"Ok, we are alone," Arinya said to the small empty room. "I still don't see why I need a babysitter, I can feel anyone coming a mile away."
"Sure," Audrey said as she appeared out of nowhere, "But can you stop them? You need to understand how weak you are," She paused for a moment and sighed, "how weak we are, he is not going to be there to save us all the time."
"I don't see what the big deal is, it's not like everyone is out to get him. And if he is as strong as you claim, then why are we worried?"
"If you are going to stay with us, there is something you need to understand about why we are so protective of him. He is strong, strong enough to massacre this entire safe zone in a few minutes, but he is also fragile emotionally. If one of us got kidnapped he would kill and destroy until he got us back, but after all that death and destruction, he would be broken, permanently. The five of us care about him and we will not let anyone join us that doesn't understand this because we would kill for him, anyone that needed killing," Audrey said with a tear running down her face mixing with the ash left behind from her cloak.
"I'm not trying to be insensitive, but that sounds like a cult. Why should I join you? It's becoming more and more likely that I will refuse your offer when you talk like that."
"You don't have to join, I mean the whole thing will be easier for me if we kept it just the six of us, but he wants a sense of community so we are looking around. You heard what Bethany said, we don't need more people, we would like there to be more people. Do not mistake our kindness in recruiting you for necessity," Audrey said with a look of frustration.
"All right, I'll reserve judgement for now," Arinya stated with her hands up in a surrendering motion. "So what is the plan for tonight and tomorrow?"
"Well, tonight we rest and meditate, don't sleep more than you have to, use the time to get stronger. Then, tomorrow we go and see if we can find some riff raff to train with Beau and that skinny chic," explained Audrey with a bit of disgust on her face and in her voice when mentioning 'that chic'. Audrey didn't like her, "something about her magic," she said with a finger tapping her cheek, "it was like smelling rotten milk that was left out in the sun, in a landfill, next to a sewage treatment plant that was on fire."
"Was her magic bad or something?"
"No, sensing others' magic gives you a feel for them, their intentions and underlying motivations, sometimes raw emotions if they are strong enough. She was jealous of Bethany in a sickening way, she doesn't care about Beau at all, other than what benefits he can offer and she was overflowing with hate. She hates the world, all of it, feels it owes her something because she was born. I'm so glad I had good parents." The mention of her parents stopped her thoughts in their tracks and led her mind down a sad road so she sat down and closed her eyes. She didn't feel this new girl deserved her story yet so she ignored her and meditated.
Tara returned from hunting after she leveled up, which had become her routine, meditating to work on her body and soul, then hunt til she leveled, then back to the meditation. Three days had passed since Eli went to deal with the volcano, the ash cloud was getting smaller, but it was still huge and still being dragged into the crater. There were 9 smaller huts now besides Eli's bigger one and the bush boundary now had a stone wall in the middle of it with the defense bushes on either side. Crater Town, as they had come to call it, was really shaping up to be something spectacular.
She walked into Eli's hut and saw Bethany meditating, she was sweating and clearly struggling, then as she watched, she changed. Her skin got smoother and her face more feminine and seductive, mostly with small changes you wouldn't even notice at first glance but when you see the changes happening it was a big deal. She already had a great figure but these changes were subtle but meaningful. Her neck got the tiniest bit longer, her collar bones were just a bit more pronounced, with her chest getting a bit rounder, her waist a bit smaller, and her overall look more feminine and seductive.
With the transformation seemingly complete, Tara approached her to congratulate her, but just then she was thrown back a step as a wave of magic pushed out of her. Bethany opened her eyes with a huge smile on her face and looked at Tara. They hadn't spoken much since Eli kissed Bethany during that last monster horde event, but they did agree with a look that they were on the same side. Tara might have been alright on her own, but they both knew that Bethany would not have made it, neither would Cody and Audrey.
Without Eli's help they would not be in a very good situation right now. What Bethany saw as the funny part of all this was that the group didn't act out of some sense of gratitude, but instead acted out of protection and possessiveness. Tara and Stevens wanted to protect their leader out of respect for him, Bethany and Audrey wanted to possess him like an item for different reasons, and Cody just wanted to do something that made him feel like a permanent member of the group. Everything was still so new that the group was giving each other and themselves a lot of leeway on behavior and personality foibles. Because of all this the two women were civil to each other, even if Tara had to do it with gritted teeth sometimes.
"Leveled up both huh?" Asked Tara.
"Yup, body and soul level 2 now. I give Eli two more days before I think we should go looking for him," said Bethany.
"No, we will not go looking for him. I have this feeling, not a big one, but enough of one to trust. He is going to come back with something crazy and we need to let him get that crazy thing. I don't know the details but that's how it feels."
"Alright, we won't go get him, so we just follow his last instructions and then what?"
