[Edited] Chapter 7 - Through the Wood and to the Plains

See attachment for original version w/ editorial comments.

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“No, I’m not going to heal you.”

“But it’s hurts!” Arx whined, rubbing at her face. “You know I can’t regenerate anymore. What if I get a black eye?”

“Well, you should have thought of that before you popped off,” I replied, crossing my arms resolutely.

“What about me?” Jax asked with a wince. “I’m bleeding over here.”

“Only a little,” Arx mumbled defensively.

“And you should have thought of that before you decided to settle it with your fists,” I replied. “Besides, it was a stupid argument. Do you guys think I honestly care about the size of your breasts?”

“Yes,” they both answered deadpan.

Scratching at my cheek for a moment, I turned my head and coughed delicately into my hand. “Anyway… did you ask about that skill yet?”

“Yeah,” Arx huffed grumpily before turning her head away.

Other than the subject of their recent argument—namely the continued development of her breasts—nothing particularly unexpected had resulted from Arx’s torpor, but then, my experiences with Jax’s had lead me to anticipate slow and incremental changes as par for the course. Besides the aforementioned, her horns had also grown. They were now perhaps the length of my middle finger and showed little sign of Jax’s ram-like curvature. Instead, hers seemed to be developing more of an outward twist.

Beyond that, it was hard to say. She did not have to deal with the shedding of her masculinity or kind like Jax once had. She just looked like a girl somewhere in her late adolescence, though perhaps… slightly later than she had been?

I frowned consideringly. Could just be the boobs…

“The Lady says I need to be more specific,” Arx elaborated. “There’s too many ways to interpret the request. Like… she says…” Abruptly, she closed her eyes and arched her back, her breath coming as a halting shiver. “Mmm… uh uh… Never mind that.”

“Nay let yerself think on the shite the Lady says when yer like this,” Jax admonished her.

For some unknown reason, the two of them experienced the Lady of Power as not only a spoken voice—as opposed to the game menus I saw—but as a massive pervert. Given their proclivities, one might find that appropriate, but neither of my lilim had started out as the degenerate cock-chasers they currently were. I blamed myself.

Also, Arx. But mainly myself.

Jax folded her arms. “It only makes it harder.”

“Nnn… ha~!” she gasped. “Don’t say words like that!”

“What?” Jax asked viciously, grinning. “Harder?”

“Jax~!” she grimaced, her breath labored now. “You… you…!”

“Heh… serves ye right!” Jax jeered at her.

I sighed. We were never going to get anywhere like this. The effects of my aura usually maxed out overnight and, given that it was now morning, any stray thoughts were likely going to veer straight into lewd territories. And where they went, I would likely follow.

Concentrating for a moment, I channeled comfort into my hand and began rubbing her arm. “Is that better?”

She shivered slightly at my touch before quickly grasping my wrist. “No…” Sliding my hand over to cup her breast, she bit back a moan. “But that is.”

I pursed my lips, trying very hard not to let my mind dive head first down the water slide of depravity. It was not exactly easy. That wondrous softness… that… oh-so-lovely contrasting hardness poking right into the center of my palm…

“Here now.” Jax pouted. “What about me?”

“You can control it,” Arx shot back.

“Don’t mean it ain’t there,” Jax returned. Then, with a mischievous glance at me, she shifted her arms so as to accentuate her own assets. “Getting me itch scratched a bit last night did help, though.”

“Is that what that s-smell is?” Arx asked, trembling still even in the face of the comfort I was pushing into her. “Ah… no. Now it’s all I can think about. It’s so good!”

I grunted in consternation. This was all too much for me and, despite my internal battle to remain focused, my lines had been breached and the cavalry was already being pulled from their horses.

“There he goes!” Jax grinned excitedly even as she pressed herself to my side, gently cupping my package. Her eyes shining now, she ran her tongue along the inside of her lip before flicking her gaze up briefly to meet mine. “Maybe ye had oughtta help her out? Just a little? She ain’t gonna be able to talk nor think hardly otherwise.”

I smirked. For all of the changes she had gone through, she was still perverse in a very masculine sort of way—she liked to look at what she wanted, and she was not at all shy about it.

“You just want to watch.”

