bronze tier, one star*
Normal: Activate this ability to sense the mood of the crowd around you. Directed toward a single indvidual, you may read the surface thoughts. You can sense the rough number of individuals within thirty feet of you. This ability is difficult to counter, even by those of higher tier than you. If you succeed a Sly check, the individual will not be aware of your probe.
Once active, this ability is continuous and costs moderate mana over time.
Bronze: Activate this ability to broadcast a mood to a single target, or over a large area (about twenty feet in all directions). Those affected may make a Clever check (with the Spot skill) to notice the effect, and a Tough check (with the Will skill) to nullify the effect.
Once active, this ability is continuous and costs high mana over time.
You gained this ability after joining with Avya Dalewind of Sunspire. This ability's tier is tied to your Relationship with Avya Dalewind of Sunspire.
All this sounded very useful, essentially the same thing Avya was able to do by her lonesome. It might come in very handy if and when Giskennen's friends came back for retribution, though I needed a way to recharge mana faster. So far, aside from Auralla's healing salve, the axe and the nose ring, I hadn't seen much in the way of video game equivalent items. It would be great if I could have a bunch of repeated, super easy random encounters, and just stock up on healing and mana potions, but it wasn't working like that.
Drifter
*Special Ability, Inherent, Magical*
*Bronze tier, one star*
Normal: By pushing yourself to the point of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion, you have awakened the magical potential within yourself to travel between worlds, as well as learn magic.
This Ability also enhances your Attuned and Tough attributes to a moderate degree, permanently.
Bronze: Impermanence and flux are now the Drifter's life. For high mana, you may teleport from your present location up to forty feet in any direction.
In addition, you may keep Relationships from decaying for significantly longer than usual if there is no Relationship activity.
This ability is linked to your Attuned attribute.
Okay this was weird. Below Drifter was a second ability I hadn't had before.
Adrift
*Special Ability, Inherent, Magical*
*Bronze tier, zero stars*
Since you are not of this world, your soul has a connection to your home world. You can access that world in limited ways.
Normal: Activate to visualize a place in your home world, and maintain to move your perception through the area at your maximum running speed. Raise to high mana cost in order to hear or smell anything in your perceptual window.
Costs moderate mana, plus moderate mana per second to maintain. No cooldown.
Bronze: Activate to reach across the veil separating worlds and bring an object to this world, or deposit an object in your home world. The object must be something you can lift with one hand. Does not allow the transport of living creatures.
This ability costs very high mana. No cooldown.
This ability is linked to your Clever attribute.
I could only do it once, which was exhausting, but what I ended up with was a baseball from my apartment, one with a fake Alan Trammell signature. The scuff marks and the grass stains were the same. I dropped it into the grass and stared at it, while my mana began to slowly recharge.
Later, we also trained in sneaking around (Velleth was the one to follow for this, as she was apparently the sneakiest) for a while, and then following all that, we settled down to a round of baths, clothes washing (the trailer had a pallet of detergent as well), and basking around the fire nude while the clothes dried in the sun.
Nearing dinner time, Auralla approached and settled hands on my shoulders. "You will need to sequester yourself away from the females until the moon rises."
"Oh… okay. First, I need to know if I could have access to your storage bracelet, pretty please. Then I really want some further explanation on whatever the heck you're talking about."
She slipped the bracelet off her wrist and I tried to keep my eyes off her assets. "They will undergo the purification ritual, and males are not permitted to view or interfere."
"I still don't know what that means exactly."
"The ritual prepares the females to be viciously attacked by their new Drifter Master." She gave me a mischevous grin. "A purified female is better able to generate the power for sharing essence."
"Or for brutally stripping it away."
She nodded. "Giskennen's women have never undergone this ritual. They barely know of it. They have told me Giskennen never knew of it or expected them to do it."
"Is it fair to assume the other Masters of Surrek don't know about it?"
She chewed over this and shrugged. "I have never been to the city, only heard tell of it. Avya and I will make them pure as the day they began to flower with magic." She winked at me and left me wondering just what in the hell—
Was this a virginity parallel? I wondered if the magic did some bizarre body stuff, like restore the maidenhead or something. I was probably overhtinking it, and the ritual just enhanced their magic. No more.
But what if…
I'd find out in a few hours. I told myself to let them do whtever it was they were going to do, and that Avya was the key to solidifying those relationships for the night that would soon be upon us.