[Edited] Chapter 17 - PeeWee Blood Sport

Luckily, we ended up passing a weapon shop as we approached the arena, so we stopped in to pick up a couple of ready-made items. Arx bought a pair of scimitars, and I went ahead and got myself a decent round shield. It was not quite so big as the last one, and consequently, it was far less heavy. Regardless, I felt much safer to once again have that slight margin of hand-held protection. And conveniently, there were a couple of loose straps attached to one side so that I could wear it across my back.

I was tempted to buy another spear to go along with it, but the lilim were of the opinion that if I had a weapon I would naturally be tempted to use it. And that would just get me into trouble. I had grumbled about it—being unarmed often made me feel kind of inadequate and useless in a fight—but I was the party buffer. My role was to keep people in the fight, not swing sticks around. So, I contented myself with a long knife for everyday use.

Meanwhile, Jax had not really wanted anything despite my opinion that she might benefit from a shield herself. She maintained that the axe was a two-handed affair, and because her fighting style required a great deal of agility, a shield would just get in her way. However, when I had started browsing the knives, she had reconsidered, opting to pick up a trio of small, throwing daggers.

“Ye never know,” she had explained shortly.

Altogether, the lot only came to three silver and twice as many copper once we had added in leather belts and sheaths. Given how much the clothes we had just ordered cost us, I was a little surprised by this, but apparently, mundane weaponry was not too pricey. When I had asked about it, the shop owner assured me that it could get that way in a hurry. Even the most basic of skill-based boosts could easily cause the price to skyrocket, and that was not even mentioning engraved weapons—of which he had none.

Those, he informed us, started at around twenty gold, which was roughly equal to our entire take from the Dungeon.

Fuck me… seriously? Well, good to know, I guess.

In an emergency, we could always pawn Arx’s knife. It was a simple little thing, and the engraving on it was not particularly jaw-dropping. When fed a bit of Life Energy, it would just repair itself, after all. Arguably, a knife that never went dull on you was pretty damned nice, but you could buy a lot of replacements for twenty gold! Still, it was her knife, and I would not feel comfortable asking her to sell it unless we really needed the cash.

But there was no need to worry about that yet. We still had plenty left.

That errand complete, we set off.

*****

Once we got to the arena, we could hear faint crowd noises from the outside, so it was obvious some sort of event was going on. I had assumed something like that would be more appropriate for the evening, but on reflection, it made a certain sort of sense. After all, these people did not have access to stadium lights. Why not make use of the natural sunlight?

That said, the crowd outside was fairly thin, and we were able to walk right up to the box attendant. A younger-looking laoi was stationed there, and when we had questioned him, he had directed us to a signboard off to one side which detailed upcoming events. Apparently, the next tournament had been scheduled for the second week of the upcoming month, but it was crossed out with a note that read, ‘Tentatively Canceled.’

The rest of the calendar was filled with various items such as foot races, monster fights, and some sort of weekly youth league. There was also a by-the-hour sign-up sheet to rent out space for skill practice. The sheet had already been completely filled, but here again, most of the names had been crossed out.

“What’s with all the cancellations?” I asked finally.

“I guess you three haven’t heard, then,” I heard from behind me, and I turned. Apparently, the attendant was eager to spread some juicy gossip and had leaned out of his box with a conspiratorial look on his face. “About two weeks ago, the Fleet Foxes lit out of here like their butts were on fire. No idea what happened, but some of the guys started a betting pool.” He paused to look around and then hunched his shoulders. In a whisper, he continued, “My wager’s on a military contract. I hear the Enbraden have been getting riled up. Something about the matriarch’s daughter?”

“The Fleet Foxes?” I murmured, tapping at my lip. I was not particularly concerned with the internal politics of the Enbraden. They might have been in charge around here, but from what I had heard, they were pretty much a Clan of mafiosos. “Where have I heard that name before?”

“Didn’t that merchant we rescued… uh… Menda, I think? Didn’t he mention them?” Arx reminded me.

I tilted my head back as the memory snapped into place. Right… those were the guys he tipped off about the Dungeon Mouth. I pursed my lips in contemplation. I wonder whether that betting pool is still open…

“What’s that got to do with the schedule?” Jax asked, interrupting my thoughts. “I were needing to sign up for that tournament.”

