Syd winced as a drop of cold water splashed directly onto her left eyebrow. Scowling, she scooted slightly to the side, hoping to avoid further drips. When another drop fell onto her right eye, she sighed and gave up. There really was no avoiding the water droplets. Just as there seemed to be no avoiding answering Kerr’s questions.

“So, was that just one load, or two? Because it’s hard to tell since you shoot so much cum sometimes. I’m betting two.”

“Just one,” Syd smirked as she kept her gaze straight ahead. “It probably looked like more because her body diluted it a bit.”

“Just one? Really? Come one, Big Stuff, you’ve got to do more than just one. That orange cake has been drooling over you for how long, and you only pump her with one load? I expect way more from you.”

Syd did her best to hold back her laughter. Kerr’s chiding was too lewd to take seriously, but her perfectly earnest tone really sold the image of disappointment.

“It was just a promissory cumshot,” Syd drawled. “I’ll be fucking her into jelly at a later date.”

“You better,” Kerr tsked. “Remember, she doesn’t have bones. I expect you to put her heels up by her ears and just—unf, go to work! I’m going to be watching, by the way. No chance I’m missing the full show.”

“Can you two talk about this some other time?”

Syd had to put some serious effort into not laughing at the plaintive request. She could practically see the blushing embarrassment in Sorcha’s genuine plea for a subject change.

“Do you have anything in mind more interesting to talk about than Jadis fucking Maeve?” Kerr asked. “Because I doubt it.”

“Didn’t you already get all this info from Maeve?” Sorcha tried to argue. “You don’t need to hear it from Jadis, too.”

“No, I didn’t,” Kerr said, the frown in her voice obvious. “The bitch wouldn’t give me any details. Such a tease. She’s going to make me drag the dirty little secrets out of her, which will be fucking fun, of course. But I want to know now.”

“Hm. Then I guess I probably shouldn’t tell you much more,” Syd mused. “Otherwise, Maeve won’t have as much leverage to use against you in your negotiations later.”

“Oh, don’t you be a bitch, too,” Kerr said with a laugh. After a few heartbeats of silence, she let out a little sigh and asked another question. “Do you think that was enough to get her pregnant?”

Syd tilted her head to one side, her brow furrowed in thought.

“No, I wouldn’t think so.”

“It did seem like a lot, though,” Sorcha murmured quietly.

“Maybe,” Syd shrugged. “But that’s no more than I put into everyone else, and some of you aren’t pregnant yet. Besides, we had oral sex.”

“Syd,” Kerr let out a huff of amused breath. “I don’t know a lot about Fetch, but I think by now we can all agree that Maeve’s mouth, along with all her other orifices, are superficial. You blasted your seed inside of her. I doubt it matters which hole you used to do. It’s all still in there.”

“That… is a good point,” Syd acknowledged after a second. “I guess we better set up an appointment with Bertha sometime soon. Or at least have a talk about it. I actually don’t know how baby Fetch are made.”

“I guess we’ll find out soon,” Kerr snickered. “Better get Aila to look up what Nephilim and Fetch hybrids are called. No fucking chance there haven’t been some in the past.”

Syd smiled at the thought as well as the direction the conversation had turned, but she kept her eyes forward. As light as the mood was between the three of them, they weren’t on a date or some other equally pleasurable outing. They were on a stakeout, waiting to spring the ambush that had been set up to capture the cultists of Samleos.

The location that Maeve’s efforts with the Voltonian smugglers had revealed was a riverside workshop near the edge of the inner city wall. It was one of many, nearly identical, workshops and Jadis never would have paid the simple structure any attention. The sign in front advertised the shop as a boatwright, or a crafter of row boats or similarly sized fishing vessels. The place wasn’t fancy, but it wasn’t impoverished, either. It looked like just about any other workshop along the river, which was likely why it had been chosen as a cover for the cultists’ activities. There was no better place to appear uninteresting and inconsequential than among the average banality of everyday work.

While the shop above was, by all accounts, a legitimate business, the basement that had been constructed below building was where the cultists were performing their rituals. Maeve’s investigation had determined that the family who owned the workshop were themselves essentially ignorant as to what was happening on their property. Four of their five employees, however, were confirmed cultists, and had used their positions to take over the shop and bribe the family into compliance. Maeve had figured out that the cultists were covering their evil activities by presenting them as illicit smuggling operations, which was likely why the real owners of the workshop hadn’t gone to the authorities. Why risk reprisals from smugglers, who were just importing untaxed goods anyway, when you could just take a few extra coins for the trouble of turning a blind eye?

Jadis didn’t like to see how easy it was to corrupt people into bad actions, but she understood. The logic was reasonable, even. What was the harm in a little bit of smuggling? It wasn’t as though the owners of the workshop were even doing the smuggling themselves. And yet, because of their acceptance of a seemingly harmless crime, people were dying. It was hard for Jadis not to grow frustrated when she thought the situation through. If the owners of the workshop hadn’t been cooperative with a lesser evil, then a greater one might not have ever taken root.

