>>5459697
>Priestess' Garb
>You seek a renewal of your people's friendship with the Humes and the Stouts.
>Sacred Fist (Divine Magic + Unarmed Fighting)

>>5459697
>Whore's Garb
>You seek a renewal of your people's friendship with the Humes and the Stouts.
>Sacred Prostitute (Social Skills + Divine Magic)
You want to write smut, I want to read smut. So let's just get straight to the point.

>>5459697
>Whore's Garb
>You seek the famous lost reliquary blade of your people, the Evenstar.
>Sacred Prostitute (Social Skills + Divine Magic)

>>5459697
>Dancer's Garb
>You seek a renewal of your people's friendship with the Humes and the Stouts.
>Dancer (Social Skills + Performance Arts)

>>5459697
>Whore's Garb
>You seek to destroy Blackheart, a voidtouched jewel that makes orcs of elves.
>Sacred Prostitute (Social Skills + Divine Magic)

>>5459707
isn't smut not allowed on qst?
if you wabt to write smut then why not go elsewhere?

>>5459697
>Priestess' Garb
>You seek a fragment of the True Cross, a holy relic lost during the Age of Mammon
>Sacred Fist (Divine Magic + Unarmed Fighting)
I wish to beat up people

>>5459697
>Whore's Garb
>You seek a big, fat pile of money. Money always helps.
Dancer (Social Skills + Performance Arts)

>>5459697
>Whore's Garb
>You seek a big, fat pile of money. Money always helps.
>Dancer (Social Skills + Performance Arts)

>>5459697
>Priestess' Garb
>You seek a renewal of your people's friendship with the Humes and the Stouts.
>Sacred Fist (Divine Magic + Unarmed Fighting)
I guess we’ll cast fist in the name of God, Ye not guilty

>>5459697
>Whore's Garb
>You seek the famous lost reliquary blade of your people, the Evenstar.
>Sacred Prostitute (Social Skills + Divine Magic)

>>5459697
>Whore's Garb
>You seek a fragment of the True Cross, a holy relic lost during the Age of Mammon
>Sacred Prostitute (Social Skills + Divine Magic)

>>5459697
>Whore's Garb
>You seek a renewal of your people's friendship with the Humes and the Stouts.
>Sacred Prostitute (Social Skills + Divine Magic)

The story writes itself from this point.

>/qst/ claims to be above akun perverts
>elf loli quest gets an immediate dozen replies with the lewd option
OP you're still better off running in akun (fiction.live) anyway.

>>5459697
Uh right ok, but what about breast size?

>>5460082
"your chest is flatter than a washboard" bruv

>>5460011
>/qst/ claims to be above akun perverts
does somebody seriously does that?
>OP you're still better off running in akun (fiction.live) anyway.
This. Just go to akun unironically
I'm not a janny, I don't mind loli elf porn quest, you just picked a weird place to run it

>>5460092
Ah well you wasted all that time for nothing

>>5459697
>Dancer's Garb
>You seek a renewal of your people's friendship with the Humes and the Stouts.
>Dancer (Social Skills + Performance Arts)

>>5460011
>Anon claims there is no difference between /qst/ and akun.
>Suggests that op moves his smut quest to akun anyway
Curious

>>5459697
>Dancer's Garb
>You seek a renewal of your people's friendship with the Humes and the Stouts.
>Dancer (Social Skills + Performance Arts)

>>5459697
>Whore's Garb
>You seek a renewal of your people's friendship with the Humes and the Stouts.
>Sacred Prostitute (Social Skills + Divine Magic.)
Whore our way to an alliance

>>5459697
Why...why do you do this QM?

>Scholar's Garb
>You seek a shard of the Void Below, a powerful magical catalyst.
>Spellblade (Arcane Magic + Blade Arts)

>>5460203
Because no one else would, anon. The cute and funny must flow.

File: asdfasdfasdfasdfasdfasdfasdf.png (1.86 MB, 3486x2374)

1.86 MB PNG

>>5460355

>>5459697
>Athlete's Garb
>You seek a renewal of your people's friendship with the Humes and the Stouts.
>Fist of the Forest (Primal Magic + Unarmed Fighting)

With the power of our glory and heritage as a perfect elf we shall show those weakling lesser species why they always have to look up to us. And be our friends again so we can stop feeling so guilty and lonely about that time the elves fucked up big time and nearly got everyone killed by the dark god of super death, war, kill, doom.

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>>5459697
>your chest is flatter than a washboard, but at least your hips have grown in like a nice and proper woman

QM…

File: The Elf Who Knows Her Own(...).png (5.63 MB, 4047x6620)

5.63 MB PNG

You spend the morning of your 120th birthday with your juniors. The Gymnasium provides cake and tea for a small celebration, masterfully prepared by the Chief Baker. After all, it's not every day that the Gymnasium gets to celebrate a Cegnum Viginti. The food prepared is light, sweet, and especially delicious, and your favorite lemon cakes have been piled high on a platter before you. Ears all around wiggle quite happily as round balls of mithril float about, keeping cups filled and platters stocked with snacks.

To a Hume or Stout, it would look like a happy family gathering.

In a way, it is. Every Child of Yggdrasil is a sibling to one another, born from the fallen fruit of the World Tree instead of a mother's womb. The roots spread across the world, through the mountains and beneath the seas, with trunks shooting up to catch the glorious light of the Sun. No two children are exactly the same, but those fallen from the same branches will share appearances like a Clan of Humes and Stouts. Perhaps more so, for you are closer to one another than even a Clan. The same blood runs through your veins, quite literally.

By the soil and the sun, the branches you were born from graced your kin with fair skin and silver blonde hair that has been kissed with the green of nature.

Where the cute juniors surrounding you wear the white silk smocks of childhood, today you wear the clothes your teachers helped you pick. A high-low skirt wraps around your hips. The outer fabric is a creamy off white with ornate embroidery that looks like the roots of a tree, while the inner fabric invokes the form of great leaves with its cheerful green color and stitching. Your navel is left bare, to show off the green brand left upon your skin when you gave the Divine Beast your virginity.

Your top shares the same motif as the bottom, though where your skirt is loose and flowing, it is less generous. It fits snugly, like a second skin, covering your washboard chest and rising to a high collar that still leaves your shoulders bare. A three-pronged cape trails down your back, imbued with magics that protect against filth and inclement weather, and detached sleeves cover your forearms. On your right hand, a silver bangle wraps around your wrist like the roots of a tree, a focus for your magic that now belongs to you instead of the Gymnasium.

Some of your junior's eyes linger on your bare flesh, unused to such a stimulating sight.

You cannot relieve them of the emotions visibly swelling within them, as much as you might want to. Doing such things with those who have not reached their Cegnum Viginti is forbidden.

The dozen or so girls in your class were something of an exception, for the Sacred Prostitutes of Irminsul required such an education. Even though elves do not reproduce like Humes and Stouts, they can still give and receive pleasure in the ways that they do. Learning those arts was second only to learning the Divine Mysteries of Yggdrasil for students like you.

"Seventh of Twelve, the Eldest call for you," a tinny voice breaks you from your thoughts. "The time of your Travail has come."

The source is an Attendant Ring, a construct like the Serving Orbs that have attended to the needs of you and your juniors during this party. Four feet across, seven arcs of mithril gilded stone orbit about a point of midnight the size of your thumb. The black is so deep that it strains your eyes to comprehend. Together the arcs form a ring, each of them capable of carrying out a separate function. Every function but its higher thought is a weapon of war, and even its thoughts focus upon seeking out threats to its masters.

Their function is not unlike the guards and watchmen of Hume Towns. Stouts prefer their golems for such things, and your people have their Rings, Rods, and Orbs to protect and serve the children of the Great Trees.

"I answer their call," you tell the ring. Turning to your juniors, you wave good bye to them. "I shall see you again, in the fullness of time."

"Bye-bye!" some of the smaller juniors shout, running up and hugging you.

"You'll only be gone a decade, right...?" another junior asks.

"Wh-When I go on my Travail, I'll be seeking you out!" one particularly bold boy announces with a blush. He has to adjust his smock to hide certain things. If only he was from your harvest, you could help him with that. "I'm gonna be one of the rangers, so I'll come protect you if you need it."

"Settle down, young ones," the Ring commands. With utmost care, its uses its telekinetic functions to gently push the clinging juniors away. "Seventh of Twelve will be back before you know it. Most of you will still be students, you know..."

"With a proper name, too," you say. A small smile crosses your face, as you have been looking forward to receiving your name most of all.

"Indeed, a proper name, and not a number," the Ring says. You can see hair being ruffled as he pats them on the head. "Seventh of Twelve, you know the way. I think I shall stay behind and tell the children some stories from the Daemonwar."

"Very well," you pat the old ring, and take your leave.

The Hall of Ceremony is nestled into the roots of the Yggdrasil, whose canopy reaches up nearly a mile high. Its leaves glow with a gentle light, and you can see the many caretakers upon their sky-sleds checking for ripened fruit ready to break open with a new brother or sister. More importantly, they keep their eyes peeled for signs of the Blight and other ailments, to administer treatments to the great tree or alert the Priests should the matter be serious.

The double doors are grand and imposing, but they open without so much as a touch. Sung from the stone by ancient stoneworkers, there is not a single sign of masonry to be found in the hall. The dome overhead lets in the light of the leaves, meaning there is no need for lamps. Circling the center, each of the eldest stand on an unapproachable balcony, looking down upon those they have called.

A Hume would be forgiven for thinking them to only be a little older than you.

In regards to appearance, the Eldest each stand somewhere between eight and ten inches taller than you. Their faces are wizened in the elven way, though a Hume would still think them childish for their age does not show in the same way human age does. You, however, know they are ancient with a single look, for you can feel the intensity of their mana. You own is a solid flame of a crackling campfire, much more than the candle of an unripe hume. The Eldest, however, are each an inferno unto themselves, more powerful than even the greatest demons.

Their age shows in other ways, too. Just look at your teacher, Begierde! First among the Daughters of Irminsul, the temple prostitutes whose teach couples how to get along and relieve sinners of their desires, she radiates mature beauty. Her hair is perfect, and the way she carries herself is the perfect mixture of dignity and eroticism born of six thousands years of life! It's hard not to be captivated by her - no, it's impossible! You've wanted to be just like since your second decade.

Plus, look at her breasts, they're positively massive! Two wonderfully large apples whose cleavage she happily flaunts, bigger than any other elf world, or so they say.

Shaking off your awe of your teacher, you taking your place at the center of the Hall and kneel.

"The Eldest have called me here, and I answer their call," you speak the words that have been drilled into your head over the past year by your mentor in the temple. She made you recite them during meditative training, when your fields were being plowed, and even when you had your mouth full of a man's rod. "I am the seventh of twelve born of the Yggdrasil's 6602nd Harvest in Alfheim. I have no name but for the number given to me by those who tend the Tree. I have been called to serve the Sacred Waters as a Daughter of Irminsul, and have spent a century and a decade learning their arts. Today is my Centum Viginti, and I await the name my Eldest shall give me."

"Your efforts have been recognized, seventh child of twelve," Begierde speaks for the Eldest, her voice filled with the perfect blend of seduction and dignity. "Your name shall be..."
>Lagneia
>Aselgeia
>Aselgis
>Lasziv

"...among your kin and upon your Travail. Today shall be your last day among your kindred, and you shall forbidden return to Alfheim for a decade and a day. The other elvenhomes shall be open to you, but stay not longer than a fortnight's time, lest you forget the meaning of your journey." Begierde reads the proscriptions of the Travail from a scroll, before looking at you. "When you return, you must not do so empty handed, lest you be turned away for another decade and a day. What is it that you seek?"

"As we Daughters of Irminsul are often called upon to renew the love between husband and wife, I mean to renew the friendships once held between Hume, Stout, and the Children of Yggdrasil," you speak your words with a bowed head. You know your goal is ambitious and intangible, but you will not be swayed by the reactions of the Eldest. "In the days of the Daemonwar and the Great Blight, we counted Hume and Stout as friend. Today, though we do not see them as enemy, it is rare for them to feel welcome among the elfhome - not out of hatred, but because our ways intimidate them.

"I shall show them that we still have a gentle touch," you declare. You look up with a determined face and see something you did not expect. Not the disappointment in a child stepping beyond her reach, but pensive curiosity rippling through the Eldest. "And that they need not be afraid of our people, even if they are right to be in awe of our mighty works."

Silence reigns in the hall for a moment.

"Seven thousand years ago, I had friends among the Humes and the Stouts," Regius, who is the Eldest of the Eldest, breaks the silence with a nostalgic voice. He looks down at you with thoughtful eyes. "Good men and women, who had worthwhile things to say. And upon giving it thought, it does seem that fewer and fewer Humes approach us every century. So I approve of the feelings behind your Travail goal. What tangible proof shall you bring to us that you have reached the conclusion of your Travail?"
>Compacts from Merchants who shall come to Alfheim bringing goods for Trade.
>Letters from Nobles who would wish to vacation under the light of the Yggdrasil.
>Requests from great tradesmen who would wish to learn from us and bring their own learnings to us.
>Letters from scholars who would come to exchange their knowledge.
>A renewal of the Ancient Treaties signed at the closure of the Daemonwar

"This is acceptable," Regius declares. With a sweep of his hand, he calls for a priest to approach you. "For your Travail, we give unto you a gift. May it serve you well upon your journey."
>A whip fashioned from the vines of Yggdrasil (Weapon)
>A belt with many pockets (Extradimensional Storage)
>A pair of fine leather boots made from the shed skin of the Divine Beast (Protection/Travel Utility)
>An enchanted backpack with traveling gear (Create Food/Water/Tent)
>A golden monocle engraved with runes (Identification)

>>5460924
>Lasziv
>A renewal of the Ancient Treaties signed at the closure of the Daemonwar
>A belt with many pockets (Extradimensional Storage)

>>5460924
>Aselgeia
>Requests from great tradesmen who would wish to learn from us and bring their own learnings to us.
>A pair of fine leather boots made from the shed skin of the Divine Beast (Protection/Travel Utility)

>>5460924
>Lagneia
>Compacts from Merchants who shall come to Alfheim bringing goods for Trade.
>An enchanted backpack with traveling gear (Create Food/Water/Tent)

>>5460921
>Aselgeia
>A renewal of the Ancient Treaties signed at the closure of the Daemonwar
>An enchanted backpack with traveling gear (Create Food/Water/Tent)

>>5460924
>Lagneia
>A renewal of the Ancient Treaties signed at the closure of the Daemonwar
>An enchanted backpack with traveling gear (Create Food/Water/Tent)

>>5460924
>Aselgis
>A renewal of the Ancient Treaties signed at the closure of the Daemonwar
>An enchanted backpack with traveling gear (Create Food/Water/Tent)

>>5460924
>Lagneia
>A renewal of the Ancient Treaties signed at the closure of the Daemonwar
>A pair of fine leather boots made from the shed skin of the Divine Beast (Protection/Travel Utility)

>>5460924
>Aselgeia
>A renewal of the Ancient Treaties signed at the closure of the Daemonwar
>An enchanted backpack with traveling gear (Create Food/Water/Tent)

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The priest presents you with a randoseru of soft leather dyed forest green. Mithral rivets reinforce the silk stitching that holds it together, and the zippers and fastenings that keep its pouches closed are made of the same material. Upon the large leather flap that goes over the back sits an ornate silver blossom half again the size of your fist, with a sphere of emerald that gently glows with magics.

