“Well?”
“Well what.”
“I’ve been around you for long enough to know that face, Noll. That’s your ‘something I just saw made me feel old’ face. So go ahead and say whatever it is you’re going to say. I’m listening.”
Noll’s yellow eyes narrowed to slits as he regarded Dys sidelong. Jadis had been avoiding giving the old mercenary too much sass out of respect for the fact that he was teaching her without requiring any repayment. However, the more she hung around the man the more her natural cheekiness was slipping out.
“A conversation better had with your sisters present,” he finally answered. “I don’t like to repeat myself.”
“No, go ahead and tell me,” Dys insisted. “I can always tell them everything you say. We’re good about communicating like that.”
“Fine,” Noll growled back at her. “First, you tell me. What did you do wrong?”
Dys moved to scratch at the back of her head but her gauntleted fingers met only the back of her helmet with a slight clang. Annoyed, she flipped her visor up and blew a puff of air out from between her lips.
“The whole jump and slam down from above thing was kind of reckless…”
Noll snorted loudly.
“Okay, a lot reckless. But it got the job done, so, you know, it’s only a stupid idea until it works.”
“Hmph,” Noll made a noise deep in his throat at that assertion. With one eyebrow raised, he motioned for her to continue with a circular motion of his hand.
“And maybe my side tackle wasn’t necessarily the best move either,” Dys allowed. “But this armor is made to handle a lot of punishment. I knew we’d kill them all before I got overwhelmed.”
Noll continued to be silent, letting Dys feel awkward as she awaited the inevitable criticism. After several long, long seconds of silence, she sighed.
“And it’s really fucking fortunate that Aila, Thea, and all of them were able to defend themselves while me and Kerr and my sisters were out scouting.”
“That,” Noll pointed with one claw fingered. “That.”
“That what?” Dys shot back. “Yes, I should have been here to protect them, but Thea and Aila and Bridget had it handled.”
“You’re the vanguard,” Noll rumbled while tapping a claw against Dys’ chest. “You. Jay. Syd. The three of you are not scouts. You’re frontline fighters. You take the hits, you lock down the enemies. There was no reason for all three of you to run off chasing demons in circles. At most you send one of you. Not all three.”
Jadis had to bite her tongue from replying back on that point for multiple reasons. First and foremost, Noll was right. She’d decided to go scouting with Kerr because she knew she could run faster than the archer, so she could keep her safe. But did Kerr really need that protection? She was a veteran mercenary, higher level and with years more experience than Jadis. If she said she could scout and lead the demons back, why doubt her? She should have let Kerr handle it.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, she couldn’t admit to Noll that she literally could not split her selves up like that. Not at the distances she’d been roaming at today. Based on how far she was able to go around Far Felsen and her experience with the Burning Rancor carrying her high into the sky, Jadis guessed she could separate her bodies maybe half a mile before the pain in her head became too overwhelming. There was no way she could leave two of her selves behind to guard the rest if she was going to travel more than a mile away like she had with Kerr earlier.
“You’re right,” Dys finally said after chewing on her response for a minute. “We definitely messed up there.”
“Poor planning,” Noll reprimanded her as he refolded his arms. “You were doing well with the prepared position. Luring your enemies to ground you have control over is the best option to take if possible. That redheaded girl has some talent when it comes to her spell traps. Those are an advantage you should be using whenever you can. Why did all three of you separate from the main group?”
“I guess we just figured we wouldn’t be gone so long.”
“Bullshit,” Noll growled out. “The mage and the ex-soldier have good heads on their shoulders. They understand basic military strategy. The smith and the priestess and the orc might not know any better, but the archer does. Why were they okay with letting all three of you run off like that?”
How could she have expected Noll of all people to be anything less than direct? Of course he’d suspect something so of course he would confront her about it without hesitation. Maybe someone like Vraekae would try to silently appraise and observe to confirm suspicions. Not Noll. He’d just come out and ask and either force her to come clean or tell a lie.
Well she wasn’t going to tell Noll the truth, not when she knew he’d be reporting everything back to the Second Prince which meant that info could end up with who knew how many people and used against her in all kinds of ways she couldn’t foresee. So that meant she had to lie. And since that was the case, she regretted the fact that she’d pulled her visor up. It’d be a lot easier to lie if she didn’t have to look the old man in the eyes.
She decided the only way she was going to navigate lying to Noll would be to stick as close to the truth as possible, while relying on the fact that most people in Oros considered class information to be deeply personal not something easily given out.
“Look, it’s because of our classes, okay?” Dys finally said while staring straight ahead. “We all share the same primary class and one of the benefits of it is our boosted coordination. We’re stronger when we’re near each other, so we stay next to each other, always. It’s just instinct at this point. We do everything together.”
When she finished Noll made no comment. He just stood there next to her, arms folded, observing her.
“You’re not getting more out of me on that one,” Dys added after a moment, turning to look at Noll directly. “Our class details aren’t for ‘public consumption’ so that’s all I’ll say about it.”
That prompted a grunt of acknowledgement from Noll.
“If that’s the case, then let’s work around it,” he said while scratching the fur on his chin. “You’re right, you shouldn’t tell me your class details. But if you’ve got skills that make you three stronger when you’re working together, then there’s some things I can teach you that’ll help with your combat style.”
“Thanks, I’m sure my sisters would appreciate that,” Dys said earnestly. “We really do appreciate your advice. Really.”
“Hmph,” Noll grunted. “Then heed this: don’t leap blindly into a pile of demons again or I’ll beat your lily-white ass purple. Tell your sisters that.”
“Fair enough,” Dys said with a roll of her eyes. “Didn’t have a whole lot of choices there, though. Speaking of, where were you during all that? You didn’t step in to protect them when my backline got ambushed?”
