“Is this actually working?”
“Yeah, it really is,” Dys grunted.
“C’mon, you aren’t messing with us, right? Just to get us all in on this?”
“I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have to trick any of you to get my cock sucked.”
“Fair enough,” Kerr shrugged before giving Dys’ shaft another lick. “Still. You really aren’t going to cum?”
“I’d really fucking like to!” Dys groaned as her head flopped back, one arm tossed over her eyes.
It was torture. Heavenly, lewd, unbearable torture. Dys’ shaft pulsed with the need for release, the tightness in the pit of her stomach squeezed to an almost painful degree, yet her peak was denied to her. No matter how much she wanted to, or her body needed to, she just couldn’t cum. Sabina’s enchanted leather cock ring worked.
“The enchantment seems to be holding up well!” Sabina called out from somewhere between Dys’ legs. “I’m seeing some signs of degradation, though, so I think this version might be a one and done item. I’d like to continue for another half hour to be sure of its stability.”
“Another half an hour!?” Dys cried out, her body twitching at sudden stimulation. “I don’t think I can do that, Sabby, I’m about to lose my fucking mind!”
Sabina poked her head out from underneath Eir to look at Dys, tilting to one side in curiosity.
“Is that my nickname now? I think Bridget called me that once. I’ve never had a nickname before, I guess Sabby works. I kind of like it! Oh, does that mean I get to give Bridget a nickname? Should we call her Bridgy maybe?”
“No,” Bridget immediately said, giving the smith a smack to the back of the head. “No one’s calling me fucking Bridgy.”
“Also not the point right now!” Dys groaned, a legitimate whine entering her tone. “It’s already been forty-five minutes and I can’t keep this up. Take this thing off me!”
“Is this actually starting to hurt?” Eir asked, pausing her ministrations.
“It doesn’t really hurt,” Dys fidgeted, “But it’s so D be damned uncomfortable. If this doesn’t end soon, I’m going to rip the stupid enchantment off myself and then fuck the brains out of one of you. Maybe all of you.”
Kerr also paused, giving Eir a look from across Dys’ cock.
“Maybe we should keep going, huh?”
Eir shook her head, a smile tugging at her lips.
“I don’t think we should torture her any longer. I’m sure we have enough proof now that it works. Sabina, dear, would you please finish up your notes so we can relieve poor Jadis?”
“Will do,” Sabina nodded. “Just another minute and I’m done with this part.”
As Sabina finished doing whatever it was she was doing, Eir and Kerr returned to stroking and licking Dys’ raging erection. The duo had been working on Dys’ cock for the past ten minutes, keeping Dys in a constant state of near-climax by attending to her shaft with fervent passion. They hadn’t been the only ones to put their hands on her, though. Aila, Thea, and Bridget had all switched out over the course of the test, taking turns at pleasuring Dys so that each could take a break as needed.
No break for Dys, though. Ever since she’d sat down on a log and let her lovers begin, she’d been kept in a constant state of almost-climax. At first, it hadn’t been too bad. The increased sensitivity that came from hanging on the edge had made her head swim in a good way. After so long teetering on the peak, though, she wanted the experience to be done. So did her cock, by the look of her. While Jadis’ member usually had a smoothness to it that gave it an almost inhuman, idealized beauty to it, after forty-five minutes of denial it had become an angry, veiny monster. As big as her cock was, it had grown thicker and heavier, pulsing with a furious desire despite still remaining as pale as marble. Dys’ cock had gained an intimidating aura, born not from pure size but appearance as well.
The excruciating experience wasn’t uncomfortable for Dys alone. The rest of Jadis was affected sympathetically. Even with her compartmentalized mind, Jadis was still one person at her soul. Jay and Syd stood nearby, their own engorged members twitching with ignored lust inside of their pants. It wasn’t as bad for them, since they weren’t being actively teased by the hands and mouths of her lovers, but the nearly hour-long erections still weren’t much fun for her other two bodies.
“Okay, ready to take it off,” Sabina announced as Dys felt her hands around the base of her cock.