What was done, was done. Jadis would leave whatever repercussions might wait for the owners of the workshop to Volto. Ultimately, the judgement of their actions wasn’t up to her. She was there to catch cultists.

Jadis and her lovers had coordinated with Tegwyn’s team, Noll, and the Hero’s party to capture as many of the cultists as possible. The planning was a bit hasty since they didn’t want to delay and risk whatever rituals they cultists were performing causing more harm, but Jadis felt that their strategy was solid. Throughout the day, they had all split up into groups and taken up positions around the workshop, hiding one group after another over the course of several hours. The plan was to then wait for the cultists to arrive. Once all had entered the building and were distracted by the ritual, Jadis and her allies would rush in and capture them.

There were no illusions about how things were likely to go down. Jadis wanted to apprehend the cultists so that they could be questioned. But considering past behaviors, it was likely that many of them would fight to the death. Considering the power of her allies, though, Jadis felt reasonably confident that they would be able to catch at least a few of the cultists alive.

“When are these bloody shite heads going to show up anyway,” Sorcha complained while scooting closer against Syd’s side. “I’m soaked to the bone. It’s going to take hours to warm back up.”

“Definitely hours if Jadis has anything to say about it,” Kerr said, drawing a groan out of the goblin. “But yeah, should be soon. Looks like the ignorant old fart is leaving.”

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Syd could see that Kerr was right. The one employee in the workshop who wasn’t a cultist was an elderly man who genuinely didn’t seem to have a clue what was going on. The old guy was just a simple boatwright who was too set in his ways to pay much attention to anything going on around him. He had put on his straw hat and stepped out into the drizzling rain to head home for the day. Jadis had no doubt that as soon as the old man was out of sight, the rest of the cultists would start arriving.

The spot where Syd, Kerr, and Sorcha had set up to observe the workshop was directly across the street, inside the roof of an old warehouse. They had a great view of the front from the crawlspace, though Syd had been forced to go without her armor. The questionable soundness of the wooden structure would not have held up to Syd’s weight in full gear. Still, she needed to be in a good position to observe the workshop from the front, just for communication purposes. Her other two bodies were spread out among the other two teams who would be making the main assault into the building. Syd, Kerr, and Sorcha, along with the few who were positioned nearby, were there to make sure no one escaped out the front once the fighting started.

So, Syd and her two lovers were stuck in a warehouse attic that leaked in the rain and smelled of mildew. At least they were able to talk freely to each other without worrying about making too much noise. Sorcha had been busy developing new wands to add to her growing arsenal, and one of them was purpose made for these sorts of ambush situations. The witch had taken to calling it her Dampened Sound Cloud Wand, as the wool and down feathers covering the cork core gave the item a fluffy appearance. The spell, when cast, created a ten-foot diameter bubble from which all sounds were significantly diminished. Outside sounds could be heard from within just fine; it was only noises that originated inside the bubble that were dampened for anyone listening from outside.

“Okay, we’ve got movement from the river,” Syd advised as they watched the old man disappear down the road. “Small boat. Five passengers. They’re rowing into the dock for the workshop now.”

“That’s nine, at least,” Sorcha said as she shifted around in her spot sandwiched between Syd and Kerr. “How many did Maeve say were coming?”

“Thirty to thirty-five. She couldn’t get an exact number, but no more than that.”

“Here comes more,” Kerr added on the tail of Syd’s answer. “From the west.”

Indeed, two more men who looked like the rough sort of day laborers who worked the overcrowded docks of the city were trudging up the road. They didn’t look any different to the rest of the men and women who were leaving the workshops to head home for the evening, so Jadis wasn’t sure what pointed them out to Kerr’s eyes. However, the archer’s instincts were proven right when the two men turned into the boatwright’s workshop, disappearing through the door.

“Swords hidden in their coats,” Kerr answered Syd’s unasked question. “You can always tell by the way they walk.”

Jadis had expected the cultists to be armed, but Maeve hadn’t been able to get any info on classes or levels, unfortunately. They wouldn’t be going into the fight entirely blind, though, thanks to their preparations.

“The bearded one was CLR forty-five,” Sorcha said as she took the detect stone away from her eye. “The guy with the scar across his cheek was CLR fifty-one. Both human, both combat classes.”

Aila had managed to procure a few detect stones in the Thracina market and had spread them out among their group. The expensive little rocks were limited in range, and they couldn’t give the full details of a person’s class, but they at least let them see if that person was primarily a combat class, a tradesman, or any of the other categories. Just knowing their CLR was helpful, since that told them if the person had only a primary class, or a secondary, or even a tertiary as well.

Jadis’ other bodies and her allies weren’t close enough to the river-facing side of the workshop to get a detect off on the cultists entering from there, but some information was better than none.

