Scarlet Date 3, Part 3: Meet the Volcano?

Tina

Tina is nervously sitting with Josie and Scarlet’s (pretty hot) mom and contemplating hopping out the window. The ground can’t be that far down.

Scarlet’s mom breaks finally the silence, “So, what are you two fighting about?”

Tina stands up to go out the window. I don’t care if the ground is too far down. A broken leg or two can’t be that bad. Josie pulls her back down. “Sit, Rabbit.”

Unable to escape Josie’s powerful grip. Tina sits back down and pouts. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Look, I’ve been married to Shaemus for longer than you two have been alive. I’ve seen those looks you are giving to each other often enough in the mirror to tell that you two are fighting. So, spill it. Are you fighting over my daughter’s affection? Or is it something else?”

Scarlet walks in, a fancy looking scroll in hand. “Mom, stop hassling my girlfriends. So, stuff happened and the four of us need to talk. I want your fight resolved now. Either you two can do it together or I can give you a quick fix. Preferences?”

Josie instantly barks, “Quick fix.”

Tina looks into the eyes of the girl she loves and sighs. “Josie, I love you, but, no, we are not doing the quick fix. What can I do to help you figure out how you feel about me?”

“Tina, my family gave me such crap about not being into men that I’ve pushed all that complicated feeling stuff down deep.”

“Well, that’s shitty of them,” Scarlet’s mom states, “I’ll tell you like I told Heidi and Alex. Assuming my husband approves of your Mistress, treat me like your Mom. Both of you. My daughter likes getting package deals apparently and I get that I’m going to have a lot of daughters-in-law. So, next excuse, Wolfy.”

Scarlet looks like she may catch the suite on fire. “Wait, Mom, you said that to them?”

“Of course. I might be hard on you to **** you to do the right thing, but...”

“Did you know?”

“I suspected, but I had no idea the extent.”

Scarlet sighs, her rage washing off her face. She catches Harper coming in, finishing off a finger of brown liquor. She walks over to the kitchen and places the glass in the sink, then wraps an arm around the oread.

“Guess blue girl passed the test since my husband is not taking a swing at her. So, call me Mom. Answer the bunny’s question, Wolfy.”

“I don’t know how to love someone.”

Josie’s just like me. She has all these feelings and doesn’t know how to express them. Tina leans in for a kiss. Josie returns it. When she pulls back, Tina answers, “I don’t know how to love someone either. I know I love you, but I have no idea what that means. Maybe we can figure it out together?”

Harper whispers something is Scarlet’s ear as the oread unrolls the scroll thingy. Harper scans the text and a brief look of panic flashes across her face. Tina pays very little attention to that. She focuses on Josie’s eyes. The gym thot sighs. “Let’s figure it out together then, I guess.” She turns to look at the oread and sea elf, “You two are helping.”

Harper smirks as Scarlet gives them a thumbs up. The oread speaks up first, “Hey, so we got a big job to do and not a lot of time to do it. Mom, Dad, I love you, but...”

“Go on, Pumpkin, go save the world or make another porn vid with your girlfriends or whatever. We’ll be here when you get back.”

“Wait, Scarlet, you showed your parents that?”

“Yup,” Scarlet’s dad states, “my little pumpkin thought that showing us the vid would help us understand her situation better. Though I didn’t see Harper in it. Too good to sleep with my daughter, Elfy?”

“Oh, Pops, I fucked your daughter good. They made a statue of it and everything.”

Scarlet’s dad guffaws and her mom is mortified. Scarlet gives her dad a wink, saying something in the pretty gibberish that has Harper chuckling. When he’s done laughing, he asks, “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope! It’s a whole thing on the show! There’s this big aquarium thing around the stairs leading up to the Master Suite and they put statues in there every time Harper has sex with one of us for the first time. I just got my statue last night!”

Now that both parents are momentarily stunned, Scarlet drags the sitting animal girls to her feet. Pushing them out the door, she yells, “Love ya, Mom and Dad, but we gotta go! We’ll see you when we get back! Bye!”

Scarlet starts to close the door behind them, not quite fast enough to not overhead Scarlet’s Mom (my new Mom?) say, “Are we even going to talk about how it looks like there’s rocks growing out of our daughter?”

The oread can’t help but continue to listen in. Scarlet’s Dad (my Dad?) snipes back, “I figure we shouldn’t point it out, because it probably wasn’t her decision. You know how that show goes!”

“Just ‘cause we’ve been watching episodes to help put us in the mood doesn’t mean I want to think about how it’s affecting our little girl, Shaemus.”