“One moment,” Aila said as she gently brushed Eir and Kerr’s mouths away from Dys’ cockhead. “Lean forward please, Dys. We can’t bend you, at the moment.”
Indeed, with how hard her cock had become, there wasn’t much give to the straining muscle. Jadis was fairly certain Aila could perch on her shaft like a bird and the beastly thing would support her. She wasn’t about to test that theory, though. She wanted to end the test as quickly as possible.
Sitting up and leaning forward, Dys angled her cock somewhat down so that the tip was pointed at a large bowl that Aila used when she wanted to catch Jadis’ seed so she could refill her canteen. The metal bowl was more than large enough to hold the output of all three of her bodies, although it would be filled to capacity. Once she was in position, Aila gave Sabina permission to remove the cock ring while Kerr and Eir moved in to finish Dys off.
They needn’t have bothered. As soon as Sabina unclasped the leather ring, Dys’ whole body convulsed in the most powerful orgasm she’d ever experienced. Her whole body shook as her mind went nearly blank with the overwhelming sensation. Her toes curled so hard they dug into the earth beneath the blanketed ground while her fingernails cut into the palms of her hands from clenching so hard. It was like every orgasm she’d been denied for the past forty-five minutes hit her all at once, sending her over the edge and into a raging storm she had not been prepared for.
Jay and Syd both collapsed onto the ground, their knees having buckled out from under them. Neither climaxed, but Jadis was so overcome with Dys’ sensations that she was almost tricked into thinking that her other two bodies had come as well.
“Gods!” Aila cried out, a sentiment echoed by the other women near her.
Dys’ eyes were squeezed shut in her ecstasy, but Jay and Syd could see what had caused the commotion. The bowl Aila held had been splattered with seed, the first forceful emission spraying back as Dys’ cum splashed onto Eir, Kerr, and Sabina. In moments the bowl had been half filled, and still Dys kept coming. Eir and Kerr were barely able to keep her cock steady as it jerked and jumped in their hands, ropes of white cum continuing to fill the bowl. Before Dys finally began to slow, her climax fading, her seed had spilled over the edge of the bowl, dripping down Aila’s fingers and onto the ground.
“Holy shit,” all three of Jadis panted out, though with how shaky Dys’ voice was, it lacked the usual conformity that came when all of her spoke at once. “That was… that was fucking intense.”
“Sure looked like it,” Kerr whistled as she used a finger to swipe up the last dribble of cum from Dys’ tip. “I mean, è stato pazzesco, I didn’t even know that much could cum out of you.”
Even with her head swimming from nearly passing out, Dys was still able to give Kerr a look for the horrible pun.
As Thea rushed over to help Aila, bringing her canteen and a funnel, Sabina popped up from between Dys’ legs holding the leather strap.
“It didn’t survive,” she chirped happily, “just like I thought! The material is too weak to hold up to the magic so it burned out as soon as the connection was cut. But it wasn’t that hard to make and I should be able to make more of them pretty easily!”
Jay walked up behind Sabina as she spoke and took the strip of leather from her hand. Looking at it, she could see that the enchantment circle she’d etched into the material had quite literally burned out, the markings charred almost like an electrical circuit had been fried. The other materials that had been a part of the item had also been destroyed, the scales she’d used along one side had cracked like brittle leaves and the one slice of bone plate she’d used for the clasp had crumbled apart. It seemed when and enchantment was used up, the materials were used up with it.
“Well, I’m glad that you’ve got your proof of concept,” Jay said as she passed the broken item back to Sabina. “Now, how are you going to get it to work for you? I mean, I can grow a cock on you with a ritual, so I guess we can do it that way if you can make one of these in whatever size would fit you.”
“But we might have to do that for everyone,” Syd mused with a finger on her chin. “If you make one of these magical cock rings for each of us, the whole group can coordinate our climax together with a lot more certainty.”
“Ah!” Sabina said with wide eyes, “I forgot you can do that! Give us penises, I mean. Aila had a penis! But now she doesn’t which was really weird and then I remembered your ritual and it was less weird but still weird. I don’t know what my own penis would look like, though I do kind of want to find out. But I don’t think we’d have to do that for all of us! I think I can make a version of this enchantment that’ll work for women as well now that I’ve got a feel for the basics. They’ll still probably be single use, but I should be able to get them done with the materials we have.”
