Screams shook Hal awake.
"Uhhh, what?"
Contrary to what he was hearing Harumi bent over his head looking down at Hal over her massive frontal gland endowment. Gently she was stroking his cheek. This morning she was looking much more focused and aware.
"Are you okay?"
Tentatively Hal asked, what with all the screaming he was wondering.
"Hmmm, yes, I am doing well. Thank you for asking."
Then after thanking him she bent down all the way and gave him a kiss on the lips. It was an upside down kiss, but it was passionate at least in the sense that it was wet.
"What?? Wait, what are you doing?!"
Frantically Hal scooted away from her and then righting himself he tried to stand up only to realized that his lower regions were acting up again. So he squatted back down and pointed his legs to the side.
"What? I am thanking you for saving me and every other woman here."
She said slowly and seductively.
"But, but, there is no ..."
Started Hal.
"Don't you want me?"
Harumi leaned back and opened her legs while supporting her chest from falling to either side with her palms.
"Want you? Yes, ..., wait! No, you are very beautiful, but I have to go check to see what is going on!"
Terrified of hurting her feelings Hal didn't know what to say, but did know that he had to get out of this situation before things progressed any more. Quickly he summoned one of his barrel/crap skeletons to follow. It would take a few minutes for the big guy to make his way over.
Running away and towards the loudest screams Hal very quickly arrived at the border of the camp which was also the border of the array. In front of him were three skeletons who were absolutely slaughtering his troops.
Hal stood aghast as he watched as Phil commanded his last ten skeletons to back off and give ground to the three new skeletons.
"I have to give it to you, you do have a lot of skeletons!"
Suddenly a voice spoke from behind where the skeletons were attacking. There calm as could be was a Lord supervising his skeleton troops. But then the man started to laugh.
"Ha, ha, ha, haven't you been watching the chat? The right way to increase skeleton strength is to develop them towards zombies. It looks like you went the other way and got rid of all their connective tissues completely! I should have attacked a few days ago! How stupid could you be?"
As this new Lord was speaking Hal thought back to the time when he was first exploring with his skeletons. His had had some connective tissue at the joints. This guy was saying that the skeletons were so much more powerful if that tissue was not only kept but strengthened?
Slowly a light was dawning in Hal's mind as he looked more closely at these three skeletons. Despite only being a little larger than the goblin skeletons they had absolutely been thrashed. Goblin bones from what looked like over a hundred skeletons lay strewn on the ground.
'Did I develop in the wrong direction?'
It was true, Hal could see now, not only had the connective tissue developed at the joints but there were also thin fibers connecting from the knee to the top of the thigh bone and from the forearm to the top of the upper arm bone. These skeletons looked like they could express a lot more force and more much quicker without compromising the bones.
In contrast his own goblin skeletons obviously demonstrated that they did more damage to themselves than others.
"You might as well give up now. Surrender and I won't kill you."
Suddenly serious the other Lord made a threat.
"What?"
Confused Hal still thought it was too early to be making threats. Behind him, finally, his barrel/crab finally made its presence known.
Hulking above everyone else the barrell/crab scurried straight up to the three skeletons and waved its arms. The four half skeletons on top threw ribs down as well.
"You think you can do anything to me?"
The over confident Lord had his skeletons retreat a few meters.
"This crab is just the same as the others, only being held together by mana bonds? What this!"
Suddenly the Lord who was kindly trying to educate Hal on how to properly grow his skeletons commanded his three skeletons to attack.
All three of these elite skeletons had iron swords and as they attacked Hal closed his eyes in dread fearing that his barrel/crab would be broken apart much the same way that the goblin skeletons had been. Instead he heard an exchanged of blows and peaking out Hal saw that his barrel/crab was holding itself together.
Sure the iron weapons could cut through the mana joints as easy as through butter, but the swords could no more than nick the wide bones of the crab. Even though the crab had lost one arm it continued to fight on easily against the other three with only one. And while Hal was watching the crab dipped down and extending the numb of its lost arm it reconnected its mana joint on its own.
Quickly had both arms back and was being much smarter in blocking. Never allowing the swords to hit directly on a mana joint again.
