A salty sea breeze whipped through Syd’s hair, causing her to brush her fingers through it to keep it out of her eyes. Without thought, her hand went to her left brow, fingertips rubbing gently at the restored patch of hair there. Magic really was a wonderful thing. The regenerated eyebrow sent her thoughts wandering.
The acid breath attack that had caught Syd during the fight at the tunnel entrance had done more than just melt her skin and flesh. It had, much to Jadis’ consternation, also burned away her left eyebrow and some of the hair on that side of her head. While losing a bit of hair was generally speaking the least of a person’s concerns when faced with a face full of caustic bile, the physical damage done had been almost immediately healed thanks to Eir. What hadn’t been restored was the more cosmetic damage.
Aila had not been above teasing Jadis about the asymmetrical look of Syd’s face.
“On the bright side, it’s much easier to tell you apart from the other two now,” she had told her while suppressing a grin. “Usually I have to rely on which weapons you’re carrying to know the difference.”
That little tease had brought up a couple points that Jadis hadn’t thought of. First, she immediately tried transferring the missing hair issue from Syd to one of her other bodies. Sadly, it didn’t work. It seemed damaged hair wasn’t within the scope of what Mirrored Body’s Shifting Reflection could do.
The second point was the idea of cosmetic magic. Did it exist? Could magic be used to restore her lost hair, or change its color? Were there spells to alter looks, change faces, modify bodies? She knew illusions existed, but what about permanent alterations to the physical form? Eldritch magic was supposed to cover both illusions and physical elements, wasn’t it? Now that she desperately hoped to get her hair back without waiting weeks for it to regrow, Jadis wanted to find out those answers as quickly as possible.
As it turned out, there was magic for more cosmetic issues. Aila had filled her in easily enough on the possibilities, but even better, Eir had a spell for just the kind of problem Syd had.
The morning after the tunnel encounter, Jadis had gone looking for the elf priest at the temple. It had been easy enough to find her, as she was already rushing out of the large front doors of the looming, almost gothic cathedral style structure. Eir had had a pensive, anxious expression, but upon seeing the three giants coming down the street, her face had lit up like the sun.
Jadis had hoped that Eir would know a priest that could fix Syd’s hair and brow, but Eir had quickly assured her that no other priest was needed. With her magic power replenished, Eir had been able to restore Syd back to as she had been before the acid attack. The whole time the spell did its magic, Eir had apologized profusely for forcing Syd to go a whole night with her hair in an undesired look, practically despondent that she hadn’t had the chance to finish healing her. It was clear to Jadis that Eir had gone looking for her at the bathhouse again after they had returned to Felsen but had missed her due to showing up too late.
Jadis had begun to wonder if maybe she should just give Eir permission to come visit her back at the inn. Then the priestess wouldn’t have to come up with excuses to coincidentally run into her.
Once Eir had finished her cosmetic healing, Jadis had thanked the happy elf with a chaste kiss on the cheek, turning the poor girl into stuttering mess. It was hard to control her impulse to kiss her more thoroughly, just to see how the flustered priestess would react. She held back, though. The street in front of the temple didn’t seem like the place to escalate their relationship.
Or maybe it was? Jadis had unlocked an amazing secondary class because she kept fucking herself on the altar of her patron god’s temple. Eir hadn’t gotten her secondary class yet, so maybe if she took some lewd risks, she too would get an interesting and powerful class at level twenty. She might have to bring up the idea to the adorably innocent elf at some point. She doubted she’d go for the idea of sexing it up on the temple steps though.
Eir had been disappointed when Jadis had told her that she wasn’t going to be leaving the city that day. The weather had looked bad since sunrise and had only grown worse as they had talked. Still, she perked up considerably when Aila invited her to join them for lunch. Jadis was pretty certain that Aila hadn’t asked the cleric along out of pity for the lovestruck elf, but because she had a vested interest in getting her and Jadis together. Or rather, all of them together at least once for a particular empowering ritual.