"This gift we give you was crafted as the Masterwork of Artifex Skafos," Regius declares to the rooms. He then looks to you. "You would have known him as the second of fifteen, born of the 6581st Harvest. When the call was given to make your Travail Boon, he stepped forward to craft a wonder for his dear friend."

Second of fifteen... you remember that guy.

But where does he get off on calling you a "dear friend", huh? That jerk kept reporting you for public indecency when you tried practicing the seduction skills you learned as a junior priestess! Your smock hem's too high up, cover your thighs! Your neckline shouldn't leave a shoulder bear, pick a different smock! Stitch that back together, you can't modify your smock to show off your tummy! You can't just show boys your underwear!

Friends don't report friends to the Minders. That's a golden rule among all the juniors, and second - Skafos now - was the sort of goody two-shoes who broke it. You regard the backpack with mild suspicion, but it seems like it's not going to explode and wrap you up in stiflingly concealing garb.

"He named this wonder Heimtasche, the Traveler's Home," Regius continues only an amused arch of his eyebrow at the sour expression on your face, "and to it he gave these functions..."

The randoseru has five pouches, three on the interior and one on each side. The interior pouches are each bigger on the inside than the outside, though it hardly provides as much storage as a Bag of Many Pockets. Each of them can hold as much as one of those rolling suitcases you've seen people wheel about town when traveling. The clothes you've received upon becoming a fully fledged Daughter of Irminsul will fit neatly into one along with a pouch filled with your grooming supplies.

The other interior pouches can be for things you find upon your travels.

The two on the side are perhaps the most important for your travels, as they will keep you going on the trail. The pouch on the right contains a one liter steel bottle that will fill with water over the course of half an hour whenever you return it to the pouch. Any bottle or waterskin will do, but that is the one it's meant for. The pocket on the left produces a sack each morning which will contain a pound of mixed nuts, dried berries, oats, and jerky to get you through the day.

Then there's the jewel upon the flap, which provides one final travel necessity. Insert enough mana to it, and the bag will change into a lovely tent furnished with a bed and a bathtub to keep you clean and comfortable.

"I give the Eldest and the Craftsman my thanks for this Boon," you bow your head and dip into a curtsey just as you were taught. "By your leave, my Travail shall begin at dawn. I shall depart for a decade and a day, and shall I not return without the ancient treaties renewed, or something of equal worth should my dream prove impossible."

"Go now and prepare yourself, young Lagneia," the Eldest all speak as one. "Your journey awaits you on the morrow."

Given your leave by the Eldest, you exit the Hall of Ceremonies. The Gymnasium is not far from there, another structure spoken from the stone and raised into a high domed facility of white marble. Your room sits on the 12th floor now, one of the private chambers reserved for those children who have passed their first century and are in the later period of their studies. This past week, you spent clearing it of everything you were not bringing with you on your Travail, leaving it lonely, spartan, and white.

The clothes afforded to a fully fledged Daughter of Irminsul are easily packed away. They resemble what you wear now, though their color schemes are all different. You also have a set of clothes for dancing ceremonies, made from a sheer silk that is almost transparent. The thought of wearing those is quite exciting, especially the veil. You've seen Begierde perform such a ceremonial dance before, and somehow it's more erotic to wear this outfit than it is to go nude.

After your clothes are packed, you take your sleep. Tomorrow morning, you will be setting out...
>Northward, towards the Middle Sea and the Latic City-Stats.
>Eastward, towards the Sunrise Ocean and the Hill Kingdoms.
>Westward, towards the Highridge Mountains and the Daedalian Empire
>Southwards, towards the Southron Tundra and the Snow Clans
>Southwest, towards the Frigid Wastes and the Great City of Oskovy
>Northeast, towards the Pennisula of Ten Sands and the Ispan Republic

This is perhaps the most effort bait/shitpost I have seen on this board, after that one tranny quest

>>5462216
>>Westward, towards the Highridge Mountains and the Daedalian Empire

>>5462216
>Eastward, towards the Sunrise Ocean and the Hill Kingdoms.

>>5462216
>Northward, towards the Middle Sea and the Latic City-Stats.
Lotsa of snowy sounding places on that list.

>>5462216
>>Northeast, towards the Pennisula of Ten Sands and the Ispan Republic

We literally know nothing about any of these place though. Where can we find the Humes and Stouts leaders?

>>5462215
>Northeast, towards the Pennisula of Ten Sands and the Ispan Republic

>>5462344
Oh, good point. Humes can be found in the Hill Kingdoms, the Daedalian Empire, and Ispan. Stouts can be found in the Latics, the Southron Tundra, and Oskovy.

Of those... none of them are on the treaties, though all of them consider themselves the successor states to the nations that signed them.

Of those claims, the Daedals and Oskovians have the most stable/legitimate claims, while the many Snow Clans and Hill Kingdoms have the least stable claim as successors. This could be good or bad for you. The more stable societies might do it out of realpolitik, inheriting their predecessors' obligations and the benefits of trade with the elves... but they also might not want such an obligation, and don't need the legitimacy it might grant. The less stable regions might be able to leverage it as a sign that they are the right successor, but then again many might not care about the past. The middle powers may look to it as an opportunity to rise... or, again, a yoke about their necks.

Of course, all of these regions would have their share of people going "YES, YES, YES!" to tight elf cunny.

>>5462216
>>Westward, towards the Highridge Mountains and the Daedalian Empire

>>5462216
>Westward, towards the Highridge Mountains and the Daedalian Empire

>>5462216
>>Westward, towards the Highridge Mountains and the Daedalian Empire

>>5462216
>>Southwest, towards the Frigid Wastes and the Great City of Oskovy

Rolled 85 (1d100)

Encounter roll

File: Alternate Outfit 1.jpg (1.38 MB, 2904x4299)

1.38 MB JPG

You quietly depart Alfheim the next morning. A Serving Orb wakes you an hour before dawn, running you through a checklist of everything you will need. Food, water, and shelter have been covered by your gifts, but there's more to a Travail than those alone. A copy of the Grand Atlas joins your clothes and grooming kit inside of your Heimtasche, as well as Travail Papers prepared by the Eldest. Tools for the wilderness go in another sack, including rope, an axe, and a number of good knives. The largest of them, the Serving Orb insists go on your belt, as a deterrent.

Humes and Stouts would not recognize that the bangle on your wrist is a greater danger than most blades.

To most, it would just be a piece of jewelry to steal.

To you, it's the means by which to channel your divine gifts from the Yggdrasil. Most divine magic comes from prayer and ritual, ceremonies that honor the World Tree and shape the magic flowing through its roots across the world to make miracles happen. With such things, you can conjure bread from thin air, turn water into wine, heal the injured, cure the diseased, curse the vile, and bless the righteous.

The magic focused by your bangle is something more primal and simple, the magic flowing through your self to which the Yggdrasil has opened your inner eye. Rather than ceremonies of themselves, that magic is more like an extension of your limbs. The most powerful prayers will even require you to shape the ritual with your primal and instinctive magic, for using it is no different than a dance you might perform as part of a ceremony to bring forth the rain.
>You have been kissed by flame
>You have been caressed by water
>You have been blessed by air
>You have been acknowledged by stone
>You have been embraced by wood
>You have been touched by metal
>You have been struck by lightning

The maps within the Atlas have both geography and political boundaries, though apparently the latter may be somewhat out of date. The nations all should still exist, even if their boundaries have changed slightly due to border skirmishes and the like. The Atlas also contains a map of the Roots of Yggdrasil, showing where the flow of magic will be at its strongest and its weakest throughout the world, and where the roots blossom to surface in the form of trees both great and small.

The map you have details the continent of Alagonia.

Alfheim lies at the center, among the peaks and vales of nigh-unassailable mountains. Between the fertile valleys where the Draft Rings tend to fields designed by the Children's Agriculturalists and the steep hills which make logistics a nightmare for even Stout Golems, it simply is not worth the effort to conquer. An invading army would be massacred by a force not even one tenth its size, before accounting for the weapons of war that the Children of Yggdrasil would prefer not to make use of.

Best of all, every road from Alfheim goes downhill instead of up, making travel quite a bit easier, you think.

You leave the Western Gate just as dawn cracks, with little pomp or ceremony. Those upon Travail are not meant to be acknowledged by their home until they've returned with something worth while. The Attendant Rings who mind the gate open the grand mithril door not for your passage, but in preparation for the coming day. Few traders come this way from the lands of Hume or Stout, but occasionally an elf upon the road may come, and the wagons of foodstuffs coming in from the valleys are need enough to keep the gates open come sun up.

The path you're on takes you well past the nearest farmlands that keep the town and the Gymnasium supplied, though it takes a proper fortnight on foot to leave Alfheim right and proper.

Not for the distance crossed, but it's a hundred someodd miles from the Yggdrasil to the border where the Children and the Humes agreed that the Children's territory ended a few thousand years ago. Unlike the borders between Humes and Stouts and other Humes, that one remained static all these centuries, for the Children have longer views of things.

On your fifteenth day of travel, after winding through mountain roads that don't know what a straight line looks like, you finally leave Alfheim.

You can tell because the maintenance of the road suddenly ceased.

According to the Atlas, no less than three Hume Kingdoms and four Stout Clans claim this particular territory, making it something of a no man's land. From what you understand of Hume and Stout societies, that means it's quite nice to live in if you do not want to pay taxes, but also a rather poor place to live if you would rather not deal with skirmishing forces and bandits trying to exert their authority over you and your family. Typically by raping your spouse and children, and you as well.

Though you're also to understand that in many Hume and Stout lands, being raped by those with power is more or less a fact of life. It's quite strange, especially since they reproduce through mating instead of simply using it as a tool to strengthen pair bonding between spouses. Would that not run the risk of a child being born, muddying the noble's choice of successor?

Strange creatures, those Humes and Stouts.

Stranger still are how short lived their nations are. You did your research into their histories, and the most legitimate successor to the Dragon Kings who once held dominion over every Hume upon Alagonia is the Daedalian Empire, seated where Alagonia meets Assuwa and spanning its dominion over the western and eastern reaches of both continents. The Highridge Mountains shield it, making the bulk of its core territory nearly as unassailable as Alfheim.

Luckily, you're there to make love, not war. Quite literally - if sleeping with the right minister is all you need to do to get the signatures to renew their end of the treaty between Hume and Elf, then that is what you will do.

Those thoughts will need to wait, however, as you've encountered a bit of a problem...

"Brothers! Tonight we send these pathetic Humes a message!" The snarling voice of a disgusting and nasty creature bellows across an open field. Beneath his words is the snarling of warg-hounds and other foul beasts. "Kill the men! Take the women! The blight shall fill their wombs and birth new battle brothers for the horde, and we shall sing and dance upon their wretched bones with bellies full of man-flesh!"

You can see everything from a ridge-line, looking down upon a grassy field. The roads have better pavestones here, less cracked and overgrown with weeds, but that does not help the small caravan of carriages. There are four carriages in total, flanked by knights who attempt to form ranks and find order beneath a rain of blighted arrows. The humes do well in killing the warg-hounds that charge, but the blight has already begun to corrode their armor. Too much longer and their steel will be little more than paper to be pierced through.

Death from a blighted arrow means but one thing. The corpses not stripped by the blighted for their feast of man-flesh will become puppets to a wretched fungus that wishes to consume the world.
>You are not a warrior and this is not your fight. Can you sneak past them?
>You are at least adept with a bow. Shape one with your divine gift and harass the Blighted with it from the trees.
>You may not have time to save the knights, but you can save them from their fate and release the Blighted with a Purification Ritual.
>Show these humes that the Children have not forgotten the ancient treaties. Charge in with your divine gift blazing, and fight along them as a sister in arms.
>You should not act overtly, for you do not know how the Humes will react to a Child of Yggdrasil. Instead, rain down blessings upon the knights from a distance.
>You are not properly equipped for this. Fortunately, you have a secret technique in your arsenal: RUN AWAY!

>>5463688
>>Show these humes that the Children have not forgotten the ancient treaties. Charge in with your divine gift blazing, and fight along them as a sister in arms.

>>5463685
>You have been blessed by air
>You are at least adept with a bow. Shape one with your divine gift and harass the Blighted with it from the trees.

Just because we attack doesn't mean that the knights will support us. Better to help them while still being able to retreat if need be.

>>5463688
>You have been embraced by wood

>You should not act overtly, for you do not know how the Humes will react to a Child of Yggdrasil. Instead, rain down blessings upon the knights from a distance.

>>5463688
>You have been struck by lightning
>You should not act overtly, for you do not know how the Humes will react to a Child of Yggdrasil. Instead, rain down blessings upon the knights from a distance.