It was a much different thing to fight against a Lord who could micro manage his troops for a better outcome. The goblins had been frenzied so badly that they hadn't been able to fight effectively before. Now, though, Hal had turned the tables only through the size and might of his barrel/crab.
Seeing the stand off where neither his own skeletons nor the barrel crab could win the Lord pulled something out of his bag and threw it at Hal. Having been so casual about it the Lord went unnoticed.
Just before the thing landed again Hal's senses slowed way and he could see a little grenade looking object floating through the air coming towards him. There was nothing he could do beside duck and cover lunging to the side as the grenade exploded and shrapnel flung in all directions. Several thuds impacted Hal's side, arm, and leg as he came down. A moment later Hal felt like he was on fire.
Two more skeletons with fleshed out joints ran into Hal's camp from the woods as the Lord, a big smile on his face, proceeded in as well. Too excited the Lord didn't see the barrel crab come over and pick up Hal before placing Hal into its barrel. Safe inside Hal downed some healing potions that Georgie had recommended by placed inside each barrel crab.
Within moments Hal was healing and back to being able to function. Looking out through the eyes of his crab he was satisfied to see that his other barrel crabs had made their way into the action.
Further, this Lord had frozen as several naked banshees had finally decided to come out of Hal's new bracelet and screaming dive on and through the Lord. The last straw was hilarious as a naked woman were able to walk up and hit him over the head with a soup ladle. The poor man's brain had not been able to properly compute the sheer desire and passion he had experienced just by seeing this woman.
Once knocked out the five skeleton warriors went still. Unlike Hal's skeletons who were controlled by independent souls, these five lost their initiative when their master lost all cognition.
Carefully, Hal walked up to the ladle carrying woman.
"Hi, ... , thanks for taking this guy out."
Hal genuinely was grateful to her. Surprised he had not realized that any of these women would actually work to defend him.
"No, problem kid. Any time."
She said back to him and Hal immediately knew who she was.
"Jane? Is that you?"
He asked.
Smiling Jane looked at Hal and then ran her hands down her body and over her slim hips.
"I don't look the same do I? That [Goblin Grease] was terrible stuff, but there were some positive benefits for us older folks."
She winked at him and Hal couldn't help but look over her body, there was very little about her now that betrayed the fact that she was over sixty years old.
"You, you, you look incredible!"
Not being to conscious of his own words, Hal said the first thing that came to his mind before blushing a bright red. Apologizing he went on.
"Oh, I am sorry! I didn't mean to check you out! I was just so surprised..."
"I don't mind at all. Us older women actually lucked out. They still put us in the cages and raped us just as much as everyone other female, but we never had to go through those horrible pregnancies. Your look and your appreciation feel good after what I went through."
Jane said running a hand through her hair. Some dirt and twigs came out making it easier to see that her hair was grey.
"Oh, no, I bet you hate to be thought of as beautiful now?"
Standing over the Lord's body Hal and Jane talked seriously.
"Not at all, Lord, at least not by you. I am, I mean, we all are a lot more sensitive to the male gaze now. But when you look at me, I feel good, and that is priceless. Honestly I want more of it."
This time as she spoke Jane reached up to flick one of her nipples with her thumb. Smiling a bright welcoming smile Jane dropped her shoulders which had been tense and yawned. Visibly relaxing she rolled her head back stretching her neck.
Missing all the visual cues that Jane was really enjoying his attention Hal tensed up even more than he was normally tense.
"Oh, please don't get me wrong, I am not trying to make a move on you."
All Hal could think about was the Morrigan and whether his demi goddess of fate and souls would like this conversation or not.
Sighing Jane almost unconsciously shook her shoulders to break out of the reverie that she had just gone into. Again Hal's eyes slipped down to watch her body with the movement and then the next moment Hal gave slight shake of his head to get his mind out of the gutter.
"Oh, I wouldn't mind if you did. But for the other women you should probably keep that attitude."
She cautioned him.
"I will, I will, I promise I won't touch you or any other woman. Please, please understand!"
Desperately he tried to reassure Jane when she didn't need any reassurance .
"What I will say, Lord is that you should definitely treat each woman here the same way you just treated me. They could all do with some appreciation, especially now after what happened."
