Chapter 45.2

Idly, I took a curious whiff of the card, but whatever ability I had recently gained did not seem to work on goddess… secretions.  Or if it did, it was going haywire in a way that made no sense at all.  She smelled like…

Nothing?

But like… literal nothing.  It was as if someone had torn a hole in the universe and asked me to describe its scent.  And the only thing that came to mind was ‘what is six times nine?’

…if extraplanar mathematics could be described as ‘wildly arousing.’

Shit… if Xhinn smells like that, what the hell kind of aroma does Ahnbe have?

“I suppose we’re going to need a way to translate this,” I murmured, sighing.

I had no idea how many languages existed on this world, but if Earth was any guide, that number would not be small.  Human beings alone had managed to come up with several thousand.  Hell, we even had well over a hundred language families.  If you took all that and multiplied it by the number of species on this planet—itself a complete unknown—how many tongues would you end up with?

Unless it’s more a question of geographical separation and the mobility of the citizenry?  I shook the thought away.  I was getting carried away again.

Whatever the final answer turned out to be, there were a lot of variables to consider.  And I had recently begun to appreciate the value of the more generic, quality-of-life types of skills.

“Seems like it might be a useful ability in the long run.”

Arx nodded sagely.  “It’s a requirement for any serious Questing party.  The Dungeon is well known for its puzzles.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that…” I agreed wryly.  “Unfortunately, I’m fresh out of skill points, or I would buy a translation spell.”

“I got one,” Jax said with a sneer.  “But it be locked.”

I reached up to stroke one of her horns comfortingly.  “It’s alright, Jax.  We’ll get you sorted out as soon as we can.  What about you, Arx?”

“I have two,” she reported.  “But as a Siren, I have no idea what a skill like that might look like.”

“Let’s find out,” I said, then leaned back to poke at Lynnria.  “Mia?  Are you done in there?”

Our fourth party member had been staring vacantly at the ceiling while we had been talking.  I had no idea what was going through her mind—if anything—but from her face, she was still recovering from an encounter of near-religious proportions.  Tears were flowing freely down her cheeks in a pair of continuous streams, and her skin was blotched from sheer discomfit.  We had been trying to give her some space.

At my prodding, she slowly turned until her eyes found me… or something about a thousand miles past me.  It was hard to say.

“Do you guys think I went too far?” I asked absently.  “It was her first time.  Maybe I should have held back a little.”

Arx shrugged.  “She wanted to be a big girl, and now she is.  Besides she tastes fantastic right now.”

“Y’ain’t wrong,” Jax agreed with a toothy grin.  “Ye gave us a feast and more with this one, Master.”

I grunted.  Leave it to a pair of empaths to display no empathy whatsoever.  “Are you alright, Lynnria?”

She tried to say something that sounded pretty close to, “Djah~!”  But that seemed to be all the breath she had in her.  She was smiling though.  A lot.  So I would take that as a good sign.

I smiled back, feeling awkward.  “Mia,” I called again.  “We want to buy a skill.”

“Maybe she ain’t listening?” Jax suggested.

I honestly had no idea if that was even possible.  The inner workings of our minds and Mia’s relationship with them were cans of worms I increasingly felt best avoided.  I had seen glimpses here and there, and that had been plenty, thank you very much.  The last thing I needed on my plate was a helping of cross-species symbolic interaction theory.

“You’re sure she’s in there?” I asked, turning to Arx.

She shrugged uncertainly.  “I think so.  She said something about needing to make sure the roots were growing along the proper non-resistance pathways.”

“Of course,” I agreed, nodding as if I had a clue.

“Okay, I’m here…” Mia announced, slightly out-of-breath.  “Just give me… one…”

Some sort of popping sound tapped at my eardrum, and my right eyelid fluttered.

“There!  Testing, testing… Lynnria?  Can you hear me?”

Lynnria choked slightly and closed her eyes.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

My face twisted with bafflement.  Never mind whatever the hell Mia had just done, I always had felt a little out to sea when people got overly emotional on me, and watching Lynnria had thrown me overboard.  All we had done was fool around a bit.  Why the waterworks?

“Maybe I should… give her a hug?” I suggested.

“Ah, she’s fine,” Mia said dismissively.  “Now, I think I heard something about a skill?”

“Yeah, for Arx,” I replied, stroking Lynnria’s arm.  She grabbed my wrist a moment later and held on as if her life depended on it.

Maybe she wants to cuddle?  I had heard some women liked that, so I decided to start sending little bursts of comfort into her hand.  It seemed to help.

“We need something to translate this note,” Arx explained, waggling the parchment in question in her fingertips.

“I see.  Translation skill… Scout sub-type…” Mia repeated amidst the sounds of a pencil scratching out some notes.  “Active skill, I’m assuming?  A Passive would be cheaper, but hardly anyone is interested in those when it comes to translations.”

“Why’s that?” Jax asked curiously.

“Cram it, tailless.  No one asked—” Mia stopped with a little gasp of horror.  “I apologize.  Truly.  That was… uncalled for.”

My First nodded her understanding, but she was clearly fighting to compose herself.  She looked like she had just been slapped.  Arx quickly gathered her into her arms and stroked her nails down her sister’s spine.  “It’s alright.  I’m sure it’ll come in eventually.”

“T’ain’t fair!” the other said with a fragile little hiccough.  “E’en Lynnria has one, and she ain’t even a real Dolilim!”

I stared at the two of them for a moment, uncertain whether to be sympathetic or to laugh.  We had someone on the verge of an emotional breakdown sitting right beside us, and this was what everyone got upset about?

But perhaps I was too out of the empathic loop to understand the nuances.  Jax had not been complaining about it, so it had not been something I was worried about.  However, it was clear that this Layer cap business was not doing great things for her state of mind.  She had been used to growing with me—both in terms of power and physically.  And if I knew anything at all about Dolilim, it was that they did not like being cut off from me.

In any sense of the word.

“Best answer her question, Mia,” I suggested.