“Aye?” she agreed, not even bothering to tear her eyes away from the stiffened mast in her hand. “So would ye, if I was to do the same at her.”

True.

The conversation did finally progress once I caved. Sticking with the comfort setting, I channeled my way through it and, while it was quite difficult to have any kind of discussion resembling intelligence while my manhood remained buried to the hilt within the hot liquid folds of my lilim, we managed. It was slow and halting—every time either of us moved, our collective minds blanked for a few handfuls of seconds—but we managed.

“Okay,” Arx reported. “I’ve ch-chosen a skill. It’s called… uhm… Humming Helps Me Think.”

“Do that really be what it’s called?” Jax asked, still managing to sound doubtful even through her seductive, breathy tone. She was watching us raptly, her fingers working furiously at the cleft between her legs while her other hand massaged and tugged at her breasts. Despite that, she was still able to converse like nothing at all was amiss. That Lust resistance skill of hers was kind of nuts. I had a feeling I would need something similar before long, the way the last couple of days had gone. “I never got off with something so innocent like.”

“No…” Arx admitted reluctantly, struggling not to move from atop her perch. “But it should be. That’s what it does.”

I could not help but grunt slightly from the sensations just her speaking were sending through my groin. “Okay, but… Well, there’s no need to lie, is there? I mean… surely it can’t be so bad as—”

“Fine!” she growled. “It’s just that… if I say it, I don’t think I can… can hold… But… Anyway, i-it’s called… It’s called… C-cock Helps Me Th-thi~hehiiiiink!”

Mid-word, Arx clutched me tightly, crushing my face between her bosoms. I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw to hold out against my own coming orgasm. It was not easy. Her improved, lilim-style vagina was milking me for all it was worth, whether she wanted it to or not. Breathe in. Breathe out. You can do this.

“Do it now?” Jax asked teasingly—even as she continued to roll her hips with abandon. “Don’t sound like it be helpin’ much…”

I would have laughed in other circumstances, but I was having trouble right then with things like coherent thought. “So… what does it do?” I managed. “How does it work?”

“Ha~ Ha~ Mmm… She says… Ha~ That when all I can think about is… c-c-c… mmm… Dearest’s c-c… Oh~ ‘stits…” She paused to breathe for a few moments. “All I have to do is hum a little tune, and I’ll know what to do?”

I blinked in confusion. Maybe the situation was fogging my brain more than I realized, but that did not sound at all like anything we had asked for. “Watcher’s Eye, Arx. What is that supposed to mean? And what does it have to do with luck?”

“I don’t know!” she cried desperately. “I don’t know! I don’t know anything! Please move!”

“Maybe ye had ought to hum a little then? Find out?” Jax suggested hopefully, her mouth gaping open now in anticipation of what she no doubt felt coming.

“Arx… you’re squeezing me so tight…” I grunted. “I can’t hold out much longer.”

“Okay… O~kay…” She panted, her breath quivering even as she tried to compose herself. “L-la… la la la~ ha ha hoooo… ‘STITS!!!”

Abruptly, my vision went white, and the proverbial dam broke. As Arx sang to the Goddesses, I positively erupted into her, pulse after pulse. Even with all of the sex I had been having recently, the effort of holding back for so long somehow pushed my inevitable climax into the realm of mind-blowing. I had not even known that I could come that hard. It was like I was emptying my very soul into her. However, eventually I was spent, and I collapsed, panting weakly.

“Oh! Ha ha!” Arx laughed suddenly from atop her mount, as if she had just had an epiphany. “We need to go that way,” she announced, pointing off to the west, downstream of the river.

“What? Why?” Jax panted shakily. Obviously, we had not been the only ones to finish.

“I don’t know,” Arx replied. “It just… occurred to me that we should.” Then, blinking for a moment, she smiled. “And I’m not horny anymore. Thanks, Dearest!” So saying, she leaned down and kissed me soundly.

“Don’t mention it,” I drawled weakly.

*****

The rest of the journey was relatively uneventful—at least when compared to my recent brush with icy death. However, had I not been dealing with… perhaps more mundane but certainly no less constant life or death struggles, a pair of insatiably amorous lilim, and other miscellaneous Dungeon escapades, I probably would have described those few days as some of the most memorable of my life. As it was, it almost felt like a vacation.