“That’s good,” Jay smiled and nodded before picking Sabina up by her waist and carrying her over to the wagon. “I’m glad you’ve got it figured out now, can’t wait to try it.”
“Uh, wha—what are you doing?” Sabina asked as Jay ripped her pants from her with one motion. Her further words were silenced as Jay roughly kissed her, her tongue filling her mouth for several seconds.
“You would not believe how pent up I am right now,” Jay said as she broke the kiss. “And our little mad inventor here is going to have to take responsibility for the consequences of her actions.”
“Oh!” Sabina said, then let out a different sounding exclamation as Jay’s hard cock popped free of her pants and immediately found Sabina’s already slick core.
“Don’t think any of you are getting out of this either,” Syd said as she picked up Thea from behind and threw her over her shoulder, the quiet woman letting out a little gasp of surprise. “You all are a team, so you all can work together to overcome this challenge.”
“Overcome!” Kerr laughed as Dys picked her up with one hand while sweeping up Eir in the other. “Pretty sure you’re the only one to ‘overcome’ tonight!”
“Not for long,” Dys growled.
All in all, Jadis would rate Sabina’s experiment a success, though the aftereffects were more than a little messy. The cleanup in the morning took a while, especially since everyone was slow to get up after such an exhausting night. Their plans weren’t too disrupted, though, since Jadis had searched practically everywhere that she could around this particular split peaked mountain.
For the sake of making sure she’d checked every last possibility, Jadis headed out to search the far side of the mountain one last time. She wanted to be sure that she hadn’t missed any streams or waterfalls, but part of the reason she left was to give Sabina some time to work on her creations. Jadis hoped that if Sabina had enough time to make her improved versions of the climax-denial enchantment, they could perform the Lascivious Empowerment ritual that night. The boost to all of their power would be significant and could certainly make travel through the forest much easier.
Having made her way through the mountain pass the day before, Jadis made good time getting over to the north side of the mountain with little difficulty or interruption. The nice thing about the far side, she found, was the lack of demonic activity. It seemed that since there wasn’t any human, or elf, or whatever, activity, the demons weren’t as interested in the area. There were still strange magical beasts, but those were more easily avoided.
After a few hours of fruitless searching, Jadis decided it was time to call it quits. This first mountain wasn’t the right one. None of the streams she’d come across had even remotely matched D’s description, and there had been no sign of any intelligent life. With the winter sky already starting to darken, Jadis headed back to camp with the hope that Sabina had made enough progress that they could perform the ritual.
As Jadis’ selves jogged along the path she’d made through the mountain pass, a brief flash of an unexpected sight caught Syd’s eye.
“The fuck was that?” Syd murmured as she and her other selves immediately turned to look to the west.
A shadow of a figure could be seen along the ridgeline, practically obscured by the trees. The only way Jadis had noticed it at all was because the setting sun’s light had illuminated the figure from behind.
“Who’s there?” Jay called out, calling out to the distant figure.
There was no answer, nor movement from the shadowed person. Squinting against the light, Jadis could see that the person stood with their arms outstretched to either side of them, but not much else. They were standing along the edge of a ridgeline that overlooked the pass, practically along the diving point between her valley and the Sweet Pine Valley to the west. Since her call had gotten no response, Jadis decided to approach.
As she drew closer, moving through the trees to get to a point where she was practically under the ridgeline, the figure’s details became much clearer. It was a man, wearing robes, arms outstretched. But despite the wind, neither his long hair nor robes moved even an inch. In fact…
“Is that D’s statue?” Dys asked aloud, a strange chill running up her back.
It sure as fuck looked like it. How had it gotten out here, up the side of a literal mountain? Had the bandits moved it for some reason? Was it a trap?