The kid tsked, seemingly put out that we were unimpressed by his rumormongering. “That should be obvious,” he said, as if just him saying that would be enough, but as the silence stretched, he was forced to roll his eyes. “Who do you think fights in these tournaments? Can’t very well have a big competition when more than half of the entries are out of town doing who-knows-what.”

“How many do ye need then?” she persisted and folded her arms under her breasts.

The teen followed the move with his eyes and they lingered there just a tad too long. Slowly, a flush began to creep up his cheeks and he shook his head, as though he had been entranced. I knew the feeling well—so I gave it a grudging pass.

Jax glanced at me from the corner of her eye, no doubt sensing my brief disquiet, and subtly brushed against my side.

Averting his eyes, the attendant jerked a thumb behind him. “Loo—!” His voice cracked mid-word, and he made an effort to clear it before continuing in an artificially low voice, “Uh… Look, I just work here. You’d need to talk to the boss. His name’s Uchoyo. Kind of a… chubby, purple-haired laoi? He’ll be in the upper boxes right now. Can’t miss him.” I nodded my thanks and started inside, but he quickly squawked in protest. “Wait a minute! You can’t go in unless you buy tickets.”

“What?” I replied with a frown. “But we just wanted to talk to your boss.”

He just shrugged. “Hey, pal. Like I said, I just work here. I don’t make the rules.”

Jax sighed in exasperation. “Fine! How much? And what’re the tickets for, anyways?”

“Youth league,” he replied cryptically. Then with a broad smile, he held out his hand. “And it’s three-eighths of copper apiece.”

“Three…” I paused to do some quick mental math. That’s like twenty bucks a ticket. And for youth league? Turning to Jax, I whispered, “That’s a bit much for a simple conversation. Is this really worth it?”

She compressed her lips. Miser that she was, wasting money was practically a cardinal sin, so it was surprising when she answered, “I gotta talk to this Uchoyo, don’t I. I need this tournament, Master.” She glanced significantly at Arx. “I need it.”

I let out a slow breath. Right… She had not been complaining about it openly, but she did not at all care for her Layers—and thus her continued growth in Charisma—being locked. Especially, not while Arx was still free to grow. So with an air of defeat, I started pulling the required coinage from my pouch. “Fine.”

Jax kissed my cheek happily.

*****

The arena’s interior was akin to what I would think of as a roman-styled chariot-racing course. The central field was a sandy, barren pitch, and from where I was standing, it looked like people were setting up for some kind of sport. There were a pair of wooden stakes that had been driven into the ground on opposite sides of the field. Each had a flag tied to it—one in red, the other blue.

Meanwhile, there were a bunch of young-looking individuals from various races idling about down there. None of them were wearing uniforms save for either a blue or red armband. I assumed those were meant to signify which stake belonged to them.

“Oh, ‘stits! I think they’re playing game-ball!” Arx said and began excitedly dragging me toward the stands. “Come on! We have to watch!”

“Game… ball?” I repeated incredulously. That had to be the single most unoriginal name for a sport I had ever heard.

“Oh, it’s wonderful,” she gushed. “I used to follow it religiously. One of the best things for filling my old Mirth reservoir. You’ll love it!”

“Uh… Master?” Jax said hesitantly, pointing back and behind her toward where a set of boxes were set above the stadium seating.

I nodded. “Right. Arx we’re not really here for that.”

“Oh, please?” she begged and turned to pout at Jax. “We already paid for the tickets. Can’t we at least watch?”

Jax fidgeted for a moment, but eventually, she stepped close and placed a hand on my chest. “Master, do ye mind me going to ask alone, then? I’ll be back quick-like. I promise ye.”

“Well, of course I don’t mind,” I replied. “Go ahead. We’ll save you a seat.”

She nodded and began to slowly back away toward a set of stairs. Initially, I had to chuckle at the face she was making—you might have thought she was dropping off her first-born child for his inaugural stint in kindergarten—however the farther she got from me, the more uneasy I began to feel.

“Dearest,” Arx murmured into my ear, and I turned to look at her. Very gently, she drew me into a tender little kiss, then said, “It’s alright. I’m here.”

I smiled self-consciously at her before glancing back, but Jax was already headed up the stairs. “Yeah, I know. It’s just… I don’t know. I somehow feel… lesser when I’m apart from either of you. Ah… I probably sound ridiculous.”

“Not at all,” she assured me. “I feel her absence, too.”

“Really?” I asked, curious. “You never mentioned it when she ran off to the river.”

