Chapter 46.1 - Art Appreciation

As one might reasonably expect, these events sparked quite a lot of conversation.  By which, I mean confused shouting.  None of my corporeal companions had ever heard the true voice of a goddess, even if it was just a simple little chuckle.  So they had not been prepared for the uncomfortable weight of Her attention.

Of course, I was hardly immune, but I was at least getting somewhat used to it.  Some of that could have stemmed from my advancing Wisdom stat, though.  Ahnbe had told me it was critical for anyone who wanted to look upon Her.  I assumed that worked both ways.

Maybe that’s why Clerics need so much Wisdom in D&D.  Gotta survive your deity cramming all those spells into your head every night somehow.

While the others ‘talked,’ I snatched up the Key and ensconced it within my Coin pouch.  Then I gave the scraps of cloth a mournful second look.  Attempting to make anything out of it would be a fruitless waste, but I simply could not shake the idea that there might be people out there!

I remembered some of the stares I had collected the last time I had been seen in public, and my Charisma had not exactly halted its advance.  If I were to march out into the corridor with my dingus flopping around, there was a distinct possibility one of the Dolilim might kill someone.

That was my justification, anyway.  So I set to tying.

“You’re certainly taking this calmly,” Lynnria said eventually.  “That was a goddess just now.  A goddess!”

It was an effort to school my face.  We all had our own traumas to deal with, I was sure, and I did not want to appear too condescending.  However, having experienced mental oblivion via divine congress, I was finding it difficult to sympathize.

“I try to keep busy.  It helps to keep me from thinking about it,” I explained just as I was putting the finishing touches on my new garment.  To be honest, the thing was more knot than belt, but I at least had a bit of a flap covering my package.

“I can still see the tip of yer banger, ye know.”

“Yes, Jax.  Thank you,” I intoned flatly.

“At least he’s trying,” Lynnria said in my defense, doing her utmost to look at anything else.  And obviously failing.  “Which is more than either of you can say.  How can you two can be so totally relaxed without a scrap of cloth on?”

Arx shook her head tiredly then turned to open the door.  “Come on, Lesser.  We’ve got Dungeon to explore.”

“You say that as if it means something,” Lynnria said, trying to be dismissive.  However, I noticed her wince from unconsciously balling her hands into fists—and poking herself with her own claws.  “Why should I be insulted by something Mia just made up?”

Jax just chuckled and threw a companionable arm around the young woman’s shoulder.  “We’ll let ye know when ye can feed from more than knob.”

“More than—?  Agh!”  Lynnria quickly shied away from the redhead and bolted for the door.  Pausing outside just long enough to shudder, she yelled back into the room, “I do not eat… those! And can you please not press your nakedness against me?”

Jax did not reply save to reach down and casually flip my flap, giving Lynnria a very brief flash of what was underneath.  Despite it having been in full view—and conspicuously not—for the better part of the day, she still gasped on seeing it and took an unconscious step forward.

I felt for her.  In that moment, we were kindred spirits.  However, the cloth quickly resettled, and she seemed to realize what she had just done.  Blushing scarlet, she turned and chased after Arx.

“You know,” I commented as we slowly made to follow, “she used to be so self-confident.  She was determined to make me her lover from practically the moment we met.  But now that I am, she can barely look at me.”

Jax chuckled.  “Can’t say what it were before.  Weren’t there, more’s the pity.  But it ain’t ye she be feared of.  Were it just the two of ye again, she’d be on ye like fleas on an arse.”

“Maybe if you’d quit teasing her, she’d stop being so intimidated.”

“Ah, but that be her place, ye see?  She knows it, too.  Deep down.  Instinct-like.  But it ain’t one what she be used to, and that’s what’s got her flapped.  Not just us having a bit of harmless.  That one can scarce control it when she looks on ye.  Scares her.”

The door slammed shut behind us, as if to punctuate her words, followed by the sound of a deadbolt heavily sliding into place.  I had to hope we would not need the room again.  We would not be returning.

The safe room door had deposited us upon a now-familiar mezzanine.  Across the way was the broken clock and its adjacent doors which had led me to Lynnria’s island and the adventure of the dark maze.  Meanwhile, directly to our left was the exit to the other maze which       Jax had escaped from.  Everything we had thus far experienced within this Dungeon zone had been from this one, central hub—very similar to the tutorial Jax and I had experienced, now that I thought on it.

I turned back to my first companion.  “Instincts aside, I really wish you wouldn’t put things like that, Jax.  When you talk about people and their ‘places,’ you make it sound like there’s some sort of caste system at work.”

“I dunno nothing about that.  There’s just me, what’s yer First.  Then them what’s bound.  Then the lesser servant types—they’s new, but their place be clear.  After, be those what’s unbound yet follow, like Arx and Lynnria was before.  Below them types be the lowest of the low, everyone else.”  Pausing to favor me with a sultry little grin, she sidled close and pressed her softness to my skin.  “And above all, there be ye.  My master.”

My aching manhood throbbed for a brief moment at those words despite my better intentions.  It was times like these that I wished Jax did not find my baser instincts so enticing.  Maybe then, she would not keep teasing them out.

“That’s exactly what a caste system is,” I said, forcibly pushing those thoughts away.  “And I doubt anyone outside our little group would agree with your assessment of the situation.  There’s plenty of people out there who could grind me into paste.”

The corners of her eyes crinkled.  “Says the man what’s got a pair of goddesses fighting over him.”

“That’s speculation.”

“Maybe.”

“And what about Mia?  How does she fit into this paradigm you’ve imagined?” I asked.  “For that matter, what about these goddesses?  If they really are after me, how would they fit in?”

Jax pushed away and turned.  For a few seconds, she was silent, pondering the question.  “We don’t know,” she admitted finally.  “Arx be unsettled, though.  I know ye seen it.  She don’t want to be below them, but she can’t think how she might not be.”

Funny.  I’d have thought a deity would be above me in the hierarchy, but she didn’t even consider that possibility.

“You’re sure it’s only Arx that’s worried?” I asked instead.

She spun around, growling.  Daring me to contradict her.  “I be First!”

Uh huh… In other words, yes.  More than worried.  But she did not intend to go down without a fight.

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Footnote:  this chapter will have 4 subsections.  It ended up a little on the shorter side.