The basics.

John left the shed with his pets in tow. The nightmare foal had become a bit more docile as John and Archibald took care of it. Brushing her midnight black mane and eventually feeding her some oats, with the corruption out of her system, the foal no longer seemed to want anything to do with meat as food. Now, while it was still early, John had somewhere else to be. He had promised his leader that he would report to her for lessons.

He was right on his way to her when Nissa appeared at the entrance to the pet area. Her body, which John could still remember in detail, was now covered in regular hunting gear, a leather outfit with the trademark green cloak. On her hip, a set of large rings collided with each other; when she came closer John recognized them as being a rather special throwing weapon, chakram.

She waved in greeting as from underneath a bush a green creature started galloping towards her. Its seven heads bobbed with each step as they eagerly snapped at the girl. Small light flashes shot from their mouths as they did, each head shooting a different color. Nissa knelt down and set right to petting the little hydra, scratching its chins and rubbing its back, causing it to wag its scaled tail like a puppy.

As John, Jack and Toph approached her, she gave him a lusty wink. “When we came to, you were already gone, pity. Either way, after a good morning workout, I can now get to work. You really loosened up some of my muscles, thanks a bunch, John,” she chuckled as she kept patting her pet, a few of the hydra’s heads looking at the new arrivals before going back to showering their owner in loving licks and nibbles. “Right, I work here, I study pets with Arnold. If you need someone to take care of your cuties there, lemme know.” John nodded as Toph walked up to the Hydra, patting it on its back with her small claws. The hydra looked at her with two heads, then patted her right back. “Aw, Nibbles likes you!” Nissa smiled as she rubbed Toph’s head.

“Well, ehm. Nice to meet you, Nibbles, and if I ever have questions while Arnold is busy, I will come and find you, okay?” John asked while stepping away.

“Oh, I’m counting on it. Be seeing ya, mr geek,” Nissa chuckled as she waved him off, picking up her baby hydra as she set to her work.

John and his duo of mischievous pets started their walk through the camp when John managed to drag his eyes away from her swaying ass. He felt exhilarated. In half a week’s time, he had fucked 3 separate women and got blown by a fourth. Hot ones at that. Ones he would have had no chance with whatsoever, or at least he thought, up to this week. While thinking that, he needed to send a message to Ilis to ask how she was doing, but then again, that was more for later. There was no use in trying to push this off. He was going to need to follow Miranda’s lessons if he wanted to have any chance of surviving any future hunts.

It took him another minute to return to the temple. Miranda was sipping a cup of tea while Dra was nowhere to be found. When she saw John walk up to her, she downed the last bit of her drink and clapped her hands. “John, good, you are here. Come with me,” the literal milf said as she got up from her chair.

Before John knew what was happening, Miranda had draped her arm around his shoulder and was moving him towards her and Arnold’s tent. Jack and Toph followed behind them, Toph riding comfortably on Jack’s head like some form of a pangolin helmet.

At the tent, Miranda led him in, walking past the bed that was at the entrance of every tent as far as John knew, and into a spacious living room. “Miranda, I have to ask. Why do your beds border the door? I mean, isn’t a bedroom supposed to be as far back as possible?” John finally could no longer hide his curiosity and asked her.

“Well, John, what do you know about our camp and the liberal way we have with sex, hm?” Miranda asked him patiently, taking a seat at the table and gesturing for John to sit down across from her. As he took a seat on the comfy wooden chair, John responded. “You are open about it, you hunt things, and you don’t mind if someone sees you, right?”

“Basically, yes. Our bedrooms border our doors because it’s easier for people to join in without having to go through the entire living space. Which, and this might sound strange to you, we see as way more personal than our bedrooms. We don’t let all the hunters into our living space. That is where we go to relax; if we want to have a bit more intimate times together, me and Arnold come back here,” Miranda explained with a motherly smile. “We can move around the spaces from a central point in the tent. The bathrooms always stay in the same place. From there on we can switch around which room goes where, but this is the general layout of our tents. If you ever stay with us long term, we can give you one of your own, or…. I think I know at least one person that would not mind you moving into her tent with you,” she grinned, winking playfully at him before her face turned more serious. She shook her hands, and a book appeared.