“Well… we were a little preoccupied at the time, as I recall,” she reminded me before tugging on my wrist once more. “Now, come on! Lets find some seats before the next play starts.”

I rolled my eyes but followed anyway.

The crowd was fairly thick for a youth-league game, and we had needed to excuse ourselves several times as we stumbled and awkwardly side-stepped people’s knees. Naturally, we collected a fair amount of stares—whether from our bumbling, our threadbare outfits, or otherwise, I could not say—but there was not much either of us could do about that. So, I tried not to think about it. Soon enough, we were situated toward the back of the bleachers somewhere about mid-field.

Just as we found our seats, I noted an adult wearing a far-too-large tricornered hat carrying some kind of brown, leather ball to a spot right in the center of the field. However, none of the kids out there were making a move yet.

“So, what is this sport, anyway?” I asked. “What are the rules?”

“You cannot be serious,” a woman sitting to my right exclaimed. She was a laoi, as were the majority of people in this town. Grabbing at the shirt of the man sitting on the other side of her, she jerked a thumb at me, “This guy has never heard of game-ball!”

“You’re not serious?!” he shouted and leaned forward to stare at me. “What? Did you just crawl out from a Mouth’s ass?”

“Yes.” Arx surged to her feet instantly, claws splayed. “Why? You want to make something of it?”

The woman blanched. “Hey now! No need for that,” she said with a nervous little chuckle. “We were just surprised is all.”

“Yeah,” the man added. “No need for hostilities. This is just youth league, after all.”

Arx snorted coldly down at them before settling back and folding her arms with an air of superiority.

“Uh… Arx?” I said quietly. “The fuck was that?”

“Sorry, Dearest,” she murmured before chopping down with her hand. “But they were talking down to you. You cannot show weakness at a game-ball match. You’ll see.”

“W-what?” I stammered and started laughing nervously. What exactly have I gotten myself into, here?

Arx shushed me and pointed at the field. “They’re lining up! Watch!”

Sure enough, the kids were gathering into two separate groups on either side of the field. The ones with blue armbands were by the blue stake and vice versa. There did not seem to be much of any kind of order to things other than that. I could not even determine what age-group was supposed to be out there. From what I could tell, they seemed to range from middle schoolers all the way up to late high-school.

Nor did there seem to be any semblance of thought put into team composition. Girls and boys, various kinds, and age-groups were just scattered in a random mix between the two teams. The only detectable pattern of note was that the older kids seemed to be clumped a little more centrally within their respective team’s line-up.

Abruptly, the man with the tricornered hat raised his hand, holding aloft a white bit of cloth. Once they saw that, the crowd soon stilled while the two teams hustled to form up into a horizontal line, even with their flags. They quickly assumed various stances and tensed, as though preparing to sprint forward. All of them were focused on the ball that had been placed at the center of the field.

Arx’s hand found my thigh, and she excitedly clamped down on it. “Here we go~!” she whispered.

As soon as the man threw down the cloth, all hell broke loose. Like two sides of opposing Viking infantries, the teams charged each other and soon collided into what I can only describe as full-on, out-and-out combat.

“Holy shit!” I shouted involuntarily. And then I started helplessly laughing. “What in the…!”

Initially, no attempt whatsoever was made for the ball. A trio of older laoi girls on the red side simply threw themselves—bodily—into the encroaching blue line-up and began to absolutely wreck face with a brutality that would not have been out of place at the seediest biker-bar you could possibly imagine. The blue-side’s lead boy immediately took a vicious elbow to the nose and, with a spray of blood, crumpled in a heap. But he still managed to send a none-too-gentle, retaliatory kick right into the crotch of his assailant with enough force to lift her feet off the ground. She folded in half instantly, and most of the crowd visibly winced in sympathy.

I was too overwhelmed with shock and horror to react.

The next few seconds dissolved into chaos. The central dog-pile surged this way and that as the combat ebbed and flowed, and fists and elbows randomly pistoned in and out of the seething mass. However eventually, the leather ball shot loose like it had been greased. That was what the younger kids had apparently been waiting for, and it was not long before one of the blue kids—a Wolugh, rhino-person—snatched up the ball and began pelting back toward his own flag.

“Ah, shit! Gezer’s got it!” the woman beside me shouted and surged to her feet. “Ball loose! Ball loose!”

“Shut your whore mouth, bitch! That’s interference!” another woman shouted from below us before hurling a wooden tankard in our general direction.