“She our little girl, Sinead, whether she’s made of rocks or not.”

With that, Scarlet closes the door, tears steaming off her cheeks. “Thanks, Harper, for stopping me from saying I’m a monster. Hearing that, for the first time, I really feel that I’m not. Now, we actually have a monastery to save, so we should get going.”

Scarlet

The foursome finds the supplies laid out for them. One of the older monks (a stout looking dwarf woman with a long, silky looking beard) is driving a cart for them with enough supplies for them to go out for 2 days. The highlight of said supplies? A suit of armor similar in design to an old timey diving suit for Harper to wear (but made of transparent material so Harper can at least cast), filled with sea water. Her sea elf love is already in it, burbling away in her whalesong language. She had to place her equipment in a bag so she can access it. Her bunny love is teasing Harper, much to the annoyance of everyone else, “C’mon, cutie, why don’t you want me to touch you? Hiding in that silly suit. I really would like a kiss or two right now.”

Harper, for her part, is ritually casting... something. She’s the only nerd caster, so Scarlet doesn’t exactly know what she’s doing.

“Tina, seriously, stop. If what the monks say is true, Harper won’t survive 15 minutes in the volcano without that suit. She’ll dry out and start to suffocate.”

“Well, why doesn’t she say so herself?”

Josie growls, “She did, when they put her in the suit. For a college graduate, you don’t remember much, do you?”

“I remember I love you!”

That softens the gym girl, a little, “Then stop teasing the old lady. That’s my job.”

Suddenly, Harper’s voice is in her head, “Testing, testing. Is this on? Did the spell work?”

Tina blurts out, “How are you talking, cutie?”

Broadcast to everyone, “You were there when I scribed Telepathic Bond, Tina. Daph called it something like a mental walkie-talkie spell? I have to recast every hour, but we can communicate this way.”

“Smart,” Scarlet thinks, testing the spell herself.

“Hey, I heard that! Neat!”

“So, before we get there? What exactly do we know? What are we looking for? I frankly don’t know much about volcanic environments in DoD, other than lava is super obviously deadly.”

“How deadly?”

“Minimum 6 fire damage a round deadly. Or 60 damage a minute. And that’s with minimal exposure. Actually landing face first into lava is going to deal 20 damage a round.”

“I’m immune to lava damage.”

“I hate to ask, but are we dealing with oreads? Your transformation description hinted at...”

“Nope. Center of the monastery is a dryad grove. Oreads don’t go burning down our kin’s homes. We apparently got a code? Other ideas?”

The monk cart driver speaks up, “Sorry, lassies, but I’m only getting part of the conversation. If it’s intel ye want, try the dragon living in the mountain. Part o’ this trip is to deliver her daily bribe sheep. We feed ‘er, she don’t come eatin’ our flocks and occasionally go keep the monsters at bay. She’s a part o’ the reason the gnoll army stays north of us. Gettin’ to talk to ‘er gets tricky, as she’s not the most friendly sort. And, from the few who has talked to ‘er, she’s a weird one. If anyone knows what’s goin’ on it that mountain, it’ll be ‘er.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Harper telepathically sends, “We check on this dragon and see if she caught, I don’t know, gnoll rabies or something else to exhibit the volcano’s behavior. If she’s fine, she might be able to tell us what is going on.”

“As good a plan as any I got, old lady.”

Aelene

Aelene is grumbling because the good mermaid Daphne drew that dumb extra turn spell just in time to save herself, then drew that equally dumb mass bounce spell to remove Aelene’s board, then was able to win the tie-breaker game.

At least the mermaid is a good sport, offering a handshake and saying, “Thanks for the games, Aelene. I had fun and I hope you did too. And thanks for teaching us the basics, Mattie. But, if it’s not too much of a problem, I kind of need to get my evening going. I should get my shift at the store done before I’m expected to be at the family wake.”

Aelene shakes Daphne’s hand. The webbing feels a little weird, but also familiar; it feels a bit like her betrothed’s hand. The good astral elf Mattie looks disappointed, “So, no delve for us tonight?”

“My Beloved did make a one-shot for Skye. You two could try that?”

That got Aelene’s attention, “One-shot?”

“Yup. One delver versus the scenario. Scarlet found it pretty challenging, but that was a few levels ago. The XP rewards may be less than you’d like, but you can always delve alone in that.”

“Thank you for the games and the information, good mermaid Daphne.” With that Daphne stands up and leaves the library.