“Enough talk about that though. Let’s go over the basics.” Miranda turned the book to face John as Jack and Toph climbed onto the chair next to him, watching what was going to happen together.

“We and the other hunting organisations keep the wilderness barriers around the world from overpopulating. We hunt like this because it’s tradition and because, if we don’t, the barriers would slowly fill up and spill over with too many creatures to be housed inside. They would kill each other or escape and cause problems for the people in Springfield.” On the pages of the book there were a few images, magical gifs moving about, showing a boom of population and then spilling over. “We use this book for our children when they are 5 years old, sorry if it’s a bit childish, but it’s very concise about it,” Miranda explained.

John nodded as she went on with her story. “The other part of the story is that for every creature we kill, our gods gain a bit of power, call it absorbing life ****, replenishing their own resources or something of the sort. And in turn, they bestow upon us boons for delivering them the trophies. Seeing as a trophy is proof of the kill, gods at times require it to know who achieved a big kill. During the tournament, all trophies together eventually tally to a certain amount of points, and the points decide who wins. There is no real threshold for us to reach to get a reward; gods, like mortals are fickle beings. Sometimes they reward someone two days out of 3, sometimes we go weeks without seeing anything from Artemis. But that is not a problem. We are together, in the Abyss, we are safe. We don’t work for Artemis just because she grants us gifts after all. That would be a very greedy and untenable mindset to be in. She grants us a place to belong, and we in turn provide her with a means to increase her power and continue existing. It’s a symbiotic relationship, and if I say so myself, it’s a fair one.”

The images matched the story as Miranda went on. “Our gods have formed a pact of mutual defense hundreds of years ago. Eventually, it evolved when our organisations started to work together more and more. And sooner or later, the council was formed. We work together, even if once every decade we compete. About a hundred years after the forming of the council, there was a problem. America got discovered by the European non Abyssians and with it came a rather painful moment in history. The spanish inquisitions. Big organisations clashed, and when Mixcoatl asked for aid, some of our gods did not want to get involved. The council was divided. Two were for helping them, two did not want to clash with one of our biggest allies due to it, while one person abstained from voting all together. That ally was the Order of the Golden Rose.”

John mumbled softly. “Did not expect that…”

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

“Gaiadamnit!”

“What was that, John?”

“Sorry, a spanish inquisition joke by Gaia… Please, continue.”

Miranda looked at him, then shrugged. “Alright. In the end, the council stepped in after Artemis cast her vote in favor of joining with Mixcoatl and saving them. However, by then the inquisition had been going on for quite some time and we could only help save them from extinction. To prevent such a thing from happening again, they decided to elect a leader of the council every ten years; to gods, that is a short time after all. The leader of the council has a second vote to break a tie, and more importantly, the leader of the council can borrow part of the strength of the other members of the council to act in its interests. It’s also become a bit of a challenge for us on the ground level, to show we are better than the others; every hunter has their pride after all.

“And I think that is all you need to know about the council and its workings. It’s also worth noting that our relations with the Order has seen another small dent recently. We have a deal with them, they make sure our members are safe in town, and we take them with us on some expeditions to gather materials. Only, recently one of their paladins got hurt, because the idiot ran head first into a bear even after we told him to watch out. The Order took it rather personal, and Gus, being the hothead that he is, only made things worse. We are still allies, but our relationship is strained.”

John nodded and rubbed his head; it was a good bit of info. He now knew how the council worked, at least, and why it did what it did. But this was not why he thought he was here. “Thank you for the background information, but I thought this was supposed to be about teaching me the basics of hunting?” John asked hesitantly.

Miranda smirked. “True, but knowing why is also part of the basics. I was getting there, so let's move on. During a hunt, you should always stay low, stay out of sight and be aware of your surroundings.”