As much as the unexpected sight confused her, Jadis knew that standing there stupidly staring wasn’t going to get her any answers. Clenching her weapons in determination, Jadis turned and made her way up the ridge, finding a path up so she could investigate the statue up close. As she did, Syd pulled the wooden signal device that Sabina had made for her out of her pack, ready to use it just in case the statue turned out to be a part of some bizarre ambush.
It took a few minutes to find a way up, the ridgeline was steep and the terrain treacherous, but when Jadis did make it to the top, she looked around her in even further confusion.
“What the fuck?” Jay cursed as she and her other selves slowly scanned the area. “Where is it?”
The statue was gone. There was simply no sign of it. At first Jadis thought she’d gone to the wrong spot since she’d had to go far around to get up the ridge, but no. There were the two pine trees growing out of the split boulder, and there was the old fir tree that had broken in half at some point. The statue should have been right between them, standing on the top of the ridge on the bare rock. But there was nothing.
Jadis put her backs to each other, staring in every direction. The only sound was the wind through the trees. She could see far, the light of the setting sun illuminating the ridge, though her valley was shrouded in shadows. From where she stood, she could see down into the Sweet Pine Valley as well, though it too was slowly being blanketed in darkness. There was no sign of movement, ambush or otherwise.
Suddenly there was a cracking boom that echoed through the evening sky. Jadis nearly jumped out of her skin, all of her bodies reacting as though she were under attack. But no, there was no attack. Just the booming sound. Checking to make sure she hadn’t mistakenly set it off, Syd checked and found that her wooden signal device was still intact.
“Fuck,” Dys cursed, turning her eyes to look down into the shadowed valley. “They’re under attack!”
A second boom echoed, making Jadis’ hearts clench, though just as she started to run, a third boom echoed and Jay stopped in her tracks, looking down into the valley.
The other valley. Sweet Pine Valley. There, near the north-western part of valley, was the village clearing, barely visible in the low light. A flash of light brightened the spot briefly, then another distant boom reached her ears.
“Shit, I think that’s Nora,” Jay murmured, thinking of the lightning mage.
“It’s not us,” Dys said as another flash and boom of thunder echoed in the distance.
“The soldiers are under attack,” Syd finished.
“Is this actually working?”
“Yeah, it really is,” Dys grunted.
“C’mon, you aren’t messing with us, right? Just to get us all in on this?”
“I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have to trick any of you to get my cock sucked.”
“Fair enough,” Kerr shrugged before giving Dys’ shaft another lick. “Still. You really aren’t going to cum?”
“I’d really fucking like to!” Dys groaned as her head flopped back, one arm tossed over her eyes.
It was torture. Heavenly, lewd, unbearable torture. Dys’ shaft pulsed with the need for release, the tightness in the pit of her stomach squeezed to an almost painful degree, yet her peak was denied to her. No matter how much she wanted to, or her body needed to, she just couldn’t cum. Sabina’s enchanted leather cock ring worked.
“The enchantment seems to be holding up well!” Sabina called out from somewhere between Dys’ legs. “I’m seeing some signs of degradation, though, so I think this version might be a one and done item. I’d like to continue for another half hour to be sure of its stability.”
“Another half an hour!?” Dys cried out, her body twitching at sudden stimulation. “I don’t think I can do that, Sabby, I’m about to lose my fucking mind!”
Sabina poked her head out from underneath Eir to look at Dys, tilting to one side in curiosity.
“Is that my nickname now? I think Bridget called me that once. I’ve never had a nickname before, I guess Sabby works. I kind of like it! Oh, does that mean I get to give Bridget a nickname? Should we call her Bridgy maybe?”
“No,” Bridget immediately said, giving the smith a smack to the back of the head. “No one’s calling me fucking Bridgy.”
“Also not the point right now!” Dys groaned, a legitimate whine entering her tone. “It’s already been forty-five minutes and I can’t keep this up. Take this thing off me!”
“Is this actually starting to hurt?” Eir asked, pausing her ministrations.
“It doesn’t really hurt,” Dys fidgeted, “But it’s so D be damned uncomfortable. If this doesn’t end soon, I’m going to rip the stupid enchantment off myself and then fuck the brains out of one of you. Maybe all of you.”