Saying this Jane moved away back to tending a cook pot at a nearby camp fire.
'I am so confused. I don't know what is happening and am so afraid of making the wrong choices!'
Hal said in his own mind.
[Just keep doing what you are doing. Just don't touch any of them. The Morrigan's threat is real. Please don't make her appear again!]
A pop up text box from Flo appeared. Even though it offered no understanding for the current situation it still reaffirmed his intention to stay away from these women.
[No, I am serious! One of the side effects of rape is that people seek to reach a new level of understanding for their own sexuality. So they will want to explore how flirtatious or tempting they can be. Don't fall for any of it. Just be nice and accepting. Appreciate them if you have to let out some steam, but don't touch them and get out of any situation as soon as possible.]
And Flo added some more important recommendations.
'Okay, I can do that. Sure!'
Having a way to proceed that would be least likely to create more problems, Hal quickly tied the Lord's hands behind his back and then Hal sat down cross legged and began to go into a trance. There was a lot of dismembered goblin skeletons lying around that he wanted to put back together and he wanted to see if he could play around with the five new skeletons that this Lord had brought over.
It took a good half of an hour to let all the feelings process through his mind and then let them go. This was the first time he was going back into a trance after three days of allowing Georgie to manipulate everything. As the familiar feeling of the trance came back Hal spent the next six hours working on putting all the goblin bones back together and singing the [Soul Requiem] ability to ensure the goblin souls remained firmly attached to their bone bodies.
Frustrating as it was to see how slow the process was when a demi god wasn't using its transcendental abilities to speed everything up Hal was struck by how enjoyable it was to use these new abilities.
For the five skeletons Hal quickly found that he was completely blocked from interacting with them at all. At least through [Bone Realm] and [Soul Requiem] he couldn't either manipulate their bones or their souls. Realizing at last that it was probably some kind of higher dimensional law and that as long as these five skeletons were 'owned' by that new Lord he would not be able to do anything to them Hal slowly came out of his trance and looked around.
He was completely alone. Surprised Hal felt that there had been humans doing tasks or at least children running around. Instead there was no one in the immediate area.
Instead as Hal looked around he saw that everyone was at the center of the camp.
'Did everyone find something fun to do?'
Thinking that there was some amusing activity going on Hal made his way back towards the center of the camp where he found that a tent had been erected. And also that people were giving him weird looks. Some individuals were outright staring at him. Everyone was being careful not to let their emotions show, but he could tell something weird was going on. People were keeping their children close creating an eerie silence that only became more and more strange as he came closer and closer. More people cut off their conversations and moved out of his way so that he could have a clear path to the tent.
Just as Hal was about to pull back the canvas entrance to the tent Nitesh ran up to him.
"Wait, Hal, don't go in there."
Nitesh's comment made Hal freeze and a sense of timelessness fell upon Hal. He had already been feeling like there was something weird going on, but now time seemed to slow down and a feeling of stomach dropping out fate suddenly seized the moment.
"There is nothing in there for you. Please don't go in."
Nitesh's words came slowly to Hal, as time seemed to slow down, Nitesh's voice dropped an octave and his intonation became hard to understand.
For Hal the time ticked by slowly. He felt robbed, like there was something going on that could only end up bad for him. Without enough information he couldn't know what the right course of action would be. All he knew was that this decision would have far reaching impact.
Shrugging Hal let his hand drop and turning looked over at Nitesh with a confused expression.
"Alright, buddy, I trust you. What is happening in there?"
Hal said and then asked a question as the sense of fate suddenly slipped away and time sped back up again.
But Nitesh refused to answer his question. Instead Nitesh said something to push Hal away and then pulled the cloth cover back himself and went inside making sure the door was closed completely behind him.
"I'll tell you later. Just go do something Lord like for now."
Finding himself standing in front of the tent Hal could feel all the eyes of every individual on him, even the kids. And then he allowed himself to hear what everyone else was already hearing.
"Ah, ah, ah! Ahhhh!!!"
Sounds of flesh smacking together and little cries of excitement came from the tent. It was impossible to disguise what was happening. Someone was having a good time inside, maybe more than one someone.