The first morning, Jax and Arx went hunting for my breakfast. I came too, but as it was only so they could keep an eye on me, I felt rather like a kid being dragged around a department store while his mother shops for clothes. All I had to do was keep still and quiet while they did all the work, and I was quite good at that.

Jax had to take the lead. Arx was an experienced Quester and had definitely seen more than her fair share of the world, but she was no woodsman. Jax, meanwhile, was much the opposite. She had plenty of experience with woodcraft but was really only familiar with the Allenwood and the towns around it. So while she did not know the area, one forest was much like another. She knew how to track, trap, and a host of other things that were useful in putting meat on the table.

Not that she was at all interested in meat anymore. Or rather, that kind of meat.

Eventually, Jax managed to track a small rabbit-like creature to its warren, which turned out to be a series of small mounds built of dirt, twigs, and leaves that had been pushed up alongside and around a couple of nearby trees. With my allies’ combined senses, each sharpened significantly since their transformation, they were easily able to sniff out one of the creatures.

So, while Arx set about flushing the vermin out from the back, knife in hand—I had quietly informed her of its magical properties while Jax had not been listening—Jax waited patiently off to one side, listening intently for when it inevitably made its move.

I did not even really see what happened. One moment, Jax was poised with her claws outstretched, absolutely still and focused, and the next, she had a dead animal in her hands. I do not know how I knew the creature was dead, but once the influx of Life Energy hit me, I was simply aware that every drop the creature might once have had, it was now gone—sucked away by Jax’s skill.

As I stood there, relishing in the sensations of new Energy infusing with my body, Jax carelessly tossed the corpse to one side and began licking her claws clean of the blood.

“Why did you do that?” Arx asked, sheathing the knife as she came around to our side. “Aren’t we going to eat it?”

“We did eat it,” Jax explained shortly, then spat some of the blood off to one side. “Ain’t nothing left. Naught to be gained from eating now.”

Arx stared at the lifeless body for a few moments in dissatisfaction. It was strange to look at. It was not as if it had suffered from a sudden onset of decay from having its Life sucked away. There were no signs of rot or fester. There were just the puncture wounds and an odd… desiccated quality to it. I had a feeling that once we left, only the most desperate of scavengers might try to eat it.

“But I didn’t get any.”

Jax looked at her in disgust, but she decided to be diplomatic instead of saying what she was likely thinking. “Are ye really still hungry? After the snaster ye had this morn?”

“Mmm… no…” she admitted. “Now that you mention it. Just… it wasn’t really what I was craving? Or… I don’t know.”

Jax nodded, offering a halfhearted little smile. “Ain’t quite figured yer palette yet, have ye? Might do to think on the last time ye sampled it. Could jostle something loose in the old noggin.”

“Or you could just tell me what it is,” she suggested grumpily. “Since you seem to know.”

“Could do,” Jax replied offhand. “But then ye’d ne’er learn, now would ye? Come on. Naught more to be gained here.” With that, she sauntered away, contented in her meal.

As we fell into step behind her, I glanced up at the pensive lilim. Clearly, Jax’s sink or swim strategy had left her monumentally frustrated, so I tried to help her talk it out. I could not really understand what she was going through, but I had been on the other side of it once already. Besides, one never knew when a little support might be just the thing.

“When was the last time you felt… whatever it was?” I asked curiously.

“Yesterday,” she replied firmly. “By the river. When you grabbed me by the neck?”

“Oh.” I made a face. The Lust Ailment, especially at higher levels, could be compared with blacking out from drink—in a roundabout sort of way—so I was having trouble recalling more than a few highlights… visceral as the experience had been. “Can’t help you there. I wasn’t really myself at the time.”

“I was a little out of it by that point, too,” she reported, chuckling softly. “But I know it definitely has to do with sex. I think. Maybe… Or something around it, anyway.”

I grunted sympathetically. “Well… that humming skill of yours is supposed to help you think. Right?” That was what it said on the tin, anyway. “Maybe if you keep at it, you’ll get some sort of insight.”

“I don’t know that it will help with that specifically. It’s just kind of… an intuition about things,” she tried explaining. “But it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

I bobbed my head thoughtfully. “Better than nothing, I guess. And a little practice never hurt anyone. Who knows? If you get good enough at it, you might become a regular oracle.”

