“I assume it went well?”

Syd grinned at Aila, having just taken off her helmet. Leaning down, she kissed her favorite redhead on the lips before replying.

“It went very well. We have an understanding. She’ll be joining us for the ritual.”

“Good,” Aila nodded while taking Syd’s arm and walking with her into the garden area of Ulya’s temple.

Ulya’s temple garden wasn’t anywhere near as visually impressive as Lyssandria’s gardens, but it was still large, pleasant, and most importantly, private. The main temple was constantly bustling with activity, since Ulya’s priests were renowned for their healing and welcomed all through their doors, free of charge. Many of the clerics and priests who lived and worked in the temple traveled through Thracina’s streets, looking to help those who were in need, but there were still a lot who stayed in the temple to provide healing to those who came looking. As such, Jadis and her lovers did their best to avoid spending too much time in the open, since they were apt to be swarmed by the curious whenever they did.

“Any news from Soteria, or Techne?” Aila asked once they were a little more concealed by the hedgerows that lined the garden. “How were the Demons?”

“No major news,” Syd answered as she reviewed the visit in her mind. “Soteria says she was tempted to join the volunteers, but Kreios wouldn’t let her.”

“I am unsurprised on both accounts,” the mage smirked at the thought. “How many came, in total?”

“Twelve for the growing team, and six for the march. Which doesn’t sound like a lot, but they’re all well past CLR sixty, and they’ve got classes that will help.”

Jadis and her companion’s trip aboard the Roc had taken all day, since the airship was much slower than her flight speed, and they had only just returned to Thracina that morning, the next day. The Dryads had provided a large supply of fresh produce to help the people of Volto, but more importantly, had sent eighteen volunteers who had come from the several groves who lived in the wilds of the Crook where no civilization had lived for millennia.

The first twelve volunteers possessed classes that were primarily centered around accelerating the growth of plants. All of them were experienced, and many of them had even helped with the healing and regrowth of the land after past demonic invasions, so they were well versed in what was needed to restore the local flora to a healthy condition. Their duty would be to help purge the lands that had been corrupted by Samleos’ forces of the blights and diseases that were fouling the crops and destroying the Voltonian food supply. With so many soldiers being brought to the march to retake Kastoria, magical assistance was required to keep them all fed without starving the non-combatants who remained behind.

While those twelve Dryads were powerful, they were not themselves capable of fighting beyond the most basic of self-defense. They were, at their heart, peaceful folk, who didn’t belong anywhere near a battlefield. The other six, however, were far more adept at war.

The six remaining volunteer Dryads were the highest CLR mages available, and they were all capable of taking the fight to the Demons directly. Their skills were suited more for protecting a forest than sieging a city, but their help would be invaluable, nonetheless. Volto did not have as many high CLR mages as the empire did, so every single one was a precious commodity that could make a massive difference in the war effort.

“That’s actually three more than we were told were likely to come,” Aila said in response to Syd’s answer. “There were last minute additions, I presume?”

“Yeah, there is a grove to the far north of the forest lands, on the top of the coast,” Syd motioned at the map of Volto in her mind’s eye. “They weren’t going to send anyone, at first. But apparently, they heard about the attack on Lyssandria’s temple from Soteria and that got them all up in arms. They sent three mages who can take on flying forms, and there are supposed to be four more coming by sea.”

“By sea?” Aila furrowed her brows at the idea. “Dryads?”

“Yeah, I know,” Sys shrugged. “I was confused too. But Soteria said that grove is all about ocean animals and aquatic plant life and that sort of thing, so they have a strong connection to the water. They’ve got animists who are going to be supporting the siege with aquatic magic beasts. I’m not sure what that means, exactly, but I’m sure it’ll be helpful.”

“I’m sure,” Aila echoed, her face showing her interest in the idea. “I doubt they will be able to coordinate with the march, but if they are there for when we attack Kastoria, they might be able to add pressure.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Syd agreed. “Anyway, not much news from Techne and the Demons, but—”

Syd quickly explained how her visit to the Nephilim archives went, skimming over the less important details. It had been a pleasant enough interaction, though there wasn’t too much to say. Techne was still using the archives to try and instruct the Demons who had hatched on various academic topics, while also using his ability to project illusions to show the unhatched Demons new things. No new hatchings had occurred yet, but from what Jadis had seen, she thought that there was a lot more activity among the egg-bound Demons than before.

Oats was still looking depressed, but she was baking in earnest again and had even started experimenting with more fruit-based meals, seemingly just for the novelty. Crash had said she was a bit bored but had also insisted that she wasn’t complaining, and the rest of the hatched Demons were doing well. Rune, in fact, was constantly begging Techne for more lessons on magic, and the Golem had reported significant progress on her understanding of advanced rune concepts.

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The real news, though, was Rolo. As soon as Jadis had brought the not-so-little grub into the mountain cave, he had crawled directly to the nearest wall and chewed straight through the solid stone before he had blocked himself in with a layer of glittering silk. At first, Jadis had been worried that he might cause damage to the underground archive structure, but Techne assure her that the grub had dug away from the tower of eleria enchantments, not towards it. From what Jadis could tell, and by Soteria’s own advice, it seemed that Rolo had recognized the place as being in need of guardianship and had begun the process of cocooning. Whether that was because the grub had understood Jadis’ intention, or there was some other divine or esoteric element at play, she wasn’t sure. Still, it was good to see that her plan to give the Nephilim archives a Guardian Spirit seemed to be working.

“Who knows how long it will take before he hatches from his cocoon, but I bet—”

“Yoo-hoo! Jadis!”

Syd’s words were interrupted by the high-pitched call that came from the other side of the garden. Pausing her conversation with Aila, she looked across the way to see an amusing sight which had only recently been made possible.

