Chapter 28 #2
Luna offered him the pipe. He took it, drew, and the familiar warmth spread through his chest. This was from Vellhorn, the second or third thing they took. His body instantly heated up, blood flooding to his loins. “Is this an aphrodisiac?”
“Yep.”
He handed her back the pipe. That was exactly what he needed right now. “Did you have to use a level fifty assassin capstone on everyone?”
“Is that what it is?” As she took a drag from the pipe, she slowly nudged closer, the distance between them halved already. “I’ve never looked too deeply into the assassin specialization. There’s too much offense in the class for me, and not enough evasion.”
Right. He ignored the offered pipe. Instead, he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her to him. He figured she would love that. “Because you’ve got all the offense you need from your previous life.”
“It’s not like your spells are from the System.”
“My powers aren’t related to the body.”
She smirked. “My new body’s all right. The old one was a lot more optimized for combat, especially with all the werewolf powers. This one’s all right. It’s a lot softer and more flexible though. I can easily cross my ankles behind my head now.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
“Watch.” Luna leaned back, put one leg behind her head, then the other, crossing her ankles behind her neck as she lowered herself and pushed her pelvis up. “And this is still with some leeway.”
Whoever put the curse on her was beyond good with magic. Alsen put his hand on her thigh, low. He squeezed a bit and pressed down a few times, watching her arch in the process. “Indeed, with some leeway.”
Luna put the pipe to her lips, taking a long drag.
Alsen felt nothing. Not even with the aphrodisiacs, in spite of the situation, he didn’t feel anything. If he didn’t watch her brutally murder a man earlier, he might have even felt bad for her. But he didn’t. She had earned that curse.
One day, he had to find out how to place a curse like this. Not that he would have an immediate use for it, but purely for the absurd display of power.
He kept his hand on her thigh. The last time she got horny from drugs, she got unusually talkative. Time to test the pattern. “Does killing excite you?”
Luna turned red, looking away as she dragged more from the pipe. “Maybe a little.”
Alsen scoffed. “Why are you lying to me?”
“Quite a bit.” She turned even redder. “You don’t get into over eight hundred duels if you don’t like it.”
How many? Fuck, that was an insane number. “Over eight hundred? How?”
“Right, so that’s a long story.”
He pushed himself a bit back, resting his arm over both her thighs. She put herself into the position. It would be a waste to not take advantage of it. “We’ve got time.”
“Right, so, ehm, anyway, in a world like mine, there’s a lot of magic.
With that comes a lot of mages and the need to block mages.
If a unit of a hundred common mages can group cast a meteorite that can wipe out an army, then the army needs its own hundred common mages powering up an anti-magical shield.
So, everyone did that, and as a result, detection magic stopped being useful. ”
Group cast? Okay. He had heard of group rituals, but those were mostly one spellcaster with others chanting for reasons rarely related to the actual spell.
“Without detection magic, you need to find out if an army isn’t marching against your city or lands or whatever, so you need scouts.
Aerial scouts are an obvious choice, but those are really easy to shoot down with a spell.
So, everyone used horsemen or rangers to scout.
In small units, to avoid life detection spells.
And because of that, if you are an army that’s marching somewhere, you need to hunt the enemy scouts. I did that. A lot.”
Again, an unusually long-winded explanation for her.
This position clearly worked wonders in terms of loosening her tongue.
If they practiced it more often, he might even get to know her one day.
“That bloodlust trick is your opener. How bad are the actual tricks you’ve got for combat? I mean, for when you’re in trouble.”
“Really bad. Like, really, really, really, bad. You don’t want to see it. Trust me.”
He trusted her. That was a large part of the problem. “The group is terrified of you.”
“That was the point.”
“Well, they’re going to want you gone.”
She took another drag from the pipe. If the idea bothered her, she didn’t show it. “Do you want me gone?”
“No,” he said instantly. “I want you to stick around. But it would be troublesome if you went directly with the group… for obvious reasons.”
“Sure, I guess. I can stick around at a bit of a distance.”
He smiled. “Thank you. Also, it would be good if you didn’t kill people for merely touching your sleeping bag.”
“Not a chance.”