I flinched away from the missile, but Arx deftly caught it. Apparently, there was a small amount of beer left in the bottom, and on reflex, she took a moment to drain it. However, she immediately blanched once the flavor hit her, and she turned to spit over the back of the bleachers.

“Hey!” a voice drifted from somewhere below us.

“Bleagh!” Arx’s face contorted with disgust. “Do they not have any decent beer in this town?”

I nodded—still too preoccupied by the general chaos to otherwise comment—before returning my gaze back to the field. I found ‘Gezer’ quickly enough. He was curled into a fetal position while clutching his knee a few yards away from where I had last seen him. Meanwhile, the ball had somehow managed to traverse the entirety of the field in the other direction while I was distracted, and it was currently in the possession of a lanky, laoi girl who was rapidly outpacing her pursuers.

Soon enough, she had crossed over into what I assumed was her goal-area, and she threw her hands up in victory—although, she did not stop running until she had escaped over the wall at the edge of the arena. Notably, the other team did not stop chasing her, either. Apparently, her team’s fans were sitting there, though, and there was a great deal of excited cheering and clapping of shoulders… even as several burly-looking individuals on the front row stood up like bouncers. The other team halted and stood there, glowering up at them for a few moments before slinking off.

I could only imagine what might have happened had the appropriate set of fans not been sitting there.

“Damn it!” I heard from the bleachers below us, and the woman who had thrown the beer mug stood up to start cussing out the people sitting beside us. I did not catch the whole of her diatribe, but I gathered that she had just lost a bet of some kind.

“Well…” I said, even as I slowly edged away from the increasingly hostile people shouting epithets back down at her. “That was certainly… interesting.” And violent. “Does this game not have any rules?”

“Of course it does,” Arx replied, almost offended. “You have to collect the ball and get it back to your castle. Wasn’t that obvious?”

“Yeah… that part was,” I admitted. “But I mean… come on! There are children literally bleeding out down there! Doesn’t that seem excessive?”

“We did introduce a new rule last year,” a man said from the seat below before turning a friendly smile toward us. He was missing a few teeth, I realized. “They’re not allowed to use weapons, anymore.”

“What?!”Arx exclaimed in shock—in perfect counter to my own mouth dropping in revulsion. “Not even blunt ones?”

The man shook his head sadly. “Nah. Completely changed the game, if you ask me.”

“I know!” the woman from my right agreed loudly, apparently having finished with her previous argument. Then, in a mocking sort of voice, she continued, “’Youth league this. Youth league that.’ What about the beater position? And the goal tenders?! You saw how that skinny bitch just waltzed through the defense. You’re supposed to be afraid to make the final approach! How are the kids supposed to learn the game properly if they can’t even break the occasional rib?”

“What do you expect?” the man replied with a shrug. “We ain’t got but the one healer, and Old Binith down there don’t have the skill to knit bones between plays.”

“Don’t he?” I replied conversationally. Privately, I felt that the game was plenty violent enough without allowing children the use of actual weapons, but when one is amongst the clinically insane, it’s best to just nod and agree. “What a shame.”

Arx smirked at me before leaning into my ear. “You taste like lies.”

I just looked at her.

Her grin broadened, and she nestled closer to me. I could feel the soft mound of her bosom pressing against my arm. “Wasn’t that exciting?” she murmured.

“That’s one word for it,” I agreed.

She just chuckled before gently taking my earlobe between her teeth, and I began to feel the faint trickle of Life Energy coming off of her. Being in a crowd like this, I had little doubt as to why. There was a lot of emotion flying around. And it seemed to be having quite the effect on her.

“Mmm… my heart is still pounding like crazy after watching that. It makes me want to mount you,” she whispered. “Right here. Right now.”

Uh oh… I cleared my throat and stared straight ahead. Keep your cool, Donum. Just… keep your cool.

“Yes…”she said breathily into my ear and pressed even closer. She was starting to subtly undulate against my side. “You’re imagining it, aren’t you? Me… riding you. In front of all these people. Pressing your face right between my breasts…”

“Hey, not to be rude,” the woman to my side said, and I instantly flushed crimson. “I know that you caught it and all, but that beer was technically thrown at me. And the refills are cheaper if you bring back the mug, so…”

I took a deep breath as relief practically steamed from my ears—saved by the thrifty.

Arx giggled throatily and kissed my cheek before tossing it to her. “Have at it.”