Time progressed slowly as they patiently watched and waited as more cultists filed into the workshop. Two more boats appeared in that time, each with five passengers. The third, however, had an object wrapped in a thick tarp that looked suspiciously human-shaped. Maeve’s contacts hadn’t mentioned what kind of rituals were being performed, but considering recent events, Jadis wasn’t shocked by the possibility that human sacrifices were being performed.

All the more reason to put an end to the cultists as soon as possible.

“Another tradesman, CLR eighteen,” Sorcha said as she used her detect stone on the lone man who was entering the shop. “Human.”

Most of the people the witch had been able to use the stone on had been lower level with non-combat classes. The first two men with higher CLRs had been the exception rather than the rule, so far as Jadis could tell. Of course, they didn’t know how dangerous the people in the boats were, but somewhere around half of the cultists who were gathering looked like they would be easy to subdue.

“That’s number thirty-one,” Syd said as the low-level man went inside the workshop. “If we include the four who were inside from the start. There probably won’t be more.”

“Spoke too soon,” Kerr murmured as she looked out from between the shadowed slats that concealed their presence. “There’s no way those two aren’t cultists.”

Syd craned her neck to see who Kerr had spotted. Once she caught sight of them, Jadis couldn’t help but agree. The man and woman who were walking down the almost empty street were not much different from the rest of the masses who had largely cleared the area. Tunics and dresses of utilitarian quality, waxed coats to repel the wet of the drizzling rain, and straw or leather hats with wide brims were the norm. The duo Kerr had spotted matched the description, but peculiarities of their appearances made them stand out.

The man was a human, just like the vast majority of Thracina, but his appearance was far too groomed to be a simple tradesman. His beard was perfectly trimmed, his skin was without blemish, and the clothes under his coat didn’t have a speck of dirt on them. He looked like a rich man pretending to be a commoner, which was likely exactly what he was. It wasn’t the worst disguise Jadis had ever seen, since he at least wasn’t wearing anything expensive like jewelry or nice shoes, but the attempt at concealment still felt lazy.

The woman walking with him stood out for a different reason. She was a half-orc, going by her pale green skin and muscular build. Non-human races weren’t completely unheard of in Thracina, but they were certainly uncommon, so the sight of a half-orc was notable. The woman was also wearing a sword openly, without any attempt to hide her weapon at all. Jadis guessed that she was a bodyguard to the man. Possibly she didn’t care if people knew she was trained combatant, so long as it kept thieves away from her employer, though that attitude still didn’t make much sense if they were trying to be covert.

“Let’s see,” Sorcha said as the two came within range. “Damn… He’s CLR eighty-four. A combat mage. Human.”

That wasn’t great news, but again, not unexpected. Jadis was certain that they could handle one elite mage easily enough.

“And she is… CLR one hundred and twelve… combat class… Fetch…”

“Shit, are you sure?” Kerr asked with surprise. “They’ve got a Fetch with them? Maeve didn’t say anything about that.”

“No, she didn’t,” Syd agreed as she eyed the woman with a far more serious gaze. “She got her info from smugglers. They probably didn’t know.”

“There they go,” Sorcha pointed as the two high-CLR cultists entered the workshop. “I was kind of hoping that they were going to be just a couple of assholes passing through…”

They watched as the two dangerous enemies passed through the entryway, though the door did not close immediately. It was hard to see from their angle, but Syd caught glimpses of the man as he spoke with someone else. After a minute or so, one of the cultists who worked inside of the workshop exited the building, closing the door behind him. The middle-aged man shook out his coat as he looked around the deserted street before he pulled a pipe from a pocket and lit it. The man moved to one side of the building and took a seat on a barrel positioned under a roof eave and began to puff on his pipe. It looked like he was settling in for the long haul, which Jadis took as a sign that he was meant to stand guard while the rest of the cultists performed their evil acts in the basement below. Since he had only just then set up to watch the exterior, it seemed fair to assume that every cultist who would be joining the ritual had arrived.

“Give it a minute,” Syd advised as she put a hand on Sorcha’s back. “Just to make sure they’re all in the basement.”

After a slow count, Kerr shifted forward, her bow in hand.

“I don’t hear anymore movement inside the workshop,” she said. “We’re clear.”

“Alright… Go!”

As she gave the word, Syd pushed forward, forcing the wooden slats that made up the attic wall they were hiding behind up and out of the way. Sorcha’s thin arm shot forward, wand in hand. The yellow glow of amber shone around the wand and the man who had just then turned his eyes up at the noise froze in place, completely paralyzed.

In a flash, Syd had rolled out of the crawl space and landed on the wet street below. Crossing the space in less than a second, she quickly had her hand around the back of the man’s neck and shoved him face first into the ground. There was almost no noise as she rapidly tied his arms behind his back before roughly gagging him with the rope and cloth that she had prepared specifically for the purpose. Once he was secure, Syd turned to look back at the warehouse rooftop where she saw Sorcha still inside of the crawlspace, and Kerr already perched on the apex with her bow drawn.

The raid was on, and it was off to a smooth start.

Jadis did not expect that state to last.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep