Chapter 128: Chapter 128: Fully Powered and Ready to Go

Without the sun to go by, the only way to get an accurate measure of time was either by checking how many magic points one of the casters of their group recovered over time and doing the math, or by running through a ritual to completion since those took a set amount of time. Since the rituals were rather distracting, Jadis and the others weren’t able to time things down to the minute, but by the time they managed to successfully run through the full Lascivious Empowerment ritual as well as redo Kerr’s Lewd Lover’s Bond, they ended up staying in the small cavern side chamber for approximately another sixteen hours. Just as she had predicted, getting everyone in the group to climax in unison was a huge challenge.

On their first try, Jadis used her Ritual Time Reduction skill to try and make it easier for them as a group. Using her magic resource for the first time ever had been something of a thrill, even if it hadn’t had any overt effect visible in the world. When Jadis had made the conscious effort to use the never before utilized resource, she had experienced an odd tingling feeling as something she didn’t even know she had drained out of her. Using magic felt like flexing a muscle she’d never moved before, a wholly unique sensation she had trouble describing. When she mentioned it aloud, both Aila and Eir readily concurred with her about the odd feeling, though.

In any case, after expending one hundred and fifty magic points only to fail in the first five minutes because Eir came far, far too quickly while being serviced by Dys’ tongue, Jadis decided not to use the reduction skill again until they’d worked out a little practice. With a Will stat of five, it would take Jadis thirty hours to recover enough magic to use the skill again once she used it a second time and completely depleted her reserves. Coordination was going to be key.

Aside from Eir’s hair-trigger, the real problem was Jadis herself. Having sex with four beautiful women at the same time was exceedingly stimulating and even with her Refracted Mind skill to help compartmentalize, it was hard to hold back her own impulses. In order to get the ritual done, they ended up focusing on just being together sexually for extended periods, working their way up towards going a full hour as a group. Communication was key, especially since Jadis had to pay attention to the signs of four different people at the same time as well as herself. That also ended up being a challenge too, since Thea wasn’t the type to talk much during sex and letting others know that she was close was not her first instinct.

On the bright side, Jadis found that while she needed to maintain contact between her selves and the four women, the four women did not need to maintain contact with each other or all three separate instances of her bodies. Touching just one of her was enough.

They had to take several long breaks between attempts but fortunately, over the course of their extremely long and drawn-out orgy, Jadis was able to not only redo Kerr’s ritual boost so that her Strength attribute was increased instead of her Dexterity, but she was also able to refill Aila’s magic reserves from casting so many force trap spells while also filling her enchanted canteen. Kerr and Eir had been oddly happy to help Aila harvest her liquid resource while Thea had watched with unblinking interest. Still, it was such an overall tiring experience that they ended up putting their attempts at the joint ritual on pause while they slept for seven or eight hours.

After a full possibly night’s rest, they resumed their attempts. Their coordination and communication had gone up significantly by that point as everyone was starting to learn everyone else’s signs and tells, as well as growing far more comfortable with each other’s bodies. The girls got to the point that they were no longer hesitant to touch one another and aid someone along if it looked like some extra stimulation was needed to make sure one of their numbers climaxed at the same time as the rest. It was during one of their better attempts that Jadis found out that she could not apply the ritual reduction in the middle of casting one of her rituals. When she tried, the skill simply wouldn’t let her. To her, it felt like she was trying to flex that mysterious muscle but it was pressed up against a wall that wouldn’t allow it to move no matter how hard she strained. But they were at that point able to get past the hour mark as a group and while they didn’t make it all the way to the two-hour point and complete the ritual on that try, that was proof enough of their ability that on their next attempt, Jadis used her reduction skill. They were then, after countless tries and a whole lot of messy pleasure, able to finally complete the Lascivious Empowerment ritual.

As Jadis lay in an exhausted pile with her girlfriend and three – Lovers? Partners? Companions? She needed to talk it out with them once they were back to civilization – she opened up her status sheet to see the end results the ritual had on her attributes.

