Quests and Questions

“I spent much of the morning killing rats.”

Stheno sounded more confused than anything else. The gorgon was seated across the table from Penny—though in this case, ‘seated’ wasn’t necessarily the most accurate verb, as her lower body was once more serpentine. She had wrapped her lower half around the chair, and her ‘hips’ where the serpent became a woman, were planted in the seat as best she could, but it was obvious the seat had not been designed with her anatomy in mind.

“I had to find the bard’s guild hall. Just that, except when I got there, I ran into this woman who was running around in front of it trying to collect pieces of paper off of the ground. The quest-thing in my–” Penny gestured at her wrist vaguely, “–character sheet, I guess, added some lines and told me that as a bonus, I could help her gather her pages.”

“I do not understand why a building that size had an underground chamber that size—it was largely filled with barrels that appeared to be empty—or why it had become infested with rats the length of my forearm. There was nothing there for them to eat. On what were they subsisting?”

Elsie looked back and forth between her two companions at the table. She could feel Stheno’s need far more acutely than Penny’s. Useful Little Tool’s description didn’t say anything about pushing her to do anything about the needs that she sensed, but it didn’t have to—that part of her had been there long before any oversexed walking anime characters had stepped off the page and told her that she was going to feature in someone’s harem.

The thought caused Elsie’s ears to heat up and she glanced to the side and stared through the wall of The Long Rest.

“I expected to be asked to trap Artemis’ prey to steal away the hunt, or to bare my breasts in front of Aphrodite’s altar, not–” Stheno shook her head once. Like Penny, the gorgon had a drink in front of her. Unlike Penny, she was still nursing her first. Elsie wasn’t sure how many the bard had already gone through, because while her cheeks were slightly rosy Penny’s words were still clear. “–killing rats.”

“Did you get a quest this morning? I didn’t see you.”

The expression on Elsie’s face shifted swiftly to surprise as Penny turned to address her. “Oh, um. I wanted to get out and explore the city a little.”

The siren might have been a few drinks in, but it didn’t slip by her attention that the brownie didn’t actually answer her question. Rather than push the issue, though, she instead followed up with a different question. “Did you see where any of the others got off to, then?”

“Blue said that she was going to explore some more. I think she’s looking for something, but she hasn’t told me what. Hazel took off towards the woods about the same time that I got up. I haven’t seen either Tess or Hwa, though.”

Penny shook her head. “I haven’t seen Tess either. Hwa didn’t get a quest this morning—or at least, she said she didn’t—but she left at the crack of dawn anyway.”

The siren paused for long enough to take another drink, and Elsie commented, “Hwa is going to run into Hazel outside the city today.”

“What? How do you know that?” Penny leaned in towards the brownie, curiosity plain on her face.

“It was one of the things I saw this morning.”

“You are an oracle now, yes?” Stheno shook off her confusion at the tasks her own daily quest had required of her. “What vision did you see?”

“Hwa and Hazel. They were picking some berries—some were red and some were pink, and a few were purple or orange.” Elsie shrugged. “I’m not really sure why the vision showed me that. It didn’t look like they were fighting, though, so I didn’t think that I needed to go with them. I figured everything would turn out alright, and I didn’t really want to leave the city anyway.”

“Bullshit.” Hwa cursed.

She was an accomplished alchemist in her own right. It should not matter that her captor did not deign to acknowledge that fact—her skills were her own.

Yet another thorn scratched her skin, leaving another thin red line on her fingers. It was one of many, as the kumiho did her best to carefully reach into the thicket and extract the berries that were her primary goal in leaving the city.

“You alright over there, sweetheart?” Hazel did not seem to be having any of the same problems that Hwa did. The druid was all but naked, yet her flesh was unmarred by scratches, and the basket of vines that hung loosely from her elbow was half-full of a mix of the berries that seemed far more sparse when it was her hand braving the thorns.

“I am fine.” Hwa had to bite back the urge to curse at the druid in turn. The nymph had approached her not long after she left the city, then volunteered to aid her in completing the ‘quest’ that she had taken upon herself.

Her trials for the day had begun when Hwa attempted to obtain a more suitable outfit for herself. Lily might have taken her chosŏn-ot, but the city was large and there were many tailors.

When she had found one, however, Hwa had discovered a problem. The currency the tailor had demanded was of course ‘GP’, and while her character sheet had indicated that she possessed 330, the two least expensive outfits had cost 200 and 400 GP respectively.

She could have afforded the former, but when the tailor brought it out to display to her–

If Hwa had wanted to put herself more on display than the ridiculous costume she’d been granted, she would have simply gone naked. Not worn—that.

The solution came from the woman outside of the shop. A peasant peddler of pies, she had offered to reward Hwa with 100 GP if she was willing to fetch two hundred berries from the woods outside the city.

A task obviously beneath her, but since the alternative was to prance about half-naked for the entertainment of the nightmare witch and her chosen pet victim, Hwa chose the lesser of two evils. The magic writing attached to her wrist was even tracking her efforts.