>>5463737
Addendum
>You have been touched by metal

>>5463688
>You have been touched by metal
>You should not act overtly, for you do not know how the Humes will react to a Child of Yggdrasil. Instead, rain down blessings upon the knights from a distance.
something funny about an elf that's good with metal

>>5463688
>You have been touched by metal
>You are at least adept with a bow. Shape one with your divine gift and harass the Blighted with it from the trees.

Did someone say Loli Elf Cheld? Because this looks like the Loli Elf Cheld option.

>>5463688
>>You have been touched by metal
>>You are at least adept with a bow. Shape one with your divine gift and harass the Blighted with it from the trees.

>>5463688
>wood
>Instead, rain down blessings upon the knights from a distance

File: Knight Leader.jpg (39 KB, 564x764)

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You do not have much time to act. If the Blighted are allowed to continue their relentless attack against these Humes, the Humes will die. They seem to have the upper hand for now, cutting down the blighted and warg-hounds that have charged them. Even the weapons of a Serving Orb would have trouble piercing armor of solid steel, and beneath their bright and gaudy cloth the knights protecting the carriages are encased in shells of plate. The crude weapons of the blighted are turned away, unable to scratch the steel, while halberd, pike, and claymore chop through their rotting flesh.

But it will not last.

With every blow turned, their armor will continue to corrode and corrode, until naught remains but a shell of rust that can no longer turn away the blighted's arrows. The men will be killed and stripped of flesh for the stew pots of the blighted, if they are lucky. The unlucky ones will live long enough for that wretched and hateful fungus to corrode their very soul and turn their bodies into mere puppets. The women will be carried off and raped until they stop thinking. The lucky ones among their number will die before their wombs have been polluted enough for blighted seed to quicken into an unborn monster.

You cannot simply stand back and watch that happen. It would go against the very purpose of your Travail, the renewal of ancient ties between your people and theirs. The very treaties you wish to renew were created to oppose the Blight in ancient times, before the Children learned the secrets of cleansing Yggdrasil's roots. If you do not give what aid you can, you would be in violation of their word.

Even so, caution governs your next move.

Just because they fight the ancient enemy does not mean these Humes are your friends.

If you attack, they might retreat and leave you to the mercies of the blighted if things go bad... and victory does not mean they won't take advantage of a lone beauty on Travail and try to sell her into slavery. The number of Children who found themselves with a collar around their necks upon Travail for trusting the wrong person is far, far too high. Slavers are usually happy to sell them back to the Eldest for mere trinkets, but it's the principle of the matter.

You choose to keep your distance as you provide support. Alas, of all the weapons in which you've dabbled during your century of education, you're least adept with a bow. So instead of a rain of arrows to pick off the blighted archers, what you can offer is the blessings of Divine Magic. With each invocation, you will need to split your focus - as a novice, you can juggle the maintenance of three spells without dropping anything. Healing and resistance against the blight go without saying, and the third will be...
>Grant their weapons Holy Fire.
>Accelerate their perception of time.
>Grant them a blessing of skill in battle.
>Give them good fortune now, balanced by ill fortune later.
>Invoke a prayer that blesses them and curses the blighted.

>>5464734
>Accelerate their perception of time.

Very cool landsknect picture
but where are the arqubusiers

>>5464734
>Grant their weapons Holy Fire.
Defenses are covered with the first two spells, this one will hopefully let them make quick work of the beasts

>>5464734
>>Grant their weapons Holy Fire.

>>5464734
>>Invoke a prayer that blesses them and curses the blighted.

>>5464734
>Grant their weapons holy fire

This is a good mix of "keeping your distance" and "making it obvious that someone intervened" so that when we do reveal ourselves, we have something concrete to prove that we helped. Hopefully the anti-corrosion magic will keep their armor strong enough to keep the arrows out.

>>5464734
>>Accelerate their perception of time.

>>5464734
>>Grant their weapons Holy Fire.

>>5464734
>Grant their weapons Holy Fire.

No update tonight, will try to have one tomorrow.

>>5465721
np, thanks for letting us know

>>5462412
Seriously m8?

>>5464734
>>Grant their weapons Holy Fire.

>>5464734
>>Accelerate their perception of time.

>>5464734
>>Grant their weapons Holy Fire.

>>5464734
>Grant their weapons Holy Fire.

Rolled 82 (1d100)

Doing a quick d100 roll because of reasons (don't mind me)

File: Traveling Clothes.jpg (122 KB, 921x1300)

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Taking a deep breath to keep yourself calm beneath the din of battle, you close your eyes and focus upon the divine spark planted deep within you. The seed which the Divine Beast planted deep within your womb so very long ago quickened into roots that penetrate your very essence. They grew as you grew, maturing as one with your body over the better part of a century. Every flower in your heart of hearts blossomed with a steely grey, a manifestation of your divine gift for the manipulation of metal. That is how you can wear so much mithril as a junior sister - you extracted and shaped every ounce of ore used in your clothes and your jewelry by yourself.

Just as you extract lesser metals now from the ground beneath your feet.

"First, extract ore," you command. You keep your voice softer than the din of battle, but it still carries the reverberations of mana flowing through your words. Light, ethereal, like the mist - were the enemy closer, they would have heard you. The incantation flows down your fingertips as you make a gathering gesture. "Then separate in accordance with its purpose. Copper to flame to sheathe their weapons. Cold iron to ward away the rot of the blight. Silver to shape the badge of the healer."

You pull upon the earth beneath your feet, and you can feel the scattered flecks of metal in the stone groan and creak as you force them away from their homes among the rocks. This place is not rich in metals, and the artifice upon your clothes and jewels grant them a resistance to using them as fodder for your spells. By your will, a cloud of iron dust is soon joined by a cloud of copper, and then a smaller cloud of silver. When you clench your fist they condense together - iron and copper into balls the size of a fist, and the silver into a pellet the size and approximate shape of your thumb.

Fare less ore than you are used to.

The roots of the Yggdrasil gather rich mineral deposits that are renewed over the course of a year beneath Alfheim. The minerals of this place can hardly compare - in fact, such a comparison would be as unfair as comparing mortals to the Children of Yggdrasil.

But it will do all the same.

Not every place need be as gifted as the elvenhomes in minerals and farmland. Not every creature need live as long as the Children, with a sufficient lifespan to become at least adept in most things.

These Hume knights are no rangers of the Chilren, but all the same they will do quite nicely as recipients of the blessings you mean to shape of these metals. That is the second step, giving your prayers to the roots of Yggdrasil shape through metals symbolic of each prayer's purpose. Through the use of your divine gift, your can skip past ceremony and incantation that can last for hours before even a single wound is healed by the divine energy circling the world.

The shape of iron becomes an ancient hymn of protection in battle against the Blight.

The shape of silver becomes a mass of healing for a congregation.

The shape of copper becomes the litany of the inquisition, from the forgotten days when the Blight was new and the Blighted hid among innocent men, women, and children. Driven on by the puppet strings which that loathesome fungus left within the recesses of their mind, the Blighted would infest their neighbor until entire villages had turned into pits of blackened death. The corpses of men would shamble on as rancid footmen of the Blight's armies. The still-living bodies of women would become horribly distorted, their souls wailing in agony as their wombs became factories for wretched abominations.

Those brave inquisitors who sought out the Blighted and tore out their influence root and stem had but one solution for when things became so dire. A solution you can give to these brave knights as their line begins to collapse, pushed back by attrition and weariness and the weight of an unrelenting hordde as the outer layers of their armor begins to fail them.

"In Yggdrasil's name... purge them in HOLY FIRE!"

Oh no, you let yourself get swept up in the moment. The din of battle ceases for an instant as your voice echoes across the field, thundering with the roar of magic. Hume and Blighted alike look around for where your voice came from, for your shout was so mighty that it filled the plain with your incantation. Indeed, it even blew away the evening mists and the dust kicked up by the battle. Clapping your hands over your mouth can't undo what's been done, but you do it all the same. The prayer is cast, and both sides now know that you're here - even if they don't know where.

The first thing to break the silence is the crackle of flame and the creaking of steel.

The rot of the blight is shaken off the knight's armor, what wounds they held slowly stitching back together.

"You heard the girl, you sodden greenhorns," barks the eldest of the knights. What color his beard lost to age is more than made up for with the bright clothes in which his armor is draped. He holds his sword - now blazing with golden flame - aloft, the first of the Humes to regain their senses. The others quickly follow him as he rallies a counter charge against the blighted. "The World Tree rides with us now. For the Silverash! For the Emperor! For that darling girl each of you lot swore to protect! Follow me now, and we'll show these blighted bastards the way back to the hell they crawled out of!"

The knights find themselves a second wind as their leader charges into the fray. The healing magic you wove in silver certainly played a part in restoring their stamina, and the resistance of cold iron you gave them means that even if a few plates have failed, the chain and gambeson beneath will hold strong.

And of course, the flame plays its part.

The small horde of Blighted go from a heavy tide of darkness to wheat before the soldiers scythes, set ablaze with every cut and burning to ash beneath the weight of Yggdrasil's Blessing.

But the battle is not over yet. Though the knights are making short work of a force near ten times their number now, half must hold back from the battle to defend the broken-down carriage from stragglers that avoid the charge. Their armor continues to turn away the blows of the rotten creatures of the Blight, and will continue to do so as long as your blessings continue to hold. Hume steel is not the steel of the Elvenhomes, but it is better steel by far than the pig iron held wielded by the Blighted. Nor can the Blighted wear armor themselves, without it corroding into dust over time.

What they can do, however, is put two and two together.

"Wretched elven magics..." the snarling voice of that wretched Hume-looking thing controlling the Blighted roars over the din of battle. "Brothers! Break off a force and scour the forests for that vile elf-witch and take her. Make her regret raising her spells against us... and show her the bliss her kind discover when they accept their place as seedbeds for the Great Mycelium!"

Your heart starts to race when you see a sizable chunk of the Blighted forces break off in your general direction. One or ten Blighted you could take - you are at least adept with a bow, and can maintain one without disrupting your blessings - but a force of thirty worries you. Especially a force of thirty that seems hell bent on raping you until you've been reduced to a Blight Elf.
>Drop the blessings and flee. The knights have enough moment now even without your blessings to get to the leader - and killing him should scatter the horde to be a problem another day.
>Hide yourself among the trees. If you can stay hidden, you will be fine. What are the odds that they can corrupt a tree before the knights take out their leader and scatter them?
>Run towards the defensive line. They seem grateful enough for your magics that they won't cut you down. Though it will leave you a bit exposed.
>Play cat and mouse with them using a shaped bow until the knights kill their leader. You could use a bit of target practice.
>To hell with it. Go for their leader yourself, using a conjured blade. Who dares, WINS!

>>5466708
>>Play cat and mouse with them using a shaped bow until the knights kill their leader. You could use a bit of target practice.
Never was a fan of mushrooms. It's like an unholy cross between Cordyceps and the Darkspawn Taint.

>>5466708
>Play cat and mouse with them using a shaped bow until the knights kill their leader. You could use a bit of target practice.

>>5466708
>>Play cat and mouse with them using a shaped bow until the knights kill their leader. You could use a bit of target practice.

>>5466708
>>Play cat and mouse with them using a shaped bow until the knights kill their leader. You could use a bit of target practice.

>>5466708
>>Play cat and mouse with them using a shaped bow until the knights kill their leader. You could use a bit of target practice.

Next post will be tomorrow night, all.

Rolled 84 (1d100)

>>5467869
Nevermind I lied, post will occur tomorrow night because 10 hour drives are fun. Roll is for how things go.

>>5469189
We're a sneaky little bugger

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You know what will occur to you if you get captured by the Blighted. The Children of Yggdrasil, the fallen fruits of the World Tree, are both their greatest enemy and most viciously coveted prize. Even a humble maiden like you, caught in the spring of her youth instead of ripened and wizened over several centuries, would make a grand prize. For though the Blight covets the elders' wisdom, it is the connection to Yggdrasil and its thousand blossoms that it truly desires. Every Blight Elf is a new vector for the Blight to spread along the World Tree's roots, to disrupt and consume the flow of mana throughout the world.

That is why the Children kill every Blight Elf on sight, without question.

That is why the Blighted will oft abandon their other goals if they think they have a sure bet in capturing one of the Children.

You've read the texts on the Blight like every other Child of Yggdrasil, and they spoke of the process of creating a Blight Elf. They will violate you in ways you cannot imagine. It will bring with it none of the intimacy or relief of tension your most sacred of rites ought confer. To compare what the Blighted inflict upon their victims to the sort of lover who pounds away at his partner with rough desperation, unconcerned for her pleasure, does that man an injustice. There is pleasure to be found in the knowledge that a man finds you so horrifically desirable that your bare skin reduces him to a desperate, rutting beast. You understand this on a practical level, having found such pleasure yourself several times throughout your education.

The Blighted are not desperate, rutting beasts when they seek to create a Blight Elf, no matter how it might look at first glance. They are cruel and they are torturous, and they will seek to shatter your psyche with horrific pain even as they fill your every orifice with thick ropes of tar-colored ejaculate. When your mind finally shatters, that black seed will blossom inside you, consuming the last shreds of your soul and leaving your corpse a puppet to the Blight's will.

You need not say it, but you refuse that fate.

An arrow blossoms from the head of the Blighted at the front of the pack now scouring the forest for your position, carrying with it the same blessings that you cast upon the band of knights. Its fellows recoil as it bursts into flames, Holy Fire searing away the presence of the foul fungus and reducing the corpse to ash. By the time they recover their wits, another arrow has blossomed from one of their number, this one emerging from the chest of the burliest looking Blighted and setting him aflame.

"Tch..." you click your tongue in irritation. Of all the weapons in which you've dabbled, you are least adept with a bow. The second arrow naturally missed its mark, piercing the large one's lung instead of his heart as you intended. At a mere one hundred and fifty meters, with only a few branches blocking your sight. "I need more practice, even a novice wouldn't have missed that."

You loose another arrow, and another one of the Blighted falls. By now they realize where those shots have come from, and are rushing towards you through the woodlands.

With a force now reduced to twenty and seven, an archer by trade could kill them all before they even closed half that gap. As a Temple Prostitute and Daughter of Irminsul, your hands are more adept in the art of wringing semen from a man's balls than they are in high-speed marksmanship. Archery was only ever a hobby to you. One that you now wish you took a little more seriously, given that wringing the semen from these foes will only result in the corrosion of your soul and the corruption of your body. A pack of randy Humes would be a different story, but using the bedroom arts upon the Blighted would lead only to disaster.

