Chapter 141: Spoils of War

“At last count, two thousand dead and double that number wounded,” Aila informed Jadis with the weary tone of someone who had been awake for far too long.

“What about the forts?” Jay asked, wiping something dark from her face, a smear of dirt or blood or quite possibly both.

“The word is sporadic and unreliable,” she sighed. “Many were razed like the one we came across. Others broke their sieges and either grouped together or headed for the nearest towns. There’s no accurate accounting of them all just yet.”

Jadis observed the way Aila slumped in her seat, all energy drained. She didn’t need to say it for it to be obvious that the wellbeing of her uncles was weighing heavily on her mind.

“You should get some sleep,” Dys told her, wiping her hands with a wet cloth. “Rest while you can.”

“I don’t think I can sleep right now,” Aila replied softly, her blue eyes far away.

Jadis didn’t push it further. She could well understand how her lover felt. She felt much the same way. Tired beyond reason, weary to the bone, but unable to close her eyes and let go. Not yet. Instead, Jay reached over and took Aila’s small hand in hers and just held it, squeezing it softly. The way Aila squeezed back did bring some comfort.

After the long battle had finally finished, the demon army slaughtered to the last, there had been no great cheering or celebration from the troops. Instead, there had been a wash of relief, a feeling of exhausted accomplishment, and a dread of finding out what the toll had been for victory.

With the night well in progress, the soldiers had been pulled back inside the city walls. The wounded had been carried in first, then the dead. Jadis had helped with both, transporting the living and the fallen, rendering her services as a palanquin once more. Somehow, even though it was less physically taxing than fighting demons, aiding the injured and carrying the corpses of the less fortunate had proved far more draining.

Magistrate Vraekae had spared only a short moment for Jadis, riding her horse close enough to Jay and Dys to ask after Captain Ealdread. When she had informed the elf of his fate in brief, the Magistrate had nodded once, then told her that they would talk later and rode off, passing orders to the officers and soldiers around her. As high a priority as the woman might have put on her, Jadis supposed she had bigger problems to deal with than a stray Nephilim, all things considered.

Eventually, Jadis had found herself back inside the walls of Far Felsen, but not back at her inn. Instead, Eir had led her to the temple and had insisted she stay within until Syd had been fully healed. Considering how Syd looked and Jadis felt overall, she didn’t feel like arguing with the priestess. Somehow, though, despite Eir only offering her own personal room for Jadis to rest in, she had wound up inside the sparsely furnished but much larger room belonging to the High Priest.

Gerhardt had encountered them as they had moved through the halls crowded with the injured, priests running hither and thither as they stabilized the worst of the wounded with magic and used other more mundane practices for those who could wait until later. The High Priest had looked as dignified and grandfatherly as Jadis remembered him, but blood stained the hem of his white robe and his hands were filled with bandages. Still, he had smiled upon seeing her, his relief obvious, and had greeted Eir with the warmth of a parent. On his insistence they had gone to his rooms for rest, with a promise of privacy and more healing as soon as was possible.

Kerr had never made it all the way to the temple and had instead veered off to check on the fate of her bar. Several buildings had been set on fire by the Burning Rancor as it strafed the city from above, and a great deal of damage had been done by other demons who had gotten within the defenses. So, the therion had slipped away to see to her property with a promise to meet up later. Thea had also disappeared, the guardswoman having been swept up with a group of officers that had been heading to the city hall. She had a lot to report, Jadis was sure, and duties to fulfil. Whether or not she’d be back, Jadis wasn’t sure. Eir had stayed with them for a while but had excused herself to clean off and find something other than tattered rags to wear. She hadn’t returned in some time, so Jadis assumed either she’d been roped into helping with the needs of the many wounded, or the High Priest had taken her aside to probe her about what had occurred while they’d been missing. Possibly both had happened, for all she knew, but she was sure Eir would return as soon as she could.

Aila had left for a short while to speak with some of the mercenaries being healed out in the halls and find out what information she could but had come back not long later. Now it was just her and Aila alone in the room, the two of them slowly releasing their tension through the simple act of being in each other’s company.

“I leveled,” Aila spoke up after a long enough silence that Jadis had thought she might have fallen asleep despite her earlier inability. “Level twenty-three in Cart Driver and level sixteen in Arcanist. How about you?”

“Wow, four level jump in Arcanist? That’s really good. Surprised Cart Driver didn’t go higher, though.”

“With so many combatants, a lot of the experience gets spread out on battlefields. And I used my Arcanist spells more, so I got more experience for that class specifically.”

“Makes sense,” Dys mused aloud while thinking over what she knew about experience and leveling on Oros. “I haven’t checked mine yet. So many notifications.”

Jadis promptly sorted through all the many messages in her mental menu, filtering out the unimportant notices about dead demons to find the more relevant information. Reading through without looking too deep into the details, she announced her level progress to Aila with a tired grin.