Quest: Humble Pie (67/200 Humbleberries Collected)

It did not appear to count the berries the nature spirit carried, but Hwa could not bring herself to allow Hazel to contribute more to her own success than she did. She would collect one hundred before she asked for the other woman’s basket.

“Fuck!” No matter how many of the damned thorns pricked her.

Hazel seemed to have no difficulty in understanding Hwa, despite the fox-spirit not yet having succumbed to the absurd ‘spell’ Lily had granted the party. They had not yet been in the woods for an hour, which left the possibility that the nature spirit had performed the effect with one of the other captives prior to her departure, but if that were the case, it would wear off soon.

“I think I’ve got close to a hundred and fifty here. I kinda lost track, but you’re welcome to them. I can also do something about those scratches if you like.”

Hwa’s hand itched. Her whole body itched, in fact, and she began to wonder if she was allergic to the accursed things. “No. Thank you. I appreciate your offer.” The words were ground out through gritted teeth, but if Hazel notice she took no offense.

“Of course! We’re all in this together, right?”

The kumiho’s eyes closed and she **** herself to take a long, deep breath. “We are all captives of the same capricious being, yes.” She opened them. There was another berry towards the back—a cluster of them, in fact. She leaned forward carefully—the silk dress she wore slid along her skin with the slightest motion, and the faint tingle she felt heightened her awareness of it with each motion.

It was a ridiculous outfit to wear to pick berries in the woods, let alone face whatever trials Lily had in mind, yet Hwa was **** to do exactly that if she wished to have the agency to as much as choose her own clothes.

Her fingers touched the plump surface of the cluster of berries and she plucked them off the vine in a bunch.

“Incestuous prostitute!” Somehow yet another thorn managed to find its way to prick the back of her hand—this one hard enough that a small bead of bright red blood welled up and further marred her skin.

“I don’t think that one came across quite right, but I take your meaning. Here—I think I’m going to leave you to your quest, since it seems like you’ve got your own things going on. I’ll see you tonight?”

Hazel put forth no obvious effort into picking her way carefully through the thorny bushes, but despite the fact that her outfit didn’t even include shoes, she arrived at Hwa’s side unharmed. She slid the basket off her arm and lowered it to the ground, then turned and began wandering off towards the city once more without another word.

Tess wasn’t hiding.

She told herself that a few times over the course of the day, even while she had only emerged from her rooms twice. The first time had been in an attempt to retain her usual routine and start the day with a run. The second had been to get lunch.

It was just that she needed more time to get used to her new senses. As an athlete, the control Tess had been granted over her body would be a phenomenal advantage. Her balance was improved, her reflexes were faster, she could even speed up or slow down her heart rate if she focused a little.

The problem came from the awareness that came with it. Every pang of hunger, every twinge of a muscle that wasn’t quite warmed up for her jog had resonated through her mind. Every stray lustful thought that sent a burning message to her loins to get ready, just in case, was heightened in her awareness.

Tess had always been comfortable with being a sexual creature. She hadn’t exactly had a lot of experience with other people—largely due to the constant presence of her sister in her life from puberty onwards—but she’d never felt the shame about her body that seemed to be such a common feature of popular media.

She had urges and needs, and was comfortable with that.

When she’d gone to college, she’d anticipated taking the opportunity of being away from Abby to explore those desires more fully. To date, and maybe find out if the fulfillment of her desires lived up to the hype.

Except then she’d rarely had a chance, with her athletic and scholastic schedule. Jeremy was the first real boyfriend she’d had, and they’d only been dating for a short time. Tess was even willing to do some of that exploring with him, only he’d seemed nervous about going too quickly, so they had waited.

And waited.

And now she was stuck in what felt like another world, told that her boyfriend wasn’t even looking for her, while her body’s senses were amplified until the brush of one thigh against another sent a quiver up her spine.

Even that, Tess could have handled, if not for the… other sense. The one the demon-woman had maliciously saddled her with.

Her familiar.

Tess had asked Elsie what the word meant the night before—the English woman seemed to have a better idea of what was going on than most. She’d explained that familiars were usually small animal spirits or companions that were used to scout, or fetch things. Sometimes to fight, as in the case of her ‘Class’, apparently, though the brownie had seemed oddly dismissive of the notion.

None of what Elsie had told her had done anything to explain the strange sense of duality within Tess. It was as though not only was she feeling her own body, her own senses, more strongly than ever, she was feeling someone else’s as well.

And it felt good.

So she needed time. Time to adjust. To adapt. She would explore the world the next day, when she’d had time to acclimatize.

Tess’ fingers slowly trailed down her body. She’d resisted the urge to touch herself, despite her body making it abundantly clear how good that would feel. It felt as though that would be giving in to Lily. As though not touching herself was an act of resistance.

She would defy the demoness in this, if nothing else. She would remain strong.

Somehow.