“Is that my responsibility?”
“No,” Dys reluctantly said after a moment. “But were you seriously going to just watch while they got overrun?”
“I was watching,” Noll shook his head. “They were doing fine. That priestess has some huge healing ability for her level. Besides, I dealt with the only threat that would have made that fight unwinnable for them.”
“What do you mean?” Dys asked but Noll said nothing more and only pointed towards the southeast, past the hill that blocked off that side of the landscape.
Since nothing more was forthcoming from the old wolf, Jadis decided to go check out what he meant. Her two other selves were helping the rest of the team gather all the bounties so that was all well in hand. She had the time to go check on what Noll was indicating. Besides, she figured showing him that she could put at least some distance between her selves would be a good way to reinforce that she was multiple people instead of actually just one person multiplied.
Jogging around the cliff edge in the direction Noll had pointed, Dys saw the various bodies littered across the southern hill. Most came from the southeast and were clearly dead from attacks made by her party. The blast damage from Aila’s force bolt was distinctive, and the large crossbow bolts Sabina was using were easy to spot. Counting the numbers, it looked like there had been nearly as many twisted wretches in the mob that had attacked her backline as had been in the mob of bone thieves she’d kited. Considering how well they’d done against such a large force without her even being there, Jadis had to give her team the credit they were due. They could really do some serious damage.
Jadis was still thinking that when she crested the next hill and saw what Noll had been talking about.
“Fuck me…”
There at the base of another hill, were the bodies of two large grundwyrms. The massive stone demons had been sliced into literal pieces, the large chunks of stone that made up their bodies cut at sharp angles. Parts of their bus-sized bodies looked like they’d been put through a deli meat slicer.
“Okay, I think I might owe that old fart a way more serious thank you,” Dys mumbled to herself as she stared at the carnage. “How the fuck did he do this with a freaking sword?”
“Practice,” Noll said from behind her, making Dys nearly jump out of her skin. “And you’re welcome.”
“Don’t fucking sneak up on me like that you bastard!” Dys shouted as she spun on the therion. “Fucking asshole!”
“Get better ears,” he snorted before turning to stalk away from her and back towards the rest of the group.
“Are you okay?” Bridget asked, forcing Jadis to reorient her attention. “You just jumped a foot in the air. Find a mouse or something?”
Syd shook her head and waved the orc’s concern off. “No, everything’s fine, all good. Just saw something unexpected when I was looking through my notifications. Surprised me, is all.”
Across the valley, Jay waved off Sabina and Eir’s concern at the same time, all three of her bodies having been startled from Noll’s little surprise. She didn’t know if there actually was anything in the notifications that would warrant such a reaction, but it was all she could think of when put on the spot.
“Oh, hey, well I should thank you all actually,” Bridget said with a bright smile after taking Syd’s reassurances at face value. “That battle was enough to get me level eighteen! This mercenary group is already ‘fortunately favoring’ me! Eh? Okay, that was bad, sorry, never mind.”
Terrible puns aside, Jadis and soon after the rest of the guild offered their newest member a hearty congratulations. With Bridget reaching level eighteen, that put her roughly on par with Sabina who had also just recently reached level eighteen. That meant both of them would be getting their secondary classes soon with level twenty so close.
Jadis was curious to see what the two would be offered, especially since she hadn’t done anything, well, perverted with them that could potentially influence the classes they were given. On the one hand, she kind of wanted to keep it that way, just to see if they’d get a Nephilim-related option that had nothing to do with sex. On the other hand, she was worried that they’d be missing out on a powerful class that they wouldn’t otherwise be likely to get. Both Aila and Eir’s lewd classes were absolutely perverted, but they were absolutely rare and powerful, too. When she thought about it that way, it would kind of suck for both Sabina and Bridget if they didn’t get awesome and overpowered classes just because Jadis didn’t offer them a night of fun between the sheets…
Well damn, Jadis had to catch herself in the middle of that thought. Was she seriously considering offering to fuck Sabina and Bridget just to make sure they got better classes? That felt all kinds of messed up to her when she reoriented her thinking. She liked Sabina. She was also pretty sure Sabina was into her. That didn’t mean she could or should just walk up to her and say, “have sex with me and you’ll probably get an awesome class”. If someone did that to her, she’d probably have some pretty strong words to say to them after that.
And what about Bridget? She didn’t even know if the orc was into women like that. She barely knew her at all. For all she knew, the woman already had someone she was romantically involved with.
Besides, wasn’t that some kind of, well, workplace harassment? Jadis was literally Sabina and Bridget’s boss. How was there any way to approach something like sex for class benefits without coming across as some kind of disgusting predator.
Thoughts of how exactly she was supposed to handle the weirdness of her sex-based class and the ways having any kind of sexual contact with her could affect a person’s class options rolled around in Jadis’ brain for the remainder of their time out in the field. Her distraction was obvious, particularly to those who knew her well like Aila and Eir, but she refrained from telling them about what was on her mind until they were in a more private setting. The last thing she wanted was for Noll to overhear details on her situation.
Instead, she and the others finished up gathering the demon cores before gathering up all the bodies into a pile. Cognizant of how leaving bodies around was just like leaving weapons around for enemies to use since the bone thieves could reuse the skeletons, they made a trip into the forest to gather a mass of dead wood and tossed it into the pile of bodies, then lit it all on fire. There was no way it would burn hot enough to destroy the bones, but it would take care of the festering meat of wretches, and the dark smoke would serve as an easy to spot marker for the mercenaries who patrolled along the border. On Aila’s advice, they would make a detour towards one of the border forts nearby and let them know about the large body pile. There were things they could do to take care of the bones later.
With their test run done, Jadis and her team headed back to Far Felsen. They had a lot of discussions waiting for them once they got home.
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