Thus, the game of cat and mouse begins. Twenty and seven is too great a number for you to stand and fight alone if you do not play a little dirty. Unfortunately for the Blighted, you were the undisputed hide-and-seek champion during your younger years at the gymnasium. Even past eighty, the only ones who ever lasted longer than you in games of stealth were those training with the Rangers. Of the thousands of times you snuck out of the Gymnasium in the nude, just to feel the thrill of exposure, you were only ever caught playing with yourself in the forested park once.

Even then, that only happened because you stumbled upon a Ranger mating with a wolf.

The game you play with the Blighted is just as simple as the one you played with the unknowing Rings on Curfew Enforcement, though perhaps a bit riskier than simply being caught after dark in the nude. You do your best to stay hidden, they do their best to avoid being pierced through with arrows. The battle out on the plains serves as the timer, as when the center of their colony gets struck down, the Blighted will be hit with a psychic shock, leaving them disoriented and easy to clean up. Alternatively, should the Hume Knights perish, you will attempt to quit the field, though you doubt that will be-

As one, the remaining Blighted pursuing you give out a horrific screech, their bodies dropping to the forest floor an writhing like snails. You count out nineteen of them in total, having killed eight more in your little game. The sound of a triumphant horn fills the air, and you can here shouts of victory coming from the Hume camp.
>Go and introduce yourself to the Humes of the Caravan.
>Go and meet up with the Knights as they sound their victory.
>Finish executing the Blighted Wretches at your feet.
>Retreat from the battle... and the Humes. You already have your destination in mind.

>>5463688
>You are at least adept with a bow. Shape one with your divine gift and harass the Blighted with it from the trees.

>>5470612
Archery was only ever a hobby to you.

Not a huge hang up for me, but it certainly stood out.

>Go and meet up with the Knights as they sound their victory.
>Finish executing the Blighted Wretches at your feet.

We can make ourselves seen to the knights so long as it doesn't jeopardize our safety with blighted. Hopefully they will help us finish the rest, and then we'll be free to meet with them in victory.

>>5470612
>>Go and introduce yourself to the Humes of the Caravan

>>5470612
>>Go and introduce yourself to the Humes of the Caravan.

Sorry for the double post. It didn't show up on my end the first time.

>>5470612
>Finish executing the Blighted Wretches at your feet.

>>5470612
>>Go and meet up with the Knights as they sound their victory.
>>Finish executing the Blighted Wretches at your feet.

>>5470612
>>Go and introduce yourself to the Humes of the Caravan

>>5470612
>Finish executing the Blighted Wretches at your feet.

The Blighted writhe on the forest floor in agony.

Horrid noises fill the woodlands and foul liquids bubble from their mouths, staining the ground with an inky black. The death of their commander severed the connections these puppets held to the greater synapse network of the Blight. The agony comes from the tendrils of Blight stretching across severed paths of the immaterial, consuming their bodies and the remnants of soul-stuff that still flows through their spiritual veins. In time, they will reestablish their connection to the aetheric mycelium.

Consciousness and higher thought will inevitably return to this Blighted horde. The restoration of that central synapse that keeps them connected to the infested lands north of the Middle Sea is only a matter of time. Not a short amount of time, the danger they pose has passed with their leader's death, but days or maybe weeks is all it will take.

Unless, of course, you put them out of their misery.

Leaving them to suffer and scar would leave a bad taste in your mouth.
>Execute them each with a single arrow.
>Draw your knife and slash their throats.
>Purge them in holy fire
>Perform a purification ritual and cleanse them.

Today's update barely deserves to be called an update, I realize. Sorry about that, but it was too clean a cut off point and what happens next will rely on what you do here.

>>5470623
Eh, I also noted elsewhere in the text that she was least adept with a bow. At this, I would say, consider the in story stuff to be more accurate to her abilities than the options. Right now, she's "passable" for an elf and "comprehensibly excellent" for a human. An elven archer who is dedicated to archery would be incomprehensibly good to a human archer (reliably killing a small horde of Blighted from 100 yards without a scratch).

>>5471733
>>Purge them in holy fire
Full decontamination baby

>>5471733
>>Purge them in holy fire

>>5471733
>Perform a purification ritual and cleanse them.

>>5471733
>>Purge them in holy fire

>>5471733
>>Purge them in holy fire

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There can be no half measures with the Blight and the Blighted.

The Gymnasium engraves this fact upon the memory of every student that passes through its doors. Humes are fleeting candlesticks. Rarely can one drag the Stouts from their fortifications. The flame of the Daemons was extinguished by the Hero Julius during the Daemonwar. The other more monstrous peoples of the world can be found only in biology texts and bodice rippers, for their inability to organize their societies has pushed them to the wild fringes of the world. The Blight alone poses an existential threat to the Yggdrasil and its Children.

That alone marks every carrier that cannot be cured for a death beyond death. For the still living who are beyond even the Children's medicine, 'tis best to spare their souls and end them gently before rendering the corpse to ash and returning them to the world. For the shambling corpses the Blight would muster against the living - those Blighted things without a soul to speak of - there is a reason you blessed the Humes with the Inquisitor's Flame.

Fire alone can purge the grounds they desecrated with their every step, and return them to the World Tree's Roots.

The Rite of Cleansing would in many ways be better than flame alone. The Daughters of Irminsul and their sisters among the other elvenhomes cleansed millions of Blighted men and beasts during the Three Blights, corralling the abominations into ritual grounds with the aid of Ring and Rod. However, the rite works best when the Blighted synapse remains intact, exploiting the connection to purge every corpse of the fungal rot. Even then, forces were on hand to render the remnants untouched by the rite unto ash.

With the synapse commanding the horde already burnt away, purging in flame is the only real choice you have. A pyromancer kissed by the divine flame could incinerate these corpses in a matter of moments, with little more than gesture and a breath. Making flame from the metal you can manipulate takes a bit more effort on your part.

"First, extract ore," you whisper the mnemonic and let your mana dig reach again into the recesses of the earth. With the blessings already shaped consuming the shallowest deposits, you must reach down to the very roots of Yggdrasil. The overwhelming mana makes you nauseous, but the stone about the roots exists in so fluid a state that it can become what you need with a prayer and a push. "Draw forth copper and zinc in a ratio of two to one, and alloy them in accordance with their purpose. The brass of the trumpet, to sound the sacred conflagration..."

The iron blessing falls from the sky.

It wavered when you shaped your bow. An alloy-spell shaped of two metals merged as one is enough to break your concentration upon it entirely. But it matters little now, for the Blighted can do little but writhe in pain as their bodies are consumed by the foul rot within.

It's almost admirable, how hard the Blight struggles for life.

Too bad it's over.

Your bangle glows with silver light as the brass flows like water into the shape of nine trumpets, engraved with the archaic names of the nine continents connected by the roots of Yggdrasil. Six facing the Sun Above, three which face the Sun Within. One corroded with a blue-green in all places but the mouthpiece, signifying the land of Giskonis north of the Middle Sea - lost forever to the First Blight - and the lonely island off its western shore that remains the closest elvenhome to that accursed land. All of them raised in a salute, encircling the blighted littering the edge of the forest.

"May the cry of the nine lands purify your remains, may your memories echo on through the cycle of rebirth, and may you return again to the Yggdrasil and be reborn among its fruit."

You clasp offer a prayer to the World Tree for the Blighted. Though their souls have been consumed by the mycelium and the rot, it somehow feels wrong not to pray for them. The invocation of your prayer calls forth the divine wellspring of power that runs through the grand roots beneath your feet, and fills this Eulogy of Conflagration with its unknowable will. Letting that divine power flow through you - or perhaps becoming a vector of that greater will - you issue the Blighted one final command.

"Be at peace."

The trumpets sound their brassy cry, amplified by the mana flowing through them. Within the bounds of the field which your spell has established, their roar becomes a conflagration of divine flame that burns with a silver light that matches the radiance of the Yggdrasil. The conflagration swirls like a whirlwind, consuming and purifying everything that falls between the trumpets. Fed more by the flow of Yggdrasil's power than the fuel, the air, and the heat that can give the fire life, it does not stop.

You hold your hand up towards the flame, the bangle about your wrist still glowing with silver light. Or perhaps the greater will that you have invited into yourself as part of this prayer holds it up for you. It's difficult to tell. But you ought to correct yourself.

The flame will not stop until the Blight has been purged.

The taste of honey and maple fills your mouth. You vaguely recognize that tears of syrup have begun flowing down your face, and that sap-like drool has begun to bubble out of your mouth. On an intellectual level, it is hard to miss the signs that you've overextended yourself and will likely sprout roots and leaves if you don't let go of the World Tree's power. But somehow, you can't bring yourself to care too much about it, even if you'd rather not be recorded as a foolish child who became a tree before her second century.

The Blight must burn.

The Blight must burn.

The Blight must bur-

"Well darn me like an old pair of socks," a gravelly and vaguely familiar voice shocks you enough that you can wrench yourself away from the irresistible flow of Yggdrasil's power. You swallow the maple-tasting syrup that had been flowing out of your mouth not a moment ago, eyeing your unknowing savior. It's the older man in flamboyant clothes worn atop heavy plate armor, the one who led the knights. He's staring at the white ashes that remain of the Blighted and the trees that surrounded them. "Never thought those old tales about Elven magics had any truth to them, but if a slight girl like you can cast like a circle of seven I suppose there's something to them."

You're not quite sure how to respond to that. Surely, he must have met one of the Children on Travail before, given his advanced age. He must be have at least a century on you, right? How many centuries did Humes live for, again? You know their lives are relatively fleeting, so probably just two or three. Stouts can hit five, or even six, so that sounds right, but you have a niggling feeling in the back of your mind that you forgot something about them.

As you clear your throat and face of syrup, he finally looks towards you... only to immediately avert his gaze.

You look to where he looks. He must have seen something move that you cannot, with how his gaze seems to wander the tree line.

"Though I doubt it means anything to a young elf, I am Commander Basch di Ascalon of the Mithril Order," the old veteran knight introduces himself, still scanning the tree-line for threats. You must applaud him for his vigilance, no wonder he commands so many knights. "The Young Lady asked that I extend the hospitality of her camp to the mage whose spellwork saved our caravan, if you will accept it."
>You don't see why not.
>You're quite happy to accept her offer.
>You must graciously refuse.

"May I have the name of our savior?"
>Lagneia
>Lagneia of Alfheim
>You would rather remain anonymous

"And..." the old veteran coughs. "Might I offer you my cloak? You look a touch chilly."
>It would be rude to turn down the old Hume's hospitality, even if it's a touch strange.
>Actually, you're quite comfortable as you are.
>You must decline, it's actually been a bit unseasonably warm.
>Reassure him that the magics of the Children make such things unnecessary.
>You can't take it from him! Then HE'D be cold!

>>5473159
>You're quite happy to accept her offer.
>Lagneia of Alfheim
>You can't take it from him! Then HE'D be cold!

As I recall, we have spare outfits in our backpack anyways.

The magic spell with the horns was interesting, the "forging process" for lack of a better term was a very cool way to flavor metal based magic. It reminded me of The Sacred Blacksmith.

>>5473159
>You're quite happy to accept her offer.
>Lagneia of Alfheim
>Actually, you're quite comfortable as you are.

>>5473159
>You don't see why not.
>Lagneia of Alfheim
>You can't take it from him! Then HE'D be cold!

>>5473159
>You're quite happy to accept her offer.
>Lagneia of Alfheim
>Reassure him that the magics of the Children make such things unnecessary.

>>5473159
>You're quite happy to accept her offer.
>Lagneia of Alfheim
>You can't take it from him! Then HE'D be cold!
So going overboard starts to turn elves into trees.

>>5473184
Though you do not know it in character... your other outfits would be no less "chilly" in Basch's eyes. Some of them - especially your "work" clothes, which are basically see-through - would be even MORE chilly.

>>5473186
I'm not familiar with the Sacred Blacksmith, I'll have to check it out.

>>5474007
The Children of Yggdrasil are indeed the Children of Yggdrasil, born from the fruits harvested from the World Tree. In many ways, they are its seeds. Channeling too much of Yggdrasil's power may cause you to sprout prematurely, though the amount you can handle before that begins will increase with time and familiarity with its power.

>>5473159
>You're quite happy to accept her offer.
>Lagneia of Alfheim
>You can't take it from him! Then HE'D be cold!

>>5474126
>Though you do not know it in character... your other outfits would be no less "chilly" in Basch's eyes. Some of them - especially your "work" clothes, which are basically see-through - would be even MORE chilly.
Ohh, so that's what that was about. I thought we had somehow inadvertently incinerated our clothes with that spell and ended up nude without realizing it, and he was trying to be tactful about it.

>I'm not familiar with the Sacred Blacksmith, I'll have to check it out.

Baiscally it reminded me of this bit here
https://youtu.be/mmehIT-wcHM?t=1m51s

File: Camp Squire.jpg (44 KB, 342x700)

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"My name? Well, I suppose that I am Se-"

You catch yourself before you give your number in place of your name. No one's ever asked you your name before. Up to this point in your life, the number you were give upon your emergence from the fallen fruit that bore your body and soul into the world. Seventh of Twelve on formal occasions, Seven among the peers who knew you well, and Sev among your closest friends. Clearing your throat, you give him a proper answer, matching his formality with your own.

"I am Lagneia of Alfheim, ordained sister of the Daughters of Irminsul," you layer on so many formal airs to your tone that you think you may have overdone it. Basch arches his eyebrow at your words, a twinkle of mirth glimmering in his old blue eyes. At this point, though, you may as well lean into it. "I will happily accept the hospitality of your Young Lady's camp, if you will be so gracious as to escort me. May I ask after the identity of my host? Or is this a matter that requires a touch of..."

You struggle to find the word Humes use for it in this region.

Fortunately, Basch catches your meaning.