Kerr also paused, giving Eir a look from across Dys’ cock.
“Maybe we should keep going, huh?”
Eir shook her head, a smile tugging at her lips.
“I don’t think we should torture her any longer. I’m sure we have enough proof now that it works. Sabina, dear, would you please finish up your notes so we can relieve poor Jadis?”
“Will do,” Sabina nodded. “Just another minute and I’m done with this part.”
As Sabina finished doing whatever it was she was doing, Eir and Kerr returned to stroking and licking Dys’ raging erection. The duo had been working on Dys’ cock for the past ten minutes, keeping Dys in a constant state of near-climax by attending to her shaft with fervent passion. They hadn’t been the only ones to put their hands on her, though. Aila, Thea, and Bridget had all switched out over the course of the test, taking turns at pleasuring Dys so that each could take a break as needed.
No break for Dys, though. Ever since she’d sat down on a log and let her lovers begin, she’d been kept in a constant state of almost-climax. At first, it hadn’t been too bad. The increased sensitivity that came from hanging on the edge had made her head swim in a good way. After so long teetering on the peak, though, she wanted the experience to be done. So did her cock, by the look of her. While Jadis’ member usually had a smoothness to it that gave it an almost inhuman, idealized beauty to it, after forty-five minutes of denial it had become an angry, veiny monster. As big as her cock was, it had grown thicker and heavier, pulsing with a furious desire despite still remaining as pale as marble. Dys’ cock had gained an intimidating aura, born not from pure size but appearance as well.
The excruciating experience wasn’t uncomfortable for Dys alone. The rest of Jadis was affected sympathetically. Even with her compartmentalized mind, Jadis was still one person at her soul. Jay and Syd stood nearby, their own engorged members twitching with ignored lust inside of their pants. It wasn’t as bad for them, since they weren’t being actively teased by the hands and mouths of her lovers, but the nearly hour-long erections still weren’t much fun for her other two bodies.
“Okay, ready to take it off,” Sabina announced as Dys felt her hands around the base of her cock.
“One moment,” Aila said as she gently brushed Eir and Kerr’s mouths away from Dys’ cockhead. “Lean forward please, Dys. We can’t bend you, at the moment.”
Indeed, with how hard her cock had become, there wasn’t much give to the straining muscle. Jadis was fairly certain Aila could perch on her shaft like a bird and the beastly thing would support her. She wasn’t about to test that theory, though. She wanted to end the test as quickly as possible.
Sitting up and leaning forward, Dys angled her cock somewhat down so that the tip was pointed at a large bowl that Aila used when she wanted to catch Jadis’ seed so she could refill her canteen. The metal bowl was more than large enough to hold the output of all three of her bodies, although it would be filled to capacity. Once she was in position, Aila gave Sabina permission to remove the cock ring while Kerr and Eir moved in to finish Dys off.
They needn’t have bothered. As soon as Sabina unclasped the leather ring, Dys’ whole body convulsed in the most powerful orgasm she’d ever experienced. Her whole body shook as her mind went nearly blank with the overwhelming sensation. Her toes curled so hard they dug into the earth beneath the blanketed ground while her fingernails cut into the palms of her hands from clenching so hard. It was like every orgasm she’d been denied for the past forty-five minutes hit her all at once, sending her over the edge and into a raging storm she had not been prepared for.
Jay and Syd both collapsed onto the ground, their knees having buckled out from under them. Neither climaxed, but Jadis was so overcome with Dys’ sensations that she was almost tricked into thinking that her other two bodies had come as well.
“Gods!” Aila cried out, a sentiment echoed by the other women near her.
Dys’ eyes were squeezed shut in her ecstasy, but Jay and Syd could see what had caused the commotion. The bowl Aila held had been splattered with seed, the first forceful emission spraying back as Dys’ cum splashed onto Eir, Kerr, and Sabina. In moments the bowl had been half filled, and still Dys kept coming. Eir and Kerr were barely able to keep her cock steady as it jerked and jumped in their hands, ropes of white cum continuing to fill the bowl. Before Dys finally began to slow, her climax fading, her seed had spilled over the edge of the bowl, dripping down Aila’s fingers and onto the ground.