The rest of that day had been what she could only call a day off. It rankled Jadis that she hadn’t gained any levels from the day before, but it hadn’t been a total waste on that front. Aila had gained one level, bringing her up to eight in Arcanist. Still, Jadis wanted levels of her own. Seeing the much higher-level Flame Wolves in action had fanned her already burning desire to grow stronger even more. Yet the next day was spent entirely within the walls of Far Felsen due to a near constant downpour of rain that lasted almost until sunset.
Not that Jadis was idle. Since hunting demons was off the menu with the poor weather, she had gone to visit her few contacts in the city, gathered supplies and generally got ready for her upcoming expedition to Alawar village with Kerr.
Jadis finally got footwear. Klara, the tailor, had three pairs of sturdy leather boots waiting for her when she went to visit her shop. While going around barefoot had become the norm for her after so long, Jadis had been delighted to have something to go between her feet and the mud and blood of the battlefield. Klara had also finished the last set of clothing she’d been working on for her and had made patches to the damaged clothing Jadis had dropped off. Of course, now Jadis had even more damaged clothing that needed mending, so she dropped those pieces off with the exasperated seamstress and put a standing order in for constant repairs.
Sabina had also finished with her helmets. Seeing the design the smith had gone with, Jadis could understand why it had taken longer than any of her other armor pieces. The helmets were visored barbutes, according to Sabina. The barbute style helmet normally had no visor and was instead a single piece of shaped steel that had a T shaped opening in the front for vision. The version Sabina had made had a similar shape but did have a visor that could be lifted up and back. There were trapezoidal holes for the eyes and three thin lines on either side below the eyes to allow for breathing. The visor was also shaped to have a point or ridge running up the front of it, with the ridge continuing up along the main body of the helm. Overall, the design was sleek and strong and, once Jadis put one on, vaguely intimidating.
It felt odd to wear a helmet that restricted her vision, but Jadis didn’t complain. She already had three times the vision anyone else did to begin with. Having protection for her head was definitely worth the minor discomfort of losing some peripheral vision.
Sabina had been thrilled with how pleased Jadis had been, and perhaps even more happy with just the way the Nephilim looked wearing the helmets in conjunction with the armor she had so far. It wasn’t full plate just yet, but Jadis was feeling more and more like a real knight every time she visited her favorite half-elf smith.
After getting appropriately equipped, Jadis had visited Kerr, finding the therion woman in her bar, sitting on a stool rather than passed out on the floor, thankfully. Kerr had taken in Jadis’ new look and complimented her in about the way Jadis had figured she would.
“Nice fucking helmets, big girls. Glad to see you finally figured out that getting hit in the head can hurt!”
When Jadis had pointed out that Kerr wasn’t wearing a helmet either when they’d first met, she’d brushed the comment off with a wave of a clawed hand.
“Therion helmets take a lot more work to put on and take off,” she’d explained, tapping her finger against one of her impressive black horns. “I just happened to be eating my trail rations when that fucking ambush took us by surprise. So don’t lump me in with wooden heads like you three that run around without helmets from the start.”
After a few more minutes of foul-mouthed banter, Kerr had taken them to the shop operated by Stenger and Son’s so that she and Aila could officially sign up for the escort job. They needed to sign up right away, though, since the expedition was set to head out on the next day.
Stenger and Son’s had a large shop in the market district that also served as both a workshop and an office for the guild. In fact, she’d passed by the shop a few times already. It turned out the merchant’s business was more than just gathering ingredients for enchanters to use. Stenger and Son’s also manufactured and sold completed enchanted items, not just the supplies used to make them.
While one of her bodies met with the guild representative that was handling the hiring, her other selves browsed the shop with Aila. The prices on enchanted items were, predictably, outrageous, even to Jadis’ limited comprehension of Oros economics. None of the shop’s inventory covered weapons or armor. Their specialty lay in less warlike equipment. Still, there had been items that caught her interest.
