Chapter 52

Lyra woke in a bed and for the first couple of moments she felt well rested and okay.

Then the memory of what had happened hit her and her stomach dropped. She put her hands over her beet red blushing cheeks and groaned, curling up into the fetal position.

Memories stuck around to a varying degree, visual memory somewhat, auditory and scent memories with more clarity, but most of all the memory of taste was unforgettable, and Lyra was remembering a taste she really did not want to remember right now.

“Oh gods why me...”

She recalled after accidentally taking some of Rain’s ... stuff, into her mouth, that she had fallen into a pool and gotten lost in a vast blinding morass of bubble bath foam. That hadn’t helped her hyperventilating level of hysteria and she’d thrashed around in the water bleating for help.

Help had come, but from the one she really wished it hadn’t. The bubbles had been swept aside and Rain’s huge paw had pulled her from the water and up into his arms. His stuff hadn’t come off and she still had a little of it over her face, as well as in her mouth, and she was just there, in the arms of the one responsible for it. She’d slapped her hands over her eyes and frozen up, refusing to speak or move, wishing the ground would open up and swallow her whole. Then again, that was reminiscent of Rain, never mind that metaphor, she just wished she was away! Away from his massive overwhelming masculinity and not butt naked in his arms with his taste in her mouth!

Rain had asked her something and she hadn’t replied, then he had started moving, and then she found her skin touching down on soft cotton, a bed? And then the door had closed and she had been left in the dark alone. She made herself go to sleep as quickly as possible so as to escape thinking about the whole unmitigated disaster, escaping from the shame into unconsciousness.

Now it was morning and the events were back at the forefront of her thoughts. Horrible embarrassing thoughts. What the hell had she been thinking? Clearly she had been letting her Elven side take the lead too much. Elves were naturally horny people and that had apparently been included with her Elven half. She promised herself she would primarily listen to her nice sensible Woollie half in future.

Giving up on pretending not to exist she rolled from bed and set her hooves down on the floorboards with a click clack. To her surprise her clothes were there, neatly folded to one side. She couldn’t imagine Rain or Opal doing such a thing, so, Red ... did it?

She slipped into the clothes as she pondered the cowardly Kobold. He was pretty much a slave, just like at home. Kobolds weren’t that popular as slaves but she had seen a few. She wondered if her new perspective on Goblins applied to Kobolds too. She considered investigating, maybe all monsters were as sapient as levelers? Hmm food for thought.

As she was adjusting her shorts to be comfortable the door swung open. It took a second to realise that the wall of black filling it was not a shadow but Rain’s body. He ducked down beneath the frame and stared at her. She unconsciously took a step back and swallowed. That of course reminded her of his taste, and the shame. Her cheeks burned and she found she couldn’t look him in the eye.

“I want you. Come with me.”

He turned and disappeared from view.

Wh-what did that mean? What did he mean by want?! Unsure quite what she should be expecting she nervously followed after him as he made his way through the mansion. They came out in what appeared to be the Ranker’s personal quarters. A huge common room with an open plan bedroom off to one side, even what appeared to be a sort of small kitchenette mostly filled with alcohol. The mixed purpose room was significantly more luxurious than the other rooms she had seen with furs draped everywhere and excessive use of gold filigree and plush rugs.

There was seating in the middle which Rain quickly found. He slumped down atop a couch, stretching out his legs. Surprisingly the furniture seemed to be holding up well under his weight, although she supposed that made sense considering the size of the Ranker, he would need strong furniture.

Red and Opal were there too. Red was excitedly sorting through a pile of coins and what appeared to be various random objects he had looted from around the mansion, including several jewellery boxes, a clock, a goblet, and an ornate sewing box.

She eyed the sewing box, that would be an additional cog to one of her ideas.

Opal was lazing on a large cushioned footstool on her front, her legs dangling over the sides and her feet waving in the air above her rear.

“I want you to tell me everything you found out when you went into town. Did you get any names?” Said Rain, his arm across the back of the couch

Lyra blinked. “Oh- uh, you wanted me for that, right. Uhm, W-well I don’t know about the others but I did manage to find out that uhm, the levelers Lira and Adlen are in town. They didn’t leave with the levelers who went into the dungeon with the Inquisitor.”

As she spoke Rain’s paw slowly curled and the couch gained several claw shaped holes. Lyra eyed his paw warily.

“Uh, it seemed that the Inquisitor swept through town in a rush and gathered up everyone she could on the spot, not even telling them what was happening before going back to the dungeon. A lot of people just missed joining up.”

“And the others? Brax, Myra, Eliza?”

Lyra shook her head. “I don’t know, I- I wasn’t there for long.”

Rain’s paw eased and he nodded slowly. “Fine. Then I just need to get into town somehow and I can kill the both of them, that’s two of the five who tortured and murdered me. It’s a start.”

Opal rolled her head to the side and peered at Rain as Lyra shifted her hooves nervously, not liking this talk.

“Uhm, about getting into town, I’m not sure invisibility will work, they are surprisingly careful about that kind of thing at the main gatehouses. I suppose it makes sense since we know for a fact that there were levelers who could turn invisible around here, that dwarf I uhm, well, yes. Additionally the walls are enchanted with something, either a monster alarm, or a barrier, or both, making climbing them a no go. But I had an idea while I was there, something that might make things much much simpler.”

“Tell me.”

“You pretend to be my monster slave and-”

“No.”

“Uh- Really? B-but it could work, with some uh, bribes.”

Rain remained silent.

“Well I had another idea, that might actually work better for what you want.”