“It’s not like I can tell the future,” she said, laughing. “But you’re right. It would be helpful to get into the habit.”

She did, too. From that point, she regularly took to humming, hoping to flush out her mysterious flavor preferences—though we both agreed that was unlikely—but mainly just to make certain we were still on the right track. It was largely a tuneless affair, but she would occasionally fall into some barroom ditty she was familiar with. I did not mind it much. She was good at keeping it generally quiet, so as not to be too annoying. Fortunately, her skill did not seem to care about any of that. As long as she was humming, it would trigger just fine—if infrequently.

She only got one further insight that day, though that might have had more to do with certain inevitable and unstoppable forces than any improvements to the skill she had obtained. As its name implied, her skill worked best when her mind started to wander along rather specific avenues… and my aura never stopped its work.

It even helped trigger procs!

In any case, by the time the sun was beginning to dip below the tops of the trees before us, that certain speculative gleam in her eye had returned with a vengeance. Every few steps, she would glance back at me, working her bottom lip with her teeth, before turning away with a nervous, fidgety energy. And each time, her humming would get just a little louder. A little more desperate. However abruptly, she clutched her chest and jerked as if she had seen a ghost, her tuneless hum cut short.

The river, at that point, had widened to about ten paces, and a bit of a shelf was developing along its edge. The trees had also thinned to a degree where you could see to a fair distance out into them, though the underbrush had taken advantage of the space and had become thick enough that we needed to stick to the rocks along the river just to move at all.

Broadly speaking, we did not really know where we were, but we had been operating under the assumption that we had been returned approximately to where the Goblin Dungeon had swallowed us. Of course, we had no idea where that might have been in relation to anything else. I had been unconscious when the Goblins had captured me, Jax had been dead, and Arx had been black-out drunk since before we even left Kemry-in-the-Moors. So following Arx’s recommendation to trail the river downstream had seemed appropriate enough under the circumstances. It should have pointed us roughly in the direction of the Fourth Plains, if not the town of Raialie proper. From there we could probably find our eventual goal, the Stele of the Fourth Creation, and complete whatever it was my still-pending Quest was wanting me to do.

So when Arx stopped, rubbing distractedly at her bosom, it was more than a little random-seeming.

“We need to make camp,” she announced uncertainly.

“Now?” Jax asked, frowning. “What for? There be daylight yet.”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “It’s just a feeling.”

“And where exactly is we supposed to camp?” Jax asked sourly, putting hands to hips. “On the rocks?”

“No…” she said slowly before pointing out into the underbrush. “I think… that way?”

Jax scowled at that and looked to me, but all I could do was shrug. “She’s a Scout. Maybe the skill gives her some kind of sixth sense about these sorts of things?”

“And that means I gotta go diving into the bushes then? Just cause she gets a feeling from a level 1 skill? Huddy bampots all,” she grumbled under her breath. But she dutifully summoned her axe and began bushwhacking a path for us, loudly complaining all the while.

Before we had gone too far, we stumbled upon a little rocky outcropping that had been hidden by the overgrowth. It was liberally covered with vines and other plant-life, but once we had cut some of it away, it was clear we had discovered a bit of a shallow cave. It was not much, but it did at least provide some shelter. Compared to the Dungeon and the random spots in the grass we had been using, it might as well have been a five-star hotel.

“’Snails,” Arx muttered, oddly proud of herself. “Would you look at that? Not so bad, eh?”

“Yeah, yeah… Yer napper be big enough already. Don’t ask me to help fill it.” It was about then we felt a particularly cool breeze blowing in from the south, which drew an aggrieved sigh from Jax. “If that don’t just slap me paps… Come on, you two. We need to get a fire on. Storm’s coming.”

“What? How do you know that?” I asked.

“A wind like that around these parts? Afore long, the clouds’ll be rolling in, mark me. Lucky we found this cave,” she explained as she hurriedly began looking for firewood.

“Lucky?” Arx crossed her arms indignantly.

“That do be what I said, aye. I ain’t got the time to lick yer puss just because ye hummed a bit. Now get yer grand noggin to working. The wood ain’t gonna gather its ownself.”