Overall, Jadis was feeling a lot stronger now. It was odd to see her Agility so much higher than her Strength, though. Not that she was complaining, but Strength had always been her biggest stat in practical terms. She was starting to wonder if she should redo her Eldritch Overlay skill. Then again, going from one hundred and fourteen down to thirty-two in agility would probably be a massive adjustment to make. She’d probably have to see what else she could do to boost her Strength by other means since she didn’t really want to lose her increase in Agility.

“Holy balls,” Kerr laughed, interrupting Jadis’ thoughts. “I’m so fucking strong!”

The excited therion punctuated the statement by lifting a surprised Eir up into the air with one hand on her ass, making the sweat and cum dripping elf yelp in surprise.

“I bet I could even take you on now,” Kerr flashed Syd a cheeky grin while doing a one-armed bench press with a fretful cleric.

“Bet me,” Syd grinned back.

“Okay, yeah, hold on,” Kerr backed down, eying Syd cautiously. “On second thought, I retract that statement. I already owe you too much food when we get back to Felsen.”

“Fucking pussy,” Syd laughed.

“Would you mind putting me down now?” Eir asked, still helplessly balanced in the air by Kerr.

Once they were done playing around and had cleaned up from their lewd activities, the group ate, rested for a short time more, then said goodbye to their cavern retreat. The stone chamber had served them well and they’d had some fun times within it, but it was time to move on. Jadis doubted she would remember many things fondly about her trip to Alawar, but this part of the disastrous journey, she had enjoyed.

She just hoped the next time the five of them were together carnally, they were in a warm bedroom with a comfy cushion of some kind.

Jadis led the group, her three bodies acting as vanguards. With her ridiculously large health pool, she was confident that she could handle any surprise attacks that the group might encounter. At least, she’d take the hit far better than any of the rest of the group. Kerr followed closely behind, directing Jadis on where to turn and when to stop for her to listen for unseen dangers. Originally Kerr had argued that she should continue scouting ahead, but with how difficult it was for Jadis’ large bodies to pass each other in some of the smaller tunnels, they had decided not to take the risk that she might get stuck between them and an enemy her much lower defenses couldn’t handle attacks from. Aila and Eir followed behind at a slight remove, keeping just far enough back that they wouldn’t be caught up in a melee if they were forced to fight. Thea brought up the rear behind them. With her impressively high Fortitude and heavy armor and shield, she had the second-highest defenses of the group and could serve as the perfect rear guard to make sure nothing crept up on them from behind.

Thea’s positioning proved to be critical during the first encounter of their resumed trek.

While many of the tunnels they searched forced Jadis to duck and squeeze due to her height, after several hours of exploring the group found themselves in a long, slightly curving tunnel that was wide enough for two of Jadis’ bodies to walk side by side and with a ceiling more than twice her height. The large tunnel stretched onward beyond sight, with the entrances to smaller tunnels occasionally breaking up the relative monotony of the stone walls. There were few rock formations in the far-reaching cave, but it didn’t have the unnaturally round shape of the cave-spider made tunnels. The effect was odd and gave Jadis pause as she stood at an entrance to the long tunnel, looking to the left and right, uncertain of which way to go as the cave stretched into the distance in either direction.

“Am I the only one getting weird vibes from whatever this is?” Jay asked, her voice muffled by her re-equipped helmet.

“No, you’re not,” Kerr murmured quietly from her spot just behind the trio of Nephilim. “Now be quiet, I’m listening for predators.”

They stood in silence for a long while, patiently waiting for Kerr to give them the all-clear. When the archer finally did, having heard nothing to indicate anything hostile was nearby, the group decided to follow the cave to the left. Their decision was arbitrary, since there was nothing to distinguish between the two directions otherwise, but left felt like the better choice to Jadis.

The tunnel stretched further along than Jadis had guessed, their group able to follow it for a solid ten minutes before there was any change at all. However, when it did shift, it was for the better in Jadis’ opinion. The tunnel started slanting upwards at a shallow angle. Not exactly a stairway to the surface, but she figured any upward movement was better than the alternatives.

As Jadis began to hope that their escape from the tunnels was nearing, a cry of alarm from behind sent her adrenaline pumping as all three of her bodies whipped around to face the danger.

“Spider!” Thea shouted, her round shield raised high as she blocked a long black chitinous leg from reaching Aila and Eir.

