Breakfast with the girls (John POV).

"So do you think he'll tell you anything" Dawn asks as the two of you walk to the dining room.

"Eventually I think so. Sean might be a bit rough and have pretty loose morals, but ultimately he doesn't seem to be stupid. In fact I'd say he's a clever survivor. He knows I wasn't lying when I said he's now an enemy of whoever is after me. He failed and none of his men are returning. Even if he went back to whoever it is they'd never trust him again, and more likely will punish him. Especially if he goes back with that new arm of his. I feel a little bad about it, but that arm had two purposes. Showing good faith by helping him, and should he return there is a message in there that will trigger" you reply.

"How will it trigger" Dawn asks.

"Well he provided me with their magic. It's like a fingerprint, unique to each individual. When my spell recognizes the person who cast the spell for his previous arm it will trigger. I'm not certain what I did was morally correct, but hopefully it'll never have to trigger should he decide to help us, and if he does I can remove that part of the spell" you reply.

"And what is the message" Dawn asks smirking at you.

"How thankful I am to Sean for providing us with so much useful information, and also a greeting to whoever the person is" you chuckle.

"That's so wrong, but yet I can't help but feel he'd deserve it" Dawn tells you with a smile as the two of you enter into the dining room. Inside are all your favorite women including Lira, Aella, and Lina with the other Amazon women having returned to their village already.

"Ahh, the brilliant strategist blesses us with is presence" Annabel says smiling teasingly at you. You shyly chuckle as you make your way to your seat.

"Aella had some input on that ambush as well. I can't take all the credit for its success" you reply.

"Dino shit. I merely involved some of our warriors so we could see how effective we could fight together. Even then, all you ladies had to do was reload one more time and you could have finished off the few who remained. We weren't needed" Aella counters.

"Dino shit my ass" you chuckle at the phrase for a second "a reload isn't always going to be possible for many reasons. Being able to fall back behind a wall of shields and spears was clever and effective. We may not have necessarily needed to do that this time, but next time we might, and this proved we were able to do it. There aren't going to be many times we can practice that in an actual fight, if any. It was clever, well planned, and well executed. That's not dino shit" you reply stabbing your fork into what appeared to be some sort of tuber for emphasis. Aella blushes in response, but doesn't reply.

"Well I'd just like to add that I was entirely impressed with all of it. Any fight you can walk away from and return to your family is a good fight, and the fact is we didn't suffer any casualties at all while also capturing their leader alive. I doubt we'll have such an easy fight next time, so we should all take some pride in such a one sided victory. Again, I was entirely impressed with all of you" Lira says pointing at Dawn, Yvette, Jane, Annabel, Rene, and Nadine. "Your weapons had a significant impact, but it takes courage and a strong will to use those weapons. I knew what my warriors were capable of, and now I know what you are capable of. You have my respect" Lira adds bowing her head slightly. Your girls blush and bow their heads in return.

"Well...I'm sure we are all rather famished, so let's dig in before our food gets cold. We can pat ourselves on the back afterwards" Rene pipes up and starts digging into her food. You noticed there was a certain tension in her voice. You look over to Annabel who is looking right back at you in a knowing way. You were going to have to talk with Rene and see what was rolling around in her head, though you suspect she was feeling guilt. You nodded your head which Annabel gave you a single nod in response showing she knew you would talk with Rene. The rest of the women followed Rene's advice and got to eating right away. Judging by how quickly everyone was eating Rene wasn't wrong about everyone being famished. Once everyone was done Dawn and Annabel took Lira, Aella, and Lina for a more in depth tour of the facility. Nadine, Yvette, and Jane all gave you a knowing look and left you alone with Rene who was poking at her last bit of food.

"Rene" you say getting her attention "I was hoping we could talk for a bit" you half ask half tell her.