“Thanks!” she said before hastily excusing herself.

Believe it or not, after that little display, I actually gave some serious thought to the idea of taking Arx to some secluded spot beneath the bleachers and having a quickie, but… ultimately, my fear of being caught won out. I could just see some twelve-year-old kid with a snowcone coming around a corner and finding me balls deep in the stunning lilim.

“Ah… that feels nice,” Arx whispered, her hand still rubbing eagerly up and down my inner thigh. “Whatever you’re imagining right now? I want to do that.”

“No, you do not,” I replied, before quickly snatching it up and interlacing my fingers in hers. With a reassuring pat, I suggested, “Let’s just wait until we get back to the inn, okay?”

“Ohh~?” she replied, a hint of amusement—and naked lust—in her eyes. “Now you’re all embarrassed. What were you imagining? Was it kinky?”

Dammit girl… cool your jets! I had no idea what the prevailing attitude toward public fornication was around here, but given their reactions to the brutality I had just witnessed, they would probably parade me through the streets!

With a nervous laugh, I tried to change the subject. “How long until the next play, anyway? Seems like its taking forever.”

“Half-hour or so,” the man from the seat ahead of us responded before turning to look at us once more. He noted our joined hands and gave me an approving little nod. “They gotta fix up the injured between tries, ya know. But if I were you, I’d wait a bit before hitting the can. The line’s atrocious right after a play.”

“Good advice,” Arx agreed as the man turned his attention back to the field. Sensuously, she began to to run her fangs over the skin at my shoulder. “We wouldn’t want to go to a crowded bathroom, would we, Dearest?”

“Nope,” I said with a strained voice. Mercy’s hands…

I was already approaching full-mast underneath my thin kilt, and it was not as if I had a thing on underneath it. If I did not have my thighs firmly clamped together, I would already be announcing my arousal to pretty much everyone around me. And for a guy, that is not comfortable.

Desperate for literally anything to distract me, I began fiddling with my coin pouch and suddenly remembered there was a pill stashed in there I had yet to identify. There we go! Perfect distraction. Trying to remember complicated incantations was just the thing I needed.

It probably was not the wisest thing to do at that particular moment, but in my defense, I was not thinking all that clearly.

After hastily fishing out the pill, I held it in front of me and tried to concentrate.

“Dearest… what are you doing?” Arx hissed. Thanks to her recent skill picks, she was able to clamp down on her state of constant arousal at a moment’s notice… none of which did me a whole lot of good.

“Well, since you decided to start messing with me—in public—it’s either this or try to list baseball stats,” I replied. “And since I don’t actually know any baseball stats, that narrows down my options quite a bit.”

“Baseball?” she repeated. “It’s not… it’s game-ball, okay? Game-ball. But that’s not important right now. Dearest, you shouldn’t cast spells in a crowd like this. People get nervous.”

“It’s just a little practice,” I assured her. “Besides, I’m only trying to figure out what this pill does.”

“Really?” the man in front of us said, apparently having been eavesdropping, just as another fellow slid into the seat next to him. It seemed the second fellow had just returned from the concession stand as he immediately handed the first guy one of a pair of tankards he had been carrying. The man paused in talking to us just long enough to gleefully accept it and, after taking a long pull, he continued, “I might be able to help you with that. I’m an Apothecary by trade. Bring it by my shop, and I’ll have a look. Elder side. Southwest wall.”

I favored the man with a bit of a strained smile and nodded. Why some people felt the need to strike up a conversation with every passing stranger was beyond me.

“I’m curious, though,” he went on, oblivious. “You don’t strike me like you was no pill maker. Your hands are too big for it. So how was you gonna go about doing your figuring? Some kinda spell, you said?”

“Uh… w-well,” I began hesitantly. The mechanics behind engravings were a little complicated, and I did not really want to get into a technical discussion with some rando about how I was getting around the requirements involved—especially while I was trying to hide a hard-on.

In order to properly know what an engraving did, you needed to first reveal the Words engraved upon it. These were concealed by default, but you could get around that via the purchase of simple skill. The hard part was in actually reading them. That required you to have gained each and every Word of the engraving via completed Dungeon runs. One Word per run.

And since the odds of finding any given Word were completely random—to my knowledge—that process could literally take thousands of years.

So, I went with: “I have a spell that can sort of… give you a hint? I guess? About what an engraved item can do.”

“You’re shitting me,” he said with a laugh.