And then Hal just shrugged and walked away. His patch of grass was only about twenty meters away and thinking that he could go there and ask Harumi what was going on he made his way between people over. This time no one got out of his way, but they did start to gradually unfreeze and go back to work on minding their kids or looking busy on some project.
But when Hal arrived at his sleeping spot Harumi was no where to be found. Shrugging again Hal sighed and looked around. No one seemed in the mode to tell their own Lord what was going on.
So instead Hal walked around until he saw Priol and then walked over to the skeleton. Priol was sitting in a cross legged position and looked to be meditating. The skull had no eye lids so it was impossible to tell if the skelly's eyes were closed, but the soul fire wavering within only fluttered slowly as if the flames were in slow motion.
"Do you know what is going on?"
Hal asked and of course the skeleton was unable to answer.
Completely still Priol just sat there and waited for his master to ask him to do something that he understood.
"Alright, let's go, we need to start building defenses and homes. And the only way to do that well is with wood. Gather your skeletons and let's go cut down some trees."
As Hal communicated his command. Priol's eye flames jumped and he stood up. Interestingly enough when Priol stood up skeletons who had been in the area also stood up as if they to had been sitting in a lotus position just like Priol and had arisen as bidden.
Shrugging off the weird thought of the skeletons meditating Hal started off towards the edge of the clearing. Said clearing was much larger then when they had first arrived even if it had only been a few days. The goblins had cut down hundreds of trees extending the size of the clearing be many times again. However, the wood hadn't been used to build anything more than a fire and over the last few days all that would had been burned. Having been burned to fuel the various alchemy cauldrons it was understandable.
How they were going to cut down trees with the tools that they had, Hal didn't know. But this was the right direction for the territory to develop in and Hal would work with the skeletons until they could cut down trees. His greatest worry was that the skeletons would break as soon as they swung their little goblin daggers and swords at something as solid as a tree.
The big barrel crabs could probably have more success cutting down a tree, but even they lacked a good axe and their bones would still crack and break even if it would take longer than the little goblin skellies. Besides that he needed the barrel crabs to continue guarding the camp. It was clear now that they were the only ones that had any sort of fighting capability. And they were needed on guard duty.
So Hal was left with the goblin skellies, there were over a hundred of them and following Priol they were more than happy to mill around him at the edge of the clearing.
Just to confirm his thoughts and to do some research on exactly how the bones would break, Hal had one of the skeletons swing its sword against the truck of a tree. As expected the sword bounced off the bark and the skeleton's arms seemed to explode.
"This is going to be more difficult than I thought it would be."
Hal said and then was really surprised when he received an answer to his comment.
"What is going to be more difficult?"
Looking back Hal found that Meiyu had wandered up behind him and was looking at the little skeletons who were clacking around.
"Oh, just trying to figure out how to..."
Hal began, but Meiyu cut him off.
"There is no easy way to say this, so I am just going to say it. ... Harumi took James, that new Lord, into that tent..."
She said with no emotion.
"So?"
Unable to get what Meiyu was trying to say Hal wrinkled his brow and looked at her confused.
"And they you know."
Here Meiyu rolled her eyes and performed some motions with her hands.
"Oh..."
It was all Hal could say. Off here away from his people he felt no need to dramatize anything.
"And everyone in camp knows it. She didn't hide what she was doing at all.
Meiyu explained huddling in on herself trying to look as non threatening as possible. Her arms crossed over her breasts she looked away when Hal tried to catch her eyes.
"Uhmmm, ..."
Stuttering Hal felt his heart break and his emotions run cold. But at the same time he was anxious, his forehead sweat rolled down onto his cheeks and his palms became clammy and cold.
"Are you going to do anything?"
She asked him.
But all Hal could do was shake his head. For him it was in denial, but Meiyu thought that he was answering his question.
"Okay, well, I just thought you should know."
Quickly she said something and then hurried back towards the camp.
Hal just stood there not knowing anything to do but to turn back to his skeletons who had all gone back to a lotus position sitting on the ground.
'So weird, why are they doing that?'
This was the perfect distraction for Hal, away from the harsh realities of his position as Lord.