“Holy shit,” all three of Jadis panted out, though with how shaky Dys’ voice was, it lacked the usual conformity that came when all of her spoke at once. “That was… that was fucking intense.”
“Sure looked like it,” Kerr whistled as she used a finger to swipe up the last dribble of cum from Dys’ tip. “I mean, è stato pazzesco, I didn’t even know that much could cum out of you.”
Even with her head swimming from nearly passing out, Dys was still able to give Kerr a look for the horrible pun.
As Thea rushed over to help Aila, bringing her canteen and a funnel, Sabina popped up from between Dys’ legs holding the leather strap.
“It didn’t survive,” she chirped happily, “just like I thought! The material is too weak to hold up to the magic so it burned out as soon as the connection was cut. But it wasn’t that hard to make and I should be able to make more of them pretty easily!”
Jay walked up behind Sabina as she spoke and took the strip of leather from her hand. Looking at it, she could see that the enchantment circle she’d etched into the material had quite literally burned out, the markings charred almost like an electrical circuit had been fried. The other materials that had been a part of the item had also been destroyed, the scales she’d used along one side had cracked like brittle leaves and the one slice of bone plate she’d used for the clasp had crumbled apart. It seemed when and enchantment was used up, the materials were used up with it.
“Well, I’m glad that you’ve got your proof of concept,” Jay said as she passed the broken item back to Sabina. “Now, how are you going to get it to work for you? I mean, I can grow a cock on you with a ritual, so I guess we can do it that way if you can make one of these in whatever size would fit you.”
“But we might have to do that for everyone,” Syd mused with a finger on her chin. “If you make one of these magical cock rings for each of us, the whole group can coordinate our climax together with a lot more certainty.”
“Ah!” Sabina said with wide eyes, “I forgot you can do that! Give us penises, I mean. Aila had a penis! But now she doesn’t which was really weird and then I remembered your ritual and it was less weird but still weird. I don’t know what my own penis would look like, though I do kind of want to find out. But I don’t think we’d have to do that for all of us! I think I can make a version of this enchantment that’ll work for women as well now that I’ve got a feel for the basics. They’ll still probably be single use, but I should be able to get them done with the materials we have.”
“That’s good,” Jay smiled and nodded before picking Sabina up by her waist and carrying her over to the wagon. “I’m glad you’ve got it figured out now, can’t wait to try it.”
“Uh, wha—what are you doing?” Sabina asked as Jay ripped her pants from her with one motion. Her further words were silenced as Jay roughly kissed her, her tongue filling her mouth for several seconds.
“You would not believe how pent up I am right now,” Jay said as she broke the kiss. “And our little mad inventor here is going to have to take responsibility for the consequences of her actions.”
“Oh!” Sabina said, then let out a different sounding exclamation as Jay’s hard cock popped free of her pants and immediately found Sabina’s already slick core.
“Don’t think any of you are getting out of this either,” Syd said as she picked up Thea from behind and threw her over her shoulder, the quiet woman letting out a little gasp of surprise. “You all are a team, so you all can work together to overcome this challenge.”
“Overcome!” Kerr laughed as Dys picked her up with one hand while sweeping up Eir in the other. “Pretty sure you’re the only one to ‘overcome’ tonight!”
“Not for long,” Dys growled.
All in all, Jadis would rate Sabina’s experiment a success, though the aftereffects were more than a little messy. The cleanup in the morning took a while, especially since everyone was slow to get up after such an exhausting night. Their plans weren’t too disrupted, though, since Jadis had searched practically everywhere that she could around this particular split peaked mountain.
For the sake of making sure she’d checked every last possibility, Jadis headed out to search the far side of the mountain one last time. She wanted to be sure that she hadn’t missed any streams or waterfalls, but part of the reason she left was to give Sabina some time to work on her creations. Jadis hoped that if Sabina had enough time to make her improved versions of the climax-denial enchantment, they could perform the Lascivious Empowerment ritual that night. The boost to all of their power would be significant and could certainly make travel through the forest much easier.