"Discretion, yes," the old knight confirms your suspicions. Worry fills his old blue eyes as he looks back to the caravan of carriages. "I fear I am not at liberty to divulge the Young Lady's identity, and given the circumstances I am afraid the hospitality we can offer will be rather meager for a Lady of her stature. But the Young Lady wishes to thank you personally, and perhaps she may decide to give you her name."

While he gave his name and titles, referring to his Young Lady without a mention of her name and titles felt off to you. From what you've read on Hume culture, they put a great deal of stock in such things as representations of their honor and wealth. In truth, such richly appointed carriages without the pomp and banners you would expect from struck you as out of place from the moment you saw them.

With lives as fleeting as a mere three centuries (you think), living so vibrantly must be something they take joy in. The bright clothes draped over Old Basch's armor say that much... though now that you look at him, you see a conspicuous lack of the heraldry Humes are so fond of.

Learning that they are traveling incognito makes all those little oddities click together in of your head.

"I understand entirely," you say with a nod of your head. "Dark forces have come to conspire against your liege, and it is your duty to keep her secret and safe."

"Dark forces...?" Old Basch shakes his head, before waving you to follow him out of the woods. "You make it sound like some sort of fairy tale, Sister Lagneia."

"Well, what else would you call the Blighted?" you ask.

"I suppose that's fair," Basch admits. He gives you another worried look, before averting his eyes. "Are you sure you don't want me to lend you my cloak? You look so 'chilly' that I fear some of my more foolish men may make crass offers to help warm you up on a cold autumn night."

"Then you'll get cold."

You said it before and you'll say it again. This deep into the autumn season, the days begin to get cold and the nights become even colder. The time of year has come when even gentle evening snow-showers are hardly unheard of, though by the time the sun hits its lowered zenith everything will have melted away. The clothing of the Children has magics woven into it that keeps your temperatures comfortable and well regulated, even in the most bitter chill and the most scorching heat.

The bright, fur trimmed cloak he keeps trying to give you lacks such convenient magics, though it will keep him warmer in the cold than fur alone could. That said, he needs it far more than you do.

"Imagine if you caught something," you chide him. It pains you to take the tone of a scolding senior to a man who likely has a century and a half on you in years, but he really should think about his health a little more. "Who will take care to keep your Young Lady secret and safe in these trying times, if you're laid up with a cold? You need it far more than I, and if your Young Lady says something about it, we can chalk it up to my people's magics."

"My Lady would not forgive me if my men attempted something untoward with you," he drops the innuendo that flew over your head and says what he means bluntly.

"Ahahahaha~!" your laughter chimes like a bell as you exit the woods, drawing a few eyes towards you. A few stares from those with keener eye as well, who can see the skin your travel clothes have left bare. You give Basch a knowing smiling. "So that's what you've been worried about? Really, these travelling clothes are hardly titillating. If the sight of a bare shoulder or belly-button could turn them into wild beasts, then perhaps they're in need of some relief. I would be happy to assist anyone in your camp who is in need of a woman's touch."

"I know you Elves age in strange ways, but a girl who looks young enough to be my granddaughter should not be so blase about such things," old Basch seems less amused than you are about the matter of his men. "Men are like bulls in a porcelain shop when a beauty falls into their lap. You would get hurt."

"We Daughters of Irminsul are called to herd such rowdy cattle by our sacred vows," you declare with piety in your voice. A passing squire can't help but stare at you with a red face, having clearly never seen a beauty of your caliber before. "Hmmm... a technique of this caliber might be too advanced for a boy his age..."

With a single gesture, you unleash the ultimate seduction technique of the Daughters of Irminsul upon the squire.

You blow him a kiss.

The poor boy passes out with a grin on his face, a trickle of blood streaming down his nose. Old Basch stares at you in disbelief.

"I know, I know, it was far too early for him to be exposed to such seductive power," you give the old knight a clap on the should. "But I needed to show you what I'm capable of."

"What."

You puff up with pride as Basch looks at the boy with a loss for words. He must be in awe of the sheer seductive power of the technique you just displayed. It sits at the pinnacle of eroticism, as the single most potent sexual technique that you have. True, it is not as efficient at milking a cock for its semen as your well trained pussy. Nor can it keep your partners on the edge of bliss for hours on end like your highly skilled tongue can. Indeed, when she taught you this secret technique - a technique only the most promising Daughters of Irminsul ever have the chance to learn - Begierde warned you that some might say "that's not seductive at all!"

But the Eldest who is First among the Daughters of Irminsul assured you that the forbidden [Blown Kiss] takes advantage of a girl's most powerful weapon. She never told you what that was, exactly, only that you had it in spades, and because of that she finally had a student who would not waste the technique's potential.

"You needn't worry, that was merely for demonstrative purposes," you reassure the old knight. The boy needs a hand up once he comes back to his senses, and bolts when he realizes that you're the one helping him. Basch still remains somewhat speechless. "I don't intend to unleash such power upon your men."

"Right..." Basch shakes his head, his eyes closed. He clearly knows that his men would fall for you instantly if you used that. "Anyways, avoid the men with rings on their left hands. Flirting with a married man might be cause for a duel, and I would rather not need explain any injuries to the Young Lady."

"In that case, I shall give comfort only to the unwed," you promise.

"Right..." Basch sounds a bit uncertain about something, you're not entirely sure what.

He eventually leads you to a large tent that has been pitched a short distance away from the battlefield, which has itself become a staging grounds for all of the equipment taken from the ashen remains of the Blighted. Pig iron of poor quality, though something good might come of it if given love and care by someone with a talent for metalworking. The tent is larger than the rest, and quite ornate in its design, though it appears all heraldry has been removed from its sides. You can vaguely make out the shape of a prancing lion, you think.

You are invited to enter the tent by one of the attendants, and Basch enters behind you - much to the surprise of the other guards. They do not draw their weapons, but they do seem confused as to why he has entered the tent.

Inside the tent, a screen of silk holding a tapestry that depicts a flock of birds soaring over the forest beneath the light of a full moon and a sky full of stars divides the space into an entryway, and the chambers of the girl you presume is the Young Lady. You can see the silhouette of a girl who must be about your age sitting cross legged behind the screen. Smoke rises from sweet smelling candles that fill the room.

Then, the girl speaks.

"Your presence is unnecessary, Sir Basch," a soft and charming voice speaks from behind the screen. Youthful, by your understanding of Humes, but also commanding and filled with wisdom. Though her words if written down would seem like an admonishment, the gentle tone makes them anything but that. Her voice is too kind to admonish or scold. "If she worked with my father's enemies, their goals would have been better accomplished if she let us die to the Blighted. You should feel free to join your men outside, and celebrate this little victory."

Sir Basch drops to one knee, and motions for you to do the same.

The Children kneel only before the Eldest. So instead you sit, matching the posture of the girl behind the screen as best you can. Basch's lips thin, but given that you are one of the Children of Yggdrasil, he seems to take it as a win.

"I thank you, my Lady, but I must decline," the old knight bows his head. One of the maids bringing out a low table and tea for the two of you looks a bit scandalized, and there's a bit of murmuring before he continues. "It is not that I believe her a spy or an assassin, but that her upbringing away from courtly manners may lead to a breach of propriety. I would provide advice and clarification, that your guest does not by accident offend you, My Lady."

"I appreciate your concern, Sir Basch." Again, the Young Lady's voice remains soft and charming no matter what she says. Gentle as the touch of silk, but steel behind every word that leaves all who hear her silent. "But my ears are not so delicate that they cannot handle a breach or two of propriety. Nor are they so deaf to leave me ignorant of what adults do in their spare time. Why, I believe only yesterday I heard two of my handmaids doing something terribly inappropriate at the front of the carriage."

A maid whose chest strains at her apron blushes intensely, but she continues to pour you tea.

"If there is no convincing you, my Lady, then I shall take my leave," Basch says. With that, he steps outside to join his men.

"Well, now that my worry-wart of a minder has left us, would you like to play a game with me?" the girl behind the screen asks. You don't know what sort of game can be played if you can't see eachother, so you let her continue explaining without any questions. "The game is twenty questions. It's quite popular in the Hill Kingdoms, I am told. We each take a turn asking questions and answering truthfully. You can pass a question that you would not like to answer, but that gives the questioner another question to ask. What do you say?"
>Play to find out more about this nation.
>Play to find out more about her current situation.
>Play to find out more about her.
>Reject this game, and tell her of another, called "Truth or Dare".
>Reject this game, should you really be playing right now?

>>5474492
>Play to find out more about her.

>>5474492
>>Play to find out more about her.

>>5474492
>Reject this game, and tell her of another, called "Truth or Dare".
Yuri corruption arc let's gooo

>>5474492
>>Play to find out more about this nation.

>>5474492
>Play to find out more about this nation.

>>5474492
>>Play to find out more about this nation.

>>5474492
>Play to find out more about this nation.

>>5474492
>Play to find out more about this nation.
Politicking for now to keep our cards close to our chest and her at a distance. Maybe we can circle around getting to know her better if she seems worthy of trust.

File: A Girl and a Screen.jpg (1.14 MB, 935x743)

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You idly chew at the idea of requesting that she play a different game with you, but you get the sense that this girl does not simply wish for idle entertainment. The screen that separates you tells you that much. As beautiful as it is, it represents a barrier that she's not yet ready to take down, which is rather inconvenient. The elder sisters among the Daughters of Irminsul taught you many games to deepen bonds and extract knowledge. But to play them properly, the players need to see one another, and be open to a healthy dose of skinship.

More than once you wound up bound, gagged, and cumming your brains out during a game of Truth or Dare.

Sadly, you don't see the girl behind the screen warming up to you enough to let you play with her like that.

"That sounds like an amusing way to pass the time," you put on formal airs and let your mind drain of your desires. Right now you are not the temple prostitute who relieves men and women of their stress and loneliness for a customary tithe. A shift in mindset is all it takes for you to move among high society. Though you do wish you had the opportunity to change into your nicer clothes. "Which one of us shall go first?"

"You just did~" The girl's soft voice takes on a gently teasing note. "That is one question asked, and one truthful answer provided."

"Ah," you take a sip of tea. It seems this game is quite cut-throat and subject to rules lawyering. "So that's how it is."

"Indeed, and now it is my turn," the amusement from the girl's voice does not fade, but her tone remains good-natured and gentle. Either she has mastered controlling her temperament as well as any elf, or she is of a genuine kindly nature. This game will be quite amusing, indeed. "What are the names and titles of the mysterious sorceress whose spellwork rescued my caravan from certain destruction?"

Clever.

She basically blended three questions into one. Are you truly the one who rescued us? Who are you? What organizations do you have close ties with? Or something along those lines. If she has a spell or work of artifice that can sense lies, misdirection, or omission, that's a good amount of information she just asked for. Best to assume that she does, in case there's some manner of punishment for being caught in a lie.

"I will tell you what I told your man before," you say after another sip of tea. You appreciate the bitter taste of the leaves, leaving the maid attending your table a bit shocked that you took no sugar or cream. "I am Lagneia of Alfheim, ordained sister of the Daughters of Irminsul. I suppose, to avoid omission, by my people's tradition I was given the name Seventh of Twelve at my birth. Acquaintances called me Seventh, and my friends called me Sev."

You can see the girl's silhouette nod. It's honestly rather surprising how well spoken she is, considering how small she is. You remember reading somewhere that Humes do not reach full cognition until a few years after they finish growing.

The Children never stop growing, but your growth is very slow after your initial spurt.

"Very good, that's two questions asked, and two questions answered," the girl says. You see her reach for her own tea and take a sip of it. After a moment of silence, she waves you along. "It is your turn."

"I was under the impression that Daedalium and its empire was blessed with stability and strength, even thousands of years after the fall of the Dragon Kings and their reign over Alagonia," your ears fall flat as you recall the tale of the Last Dragon, a male without a mate who died in his sleep with the tired old King who rode him into battle. After contemplating your tea for a moment, you continue. "These may be lands on the border, but they are important enough that the road has been paved with good stone. What is the state of the empire, that a girl of gentle birth and her retainers can fall victim to an attack by Blighted wretches and their abominable dogs of war?"

The girl behind the screen gives a long sigh.

For a moment, you think she'll request that you ask another question. But the request never comes, even after seconds of silence become near a minute and then two.

"I cannot say I know the whole truth, for that is my father's business and not my own," she finally answers. Her gentle voice has been colored by regret that she knows nothing more and the weariness of the road. "It is as you say, we are blessed with stability and might that is unmatched in Alagonia. Even Great Parthan to the west can do little more than rattle their scimitars and make oaths they will never keep about bringing down the walls of Lygos. Yet without a true external threat, those who would normally makes schemes against the Empire's enemies make schemes against one another. I have little doubt that these Blighted were funneled into my caravan's path by my Father's enemies, in an attempt to strike a blow against him."

You can feel her smile even through the screen that separates you. "Your timely aid has not only saved my life, but also my family from quite a bit of trouble. So you have my deepest thanks."

"We of the Children still hold to the ancient treaties as best we can, even if the Dragon Kings are no more," you tell her. Passion fills your voice as you speak of them and your duty to uphold them. After all, their renewal is the goal of your Travail. Her silhouette tilts her head - perhaps she has no knowledge of the treaties, or how your people hold to them. "That was the third question and answer, so I believe it is your turn."

"Well I was meaning to ask why you came to our aid, but it seems apparent that those treaties mean quite a great deal to you," the girl behind the screen says. You click your tongue in annoyance, as it seems you've lost another point in this game. First with a careless question, and now by being too forthcoming with information about yourself. "Though I suppose I must now ask: what are these ancient treaties that you refer to?

You know how this game is played now.

Or perhaps you're just being a bit petty after both losing a question and answering a question that had not been asked yet. Maybe you will ask her to play a game of Truth or Dare later. It would be exceptionally satisfying to trick her into the positions which the elder Sisters put you in before you got a hang of that game. A part of you really wants to replace the smug undertones in her voice with overtones of desperation and pleasure. But not right now.

Instead, you just choose to give her the bare minimum amount of information that she asked for. "They are the ancient treaties of mutual defense signed by the Dragon Kings, the Forge Fathers, and the Eldest of the Children during the Daemonwar and renewed during the First Blight."

The girl behind the screen waits a moment for you to elaborate.