"We might be his people but we don't really work for him, you don't have to do anything. As his wife, I'll make sure we keep moving forward," Tara said with a smirk that, despite her best efforts, was obvious on her face.
"You should be thanking me you know," Bethany said with an just as obvious smirk.
"For what? Kissing him so badly that he appreciates me even more?"
"HA! If you think that kiss was bad then I'd hate to see the way you do it. But seriously, with a woman on each arm, other women won't even try to come after him."
"You are an 'other woman'."
"Am I though? When have I crossed a line with more than words? I keep him focused on us, in a few months when some civilization comes to this new world, women are going to flock to powerful lords."
"I don't…" Tara trailed off as she played it out in her head and she realized that Bethany may have a point. She decided to let it play out for now, "You may be right, It's just hard, I'd been chasing him for years before the system and I finally have him. The chance I might lose him scares me more than death. But, looking inside myself, I'm also afraid of him."
"Is that why you let yourself be scarred by the crazy magic thing you and he did? To try and prove to yourself you weren't scared of him?"
"I didn't let it happen, I made it happen, I need to be strong, to keep what I have. I knew in my heart that if I backed away in fear in the moment, that's all I would be doing until our relationship died."
"Fair enough, did you ever get a skill out of that fake node?" Bethany asked, having successfully steered the conversation in a different direction.
"Yes, Eli's chaos node skill is blink, letting him teleport through space. But I think my node comes from his mother's magic more than his so mine slows time slightly. It's not much now but as I level it, it will become really hard to stop."
"Interesting, maybe if he comes back strong enough he will be able to give me an extra node."
"I wouldn't count on it, he won't want to hurt you that much. Let's get back on topic, when are your recruits arriving?"
"Tonight," Bethany said with a grumble.
"Don't grumble, just think about how much fun it will be to train them."
"You want me to go all drill sergeant on them?" asked Bethany.
"It's best you train them your way, and make sure you listen if they start to describe magic in a funny way. Audrey says that there may be more people out there with unique skills like Arinya."
"Smart."
Headed back to the crater was Arinya, Bethany, and Audrey, along with five recruits who were excited and nervous to see their prospective home. The recruits were the couple Chris and Beau, a pair of brothers named Dean and Damon, and a young woman named Lucy who was a complete mystery to everyone. Bethany and Arinya both remember seeing her around when they interviewed the others and then she just showed up this morning and followed them out of the town. Audrey had asked her her name and why she was following and she had just said her name was Lucy and she needed to speak to Lord Ash before she would talk to us.
Audrey was suspicious at first but didn't sense any malice in her magic, however, what she did feel in her magic was a potential for power just under the surface. It was like part of her soul was obstructed or contained and all she could see were shadows on the outside of the container. If she wanted to speak to Ash, Audrey didn't see any reason for her not to, so she told the others to let her come along. Lucy was a short mousy woman of about twenty with awkward skinny limbs, light brown hair, and intense grey eyes that brooked only serious regard for her surroundings. Audrey's first thought was that she was going to be fun to mess with.
The trip back was a casual jog with a couple stops for Arinya to practice her skill while Audrey gave her advice on how to grow the skill while the others listened. The specific and competent advice gave the recruits pause since the older women seemed to regard the younger among them as the expert. On top of that, Arinya seemed to be improving, which increased their interest even more. Beau was asking question after question to Bethany who only answered one out of every five by just saying, you'll see, to most of them, Chris was staring daggers at Audrey, and the two brothers were chatting to themselves during the walk.
It was about midnight when they arrived at the walled town inside the barrier.
Addressing all of them, Bethany said, "this is what we have for inside the barrier, Crater Town is where the Lord and us live. There is room there but that place was claimed in a deeper way than how it's done in a safezone. The village will attack you if it doesn't like you."
"So we stay here," Beau pointed to the walled area, "Until the actual physical place likes us enough to let us in?
"I know it's night time and you can't see it but that ash cloud is coming from an erupting volcano. Lord Ash started that eruption and is, right now, inside the eruption trying to spare the surrounding people damage from it. The ash from all this is being sucked into the village he built with his magic and will power. If you are going to baulk at how our village works, you might as well go home now," Bethany said in her best sassy and sarcastic voice.
He raised his hands in surrender, "Ok, ok, I get it."
"We will now walk to the village so you can see it. We call it Crater town, or Crater Village. If you want to try your luck and walk inside you are welcome to, anyone that the place allows in, is allowed in. If not, go inside the walls here and find a room, we start training in the morning. We will meet in the area between these two locations," Bethany said while pointing to the walled town and where she knew Crater Village to be. It really was a dark night with no moon and clouds blocking the stars, which she was grateful for, the ash getting turned into magic and getting sucked into the ground was intimidating.
Lucy took two steps forward, "I would like to try."