The cave spider had appeared from a hidden tunnel entrance above them, the circular opening to its den capped by a seamless false door that blended into the rough stone wall. It had come half-way out of its trap door, its long legs seeking to skewer the prey it had perceived walking below it. Unfortunately for the spider, Jadis and her team were not the easy meal the spider had hoped for.

Thea’s shield sang as the spider’s sharply pointed leg bounced off of it, the metal ringing in the echoing cave. Jadis knew from experience that the giant cave spiders were horrendously strong, their legs capable of piercing right through metal armor. But Thea’s shield didn’t even dent as the monster’s attack rebounded off of it.

Everyone reacted at the same time and, unfortunately, they managed to trip each other up. While Jadis’ bodies moved in perfect unison, she didn’t share that same connection with Kerr, which led to a momentary tangle as Syd bumped into the woman in the limited space of the tunnel, preventing both from charging back towards the spider as they were forced to catch themselves from tripping. Jay and Dys were able to shoot back towards the surprise attack with all the speed of her vastly improved Agility, though even that wasn’t quite as fast as Aila’s reaction.

A powerful force bolt slammed into one of the cave spider’s legs, smashing the appendage at the joint and crippling it. As the spider readjusted its positioning, Thea moved to cover Aila and Eir, moving the two back against the right wall, keeping them out of the way, a move Jadis greatly appreciated as her two bodies leapt at the wounded spider with mallet and maul.

The spider wasn’t able to dodge out of the way, its body not out of reach of their agility-fueled leap as the two struck the monstrous beast head on. Mirrored Strikes was triggered and the result was a gory mess of spider ichor as two more of the beast’s legs weren’t just crippled, they were crushed to a splattered pulp.

A moment later, Syd followed up her other selves’ attack with a piercing strike of her own, her long lance puncturing the many-eyed face of the spider, the sharp steel drawing out more foul blood as the wounded predator tried to retreat back into its trapdoor tunnel.

“Oh no you don’t!” all three of Jadis cried out, not willing to let this monster escape.

Dropping her mallet and maul, Jay and Dys jumped up and grabbed hold of two of the ten-legged spider’s remaining front legs and yanked hard, using their strength and weight to try and pull the beast out of its tunnel. The sharp spikes that decorated the spider’s shell dug into her flesh, but Jadis didn’t let the pain stop her. She wouldn’t let this creature escape, not when it had tried to go after her friends.

The crack of another one of Aila’s force bolts rang out as she cast another spell, destroying another front leg before it could try to counterattack against Jadis’ two forms pulling the beast down. With another leg gone, the monster was having trouble fighting back against Jadis’ combined strength, especially with Syd’s lance still jammed into its face, acting as further leverage as she heaved on the huge monster.

Suddenly, Kerr vaulted up and over Syd’s shoulders, catching hold onto the cave spider’s back and began hacking away at where the back legs connected to its thorax with her handaxe. In only a few Strength-enhanced chops, the therion had dismembered another leg. Down another limb, the giant spider no longer had the leverage to resist Jadis’ strength. Kerr leapt off of the creature as it slid out of the tunnel and crashed to the ground, right on top of a trio of force spike traps Aila had laid.

The sound of black shell shattering echoed again as the spike traps impaled the underside of the spider. Insectile entrails and terrible-smelling goo leaked out from underneath its body as the huge beast flailed its remaining legs. Jadis doubted the creature could survive the wounds it had just sustained, but she wasn’t about to wait and see how long it would take for the thing to bleed out. Sweeping her discarded weapons back up, Jay and Dys made a three-way strike with Syd, squashing the remains of the spider’s body, ending its life with gory finality.

“Good work,” Jay huffed, looking back at her companions. “Everyone alright?”

“No, you’re bleeding,” Eir pointed out, seeing the blood dripping from Jay and Dys’s hands.

In a flash, the cleric was next to Syd and pouring healing magic into her, bringing Jadis’ combined health back to full.

As Jadis flexed the completely restored hands of her two bodies, Syd swept her gaze over everyone and nodded once.

“I think we might actually make for a pretty good team.”

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