The bluntness surprised him a touch. Not a single shred of remorse or even a hint at a potential course correction. Don’t touch Luna’s stuff was apparently a rule the rest of the world had to make peace with, or end up bleeding to death. “All right.” He removed his hand from her and got up.
“You know… you can touch my stuff if you want to.”
He smiled. “I need to go back to the others. They’re shaken up enough, already. Good night.” He pulled on his power, flying up.
“You’re such an asshole!” she shouted after him.
He flew back toward Arleria’s camp. This wasn’t the payback Hadric deserved, or would have approved of. But it was something to place on the punishment side of the scales, which was more than nothing.
More than anyone else could do.
Alsen loved the thought. And Luna was going to love the skill he was going to take at level twenty.
Kern watched him return. His bow hadn’t moved from his knees. His eyebrows performed a complicated maneuver that Alsen interpreted as I saw nothing, which was the kindest thing Kern had ever communicated to him.
He landed without making a sound and settled back beside Arleria. She’d barely moved, her breathing slow and deep, her body still curled toward the space he’d left. He eased himself in, and she shifted against him without waking, her shoulder finding his arm again.
He stared at the sky until sleep took him.
Morning came cold and gray.
The camp stirred slowly, everyone moving with the careful deliberation of people who hadn’t slept well and knew it.
Derell packed the cart in silence. Malick ate dried rations without his usual commentary.
Torben’s group had left at dawn, their campsite empty except for the flattened grass and a dark stain on the ground where Hadric had bled.
Arleria stood by the stream, washing her face. Her composure was back in full, the party leader’s mask firmly in place. When she returned, her eyes were clear and her voice steady. “We need to discuss the situation,” she said.
They gathered by the cart. Five of them, standing in the gray morning light, breath misting in the cold air. Arleria, Alsen, Derell, Malick, and Kern. The mountain pass loomed ahead, invisible behind low clouds, present in the chill wind that cut through the valley.
“She can’t travel with us,” Derell said. He’d waited approximately three seconds after Arleria’s opening to say it, which showed remarkable restraint for him.
“I agree,” Malick said. His warhammer leaned against the cart, and his hands were empty, which was how Alsen knew he was serious.
Arleria looked at Kern. He gave a single, slight nod.
Three votes, in the span of a breath. Arleria turned to Alsen. Her expression was careful, controlled, but her eyes held something that might have been an apology. “Alsen?”
“I spoke to her last night. She will pick up her things later.” He motioned with his head toward the backpack and spear that had remained behind.
Everyone audibly exhaled, the tension easing in an instant. Even Arleria’s shoulders dropped a fraction in relief. She’d expected a fight.
But there was none to be had. With the situation resolved, they went to pack their things.
Within half an hour, they headed out toward the pass.
The pass announced itself with wind.
Harsh, cold wind that pierced to the bones. Having some proper clothes would have helped Alsen a lot, but he had grossly underestimated how high the mountain pass was.
Twenty minutes into the top part of the ascent, he knew he needed a spell for this. He started with the concept of the omnidirectional shield, pulled it tighter, without the shield filling the gaps among the motes, and worked from there.
By the time they got to the snow, he had a heavily improvised heating web around himself. It didn’t take much power, but it also didn’t do much. At least he wasn’t his teeth chattering.
The road, if it could still be called that, had narrowed to a track barely wide enough for two people walking abreast. The cart had become a problem an hour ago. It became an impossibility when the path cut between two rock faces, and the gap measured roughly four feet across.
Derell stopped the horse. He looked at the gap. He looked at the cart. He looked at Arleria.
“We’re not getting through with the cart,” he said, tone grave.
Arleria studied the terrain ahead. The path climbed steeply beyond the gap, switching back against the mountainside in a series of zigzags that disappeared into low cloud cover.
Snow clung to the upper reaches, a thin white line that thickened as the altitude increased.
“We cache the supplies we need and leave the rest. Kern?”
Kern had already materialized from wherever he’d been scouting. He pointed upward with his chin. “The path holds for at least another mile. After that, it opens onto a wider shelf. We can make a base camp there.”
“How far to the pass proper?”
“Half a day from the shelf. Maybe less if the weather holds.”
Arleria nodded. “Strip the cart. Essential supplies only. We leave the horse tied with enough slack to graze.”