“He is not! How dare you! My Dearest has a great many useful and powerful spells,” Arx said imperiously before elbowing me in the ribs. “Go on. Show him.”

“What? But didn’t you just say—” I began.

“That was before this yokel started doubting your honor!” she whispered fiercely back.

“Okay, now. No need for that,” the man said with a placating gesture. “If you really can do that kind of thing…” He paused before making sure that no one was paying attention and pulled out an amulet from underneath his shirt. “Had a guy come in and trade this little charm to me for some medicine a couple years past. He claimed it was engraved, but didn’t know how or what it did. I… may have gotten a little too excited and agreed without thinking about it. Never been able to figure out what it does, either. What do you say? You give me a nice hint on what this does, and I’ll eat my words. I’ll even buy you a beer.”

I hesitated before glancing at Arx. She had a certain gleam in her eye—like she could not decide whether she wanted to wait for me to prove myself or personally shove that amulet down the guy’s throat.

Okay… must remember to keep Arx away from stadium events. She must have been having a hard time separating out all of the high emotions around us to be operating on such a hair trigger. The guy had only expressed a little bit of reasonable doubt, after all. At this rate, it was anyone’s guess whether the next few minutes would find us embroiled in a fist fight… or in a custodian’s closet with our pants around our ankles.

Well… it’s not like I have anything to lose. And maybe she’ll calm down a little once I’m concentrating. She was emotionally keyed much more closely to me, after all.

“Yeah, alright. Sure,” I agreed before snatching the dangling bauble from his hand. “A beer, you said?”

“You bet,” he agreed with a nod before elbowing his friend. “Hey, Poole! Go get a round for our friends here.”

“What?” the other guy protested before finally glancing up at us. He had been distracted with his own conversation with some people sitting off to his lower right. “But I just got back! And what am I? A copper mine? Do you know much they charge for beer in this joint?”

“Poole…” the first man repeated significantly.

Poole quickly raised his hands over his head. “Alright, alright! Don’t look at me like that. I’m going.”

While that was going on, I was looking over the amulet. It was a simple little thing—really just a curved, rectangular bit of brass attached to a chain. There were no other markings or anything else that I could see which might give it away as magical, but then, none of the other engraved items we had found did either. So that was consistent, at least.

Then again, most of the stuff we’ve found has been pretty basic. Well, whatever. I just need to make sure I don’t embarrass myself.

With a shrug, I glanced at Arx. “You may want to help me with this. The spell works off of emotional feedback.”

She seemed hesitant at first—which was understandable. Arx was not as good with that sort of thing as Jax was, though I was beginning to wonder whether that was truly from a lack of practice or if there might not have been something more to it. Jax had never had this much trouble. By the time we understood what was going on, she could pluck my emotions from the air in a snap.

But my ‘honor’ was at stake here… and I had to suppose that meant hers was as well. We were a ‘Clan’ now—to my chagrin. That sort of thing was important to the keltha, she had said, and though she might not have been one any longer, enough remnants of that old mind-set remained in her to stiffen her spine. With a quick glance at our challenger, she nodded. “Right. No problem.” Hastily, she grasped me by the arm and focused on my face. “Whenever you’re ready.”

I nodded. “Give me a few minutes. I’m not that good with this spell, yet.”

Her eyes widened, and she glanced significantly at the guy below us. “Dearest, please! I just told him you were powerful!” she whispered fiercely. “Don’t admit things like that where he can hear. You’re embarrassing me.”

I smirked. Oh, ho? The lilim knows shame? “Turnabout is fair play, madam.”

Her lips rolled into a thin line. Slowly, she leaned close to my ear and hissed, “If you don’t hurry up and show this man exactly what you are capable of, I will grab that throbbing cock you’ve been trying to hide between your legs and suck you off right here in front of everyone!”

I stared, rendered… pretty much speechless. For one thing, I was more than a little tempted to tell her not to threaten me with a good time. But given how she had been acting, there was the distinct possibility she might actually follow through on that particular threat, and if she did, I would almost certainly need to crawl under a rock and die afterward. However, my main issue was that I had just gotten my erection to calm down…

So, with a hasty readjustment of my shoulders—and a careful tilt of my hips—I began. As usual, trying to incant a spell was like gargling marbles while trying to juggle cotton balls in the wind… and that was with spells I was good at. However, my skill with Divine Engraved Will was still only 7, despite my recent attempts at practice, and my balls were tucked so uncomfortably close to the edge of the bench, I was pretty sure they were going to bruise. So Arx’s fervent wishes notwithstanding, actually getting the spell going took more than a few tries.