Jax might well have had a 9 in Charisma, but sometimes it was hard to tell.

*****

That night, we huddled close together by the fire while the predicted tempest raged outside. I well remembered the last time I had been stuck out in such a storm. It was the very first night I had come to this world, and my situation could not have been more different. I had companions, a fire, shelter… though my clothing situation was fairly similar. And yet again, I was lost in the woods.

It is funny how life can be at times. After a journey of a thousand leagues, sometimes you find you’ve barely moved at all.

Before we drifted off, we made sure to fill Arx’s Core. It was not quite as critical anymore now that she had a proc to burn off my aura, but we still wanted to keep to the one-Core-at-a-time strategy while we were in the wild. And Arx was still very behind Layer-wise, so Jax begrudgingly allowed her to continue taking her share. I even offered her my own, seeing as how her sexual frustration had mostly dissipated, but they both objected to that strongly.

It did not matter so much to me. I barely even felt the Minor Gems anymore, like eating single grains of sugar at a time, but they insisted I continue to strengthen myself even if only minutely. To Jax, it was a simply matter of form, while Arx kept insisting the undiluted sensation was still too strong for her. I had a feeling she was not being completely honest about it. Something about her expression spoke of uncertainty. Like she might have been trying to convince herself.

In any case, because of their insistence, it wound up taking fifteen Gems to fill her Core again, leaving us with only twelve Minors in stock. At the rate we were plowing through them, even if Arx really was unready, we would need to increase the dosage to keep moving forward.

The storm raged off and on through the night, and while I was nervous about maintaining the watch, there really was not much point. Nothing would venture out during such a downpour. So, with Jax and Arx nestled closely to me, the warm fire crackling at my feet, and the sounds of the storm outside, I eventually drifted off.

*****

The next day proceeded much like the last, though with the sodden ground and the undergrowth, we quickly discarded any plans to hunt. Not that we really needed it. After weeks of being stuck in the Dungeon, I had become relatively desensitized to hunger—or at least enough not to complain about it—and my lilim really only needed me to maintain themselves. Plus, the previous day had not been overly taxing on our reserves.

When we found the river again, we discovered it swelled considerably from the rain and almost spilling over the banks. And unfortunately, what with all the runoff, it was now brown with silt. With no way to filter it, we would have to wait until it cleared until it was drinkable again. Lilim may well have been immune to disease, but no one wanted a mouthful of muddy water.

So we continued on our way, traveling along the bank from one large river rock to the next. It was slow going, but we continued steadily down the gentle slope the river naturally followed. It took that day and well into the next, but eventually we came to the edge of the trees and scrub and entered into what looked to be a vast grassland.

The river wound its way through the undulating hills before us, painting quite the picturesque landscape—with only the occasional tree grown fat and wide in their isolation to accent it. Some sort of deeply brown, almost orange plant uniformly covered the scene before us, each swaying with the wind in waves much like the ocean. Whatever it was, they each sent up a long thin stalk about waist high and carried only a single leaf that was rounded at the top and tapered downward toward the stem. And every single one of them was facing the sun. It was striking.

“That’s the Fourth Plains, alright,” Arx said from my side.

She was relatively calm now after her most recent skill pick—Thirst for Master’s Touch. One might be forgiven for assuming a skill with that name would produce an entirely unproductive result, but it was actually what passed for Lust resistance… at least for my lilim.

Arx had informed me that normal people could purchase the far-less-evocatively titled, ‘Lust Resistance,’ though it was not overly popular. Lust was not a common enough Status Ailment for it to be useful for more than edge cases, and even if had, it normally took weeks of dedicated practice with a resistance skill for a person to be able to ignore even the first level of Ailment severity.

Theirs was a much more powerful skill… at the cost of them being… ‘mildly’ horny. All the time. Regardless, for us, the ability to ignore the—for the most part—constant need throbbing between their legs was simply too useful not to take. Besides allowing them to save up a guaranteed proc, it was necessary if for no other reason than to preserve their sanity.

“Now we just have to figure out which river we’ve been following,” she continued. “The Plains are a big place. Easy to get lost out here if you don’t have a guide.”

I sighed. Naturally. Nothing is ever easy when you want it to be.