Daphne: -1 BP (Reading Fee)

The good astral elf has a mischievous smirk on her face, “Hey, Aelene, wanna lay some stakes down? Best kill count in the one-shot gets something? I mean, I want a chance to catch up, so I’m going to give it a go anyways, but a bet may make things more interesting.”

Aelene thinks it over. I mean, I want to delve every chance I get so I can get stronger for my people. It sounds like we are going to both go in regardless. What’s the worst thing that will happen? On the other hand... “What about Lady Skye? We can’t just leave her alone.”

“Sure, we go in one at a time and the other watches Skye. I’ll even go first so you can figure out my kill count. What do you say?”

“Ok, when I win, you build me a Leylines deck that I can beat my Betrothed with. You?”

“Oh, I’ll tell you when I win.”

As the three of them exit the library (Lady Skye crawling on the floor), they see Dinah still at work on her research. When they are out of earshot, Aelene asks, “What do we do about the good human Dinah?”

“If she wants to self-destruct, she’ll self-destruct. If she wants to get with the program, I’ll be there for her. Or we convince Sarge to just constantly uses those Fudge the Roll triggers to keep her compliant; I’d feel super gross about that, but if you think...”

“Good elf Mattie, do not suggest such a thing. My Betrothed would never agree to that.”

“I know, Aelene. I know.”

Aelene: -1 BP (Reading Fee)

Mattie: -1 BP (Reading Fee)

Skye: -0 BP (In the Library, But Didn’t Actually Read)

Harper

Ugh. Moving in this thing super sucks. It feels like I’m walking through molasses. Every movement feels so sluggish.

The group is standing on the offering platform the monastery built to feed their neighbor dragon. A sheep is baaing, tied to a stake on the center. A cave entrance is before them. Harper broadcasts her thoughts to the others, “Hey, everyone, I’m going to refresh the telepathy. Tina, can you ritually cast Detect Magic?”

“What, why?” the bonny bunny asks.

“Detect Magic will let you see magical traps. Dragons sometimes stick traps in their lairs to catch food or keep out nosy adventurers.”

“If you’re so worried about it, why don’t you do it?” Tina asks, though she’s starting to look scared.

Harper trudges over to give her bunny a weird hug. “Hey, it’s okay. We’re crazy strong and we’ll look after each other. I shouldn’t because ritual casting takes time. If I ritually cast both spells, we’re spending twenty minutes every hour waiting on me.”

“And we have a time limit, Tina. Do it.”

Scarlet is being a little more forceful than she should. Stress? Harper trudges over, starting her ritual, and gives Scarlet a side hug. The oread calms down a little. Tina grumpily starts her ritual, too. Soon enough, the bonny bunny goes, “Oh, wow. Uh, low-grade magic all around us. Mostly illusion magic, some divination, whatever that means.”

“That means the dragon can spy on us. Telepathic communication only, until we know she’s friendly. Scarlet and Tina, take point, look for traps. Josie, vanguard. I’m a little too encumbered to be much use physically. Sucks that I’m not prepped to act like a normal wizard right now. I’m going to be of limited use in there.”

Josie lifts Harper up in a bear hug. “I can always carry you, old lady.”

“Put me down, whipper-snapper, and save your strength. We may very well need it.”

The party carefully walks into the cave entrance. Inside is a bunch of dicks, squirting cum every which way? Eww.

“Illusion. Hiding something?” Tina points out.

A jet of cum hits Scarlet square on the chest. Her dress catches fire and splits open. A streak of black rock appears on her skin, which she brushes off. The oread shrugs and peels it off. “Jets of lava, looks like.”

Tina shudders at that. It feels like it takes forever, but Harper and Scarlet figure out the pattern and the group slowly gets past the first trap. Next illusion is a big floppy dick oozing cum into a lazy river of semen, about 20 feet across Harper estimates. Harper sees a side passage and nudges her head towards it. Tina confirms the cut stone blocks are real. It’s like there is a ruin built into the mountain and this dragon just moved in at one point.

“What’s the range on the telepathy?” Scarlet asks.

“Same plane of existence. But you have to be within 30 feet of me to get it refreshed.”

“We got like half an hour? Let me scout ahead this way. This is bound to be the fast way to the dragon, assuming lava can’t hurt you. You take the side passage. I come back to look for you in like 20 minutes? Sounds good?”

Sounds terrible. Never split the party. Then Harper looks into Scarlet’s obsidian eyes and sees her determination. Too stubborn to argue with right now. She reluctantly nods. And Scarlet dives into the river, mostly disappearing from view. Black chunks of rock flings in the air as bits of arm and leg pop into view. The others head down the side tunnel.