When a minute passes and you don't, she lets loose a light chuckle that rings like a hundred silver bells.

"Well, I suppose that is all I asked after," she says between her gentle laughter. "The fourth question is asked and answered, it is your turn now."

Your mindset has fully shifted gears into treating this a game for you to win or lose, away from the courtly manner you held just a few moments ago. Your posture shifts to something a bit more aggressive, leaning slightly towards your "opponent" as you contemplate your next question. Your brow furrows, your eyes narrow, and you decide that the best way to win the game is to deny her information into your further motives, make her ask for it. Which means no asking after renewal of the treaty until she asks what your plans are.

The next best thing is to see what more you can learn about her country.

Beginning, of course, with the people who can make things happen when you reach the capital. Even your tone has changed now that your motive and mindset has shifted, social chameleon that you are. "Who would I need to rub shoulders with in Lygos if I wanted to have a message sent to the Emperor and taken seriously?"

"The Emperor's current ministry is a matter of public record," the girl behind the screen gives you a non-answer in that gentle caress of a voice which she has held. Leaving it at that would not be in the spirit of the game, so she does continue. "One of my retainers will prepare a brief for you to take with you tomorrow morning, it is the least we can do for you after the aid you have give us. I will say that personally, the Minister of Agriculture is the most approachable of his ministry. He puts great stock in his oracles, as well, if you can gain one of their ears. Of course, if you can manage to approach one of his children, he puts great weight on their word as well."

You mull her answer over for a bit in your head and file the information away for later. The Minister of Agriculture, the Emperor's Oracles, and the Emperor's Children are the ones you need to figure out how to approach. "Thank you. That's the fifth question - your turn."

Rather than asking another question, the girl behind the screen stretches and yawns.

"I think I've had enough of this game for now," she declares, her gentle voice suddenly baring a tiny hint of the steel that has been hiding beneath her silky smooth tone this entire time. You can see that your tea is empty, and that the sun has begun to set already. "I would sorely like to continue, but you will need time to pitch your tent, I am sure. And as much as would like to chat away the night, I'm certain my minders would chastise me. A growing girl needs her sleep, after all, or so I've been told."

It takes a bit of effort to wrench yourself away from your competitive streak and return to the airs of the dignified courtesan, but you manage it somehow. You dip into as much of a curtsey as you can manage in your travelling clothes. "I'm sure they're right, Young Lady. Have a pleasant evening!"

As you leave, you hear her grumble a question to herself. "Young Lady...? Right, she never asked after my name. How amusing..."
>Set up your tent and get some much needed rest. Perhaps you'll dream of something interesting.
>Whatever the Humes are cooking smells both edible and decidedly not trail rations. Let's see if you can join them.
>Get your tent up and then administer care to the wounded. Though you may be a temple prostitute, you are also a Priestess capable of providing magical healing to those who have been injured.
>Fifteen days is the longest you've gone without getting any in nearly a century, and Basch said that the unwed were fair game. You'll invite one to your tent, and have some fun...
>Basch warned that the unwed among his men might turn to wild beasts at the sight of you. Best to help all of them relieve the stresses that might have caused that. Your tent should be big enough...
>Ufufufu... that squire fell victim to your powerful seduction technique. You better relieve the lust no doubt stirring in his heart, lest he become a wild beast!

>>5475315
>Set up your tent and get some much needed rest. Perhaps you'll dream of something interesting.

>part of you really wants to replace the smug undertones in her voice with overtones of desperation and pleasure. But not right now.
A real lusty bastard, huh?

>>5475315
>Basch warned that the unwed among his men might turn to wild beasts at the sight of you. Best to help all of them relieve the stresses that might have caused that. Your tent should be big enough...

>>5475315
>Whatever the Humes are cooking smells both edible and decidedly not trail rations. Let's see if you can join them.
>Fifteen days is the longest you've gone without getting any in nearly a century, and Basch said that the unwed were fair game. You'll invite one to your tent, and have some fun...

>>5475315
>Ufufufu... that squire fell victim to your powerful seduction technique. You better relieve the lust no doubt stirring in his heart, lest he become a wild beast!

>>5475315
>>Basch warned that the unwed among his men might turn to wild beasts at the sight of you. Best to help all of them relieve the stresses that might have caused that. Your tent should be big enough...
>>Ufufufu... that squire fell victim to your powerful seduction technique. You better relieve the lust no doubt stirring in his heart, lest he become a wild beast!

>>5475315
>Basch warned that the unwed among his men might turn to wild beasts at the sight of you. Best to help all of them relieve the stresses that might have caused that. Your tent should be big enough...

>>5475315
>Whatever the Humes are cooking smells both edible and decidedly not trail rations. Let's see if you can join them.
>Ufufufu... that squire fell victim to your powerful seduction technique. You better relieve the lust no doubt stirring in his heart, lest he become a wild beast!
Wring him dry!

>>5475315
>Whatever the Humes are cooking smells both edible and decidedly not trail rations. Let's see if you can join them.
>Basch warned that the unwed among his men might turn to wild beasts at the sight of you. Best to help all of them relieve the stresses that might have caused that. Your tent should be big enough...

>>5475315
>>Set up your tent and get some much needed rest. Perhaps you'll dream of something interesting.

>>5475315
>Set up your tent and get some much needed rest. Perhaps you'll dream of something interesting.

>>5475315
>Basch warned that the unwed among his men might turn to wild beasts at the sight of you. Best to help all of them relieve the stresses that might have caused that. Your tent should be big enough...
>Ufufufu... that squire fell victim to your powerful seduction technique. You better relieve the lust no doubt stirring in his heart, lest he become a wild beast!

File: Lagneia Tantric Ritual Outfit.jpg (1.69 MB, 1290x1821)

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With the game of twenty questions between you and the girl behind the screen cut short, you decide to find other means to entertain yourself for the rest of the evening. Basch gave you a good lead earlier.

The men without rings on their left hands have no one back home to help them find a release that satisfies their manly urges. The lucky ones might have a sweetheart who can give them a little helping handjob, which your readings suggest is as far as Humes usually go before they are wed. If they don't, they must lead a horrifically lonely existing, with only their own hands to help them. From Basch's warnings, their needs have been allowed to simmer to the point of boiling over. Simply the sight of you in your light traveling clothes - which leave your tight belly and smooth shoulders bare - will apparently turn them from respectable knights into slavering, lustful beasts.

At least on the inside.

None of them have deigned to attack you just yet.

All the same, you can feel more than one pair of lustful eyes lapping up every detail of your body as you move about the camp. How your top clings to your flat chest like a second skin, the dark color of the fabric obscuring the most precious and interesting details from view save at [i]just[/i] the right angle. How the low back of your skirt gives frame and emphasis to your deliciously creamy thighs, which the front dips down just low enough to keep the treasure between them hidden. Many seek out the brand left above your womb when the Divine Beast planted its seed deep within you, its soft green glow catching the eye.

You told Sir Basch that your traveling clothes were not meant to be titillating, but the way you catch the gaze of men in the camp makes you wonder. Do you simply look like a refreshing oasis to men who have spent their lives traversing the desert of loneliness? Or did your teachers and seniors among the Daughters of Irminsul give even your most ordinary clothes a cut that would tempt lonely men?

The answer may well be "both".

Either way, you mean to take responsibility for what your presence has done to these men. Has fifteen days without the pleasure of a man's company affected your own decision making? Perhaps. Relieving them of their sexual tensions and becoming a safe vessel into which they can loose their pent up desires will certainly make for splendid evening entertainment. That it is the duty of a Daughter of Irminsul to help men and women relieve themselves of the turmoil brought by lust is simply an excuse.

Even so, all that orgone building up inside their body will eventually rot and fester into something ugly if it is not properly released. Best for them to let it all out inside of you. Your training amongst the Daughters of Irminsul did not merely cover how best to drain a man's balls, but also how to process the energy that is release when their desires flow into you. The lust that would have been left to torment these men can become a blessing of some magnitude.

It is just a matter of how the energy is shaped, and how many of these lonely, lustful knights end up participating.
>A blessing of speed in your travels.
>A blessing of strength in battle.
>A blessing of good health and quickened healing.
>A blessing against hunger and weariness.
>A blessing of good fortune.

Your preparations begin with setting up your tent.

Not for the first time since you began your Travail, you are forced to admire the craftsmanship that went into the creation of your [i]Heimtasche[/i]. Its creator, Second of Fiftee- no, [i]Skafos[/i] had very few redeeming qualities about him when you both lived in the Gymnasium, by your recollection. He was, quite frankly, a curmudgeonly boy with the temperament of a two thousand year old man and an unbending adherence to the rules that made you wonder if was born of an artificer's golemcraft instead of hatching from ripened elfruit like a normal person. Before you received the [i]Heimtasche[/i], you would say he had two good qualities to him.

First, he is [i]really[/i] good at math.

Second, he has a [i]massive[/i] cock that is just so much fun to choke on. As a side note, the taste of his emissions reminds you of salted maple syrup. You got quite familiar with his taste before he cottoned on to your seduction tricks. Getting him horny and then trading blowjobs for help with your math homework was more or less the only thing that got your through your maths foundations. Once he figured out what you were doing, though, you became even more familiar with the Stick of Bonking and the sensation of being planted like a radish at the Roots of Yggdrasil as penance for misusing what the Daughters of Irminsul taught you.

Since your Centum Viginti, you are now forced to acknowledge a third good quality that Skafos has. Namely, that when it comes to artifice, the man definitely knows what he's doing. The [i]Heimtasche[/i] might be the single most user friendly magic item that you've ever seen. To set up your tent, all you need to do is insert your mana into the jewel upon the flap that protects the bag's main pocket. The amount might be enough to leave your average Hume exhausted for days on end, but the jewel takes care of all the shaping and spell work.

To say nothing of the sheer quality of the tent which the [i]Heimtasche[/i] expands into.

From the outside, it looks like a simple leather tent in the same forest green color as the [i]Heimtasche[/i]. The interior shows that Skafos remembered just what trade it is that you ply, and what tools you will need for it. A large bed dominates the tent's interior, oak reinforced with mithril to ensure that overenthusiasm or a heavy partner doesn't break it. The sheets are a vivacious red, and have a pattern of tree branches stitched into the heaviest of the blankets that forms the shape of a heart. The walls are a soft and gentle off white, unassuming and almost pure. Overhead, fairy lights float about the ceiling, changing color on a moment's whim.

In the second room, you have a place where you can do your daily preparations. While you would not put on makeup on a day of travel, a full body mirror sits next to a basin that fills with warm water when you push mana into a gemstone. Opposite the basin and mirror sits a large marble tub sheathed with copper, which operates on a similar principle to the basin. You can easily fit two people in there for normal bathing, or four if you decided to use it like a proper hottub and have sex in it.

All that said, Skafos did not forget the "Temple" portion of your profession as a Temple Prostitute either.

At the corners of the bedroom sit four incense burners, for use during meditative prayer rituals... and tantric rites, as you intend to use them tonight. While your desire for entertainment and pleasure certainly play a part in why you plan to orchestrate tonight's orgy, you [i]do[/i] mean to do a thorough job of cleansing these men of the turmoil their pent up lust has brought them. For that, you have prepared an incense that will stimulate their lust and encourage them to expunge it into the vessel that has been prepared from the object of their desires - namely, your warm and eager holes.

Under the influence of this incense, every load they blow tonight will serve to calm the turmoil stirring in their hearts. The pent up emotions that have gone unreleased, the frustration at any perceived failure in finding themselves a mate, the impure thoughts that might drive them to do regrettable things to a woman baring her shoulders and her stomach... you'll use your lewd body to squeeze all of it out of their spurting cocks and give to them the gift of serenity and peace of mind.

Or, at least, that's the plan.

Before you leave your tent to pass out invitations to tonight's ritual, you quietly pay your respects at the small shrine that sits across from the great bed. The Humes would not understand it as a shrine, for it holds no symbols of any of their gods. It serves double purpose as the cabinet in which you keep your incense for the rituals and prayers that occur within your bedchamber. The entire thing is shaped from the wood of a fallen branch from Yggdrasil, save for the ornate pot that rests atop it.

That, you made from clay found at the Yggdrasil's roots, fired in an oven that First Sister Begierde whispered into being three thousand years ago. Inside of it grows a cutting from the Irminsul, the sprout of Yggdrasil in whose shade Alfheim resides. It understand the limits of the pot, and has grown into the shape of a curling hook. Like the tree from which it was clipped, its bark is stark and silvery white, and its leaves give off a gentle gold and silver glow.

You clap your hands before it and pray. "Mother branches, help the feelings within my heart reach these Humes. Let there be an understanding between us, and may all in this camp with lust-born turmoil in their hearts join me on this night, that I may release them of their suffering."

With that prayer still in your heart, you join the Humes at their supper.

It seems that in celebration of their victory over the Blighted, Basch took a few men out to the forest and hunted a deer. Or rather, it seems he saw one at the stream when he went to fetch water, and took its head with his sword before it could run off. The other men simply helped him carry it back, as his old bones weren't quite up to dragging it back on his own. The camp chef and his assistants made quick work of it, butchering the beast with remarkable skill and efficiency for a people of such fleeting lives. Thick cuts of venison with a medley of root vegetables and bread is the menu for the camp tonight.

The tables that have been put out are abuzz with conversation, though drink has made eyes wander a little more than they had earlier in the evening. You do not mind it one bit, you know that you are a beautiful maiden, and you have spent the better part of a hundred years learning how to strut what you have. Instead you simply keep an eye out for the rings and lack thereof, leaving invitations in the pockets of the men who do not have them. Ten in all, split mostly between rough-looking fellows who might scare a girl away and younger men who have probably not even given romance a thought.

None of them bother you throughout the meal, though.

If anything, Basch proves to be the biggest pain to deal with.

"Glad you could join us, Sister Lagneia!" The older man pulls you away from one of your marks just a moment after you slipped him the invitation. Basch drags you up to the center, picking you up like you're some sort of child and standing you atop a table. He holds your hand up while addressing the camp with a red face filled with too much beer. "Lads, I'll be true with yah, those Blighted bastards had us dead to rights today. But this wee lass, she coulda snuck right by the fightan' with how small she is, an' no one woulda been the wiser. But she [i]didn't[/i], did she? No she pulled our arses right out of the fire!"

