Dem returned a sixteenth of a cycle before the resting time was over. He felt.. empty, but rested enough to continue. Ina still maintained a distance away at his request, holding the grimoire for him. When he got to the actual campsite though, he hadn’t thought to make much noise as he approached, and so he pushed through the foliage to find himself in something of an odd situation. Wersa sat with her armour removed, wiping herself with a wet rag. She was still clothed, thankfully.

Just as he was thanking the Divine Humanity for inspiring the woman to clean herself, he spied something to the left of Wersa that caused him to freeze. Karmis was sitting on a stool, stark naked wiping herself with rag wetted from a bowl at her feet. He couldn’t deny he was a bit mesmerized by the sight. He was old enough, and experienced enough, that female nudity shouldn’t have affected him, but he found himself watching for a moment.

When you’re camping in the Wilds, privacy wasn’t an important thing, and most women of the hamlets weren’t particularly modest about nudity. It was out of practicality though. This scene was something else. She drug the rag over her body in a bizarrely erotic manner, centering mostly on her massive bust. If anything her breasts seemed larger outside the armour, though he couldn’t be sure. He also, quite unwillingly, noticed her red hair was consistent everywhere on her body. There was something oddly impractical about the scene that left him more confused than aroused. Was she putting on a show? She had a slight smile on her face, but wasn’t looking in his direction.

He backed up a bit, and then made sure to make a noisy entrance, looking away from Karmis as he did so. He gave her plenty of time to cover herself, before looking around to make his greetings.

To his surprise Karmis had been fairly slow to cover herself, only doing so after he had turn around to look at her. She cast some sort of spell, and glowing light enveloped part of her body, concealing it. A surprising amount was still showing despite her.. illusion spell, he guessed?

He did his best to seem embarrassed rather than the confusion he actually felt, “Ah, excuse me Lady Adventurers. I apologize for intruding. I didn't know you would be.. cleaning yourselves. Are cleaning cantrips not enough?”

Karmis spoke for them. “Cleaning cantrips are helpful yes, but they don’t make you feel clean.”

“I see, I hadn’t thought of that, Lady Karmis.” Just as he had responded to Karmis, Dice walked into view. He knew she was on the other side of Wersa, as he could hear and smell her, but Wersa’s large form had blocked her from sight entirely until he had moved further into the camp. As it turned out Dice didn’t have the false modesty that Karmis faked. She was stark naked and looked right him in the eye. Her breasts were small, smaller than Ina’s, but high and firm looking. Her nipples dark, as if to match her hair and her eyes. She was more.. hairy in a few places than he would have imagined, but nothing like Ina. She had criss-crossing scars on every surface of her body he could see. One of her breasts had a deep groove cut out of it. The result of some horrible fight and not immediately receiving healing spells. She was most assuredly a deadly fighter despite her age, her body a testament to that fact. She smiled at him and spoke.

“Du’n, yu li’k wot yu se?”

Dice was as subtle a seducer as Wersa was likely to be subtle as a fighter, which is to say, not at all, he thought.

He coughed, “Do I like what I see? Ah.. yes, you’re quite beautiful.”

She smiled again, and said, “Ef yu du’n wan’ Ka’miss, yu c’an ‘ed wit me.”

Translating slowly, he figured out what Dice was saying. She was asking him to her bed since he had reject Karmis earlier, though only the word ‘me’ had been really clear to him.

Karmis interjected, “That is enough Dice, go clothe yourself.” Her tone brokered no dissent.

Dice simply smiled, skipped away from him toward her tent. He had trouble not looking at the small but firm globes of her posterior, or the scars that marked them, as she bounced away.

Focusing back on Karmis, who was dressing behind her spelled screen. He apologized for taking so long, and made excuses about testing his new alarm trinkets. She seemed to accept his explanations with a predatory smile. It occurred to him then, they would have had their own alarms spells, probably spelled right into their tents. They had known he was coming. Dice herself would have the improved senses to know someone was nearby. Karmis’ entire act just now, probably the fact they were even bathing, had been a show. His most important piece of evidence was that Wersa was actually bathing. She must have been under orders. She probably didn’t even know a cleaning cantrip.

He moved away, higher up, to wait for them to break camp. He thought about Karmis and her theater. Why would she bother? Was it because her spells failed when they first met? Or that he had rejected going to her tent earlier? Did she really have to seduce men for her Path like he had hypothesized? He tried to think about the situation, only coming to the thought that maybe this was a simple change of tactics. Spells hadn’t worked, requests hadn’t worked, and now she wanted to show him.. what she offered? It was enticing, her body had been amazingly curvaceous and virtually flawless, but he didn’t trust someone clearly trying to charm him. Her immediate use of spells when they had met, had left a bad taste in his mouth, mostly because it had nearly worked.

He anxiety and paranoia suffused his mental state. The glorious scene earlier had actually worsened his mood. The only one he could trust here was Ina.

***

It took them another three cycles to get the central campsite he had intended for them to use. It was on a particularly massive branch in one of the biggest trees he had ever seen. The tree itself wasn’t just taller than those around it, it seemed to be growing on one of the few elevated areas one could find the Wilds. It was defensible, but too open for most beasts to want to make it a home. Perfect for their purposes.

The journey had been fairly uneventful. Dice had been continually too winded to join him on scouting runs, but was already improving. Karmis had made a number of enticing comments, but made no further overtures to get him into her tent. Perhaps she was waiting to see if her little show had been effective, he didn’t know.