Amarantha sat on top of her cauldron, Ketty as she liked to call it. Not unusual in and of itself, except that the Mystic was still in her catgirl form. The walking stone cauldron was large, and it had a back platform designed for a Lares to sit on it, which had never looked unusual to Jadis before. Now, however, with Amarantha’s diminutive humanoid form perched on the shelf, she looked a little bit like a woman who had mistakenly sat on the reservoir of an oversized toilet, with her feet dangling over the basin.

As her cauldron ambled across the yard at an oblique angle to where Syd and Aila were standing, a clowder of Lares were following along, all chattering amongst each other while also bombarding Ammy with questions. It was to no one’s surprise that the Mystic’s new body was of major interest to the local Lares population, and she had likely been fielding questions from them all day.

Jadis briefly wondered if any of the other Lares were interested in taking on a humanoid form. Jadis wasn’t even sure if Ammy had more of the potion, but certainly she could make another batch if she got the ingredients. If so, would they potentially be setting up a small community of cat-person Lares? Would that count as a sort of sub-species of Lares? Would their children be like cats, or humanoids? It was definitely a weird situation.

“Welcome back!” Amarantha shouted while waving at Syd with a fanged grin on her face. “I look forward to the orgy!”

“Me too,” Syd called back with her own grin, refusing to be out embarrassed by the little troublemaker. “Fuck with you soon!”

While Amarantha laughed and continued on her way, bombarded by even more questions from the gathered Lares, Aila shook her head in disbelief.

“You have to be the most ridiculous person I know, you know that?”

“Yeah, but you know you love it,” Syd waggled her eyebrows at the redhead.

Aila rolled her eyes, but Syd noted that she didn’t deny the assertion. Retaking her hold on Syd’s arm to continue their walk together, she sighed as she leaned slightly against Syd’s side.

“I’m glad that we’ve wrapped up as many loose ends as possible,” Aila murmured. “Our focus will need to be undivided once the march to Kastoria starts.”

“Agreed,” Syd said with her own sigh. “But we haven’t gotten all of the loose ends just yet.”

“Noct,” Aila stated without preamble.

“Noct,” Syd repeated.

While the long discussion among their group had led them all to agree that Amarantha should join, and that Cora should join as well, so long as Jadis and the priestess were able to come to an amicable understanding, the opinions on Noct had been divided. On the one hand, she was respected as a competent warrior and ally. Her family were also good friends to their group and could be trusted. Most importantly, Noct seemed to be earnestly interested in a genuine relationship with Jadis; she had her own ulterior motive, but it didn’t take precedence over the basic attraction between them. For those reasons, the Valravn was a good candidate not only for the ritual, but also for becoming something more.

On the other hand, concerns had been raised over her self-control. If Noct’s intense display during her moment alone with Jadis was any indication, the dark-haired woman was potentially dangerous when put in an emotional state. Not intentionally so, but possibly accidentally. If getting aroused also meant she was going to start biting and clawing anyone nearby, then involving her in an orgy seemed like a mistake. Maybe it was something that could be tempered with time and experience, but the ritual needed to happen no later than the next morning. The beginning of the march to Kastoria was starting, and Jadis and her lovers needed to be ready. They couldn’t wait for Noct to ease into the idea of having group sex with them.

Ultimately, no one had outright objected to Noct’s participation, and Thea had surprisingly spoken out in strong favor of the Valravn, but the final say wouldn’t be confirmed until Jadis had her talk with the woman. They needed to confirm just how well Noct could control herself, and what the dangers were if she couldn’t.

Personally, Jadis was willing to make adjustments specifically for Noct, if it meant making things easier for her to join. She liked the quiet Valravn, and while she admitted that some of her attraction came from her somewhat childish fantasies surrounding vampire romance novels, she still liked Noct regardless. There was a definitely spark of attraction between them, and as Jadis had only recently figured out regarding her own mentality, she didn’t sense any sort of misplaced interest or worship from the woman. Noct was looking at Jadis head on, and that made all the difference in the world.

“I arranged a meeting with her, while you were away,” Aila stated with a bemused expression. “You know, my life since meeting you has taken some utterly bizarre turns. I never would have thought that I would be setting up a meeting between the love of my life and another woman, for express purpose of assessing if she will be a compatible sex partner for us.”

“Love of your life?” Syd crooned, grinning giddily at the redheaded mage. “Is that my title, now?”

“When it is not eclipsed by ‘gigantic idiot,’ which is a rare occurrence,” Aila snipped back, though her voice lacked even a trace of venom. “Anyway, you should use all of your bodies to meet with her, as a sign of respect. And don’t wear your armor. She might take offense. And please don’t bring up any other rituals until we can settle her involvement in this one. Her judgement shouldn’t be affected by the potential gains from Lewd Lover’s Bond.”

“I will, I won’t, and of course I won’t,” Syd replied to Aila’s advice in order. “Are you sure you don’t want to sit in on the meeting? It’s for a group event, so…”

“No, I don’t want to overwhelm her,” Aila shook her head, her freckled nose scrunched up at the thought. “Thea and Severina will be there with you. That is more than enough.”

“Alright,” Syd agreed, her mind already starting to bend towards the coming interaction. “I’ll let you know how it goes. Honestly, considering how recently she expressed her interest in me, I can only imagine that being invited to join a ritualistic orgy is going to freak her out. She might reject the whole idea outright.”

“I know I would have run screaming,” Aila said with a teasing smirk.

“Probably,” Syd agreed. “But you would have gotten curious and come back eventually. I mean, I am pretty irresistible.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“That too,” Syd laughed at Aila’s barb. Turning her attention to the future, Syd murmured almost to herself. “I do wonder what Noct will say when I ask her?”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep