You survive, somehow...

It feels like you’ve been asleep for a long time. Everything is so heavy, you think. Can’t move. Can’t… open my eyes. There’s something pulling on your thumb. It hurts.

How long have you been like this?

…

Leaves, trees, grasses, damp moss: images of these things flash through your mind. You remember going camping every summer as a child. Roasting marshmallows over the fire, exploring hidden trails through the woods, and looking up at the stars. The stars were always so much clearer out there than they were at home.

…

You’re lying on what feels like an inch of fabric laid out over a hard, uneven floor. You attempt to move, but quickly discover that every muscle in your body feels sore. There’s something weighing down on you, like a heavy blanket. It feels warm. You open your eyes, and are greeted by a cave so dark that you can barely make out the stalactites hanging from the ceiling.

“Where am I?” you whisper into the darkness.

A silhouette of what you believe is a person comes and sits by you. The shadow leans over you, getting close enough for you to make out the familiar pointed ears, long, blonde hair, and emerald eyes of Blythe Nesimilia. “You are awake,” she says, quietly. The elf carefully runs her fingers over your cheek, then leans even further down until her lips meet your own. Her kiss is light and brief, yet it overwhelms you with a sense of relief. Tension you weren’t even aware of floods out of your limbs, and the soreness all over your body eases somewhat.

“What happened? How long have I been out?”

“You have been sleeping for three days,” says Blythe, while readjusting herself so that she’s no longer leaning over you. “Truthfully, we were worried that you may never wake up. Lia said that you passed out after using some kind of horrifying spell over and over again.”

You recall the scene on the beach. The paladin was wiping the floor with you. She **** Lia to surrender, then kept hurting her anyway. Worse, to justify her ****, she even spouted some bullshit about how she was freeing Lia from your influence. After you saw that, you stopped thinking. You vaguely remember some bright lights, and that it was very warm all of a sudden.

“I found you on the beach,” Blythe says. “Both of you have suffered severe burns all over your bodies. You were completely unresponsive, Evan, and Lia… Lia has…” She fails to find the right words, and you see her silhouette shift in the dark, as if she’s glancing over her shoulder. You tilt your head to follow her gaze, and spot something about six feet away: a pitch black shape in the almost pitch black cave. It looks like someone laying on the ground. You can’t make out the cat-like ears, or the tail, or see the glimmer of her violet eyes, but you know that the shape in the dark is your catkin companion.

“You said she talked to you, right? Is… is she…?” You try to keep your mind from thinking of the worst. Luckily, the catkin herself quickly rules that out.

“I’m alive,” says Lia. Her voice is hoarse, but you’re relieved to hear it, regardless. Her form shifts in the darkness, and her pained groans reverberate off the cave walls. Blythe’s silhouette moves over to Lia and leans over her.

“I told you not to move so much,” says the busty blonde in a calming tone.

There is silence for a long moment after Blythe’s words. Then, Lia whispers something to the elf, and the elf whispers back to her. You strain your senses to eavesdrop, but their words are spoken so softly that even the cave’s acoustics cannot carry their meaning to your ears. The two women converse back and forth in this way for a little while, and you start to feel your consciousness slipping again. You close your eyes. The warmth of the blanket eases your aching body. The sound of Blythe quietly shuffling around nearby beckons you to sleep some more.

Suddenly, white light pushes its way through your tired eyelids, and you are wide awake once more. You open your eyes to find the dark cave now lit with the bright glow of a mana crystal held in Blythe’s hand. You look around the cave with renewed curiosity, now that you’re able to see it clearer. You’re in what appears to be a dead end, with only one path leading around a corner to whatever lies beyond. There are a number of strange things about the immediate area that catch your attention. The first thing you notice is all of the pieces of clothing strewn about. Piles of shirts, pants, dresses, and all sorts are present just about everywhere you look. Even your makeshift bedding consists of articles of clothing, with the exception of the knitted blanket that you felt while in the dark. The second thing you notice is a collection of oddities that tell you this cave is someone’s home: there are glass jars with strange, colorful liquids inside stored in a corner; a wooden table, carved from a large stump, is placed in a lower section of the dead end, not far from where you’re lying; on the table rests a pair of wooden knitting needles attached to an ongoing project; around the table sit two sections of log, acting as stools, and sitting on one of those stools is what appears to be a mannequin, not unlike the kind you’d see in any clothing shop back on Earth. Where the hell are we? you think. The question almost makes it to your lips, but your tongue is stopped by the third thing you notice now that the light of the crystal fills the cave: the condition of the black-haired catkin lying beside you.

Lia is bundled up in a makeshift clothing bed, similar to yours. She’s lying on her right side, facing you, with a knitted blanket of her own covering all but her head and her left arm. Every inch of her arm, from the shoulder down to the tips of her fingers, is wrapped in white cloth. You recall the cuts you saw on her arm and her back during her battle with the paladin. Blythe also mentioned that both of you sustained severe burns at some point. They’re the kind of injuries that you could easily heal with magic, if you had any mana, or the strength to move your body. But her arm isn’t the worst of it. The worst part is the bandages covering her left eye. That’s the wound that sent you over the edge during your fight with the paladin. If she’s lost her eye, then your healing magic won’t be enough to bring it back.

Neither you nor Lia say anything. The silence drags on for so long that Blythe gets uncomfortable and breaks it: “Too much light is still painful for her, but… she wanted you to see it.” The elf tosses the mana crystal away, causing the shadows of the cave to dance wildly until the source of light settles on the ground several feet from your party. “I have tended to her other injuries, but…”

Another period of silence stretches out between you and the girls. You have so many questions that it’s hard to pin down a single thought, and even harder to put something to words. “That crazy bitch…” says Lia. You give her your full attention, as the determined anger on her face demands. “I wasted so much of my life looking up to people in her position. I thought servants of the Goddess were here to help us, but it turns out they’re all scum.” Lia winces, then reaches up with her bandaged hand to apply pressure near her left temple. “I’m done with it all. Kill them, corrupt them, I don’t care how you do it, Evan. Just promise me that the angels will pay for this.”

You think about Lia’s request for a few seconds. Dealing with the angels is a problem you’ve put off before. Back then, it was too much for you to handle, so you chose to ignore it and focus on training Alicia instead. Now, that choice has cost you something precious.

“You will have your ****,” you say, deadly serious. “We’ll make them pay, Lia.”

“The three of us will,” says Blythe. She looks at you, then at Lia. “Together.”

“You’re going to need an army, then,” says a new, yet strangely familiar voice. You strain your neck and manage to look over towards the path you assume eventually leads outside. Stepping casually around the corner and into view is a woman with dark skin, wearing the eccentric combination of a red fez, an undersized tunic with random splotches of color all over it, and an old pair of white panties, yellowed with age. She has a small pair of breasts hiding underneath her top, which match her slim figure nicely. Most striking about the woman, though, is the six small eyes that she has in addition to the usual two, their deep red color, and the four, arm’s length spider legs protruding from her back.