Having made her way through the mountain pass the day before, Jadis made good time getting over to the north side of the mountain with little difficulty or interruption. The nice thing about the far side, she found, was the lack of demonic activity. It seemed that since there wasn’t any human, or elf, or whatever, activity, the demons weren’t as interested in the area. There were still strange magical beasts, but those were more easily avoided.
After a few hours of fruitless searching, Jadis decided it was time to call it quits. This first mountain wasn’t the right one. None of the streams she’d come across had even remotely matched D’s description, and there had been no sign of any intelligent life. With the winter sky already starting to darken, Jadis headed back to camp with the hope that Sabina had made enough progress that they could perform the ritual.
As Jadis’ selves jogged along the path she’d made through the mountain pass, a brief flash of an unexpected sight caught Syd’s eye.
“The fuck was that?” Syd murmured as she and her other selves immediately turned to look to the west.
A shadow of a figure could be seen along the ridgeline, practically obscured by the trees. The only way Jadis had noticed it at all was because the setting sun’s light had illuminated the figure from behind.
“Who’s there?” Jay called out, calling out to the distant figure.
There was no answer, nor movement from the shadowed person. Squinting against the light, Jadis could see that the person stood with their arms outstretched to either side of them, but not much else. They were standing along the edge of a ridgeline that overlooked the pass, practically along the diving point between her valley and the Sweet Pine Valley to the west. Since her call had gotten no response, Jadis decided to approach.
As she drew closer, moving through the trees to get to a point where she was practically under the ridgeline, the figure’s details became much clearer. It was a man, wearing robes, arms outstretched. But despite the wind, neither his long hair nor robes moved even an inch. In fact…
“Is that D’s statue?” Dys asked aloud, a strange chill running up her back.
It sure as fuck looked like it. How had it gotten out here, up the side of a literal mountain? Had the bandits moved it for some reason? Was it a trap?
As much as the unexpected sight confused her, Jadis knew that standing there stupidly staring wasn’t going to get her any answers. Clenching her weapons in determination, Jadis turned and made her way up the ridge, finding a path up so she could investigate the statue up close. As she did, Syd pulled the wooden signal device that Sabina had made for her out of her pack, ready to use it just in case the statue turned out to be a part of some bizarre ambush.
It took a few minutes to find a way up, the ridgeline was steep and the terrain treacherous, but when Jadis did make it to the top, she looked around her in even further confusion.
“What the fuck?” Jay cursed as she and her other selves slowly scanned the area. “Where is it?”
The statue was gone. There was simply no sign of it. At first Jadis thought she’d gone to the wrong spot since she’d had to go far around to get up the ridge, but no. There were the two pine trees growing out of the split boulder, and there was the old fir tree that had broken in half at some point. The statue should have been right between them, standing on the top of the ridge on the bare rock. But there was nothing.
Jadis put her backs to each other, staring in every direction. The only sound was the wind through the trees. She could see far, the light of the setting sun illuminating the ridge, though her valley was shrouded in shadows. From where she stood, she could see down into the Sweet Pine Valley as well, though it too was slowly being blanketed in darkness. There was no sign of movement, ambush or otherwise.
Suddenly there was a cracking boom that echoed through the evening sky. Jadis nearly jumped out of her skin, all of her bodies reacting as though she were under attack. But no, there was no attack. Just the booming sound. Checking to make sure she hadn’t mistakenly set it off, Syd checked and found that her wooden signal device was still intact.
“Fuck,” Dys cursed, turning her eyes to look down into the shadowed valley. “They’re under attack!”
A second boom echoed, making Jadis’ hearts clench, though just as she started to run, a third boom echoed and Jay stopped in her tracks, looking down into the valley.
The other valley. Sweet Pine Valley. There, near the north-western part of valley, was the village clearing, barely visible in the low light. A flash of light brightened the spot briefly, then another distant boom reached her ears.
“Shit, I think that’s Nora,” Jay murmured, thinking of the lightning mage.
“It’s not us,” Dys said as another flash and boom of thunder echoed in the distance.
“The soldiers are under attack,” Syd finished.