“Level twenty-eight in Mirror Knight and twenty-one in Perverted Ritualist of D. Seven levels total.”

“That’s amazing growth,” Aila smiled. With a yawn, she leaned her head against Jay where they sat together, her in a chair and Jay on the floor. “Anything interesting on offer? Well, I suppose practically anything involving your classes would be interesting, but is there anything more unusual than your usual oddness?”

“I’ll let you know,” Jay told Aila. “With three new levels in Ritualist, I’m sure I’ve got some kind of crazy new sex thing to entertain you with.”

“Are you really thinking about sex right now?” Aila said with an incredulous look at the burnt and bandaged third Jadis body lying on some blankets spread out across the floor.

“Hey, if I didn’t feel like a burnt marshmallow right now, I’d totally have you bent over the High Priest’s desk just so we could say we did it in here,” Syd murmured without opening her eyes.

Aila shook her head in exasperation and indignation, then paused as she quirked an eyebrow.

“What’s a marshmallow?”

“Never mind,” Jay waved the question off. “Nephilim thing.”

Having fulfilled her contractual obligation to tease and flabbergast her girlfriend, Jadis focused on the information her level up notifications held.

The fact that she had reached level twenty-eight in Mirror knight meant Jadis had received four more free attribute points to put wherever she pleased. Since her current strategy of increasing her Eldritch stat so it would carry over to her other stats had worked well so far, Jadis saw no reason to change tactics. With a thought she put the four points into Eldritch, increasing the base number of the attribute from seventy-nine to eighty-three. The end total, though, became one hundred and twenty-four thanks to her Lascivious Empowerment boosting it by a factor of one-point-five. With the one change, all of Jadis’ physical stats jumped up by a point or two bringing her overall power ever higher.

The sensation of all her physical attributes going up made Jadis’ bodies shiver and she resisted the little urge to get up and test out her newly increased power. As tempting as the idea was, she was frankly too dog-tired to do that sort of thing. Instead, she moved on to checking out what new skills she had been offered for the two odd numbered levels she’d gained.

An active spell. It had been a while since Mirror Knight had offered her one of those. Jadis had been thinking about going back and selecting one of the spells she’d been previously offered now that she had the magic resources to spend on them. However, this new spell looked like an ideal choice for her, considering how often she was purposefully trying to make sure demons focused their malicious intentions on her and not her companions. If she’d had Mirror Shine during the battle earlier, the Burning Rancor might not have even noticed Aila and she’d never have been put in the danger she’d been in…

That thought alone was almost enough for Jadis to take the new skill immediately, other option be damned. But her better sense prevailed and Jadis checked the second skill on offer before finalizing her choice on the off chance it was somehow even better.

Not a bad option, Jadis had to admit, considering how often she ended up tossing her lance or other objects at her enemies. In fact, the skill looked like it was basically the same thing as Kerr’s Nox Archer’s Charged Shot skill. The damage was the same, but the stamina cost was triple what Kerr paid to use the ability, so Jadis guessed it was because the skill was more of a generalized option that any Knight class archetype could get rather than a specialized skill that only Mirror Knight could obtain. Even though it was an obviously useful skill, it still didn’t compare to the utility Mirror Shine would grant her. Without hesitation Jadis selected the new spell.

Moving on to the next pair of skills she’d been granted for her primary class, Jadis read over the options.

Well, she did wear some pretty heavy armor, Jadis had to admit. She didn’t notice so much, not with her greatly increased strength, but when she’d stripped off her armor pieces and started to put them on one of the desks in the High Priest’s room, the wood had begun to creek ominously and she’d ended up putting it all on the floor instead. She didn’t want to actually damage anything in the old man’s quarters.

A solid, practical sort of skill. Useful, but a little boring. Of course, not all her skills had to be wild and overpowered. She had commissioned heavy plate armor from Sabina. If the manic half-elf had kept crafting it despite Jadis’ disappearance, the first set might even be close to done.

If Sabina was still alive, of course.

With that sobering thought, Jadis distractedly looked over her other option given to her at level twenty-seven.

An active skill that used stamina. Jadis had yet to pick one of those. So far, all of her skills were passive in nature, other than the single active skill that used magic, and nothing she had required any of the mysteriously unseen stamina resource. The fact that the skill would allow her to close the distance on enemies with extreme speed was nice, but Jadis was honestly more interested in taking the skill just because she was curious to see what it would be like to use a skill that consumed stamina. Maybe that was a poor reason, but being dishonest with herself wasn’t a smart way to go about making important decisions.