He then reaches for the grill, and takes a meat skewer from the things that are still roasting.

From the whoops of the crowd, it's not just any skewer, though.

"The heart of a hunt goes to the warrior who makes the greatest contribution of the battle," Basch declares. He sounds a bit more sober, now, though it's clear that he's forcing a more formal tone. He brandishes the skewered deer heart - which appears to be glazed with honey and stuffed with cheese, garlic, and herbs - like a sword. "And I'd like to ask you lads, who among us deserves it this day?!"

"Laggy!" cries one section of the men.

"Neia!" cries the other half of the crowd.

"The smol sexy sister!" shouts one of the men you invited to your tent for the [i]afterparty[/i].

"Fucks sake! Keep it in your pants, Gideon," Basch says. You decide to avoid the matter that you'll be helping Gideon out of his pants later this evening. Basch hands you the skewer. "The heart is yours, Lagneia."

Everyone is looking at you expectantly, so you can't really bring yourself to turn it down even though you kind of want to. Well, how bad can deer heart be?

You take the skewer, and with a dramatic flourish, you take a bite.

You do not retch or gag, as that would be very rude. With everything that your tongue has been used for, you have definitely tasted worse things before. In all honesty, if this had been any other cut of meat it probably would have been exceptionally delicious. The chefs know what they are doing, as the honey, the cheese, the herbs, and the garlic all play very well together. But the heart itself adds a very [i]interesting[/i] flavor that you cannot really say that you enjoy.

Still, you force it down. And when you hold the skewer aloft triumphantly, the roar of approval from the men of the camp brings a bright smile to your face. Though Basch soon starts a very concerning activity, where the crowd has decided that because you're so small, throwing you into the air is an acceptable way to celebrate. Victory over the Blighted, the aversion of certain death, even just a reprieve from whatever bloody politics led to all of this, the men and women of the camp all seem to want to celebrate.

You quickly get caught up in the mood, laughing along with them.

After all, if you're having this much fun at the party, how great is your bachelors-only [i]afterparty[/i] going to be?
>A concerned maid comes to get you around dawn.
>Basch wakes you and your partners for the night up with a bucket of cold water.
>The squire from before comes to get you, his eyes wide as saucers at the aftermath of your debauchery
>The squire wakes up first in a panic, realizing that he's going to be late for morning duties.
>Everyone wakes up slowly and naturally, and just sneaks out, leaving you with some solitude to start your morning.

>>5476356
>Basch wakes you and your partners for the night up with a bucket of cold water.

>>5476348
>A blessing of good fortune.
>The squire from before comes to get you, his eyes wide as saucers at the aftermath of your debauchery

>>5476348
>A blessing of good fortune.
>The squire from before comes to get you, his eyes wide as saucers at the aftermath of your debauchery

I think a slower start to the burning in the squire's heart would be more fun, and it's harder to win friends over with a night that ends with a dousing of cold water.

>>5476356
>>A concerned maid comes to get you around dawn.

>>5476348
>A blessing of good health and quickened healing

>>5476356
>>The squire from before comes to get you, his eyes wide as saucers at the aftermath of your debauchery

>>5476432
Blessing vote
>A blessing of good fortune.

>>5476356
>A blessing of good health and quickened healing.
>A concerned maid comes to get you around dawn.

>>5476356
>A blessing of speed in your travels.
>A concerned maid comes to get you around dawn.

>>5476356
>A blessing of good fortune.
>Everyone wakes up slowly and naturally, and just sneaks out, leaving you with some solitude to start your morning.

It looks like I am not going to be able to post today or tomorrow. Next post will be this coming Monday.

>>5477665
How many men will be inside us?

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You do not get much in the way of sleep that night.

Ten men received the invitation to your tent. They lacked the ring that marked them as having a mate to come home to when their mission ends, and by their commander's word they may suffer from the turmoil born of lust. Seven now have joined you in your tent. Each of them began to swell visibly with their pent up desires the moment they laid eyes upon you. The burning incense in each corn of your bedroom helps them along. Their eyes go wide and their pupils dilate as the heady stimulant among the smoke lulls them into a relaxed state where their repressed desires can more easily bubble to the surface of their higher thoughts.

You sit upon your bed clad only in what you wore when you emerged from the ripened fruit in which you gestated. That is to say, you wear nothing but the stares of the men standing awkwardly around your bed, their lustful eyes covering your body more thoroughly than the clothes worn by the Banat Shajarat al-Haya who live in the lands west of Giskonis. The pink blossoms that crown the buds of your petite chest stand up in anticipation for the night's fun, while the bare and rosy flower between your legs has already begun to leak sweet nectar. Despite the chill of the night, your body trembles in excitement. It has been two incredibly long weeks since you fulfilled your duties as a priestess.

If you looked into the mirror, you would find the unmistakable gaze of an eager whore staring back at you.

A fact that suits you just fine. You are a priestess, but you are also a whore.

"Come now, there is no place in this tent for earthly shame," your whisper carries through the tent. The way you speak has changed to how the more senior Daughters of Irminsul taught you. Your tone purrs with promise, and your meter makes for a hypnotic rhythm in every word. The men nod their heads, acknowledging your words without giving them a second thought. "Divest yourselves of your protections as I have. You need not worry about what lies beneath. It matters not if you are beautiful, ugly, or riddled with scars. I promise you this..."

You close your eyes take a deep breath of the incense, allowing your higher thoughts to become lost in the haze of pleasure. After all, this isn't just for the sake of the men. You have your own needs, your own earthly desires, and you fully intend to cleanse them tonight.

When you open your eyes again, pink hearts glow within your pupils with the same intense light as the Divine Beast's mark upon your lower stomach. You thrust out your petite chest with a lurid and needy smile, and spread your legs apart. Your pale skin is flushed with naked desire, and your posture is an open invitation for anyone brave enough to take you up on it. Every eye in the room but your own greedily traces the rivulet of lust that slowly falls from your lower lips, and stains the sheets of your bed.

"I will use this lewd body of mine to cleanse you of all your desires."

What follows in the wake of your declaration is too rough by far to call "lovemaking" and too pleasurable by half to name "rape".

Throughout the night, the men make use of you like they would a toy. Sometimes one at a time, sometimes three, and at one point you made use of every limb and hole you could to please all seven of them at once. You make use of every skill that you have at your fingertips to ensure their satisfaction, but even the First Among the Daughters would have difficulty taming the cocks of seven men at once. Eventually it simply becomes too much for you to handle, and you black out under the weight of your own pleasure, with even your lowest thoughts losing out to the drive of primitive instinct. By the end of the night, you have been thoroughly defeated by their dicks.

The wet sound of flesh meeting fleshing and the moans and grunts of pleasure as your squeeze out load after load from the balls of these men is the only sound to accompany the obscene mating dance with which you have entangled them all. These are the first Humes that you've ever been with, and even if it's overwhelming you have been enjoying every second of it. While not nearly as big as the Divine Beast, their size leaves you feeling deliciously full every time they hilt themselves inside of you. Their taste and smell differ greatly from the Children of Yggdrasil. Where they are nutty and somewhat sweet upon your tongue, the Humes are more savory and salty, and just the slightest bit bitter.

It's alien at first, but by the time dawn arrives, you are well acquainted with the taste of a Hume.

You've even begun to figure out how to differentiate between them.

Though all of it is new to you, in the end it's not the size, the taste, or the smell of their dicks that leaves you little more than a defeated onahole, cumming your brains out as you're used as a receptacle for their lusts. You've taken loads from bigger dicks before, with more exotic tastes and smells. The scent of the Divine Beast's crotch alone was enough to drive your virgin self to orgasm, to name one. Rather, it's their unearthly stamina.

The incense that burns in the corners of your bedroom and fills it with that sweet and heady smoke drives them onward to shoot out all of the impurities within their spirits into the vessel that will purify them. You are that vessel, and they are relentless in how hard and fast they fuck you. How impure must the desires roiling in their loins be if not one, not two, not even three shots inside and upon you have cleansed their spirits.

The thought of being used as a fuck toy by such depraved men...

It excites to the point that every time they spurt their desires into your body and onto skin, you gush in pleasure.

By the time they are spent, you have been thoroughly defeated by their dicks. That being said, they are in no shape to claim their victory over you. While you are on your back and panting, they have all collapsed on the bed from exhaustion.

The sun peaks into your tent after you manage to catch a single blink of sleep. The fluids they have covered you in have begun to dry, and your hair is in thorough need of a cleansing. The incense has gone out, and perhaps mercifully the smoke has carried away the stench of fornication and left your tent smelling vaguely of daffodils. Your own desires have been thoroughly purged from your system for the time being. The menfolk seem quite content in the places on the bed where they've passed out, though you need to maneuver out from under some of them.

"Sister Lagneia-AH!" someone steps into your tent and gives a yelp. Fortunately, the tent is warded against giving off sound, to prevent the noise of your nightly activities from bothering people. Otherwise, no doubt an even greater misunderstanding would have occurred. "By the Starfather, what is the meaning of this? Beasts! Monstrous, vile, lustful beasts! You dare assault my lady's honored guest? A Child of the World Tree, no less? I imagine Lord Basch will have you all flogged and-"

Her moving some of the unconscious men managed to give you an opening to escape the pile. You happily breathe in the fresh air.

"I appreciate your concern, young miss," you groan, and the woman falls silent in shock. Getting a better look at her, she seems to be dressed in deep red dress of sturdy fabric, with a white apron atop of it. Her dark hair is bound beneath a bonnet, tied in a bun. "But there's no need to flog them. I called them here for exactly this purpose."

"W-What are you saying, Sister Lagneia...?" the woman stammers. Her face has turned red, and you can see the gears of imagination turning in her head. "Despite looking so small and innocent... are you saying you need this many men to... oh my Starfather..."
>No, I was simply purging their lustful spirits.
>Yes, this many is about right. I will require such an offering every now and again. (Roll 1d100)
>Wants and needs are two separate things, young miss.

"W-Well, in any case, my lady requests your presence."
>I shall go there right away. (Don't bother cleaning off).
>Give me a moment to clean myself. (Use magic to clean off)
>Tell her I shall be there as soon as I am done bathing. (Use your tub)

Rolled 3 (1d100)

>>5479737
>Yes, this many is about right. I will require such an offering every now and again. (Roll 1d100)
>Tell her I shall be there as soon as I am done bathing. (Use your tub)

>>5479737
>Wants and needs are two separate things, young miss.
>Tell her I shall be there as soon as I am done bathing. (Use your tub)
Cue oversized Monogatari tub

>>5479737
>>Wants and needs are two separate things, young miss.
>Tell her I shall be there as soon as I am done bathing. (Use your tub)

>>5479737
>Wants and needs are two separate things, young miss.
>Tell her I shall be there as soon as I am done bathing. (Use your tub)

>>5479735
>>No, I was simply purging their lustful spirits.
>>Tell her I shall be there as soon as I am done bathing. (Use your tub)

Rolled 44 (1d100)

>>5479737
>Yes, this many is about right. I will require such an offering every now and again. (Roll 1d100)
>Tell her I shall be there as soon as I am done bathing. (Use your tub)

>>5479737
>>Wants and needs are two separate things, young miss.
>>Tell her I shall be there as soon as I am done bathing. (Use your tub)

Rolled 52 (1d100)

>>5479737
>Yes, this many is about right. I will require such an offering every now and again. (Roll 1d100)
As tempting as the first option is, it probably wouldn't be too good for our goal.
>Tell her I shall be there as soon as I am done bathing. (Use your tub)

I'm not complaining, but how has a loli elf slut quest not been peacefully sunsetted by jannies yet?

>>5480370
Because jannies don't give a shit about this board

Unlikely that there will be a posting tonight, I got caught up with social activities.

>>5480750
Qm. If this gets purged will you run elsewhere?

I dislike akun but I will go there just for the effort you put into this

>>5480386
>Because jannies don't give a shit about this board
Right up until they do.

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"Wants and needs are two very different things, young miss," you chide the maid for letting her imagination get the better of her. Her face reddens even further as you run through your morning calisthenics, testing your range of motion. Who knows what strange trails of thought her mind now travels down? She already took you for the sort who needs a legion of men to satisfy you, when one or one hundred would suffice. "Tell your mistress that I shall join her as soon as I am done bathing. I doubt she would appreciate me walking through the camp as I am."

The maid swallows as she stares at you.

You cannot blame her eyes for wandering. The Daughters of Irminsul teach their disciples to carry themselves with unfaltering grace in every circumstance. The excessive emissions of seven men may cover you from head to toe, seeping from every orifice and gunking up your hair, but that does not take away from the almost ethereal allure you have been taught to project. Or so you would like to believe.

Her expression betrays her desires when she licks her lips without a single thought. "I will convey your message to my lady, Sister Lagneia. Please take your time with your preparations, it would not do for you to meet my lady in such a... state. Yes, in such a state, it would reflect badly upon the discipline of the my lady's camp..."

"Oh, I can assure you that they were all quite disciplined, pent up as they were," you wave off her concerns. The maid makes a delight expression that lands somewhere between curiosity and concern as you continue. "They were all perfect gentlemen who never got too rough, but were not so gentle as to bore me. It reflects well upon the ones who taught them their values that they-"

"I will pass on your commendations to my lady, Sister Lagneia," the maid interrupts you with a click of her tongue and face so red that you can't help yourself.

"Don't be so embarrassed about these things, it makes you look like a tomato," you say.

"Speaking of tomatoes, I must check the potted plants to see if any have ripened," the maid makes a fast excuse to leave, holding up her skirts as she steps over the one man who missed the bed when he fell asleep. You look on in amusement as she makes a hasty retreat. Though not before leaving a folded package on your nightstand. "My lady has gifted you one of her old dresses, though I fear it may be too late for what she intended. It seems you've gathered all the rougher menfolk whom she was concerned might be tempted by your choice in garb and had your way with them..."

You tilt your head in confusion as you watch her leave. "But the men who wouldn't be tempted would not..."