The most eventful thing that happened is that he had finally seen Wersa fight. It had scared him to the bone. They taken a slower pace, not in the trees, but on the ground for a while, to allow Dice to keep up. As moved along the ground, they had come across a greater rubber-rhino, much like the one that Ina had killed. This one was, if anything, was actually larger. He had called to the party to take to the trees. While he and Dice had climbed up different trunks, Wersa had gently tossed Karmis straight up into the air. Karmis landed lightly on a large branch more than more than twenty spans above Wersa’s head. This feat of strength looked like a practiced maneuver to his untrained eyes.

The rhino beast charged as soon as it had seen them. Normally, a greater beast would be more wary, but not this one. Perhaps the beast wasn’t frightened because it thought it could escape easily and that its tough hide would protect it from any real harm. Rubber rhinos were surprisingly mobile, despite their bulk. He pitied it almost. An arrogant beast, was a dead beast.

As Karmis practically floated up on to her branch she had cast a spell at the rhino beast, hitting it in the face. This spell seemed to disorient the beast causing it to slow down its charge and thrash around wildly. Meanwhile, Karmis continued to cast spells. These looked like what could only be buff spells. Wersa began to glow with a number of lights, and small physical changes took place. She grew in stature, her muscles not only expanded, but also clearly grew more dense. Her skinned darkened and grew more course. Wersa also, quite slowly, began to cast a few of her own spells on herself.

Finally, done Wersa launched herself at the greater beast with a single step. She moved in a flash, though somehow two pieces of flashing silver beat her to the beast, lodging into its eyes. He looked away from the beast to Dice for moment, giving her a nod in appreciation at her incredible accuracy on a moving target. When he looked back, Wersa had her sword out of its sheath and was chopping down on rubber rhino. As she held the sword above her head for a split second, he had noticed it was a fairly dull, if incredibly tough, piece of metal. It must have weighed more than he did. Despite its weight she sent it effortlessly crashing down on the head of the rhino.

He expected the blade to bounce or glance off the rhino, and at very least seriously hurt it, but his expectation was met with a sight that left him shocked. The blade crashed down with such force it shook the nearby trees. When it struck pieces of rhino splattered in every direction. The entire front section of the rhino looked like mashed root-bulbs parted down the middle. Her strike had been so strong it had left a channel empty of dirty all the way down to the tree roots in front of her. On either side of the channel were mounds of pasted rhino beast. What remained of the hind end of the beast, the only part still somewhat intact, had flown backward and smacked into a tree trunk with a mighty thud. The sword was stuck deep into the ground, two thirds of the way up to the hilt. It still quivered slightly. Wersa was stopped and breathing heavily, clearly winded from the strike. She was surprisingly clean, the mess had flown entirely away from her. The air pressure from the strike being rather convenient.

He jumped down from his branch, and began to gingerly step over the piles of mashed rhino that were splattered all around. If he hadn't felt sorry for rhino before, now he did. It wasn't a feeling he usually had for the beasts he encountered in the Wilds. Ultimately, the beast had been too arrogant and Wersa too strong. He began to rifle through the beast looking for a core.

Wersa spoke in huffed breaths, “Are you taking my prize?” Her voice tired, but serious. Unlike Dice, he could understand her well enough to respond.

He needed to be polite, using her proper title, “No, Lady Adventurer, I merely wanted to see if it had a core for you. I know where to look in beasts like this one.”

She eyed him, but only grunted in response, her breath slowly returning to normal.

After poking and prodding the beast, and cutting away a few choice bits, he found what was looking for. What he saw though, was disappointing.

The core had cracked. The strength of her blade had been too strong and had diffused kinetic force throughout the body of the rhino, cracking its flexible bones and clearly damaging the core. He wondered how she would react.

He would have to lay it on thick, “Ah, Lady Adventurer, it seems there is indeed a core, not every beast has one you see, so we are lucky. Sadly the core was.. cracked.”

Wersa looked coldly at him.

“What did you do? Did you crack it when you dug it out? Did you drop it?” Her tone accusatory.

He looked pleadingly at Karmis standing not far away. She had used some sort of spell to allow herself to float gently to the ground.

Karmis looked angry, which made him worried. These adventurers were rich enough that loss of one core wouldn’t be critical, but perhaps they were particularly stingy. He hoped, if he had to run, Wersa would be too tired to chase him.

As it turned out Karmis wasn’t angry at him,

She spoke in a hard tone at Wersa. “You stupid wench, you cracked the core with that big sword of yours. What have I told you about controlling your own strength? You splattered that beast everywhere. What if it had gotten on me? I’ve told you, for sequences, that you should only use enough strength to make the kill. Look at you, you’re already tired. If this were a real battle, you would have killed a few men, but then would have been stabbed by a dozen more. Use your fists next time. I don’t even know why you use that thing. You have more control with your own body than you will swinging that useless thing. You’re old enough to not make these sorts of mistakes any more.”

She ranted at Wersa for a while. Wersa wasn’t looking at him anymore, and was simply looking down.

Finally Wersa spoke, her voice contrite. “Y-yes, m-Karmis. I will be m-more careful.” She stumbled over her words, but did take the time to finally look at him with a death glare.

Karmis defended him, raising her eyebrow, “Don’t blame him for something you did. He even retrieved the core for you. In its cracked state it will only be useful for making trinkets, but that is still easy currency. You should thank him for turning your failure into a partial success.”

Wersa turned to him, the death glare gone, but a had sneer replaced it.

She spoke, “Than-”

He didn’t let her finish.

“No, need to thank me great Lady Adventurer. You saved us from quite the hassle with that rhino beast. They are both very tough and very resilient. I should be thanking you.” He bowed without taking his eyes off her.

She merely nodded and grunted at him, turning back towards Karmis, who merely smiled at him.

This fight had laid down an ironclad rule for him. Never fight Wersa, and never let Ina anywhere near her. She was inhuman and spiteful. He needed to stay away from her as much as possible.