Lanterns that needed no fuel, cauldrons that heated themselves without the need for a fire, boxes that could keep anything placed inside them cool indefinitely, and pitchers that could purify any water to make it safe for drinking were just some of the fascinating magical items on display. After examining a few different versions of pitchers and cups that acted as purifiers, Jadis had to ask Aila why a vessel that purified water was needed when magic could just create fresh water instead.
Aila had explained that while magic could conjure things like water or stone into existence, magically created elements weren’t permanent. If you tried to drink nothing but summoned water, you’d soon find yourself dying of dehydration. The effects spells had on the world were real and permanent, but anything created by magic was ultimately impermanent and would disappear as soon as the spell was done or the magic ran out.
Thinking about it, Aila’s explanation lined up with Jadis’ own experiences. As soon as she had stopped duplicating her Mirrored Self passive skill with her Debauched Duplication ritual spell, Syd had gone away, including her loincloth. She supposed that meant that even though magic could heal or alter a body as Eir had so thoroughly demonstrated, it couldn’t just summon a whole separate body into existence permanently. Once the ritual was cancelled, Jadis’ third body and everything that had come into being with it had evaporated into thin air.
Jadis couldn’t justify spending money on any of the fancy enchanted items, not when she was putting everything she had towards her weapons, armor, and the custom wagon. Aila did make her own purchase, though. She paid the shop a sizeable pouch of silver for a large, circular, metal canteen that had a strap connected to it so it could be carried off the shoulder easily. The container looked like it could hold roughly the same amount of liquid in it as a liter and the salesman had assured Aila that any consumable liquid put inside the jug would be kept as fresh as the day it was poured in, no matter how long it was in there, so long as the cap was kept on and the enchantments were recharged weekly.
Aila had studiously ignored Dys and Syd’s knowing grins as she’d purchased the container.
With the weather uncooperative and nothing else pressing to do, Jadis had spent the early afternoon eating a long, slow meal with Aila and Eir, chatting about many different nothings in particular. Most of the topics were news about the central continent that went over Jadis’ heads, but she contributed where she could. When Jadis had mentioned that she couldn’t read the local script, the priestess had eagerly volunteered her services to help instruct the Nephilim. Jadis had accepted, turning the offer to teach into a casual invitation for Eir to come visit her and Aila at the inn anytime she felt like it.
The smile on Eir’s face had left Jadis with a feeling of warm butterflies in her stomach. The elf really was just too cute.
Eventually Jadis and Aila parted ways with Eir and they spent the rest of the afternoon dodging rain as they visited different shops and bought more supplies like quickly altered custom-sized backpacks, trail rations, extra-extra-large bedrolls, and additional sacks and ropes for carrying loot. Unfortunately, Jadis had to pass up the water-resistant cloaks as they were far, far too small, but she ordered some in her size to pick up when she got back from the trip.
Later that night, when Jadis and Aila had returned to their inn room, Jadis teased Aila mercilessly as she set about the task of filling her new enchanted canteen up with her “magic potion” as she’d taken to calling it. The large container had been well chosen; the size was large enough to hold the combined emissions of all three of her selves.
Of course, once the teasing and milking was done, both of them had been worked up enough that they had spent the rest of the night making sure Jadis and Aila’s Lewd Lover’s Bond ritual spell was well and truly recharged.
The next morning, feeling rested and refreshed, the foursome had made their way to the city docks. Jadis had told her ever-present escort about the fact that they were leaving by ship that day, so her usual escort of eight guards was waiting for them when they arrived, along with an eager-looking Eir. Kerr was there as well, of course, and she led the frankly oversized group to the dock with the right vessel.
Standing before the three-masted tall ship, watching the hustle and bustle of sailors and dockworkers loading the ship, the salt breeze blowing through her hair, Jadis could feel the sense of adventure fill up her chest. There was something about stepping aboard a ship that was bound for a dangerous port while kitted out in armor and weapons that made her feel alive. She couldn’t wait to get out onto the sea.
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