Glancing at her, I took note of what the days of travel and constant improvements to her Core—Layer 4 now—had done to her physique. Her perfectly straight, white hair had grown steadily each day, and now brushed the tops of her shoulders. It seemed to lag slightly behind her every movement in an almost hypnotic, liquid display as it settled to stillness each time. Naturally, her horns had also grown. Still aiming up and out, they had achieved a couple of extra knuckle’s worth of length over the last few days and were curling in a very gentle spiral opposite one another. I was not sure what they would look like when fully grown, but if they continued like that had been, I imagined she would probably look a bit like a Chinese dragon.

As for her body, well… she was still shy of her former glory, but she was maturing steadily. Her lithe and athletic form lent itself toward being on the leggy side of things, as women go. Of course, like Jax, she was also prone to walking on the balls of her feet, so that might have had something to do with it. As for the… contentious bit—or rather, bits—she was very nearly caught up to Jax. Proportionately anyway. In terms of actual mass, she had passed my First a day ago. I had tried to explain it was mostly owing to the fact that Arx was simply a larger person than she was, so of course they were going to be bigger. But that had not helped much. Especially because I was finding it difficult not to take note of the differences each day.

I mean… they were boobs!

Worse, the two of them were natural empaths and, while Arx was still a little shaky on that front, she was coming to grips with it steadily. And she had picked up on the feel of my glances really quick—a fact I had just as quickly come to regret.

“Ha ha!” Arx crowed. “That’s sixteen!”

“Fucking fannybaws!” Jax spat. “How’m I supposed to compete with shite like this? Ye been filling like the piss jug outside a pub!”

“Sorry,” I muttered. Again.

“Aw~ Don’t be sorry, Dearest,” Arx consoled me. “Besides, it wouldn’t be a contest if you could help yourself.”

“I call dibs tonight!” Jax announced.

“What?!”Arx squawked. “How is that fair? I’m winning!”

“Precisely!” Jax replied, looking down her nose at her. Which was an effort, considering the difference in their height. “Or do ye want as I should take the Power tonight in yer stead? Say I ain’t got the right!”

“Dearest…” she whined turning to me. “She got dibs last night.”

I sighed heavily. “It’s not like you set terms for this little contest… at my expense. Besides, didn’t you say how much you loved her flavor on me?”

She flushed at the memory and muttered quietly, “It tastes kind of like liquor. You know I’m sensitive to that.”

So it wasn’t just my imagination. “Hmm… well, I suppose that tonight I’ll have to find out how you taste.”

A pleased little shiver spread up her body at that. “Oh… I got just hint of it there. What were you feeling just now?” she asked hopefully.

“Don’t ask him,” Jax answered for me. “He don’t know. Ain’t so easy to put words to such.”

Arx frowned unhappily at that. I could sympathize in a way. It was like going on vacation in a country where you do not speak the language, going to a restaurant and picking something randomly off the menu, discovering it to be positively fantastic, and then having absolutely no idea how to ask for it again or even finding out what it was. Plus, Jax was right. At the best of times, I could tell you what I was feeling in broad terms, but the specific minutia of my daily emotional life were largely ignored or forgotten within moments of my feeling them.

Shrugging unhelpfully, I hazarded, “Does it have anything to do with oral?”

She sighed. “No… probably not.”

Taking a few moments to divine a heading, Arx set off to the southwest, finally diverging from the path of the river. I did not have a clue where we were going. We were simply pushing through the high grass in an apparently random direction. If she had not previously shown that her skill was to be trusted, I would have balked at the idea of straying from water. However, after we crested a couple of hills, we discovered a winding dirt track that had been cut into the flowing landscape. From the wheel ruts, we figured it had to be a trade route of some kind, and that meant people. And hopefully, eventually, the town of Raialie.

Deciding to follow it in the direction away from the forest we had just left, we walked steadily, wending our way between and over the hills. The path the track carved seemed to be one of least resistance, clearly intended for driving a wagon train through without straining the horses over much. By the time the sun was setting, we came upon a worn spot beneath one of the wide trees that occasionally dotted the plain, and we made camp for the night.

Once again, we fell into our routine of filling Arx’s Core, satisfying some of the pent up urges of the day, and setting watch for the night.

Incidentally… Bavarian cream and blackberries.