Another point in Knight’s Daring Charge was the fact that it wasn’t reliant on any kind of equipment. None of Jadis’ skills required that she use a specific weapon or armor type. Even mirrored blows only required a physical attack. She could set the skill off with her fists if she chose to. Jadis liked the flexibility not being reliant on any one weapon or armor type offered her. None of her skills were ever invalidated just because she had run out of ammunition like Kerr or had lost her shield like Thea during their misadventure below ground. Having weapons and armor helped, immensely, but she didn’t need them the way her companions did.

Having thought it out, Jadis felt certain in her choice and went with the second option, Knight’s Daring Charge. Maybe it wasn’t as cool as some of her other skills, but Jadis was certain it would come in handy, especially considering gaining half-again as much agility while sprinting towards an enemy was going to boost her speeds to ridiculous levels.

With her decisions made, Jadis explained them to Aila. She readily agreed with her reasoning, humming to herself quietly while she considered the uses of both skills in combination with what Jadis already had. She floated a few ideas her way, which Jadis appreciated and tucked away for experimentation later. But before anything else, Jadis wanted to check what new skills her Ritualist class had granted her as well.

Level twenty in Ritualist had given Jadis another five points to distribute, which she immediately put in her Eldritch attribute to push it and by extension her other stats even higher. With even more points in the key stat, Jadis’ physical stats leapt higher than before, even going so far as to finally push her Strength attribute past one hundred. Looking the stats over again, Jadis felt a little giddy.

Now she really did need to restrain herself from testing out her new stats. She was well on her way to becoming a true juggernaut of raw physical power, she was sure. After admiring her numbers for a little longer, Jadis checked out her first set of skill options.

Jadis laughed. A deep, side-aching belly laugh that startled Aila and made her Syd self groan in pain between laughs.

“What?” Aila asked, supremely confused. Her confusion turned to red-faced amusement as Jadis explained the ritual and its effects between gasps for air.

“Oh my god, can you imagine?”

“I’ve seen horses, so yes, I could picture it, and it’s completely, ridiculously insane. You’re already tickling my heart with your staff when we do it, there’s absolutely no need to go bigger,” Aila urgently advised, her absurd wording and wide-eyed desperation making Jadis laugh even harder.

Eventually Jadis calmed down enough to reassure the panicked redhead that she had no intention of taking the skill. She already had more than enough meat to play with, she felt no need to increase her already ludicrous size. Besides, taking a skill solely for the purpose of upping the length of her dick felt like a waste when she was already so gifted.

Still giggling in small fits, Jadis checked the second option of the pair.

Jadis’ laughter drained away as she reread the skill, a bit of heat rising in her loins at the implications of what the skill could do.

“Okay, definitely taking this one,” Jay announced with absolute certainty.

“Why, what is it?” Aila asked.

A moment later, Aila was sputtering in mortified embarrassment, her face beet red.

“What in Valtar’s name kind of skill is that!?”

“A fun one,” Jay grinned at Aila. She leaned in closer and whispered throatily into her ear. “Don’t you want to know what it would feel like to have my lips wrapped around your cock? My tongue worshiping it, all three of them at once? Aren’t you curious about how amazing it feels to sink your big fat throbbing shaft into a tight pussy? My tight pussy? Hm?”

“You’re such an obscene, lecherous beast,” Aila replied, doing her best to regain her cool composure. But Jadis could see the slight interest in her eye as she didn’t outright reject the notion.

“Kerr would do it,” Dys tossed out into the open like a live grenade.

Aila’s almost recovered expression turned to a scowl.

“You are not doing that ritual with her before you do it with me.”

Jay smiled sweetly and gave Aila a kiss on the cheek.

“As you wish.”

With a tacit promise of fun times to come, Jadis turned her focus inward once more to check the final two skills available for her to choose from. Since she’d hit level twenty-one in her ritualist class, she was hoping for something even more amazing compared to the level nineteen one. Mirror Knight had gotten an upgrade to the core skill of her class, Improved Mirrored Body. Would her ritualist class be the same?

The hell kind of word was ‘cunctation’? Jadis had read more than a few books and she was no dullard when it came to vocabulary, but that was a new one on her.

Aside from the weird word choice, the skill did look useful. It would definitely make it easier to complete her Lascivious Empowerment ritual, or any other rituals that require precise timing. It could also just be a lot of fun to rev one of her lovers up a bit and withhold release, just as a tease. Then again, Jadis already had a skill that was there to help her with difficult rituals, Ritual Time Reduction. Plus, having such direct control seemed like it might take the fun out of playing with her lovers, fine tuning her sexual skills until she had them gasping for more…

Jadis shook her head, realizing that her thoughts were starting to get a bit off track. The skill was a solid maybe, she decided, and left it at that. Having rallied, Jadis then reviewed her final option.

“And we have a winner,” Jay grinned, then read the spell description out loud for Aila to hear.

“Yes, I would say that is a choice with a lot of potential…” Aila readily agreed.

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