Well enough to get moving

Your companions are still sleeping when you awaken, so you rummage through your supplies and fix a meal for yourself. As you eat, you think through the worst-case scenario... Aegis is too big to move, so what sort of shelter can you build here? If you need to forage, can you remember your wilderness training well enough find food? You'll need to set up some defenses in case creatures decide to attack you again, and so on...

"Did you save any for me?" Indra's voice shakes you from your thoughts. She's sitting up right, but has her blanket pulled up around her naked body.

You swoop down on her and plant a kisses all over the girl's face. "Are you okay? How do you feel?" She gently pushes you away, laughing at the attention.

"No need to fuss. I feel like I was up to my eyeballs in my special stock all night, but nothing a little hangover remedy won't cure. What happened?" You ask her how much she remembers. Apparently the Ettercap venom stole most of the previous day, as she barely recalls stopping at the fork in the river. You fill her in on the rest, leaving out the details about the dryad and your vision in the fire. For some reason, you feel like it would be best to keep that information to yourself for now.

"I really wasn't sure when you were going to wake up, so I was making plans to fortify this area in case I needed to watch over you much longer." Indra smiles and looks over at Aegis, then off into space. "Is something wrong?"

She snaps her attention back to you. "No, of course not. Mistress. I'm just... still a little out of it, I think."

You give the witch a sly look and trail a finger around your breasts. "I think I've got something that should help with that."

Indra follows the motion of your fingers and bites her lip, then looks back into your eyes before responding. "Perhaps... real food would be better right now?" Is this what rejection feels like? No, the previous night had been a grueling experience, and even if she doesn't remember all of it, it had to have been traumatizing. Hell, you understand that well enough yourself.

"Sure, just rest, I'll get you something." She nods her appreciation and resumes staring off into the distance. Poor girl doesn't even feel like sex. You could change that, but you really don't want to **** her after everything that's happened during the previous day.

Aegis awakens not too long after that. His wounds were more severe, so its no surprise that the beast needed more time to recover. A few more hours are spent relaxing to ensure everyone is travel-worthy, and even then, you double your own load and decide to walk so that the steed can carry just Indra. Your path is still following the stream, so you set off in the same direction you were traveling before you were ambushed.

Indra truly was exhausted, but her mind was clear again... Sabine's kiss the previous night had cut through the fog of the Ettercap's venom, but so had its poison cleared her mind of the daemonic lust. The witch had never heard of such a thing happening without powerful magical aid, but some property of its mind-altering qualities must have unbound the fledgling daemoness' control. When all was said and done, the witch had awoken with a roaring migraine, but her will was her own.

It was like waking from a fog. Everything since Sabine had awoken from the ritual as a daemoness felt like a dream now, or perhaps a nightmare. Only instead of fading as time went on, the memory of that period was coming into sharper and sharper focus the more that her mind healed. She had to admit to herself that the memories weren't altogether unpleasant, but... she had been seduced like a blushing virgin, and basically gave herself up just as easily! How could she have let the the tables turn on her so easily?

And then there was Sabine... youthful, exuberant, sensual... completely unaware of her own potential, and needlessly fawning over Indra as if she were the one who had been enthralled. That waif of a girl completely derailed Indra's plans when she joined with the daemon in her womb instead of subduing it. A daemon child would make a fantastic familiar if her mother could be brought to heel, and Sabine would make an ideal apprentice... or, if she were too weak to tame the child, an excellent replacement body.

This was all wrong! How could it have slipped so far out of her grasp? A soulless daemon child was useless to her, and some sort of daemon-human hybrid was far too dangerous to try to manipulate, or to confront.

So, she kept Sabine at arm's length all day, feigning weakness and trauma. The stupid girl fell for it, of course. Ironic that something so resembling a succubus would have any sort of emotion akin to sympathy. If she could keep her wits, maybe she'd still be able to figure out a way to salvage this. If nothing else, the paladins at Gerlangen would reward her handsomely for the sword, and pay an equally large bounty for a rogue daemoness.

It seems like you're through the thickest area of the wood when you begin to hear a bustle ahead. The sun hasn't quite begin to set when you emerge from the trees altogether and find a large expanse of land that has been cleared. There seems to be a small settlement here.

"Indra, are you familiar with this place?" You pause at the tree line and look up at Indra on your horse. You'd love to spend a night in a comfortable bed, but you also feel wary looking at the place. You're sure it's just nerves after all you've experienced.

She shakes her head no. "Looks like a logging outpost, though I've no acquaintance with them. Wouldn't be a bad idea to stock up on supplies and confirm that we're heading the right way."

She has a point, but it's also quite possible that Thoros' minions have already infiltrated the camp and lie in wait. Not that you're any safer out in the woods, as experience has proven.