I was fully capable of holding a poker face, though.

Attempt after failed attempt rattled through my teeth with nary a pause between them, my expression held rigidly composed all the while. From the contented smile creeping up the corner of her mouth, it seemed Arx was appreciative of my efforts. And eventually, the Words of the spell clicked into place, my spell endurance surged into action, and our audience was left none-the-wiser.

“Ah, there we go,” I said before focusing on the amulet. “Let’s see what we’ve got here…”

The feedback I was getting was immediate—and that by itself was surprising—but the complexity of it all was what really got my attention. This thing had some weird stuff going on with it.

“Uh… huh… How do I put this…?” I murmured, trying to make sense of it all.

Over the past few days, I had discovered I could sort of do this on my own, but it took ages to sort through and identify the various emotions. Having Arx’s ability to sample the emotional flavors as I felt them on hand should have been a tremendous help, but when I glanced up at her, I had to do a double-take.

From the expression on her face, you would think she had just been bragging about her ability to pull off a perfect, 100-foot swan dive, only to be summarily hauled out back where a pool and high board had been conveniently installed. And the Queen of England happened to be in attendance. For reasons.

“Um… okay,” I said slowly. “Let’s just try to pick this apart a little at a time.”

She jerked her head in response. Was that… yes? Or no? It was hard to tell. It had been kind of diagonal. I returned my attention to the amulet.

The first thing I was feeling was… like a sinking sort of sensation?

“Uh… okay. Okay,” Arx said, as though she was trying to calm herself. “I think I’d call that… maybe disappointment?”

“Disappointment?” the man repeated. “What’s that supposed to mean? What kind of hint is that?”

“We’re not done yet,” Arx snapped before returning her attention to me. “Go on, Dearest. What else?”

I nodded vaguely, not really paying much attention to them. Disappointment was a pretty good word for what I was feeling, but there was more to it than that. It was like… it was being repeated somehow. Over and over again. And growing. Like… like…

“I don’t know, Dearest,” Arx murmured. “That tastes like tension or something. Or stress maybe?”

I frowned. That was not quite right. But it was close. “Let’s move on,” I said quietly.

The next thing… I really did not have a word for. It was kind of a flip-floppy sensation in my stomach, but it was not like any sort of nausea. “Uh… kind of… nervous?” I suggested. “No…”

“Skip that one,” Arx said quickly.

It seemed she was at a loss as well, so I nodded my agreement. The next one was much easier.

“Joy,” Arx announced. “Definitely joy. And lots of it.”

“Disappointment and now joy?” the man asked, confused. “Say, what is this?”

“Quiet,” Arx growled. “There’s more.”

Slowly, my tongue parted my lips, and I gently bit down on the tip as I concentrated. There was a second layer to this thing which seemed to rest on top of everything we had sensed thus far. The feel of it was… kind of like…

“Fear?” Arx said with some hesitation. “No, like… well, it’s tastes kind of like fear, I guess, but it’s a lot more subtle than that. Like a… like a specific type of fear. Uh… confinement, maybe? I don’t know. Skip.”

I nodded and focused on the final component. This one felt like it was the most important. Like it was the key to unraveling the whole thing. There was an… expectation to it. It was… confident and brash maybe? But that was not quite it. Decisive?

“Like uh…” Arx began. “I don’t know. It’s complex. There’s a couple of layers to it, but it’s like uh… like…” Abruptly, her eyes snapped up in recognition. And then she snarled. “Damn it all! It’s that same ‘stit-sucking flavor! Of all the things it could have been, why did it have to be my flavor!”

“Uh… I’m confused,” the man said, looking between us for a moment. “What hint am I supposed to be getting, exactly?”

Arx let her head fall back and sighed before snatching the amulet and dangling in front of the man. “Whatever it does, there’s a whole bunch of little disappointments that tense into some kind of joy. But none of that works because it’s bound up by something. And I don’t have the first, ‘snail-fucking clue what that is.”

He blinked a few times before accepting the proffered item. “So… you’re saying the amulet is… what? Useless?”

“I think so?” I agreed slowly before gesturing with my open palm. “There’s a lot of room for interpretation. But I think there’s some kind of uh… like… maybe a uh… Well, I think you’d need to activate it somehow before it’ll do anything.” I screwed my eyes up as I reconsidered what I had just said. It felt right. But just for good measure, I added, “Maybe.”

“Huh…” he said shortly. “That’s… vague. But at least now I know for sure it’s engraved. Should be able to sell it, right?”

“We’ll trade you the pill for it,” Arx said abruptly.

Both the man and I looked at her in surprise.

“Now hold on a minute,” he said. “We don’t even know what kind of pill that is. How do I know it’s an even swap?”

“You don’t,” she replied shortly. “We found it in a Dungeon chest, though—alongside a Pill of Glorious Physique.”

The man gave a low whistle. “You think this might be something similar?”

“Maybe,” she said with a slight tilt of her head. “We haven’t even tried to identify it yet. You’ll just have to gamble.”

“Arx…” I began, but she gave me a significant look—like she was not to be deterred. Clearly, something about this amulet had caught her attention. And on reflection, I did not care one way or the other. We still had the one pill left, and who knew? The amulet might turn out useful one day. So I relented.

She flashed me a grateful smile before turning back to the hesitating Apothecary. “Besides… didn’t you say you can identify it? Wouldn’t a pill with a known magical effect be worth more than an unknown magic item?”

“Good point,” he said, just as Poole reappeared at the end of our row with a couple of mugs in hand. “Alright. Deal. The pill for the amulet. I’m keeping the beers, though.”

She snarled slightly before tossing her hair over one shoulder. “Fine. It’s swill, anyway.” There was a brief, expectant pause after that, then Arx jerked her head a couple of times in the man’s direction.

“Oh… right,” I said, before fishing out the pill again and handing it to the man.

“Pleasure doing business,” he said smoothly before carefully placing the little, white pill in his breast pocket. Then he turned and yelled downfield, “C’mon Binith! We ain’t got all day! Leave the bleeders ‘til later!”

Arx stared down at the amulet in her hands for a few moments before holding out to me. “Well… here. I guess you have a useless amulet now.” She laughed uncertainly—as though she had just made a joke. But the faint glimmer of brass reflected in her eyes revealed a certain longing.

“Uhm… why don’t you keep it?” I suggested, gently pressing her outstretched hand back to her breast. “It seemed important to you.”

A smile quirked at her lips at that. For a few seconds, she hesitated, then curled the chain into her hand. “I don’t… I don’t know. It’s silly. I guess I felt like keeping this thing might help me figure out what that frustrating… yet wonderful, wonderful emotion is.”

I smiled softly at the admission then patted her on the knee. “It’s not silly. I think figuring that out might be a key part of what it is to be a lilim. And even if it isn’t, you know what they say: ‘Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.’ “

She nodded uncertainly. “Who says that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I responded, quickly waving the question away. “Ben Franklin? Socrates? One of those quote-y guys.”

“Kwotiguise?” she repeated. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that sect. Unless… were they those purple cave-dwellers from up north? With the droopy ears?”

There was not much I could do with a misunderstanding like that other than struggle to suppress my laughter. Arx just started at me in confusion.

“Well… whatever,” she said finally before standing to drape the amulet over her neck. “Come on. Let’s go see if the bathroom has cleared out. I want to find out what kind of fantasy I managed to spark in you. And drop your identification spell. I can feel it eating at you still.”

“Uhb-uhm… Uh…” I stammered, but she was already sliding past me. “Hell…”

Well… I guess a quickie in a bathroom stall might be fun to try once. Although, do they even have stalls? And for that matter, what exactly do these people mean by ‘bathroom?’ I had yet to find a flushing toilet since my arrival on this… planet or whatever. But Arx seemed to think we could have sex in one, so I was at least marginally interested in finding out.

Okay, maybe more than marginally.

So, I quickly stood to follow the hypnotically swaying backside of my lilim, but then straightened my spine and assumed what I hoped was an aloof sort of expression so as to not appear too eager. While I was composing myself, the rest of what she had mentioned finally filtered through my sex-addled brain, and I finally remembered why it was that my heart was pounding as hard as it was.

With a dismissive gesture, I dropped the identification spell.

The moment I did, I froze and a little choking sound escaped from the back of my throat. I felt as if a giant hand made of nothing but air had suddenly gripped the entirety of my body, from head to toe.

“There… You… Are…” a deeply feminine—and very-pissed-off—voice boomed in my ear. “Do not. Move. I come.”