With a shake of your head, you let go of any argument you would have liked to broach. Their souls have been released from the turmoil of excessive lust, so it matters not. Besides, so much sexual energy was released last night that you wove a blessing over the whole camp. "Humes are such strange creatures."

You take full advantage of the Maid's insistence that you take your time cleaning off from last night's activities and preparing for this meeting. You had planned to just wash the cum off of your skin and give your hair, your flower, and your bottom a swift and thorough cleansing with magics. Now, though, you can content yourself with a slow and languid pace of preparations, and even make use of the bathtub. Once you've rinsed most everything off with warm water and soap, you sink into the heat of the tub's hot water and let it relieve that delightful soreness.

As you bathe, the men come and go, borrowing the washing station but refusing any offer you make to join the tub. Some are tired, some are peppy, and all of them have been thoroughly purified of their turmoil. Not a single lustful glance comes your way, a sign of the victory you won in being defeated by their cocks.

"Mornin' Neia..." one of them yawns.

"Good morning, Laggy!" another waves after washing off.

"Sleep well, Sister?" says the man who called you small and sexy last night.

By the time you finish bathing, the men have all washed themselves and left for their morning work. Each of them are knights, not servants, so you have little idea as to what that might entail. Soldiers need to break camp and set it up, but you heard last night that they planned to stay here until someone called the "Red Rider" arrives. You imagine that rider is some manner of dignitary or hero, or perhaps a soothsayer that they intend to consult before they depart for good fortune. In any case, it's a solid hour of soak in rose water before you come out and dry yourself, shaping a bit of steel and copper to create a warm and soothing wind.

The package left by the maid is still on your nightstand when you return to your bedroom. Your room still reeks like a whorehouse, at least until you set that warm and soothing wind upon it, shooing away the scents of sweat, semen, and feminine arousal. Cleaning up your bed can wait for another time, as you do not want to keep the Young Lady waiting for too long.

Opening up the package reveals a dress.

A very frilly and very girlish dress. The sort one would put on a porcelain doll, or expect a child to wear on formal occasion. The shade of it clashes with your skin, and it does not match the faint green tinge of your silver hair. You appreciate that the Young Lady of the camp thinks you cute enough to wear such a thing, but it's sort of...
>Resign yourself to wearing it, you wouldn't want to insult her gift.
>Dress up in your traveling clothes and pretend you didn't hear what the maid said.
>Dress up in your fancier clothes and try to avoid the topic entirely.
>Dress up in the clothes you wear to remind people that you are a woman ready to do womanly things.

>>5481484
>Dress up in your fancier clothes and try to avoid the topic entirely.

>>5481484
>Dress up in your fancier clothes and try to avoid the topic entirely.

>>5481484
>>Resign yourself to wearing it, you wouldn't want to insult her gift.

>>5481484
>Dress up in your traveling clothes and pretend you didn't hear what the maid said.
if asked, say that the clothes were the wrong size

>>5481484
>>Dress up in your fancier clothes and try to avoid the topic entirely.

>>5481484
>Resign yourself to wearing it, you wouldn't want to insult her gift.
Cute and moe, even when wearing ita

>>5481484
>>Dress up in the clothes you wear to remind people that you are a woman ready to do womanly things

>>5481484
>>Resign yourself to wearing it, you wouldn't want to insult her gift.

Next post will be early tomorrow.

>>5482600
Well that was a fucking lie. Tomorrow evening, maybe morning if I can fit it in.

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You understand the message behind the dress that the young lady sent you, even if you don't care for the fashion it represents.

You are not some child's doll to be trussed up in a choking kudzu of ribbons and frills. Yet while in the young lady's camp, paying mind to the customs and traditions of the Daedalian peoples would not go amiss. Though nothing in your wardrobe quite matches the style of dress worn by the Daedalian peoples, the real meaning behind the dress is a request that you dress in something a bit finer than your traveling clothes when meeting with the young lady of the camp. Preferably in a dress, rather than the sets of sleeveless top and pants that puff out at the calf which you have been wearing since you left.

Your ceremonial dancing garb is right out, even if it's probably the nicest outfit you have. While you have no compunctions in the way the sheer silk fabric does little to hide your bare skin beneath it, you don't think Basch or the young lady of the camp would look kindly upon it. The clothes shroud your naked body in a pale green gossamer that clings to your skin, leaving nothing to the imagination except what the viewer will do to you.

Which is entirely the point.

The ceremonies they are used for involve enticing people to let their desires flow out of themselves and into you, by fucking you long and hard. If the ceremonial garb and dance didn't entice men to lift the back of the loincloth and ram their cocks into your eagerly awaiting snatch as hard as they could, they would fail in their sole purpose.

With that dress - if you could call a loincloth and equally revealing top a dress - off the table, you really only have two other options when it comes to dresses you can wear during important ceremonies. If you didn't need to wear a dress, you could probably wear one of your habits as a Daughter of Irminsul, but that really only adds a veil to your usual style of clothing. Of the remaining two options, one is a sundress that reaches your knees, but is also so sheer that it may as well be transparent. Which leaves your only real option as the dress you wear when you want to impress... which really might be for the best.

Before you put the dress on, you need to fish out a special set of underwear from the shelves within your Heimtasche.

Normally, you would forgo wearing underwear with this dress. The cut rides too far up on your hips for normal panties or bloomers to be practical. A thong tied at the sides would work quite well for enticement, showing two cute little bows that are all that stand between a man and unrestricted access to the nectar of your flower, but you don't want to entice anyone today. Not after spending all night exorcizing lustful thoughts from half the men. So instead, you fish out something you had made special for it.

Unsurprisingly, you find it buried beneath your panties and bloomers, and next to it the things that you need to wear with it instead of a bra.

Though this is actually the first time you're wearing them, you put on your c-string and nipple coverings with practiced ease. Twelve times throughout your life as a fledgling sister of the Daughters of Irminsul, you were called upon to contribute some craft of your own to the wardrobe gifted to a risen Sister upon her Centum Viginti. Each time, you made that sister the undergarments she would need - panties, bloomers, brassieres, crotchless and nipple-less lingerie - and each time you added a c-string and a set of nipple coverings for use with dresses where traditional undergarments might get exposed.

You shaped the skeleton of your own set from a gift of magically conductive mithril, and padded them with silk and tufts of pillowy roc's down. The c-string has the shape of a teardrop the size of your hand upon a rod of mithral whose shape conforms to the curve of your shapely bottom. The teardrop is engraved with the same prayerful invocation for light feet upon your journey that is woven into your bloomers and panties. With the silk of your usual underwear, you can leap a fair bit higher; with the mithral of your c-string, you could leap over a house if you truly wanted to.

On either end of the c-string sits a matching pair of rubber plugs, the one on the rod's end smaller than the one near the teardrop's center. These help keep it in place, though you need a bit of olive oil to help the smaller one slide into where it needs to go once you've given it a thorough cleaning. Comparatively, your flower is always ready to accept something that wishes to fill it.

As a side note, a prayer of good vibrations has been woven into the metal rods keeping the plugs attached to the c-string.

With a bit of mana channeled into them, you can get good vibrations indeed.

The nipple coverings are both circles that are roughly the size of your palm, which like the c-string have been padded with silk and the down combed from a roc. They are shaped to conform to the gentle swells of your washboard-like chest, and rest upon your breast as much as they do your nipples. You wince a bit as you put them on, the piercings - not coincidentally engraved with a minor prayer for good vibrations - giving you a bit of phantom pain from when your nipples were first pierced. It passes quickly though, and with them worn your breasts have gone up an entire cup size.

That's right. Your deliciously flat, AA mosquito bites have leveled up to an A cup thanks to the two mithril plates now padding them out with a bit of silk and down for your comfort.

Like the c-string, the faces of each cup are engraved with a prayer that matches the ones normally woven into your brassieres. On your right breast is a prayer to help you hold your breath, while on your left breast is a prayer to help you lift heavy objects. With the silk, the benefits were certainly noticeable, but with mithril you can probably lift a horse overhead and go hours on end without taking a single breath.

Though your undergarments are a marvel of the Children of Yggdrasil's magic and ingenuity, the dress you chose to wear them with is of no lesser craftsmanship.

Your old pillow-friend Yfadia tailored this dress for you, weaving the cloth from unprocessed silk through the use of her divine gift. She can manipulate threads perhaps even more easily than you can shape metal through the use of your own magics... a skill that made sharing a room with her a rather interesting experience. From the number of times she tied you up, she knew your measurements better than you did, and tailored the outfit to a perfect fit without needing to call you to her workshop.

The silk grades from an green so icy that it almost looks to be the color of snow at the top, to a forest green with hinted shades of silver at the bottom. In a deep emerald silk, a pattern of leaves and vines has been woven into the right side, following the hem and slowly grading to silver as the dress deepens in its green color. The cut leaves your legs bare up to the crown of your hips, and would leave your shoulders bare were it not for the shawl that goes with it. Pinned with a gold and emerald tasseled brooch, it leaves a diamond-shaped window for your clavicle to peak through and be seen.

Worn with it are a set of silk thigh-high stocking that leave an indentation in your thighs to stay up, rather than needing garter straps. You have asked some of the boys among the Children of Yggdrasil, and common wisdom is that such indentations are "where the boner is born."

Holding up your side tail is your usual decoration, the hairpin which looks almost like a half-crown.

You made it nearly half a century ago, one of your first works in shaping spells from metal and fine tuning them to enhance the functions of a living creature. A field trip with Begierde to a nearby mountain helped you extract ores of gold and copper from the deep roots of the world, and you spent nearly a year working upon the shape of the prayer. In the end, you gained the skeleton of this red-gold hairpin, which works to enhance cognition, perception, and memory. The polished sections of nephrite jade with it are simply decoration.

The last thing you put on are your boots. While you are going to see the young lady of the camp, who is most likely the daughter of someone very important - and quite possibly an incredibly important person herself - it remains a camp.

You have shoes to wear with this, but the last thing you want is to get them muddy!

======

Basch approaches you almost immediately after you leave your tent. He wears a stormy expression on his face that gets blown away by the winds of bewilderment, confusion, and exasperation the moment he sees you... and perhaps more importantly, what you're wearing. The men also see that, and you puff up with no small amount of pride when you get several appreciative whistles as you walk. With all the effort you put into your looks, they better appreciate it.

"Starfather above and Earthmother below, please tell me that isn't the dress the Young Lady had Marianna give you," Basch groans his words and rubs his temples as if someone had tried to drill their way into his skull.

"No, this is from my own wardrobe," you tell him. The fact that Basch believes the young lady of the camp could afford to gift a stranger something akin to elvencraft clothing is quite fascinating though. Even if he thinks your clothes to be ordinary silk, she must be from quite the wealthy family indeed. "The dress I received this morning was finely tailored, but... it had too many frills for my liking. I understood the young lady's meaning, however. My traveling clothes were insufficient for a meeting with a woman of her stature, so I dressed up this morning."

Basch clicks his tongue in understanding, and then chuckles. "This would be how you 'dress up', wouldn't it? You know, for a powerful sorceress who can turn defeat into victory, you're quite the defenseless woman."

"Ufufufu~" You give the old knight a side eye and a lurid grin as you talk and walk on your way to the young lady's tent. "Don't tell me that a cold-hearted silver lion like you has fallen for my girlish charms. Should I be worried that you're going to attack me~?"

"I'm happily married," Basch reminds you with a tap of the golden on his left ring finger. His lips curl into a playful smirk. "Besides, I like women with a bit of meat on their bones, not little girls."

"Ack!" you cough. Clutching at your chest, you reach your hand out towards the nearest page. Oh, it's the squire from yesterday who fell before your all powerful [Blown Kiss]. "A mortal blow. You there, young man... I need you... to bend me over and f-"

"Find Sir Martin and tell him that we need a 30 foot clearing around the palisade, Aldern," Basch claps you on the shoulder and gives it a firm squeeze as he interrupts you. You catch his meaning and drop the act with a pout. "And when you've finished that, speak with Master Torrez regarding our stock of naphtha. If those Blighted return, fire will be our best weapon against them, as Sister Neia showed us yesterday."

"Y-Yes, Sir Basch!" the squire - Aldern - pounds his chest with his fist, and then runs off.

"Do your appetites have no bounds?" Basch groans. He gives you a look that is uncertain as to whether or not it's irritated with you, or impressed. "You went through a full third of my knights last night, from what I hear. Thank you for keeping your invitations to the bachelors. I would also ask that you only play with the grown men, and avoid boys who don't have a single hair on their chin."

What does hair on their chins have anything to do with manhood? The Children of Yggdrasil only have hair atop their heads, nowhere else. Still, you get his meaning. "Very well. I was just teasing the boy, really. I doubt he could even get it up long enough to finish the job..."

"Speaking of... did you do anything to my knights?"

"The ones you invited to your tent last night, I mean," Basch clarifies, and before you have a chance to quip about how you did them for the entire night, he holds up his hand. "And I don't mean just your bedroom activities. I understand that you have appetites that they were willing to help satiate, and frankly the less I know about that the happier I will be. But they're acting strange now, and not just in ways that could be explained by the morning afterglow."

You think you already know the answer to his question, but you still ask the question: "How so?"

"I have not heard a single complaint about Sir Gideon's behavior from any of the Young Lady's handmaidens, the scullery maids of the camp kitchen, or the maids of the Young Lady's general staff," Sir Basch says. You remember Gideon from last knight. Big fellow, a little chunky, even bigger dick, and went straight for the mating press. He had an abundance of lustful spirits to pour out into you. "Sir Julius even saw him helping one of them carry cauldron without grabbing her bottom. Normally he's worse the day after he gets with a woman... and the other men are showing similar differences..."

"As I said I would do yesterday, I helped them excise the lustful spirits that were influencing their behavior," you explain. "That should explain any difference in patterns of behavior that you're seeing."

"Look, Sister Lagneia, you can call it however you want, but an or-" Basch starts, but it's clear that he does not understand your meaning.

"I mean that literally, Sir Basch," you say. You wave a finger at him for emphasis, and he gives you a curious look in turn. "I did not merely lead them into an orgy last night. I created an environment in which they could safely expunge the spirits of lust that had congealed within them into a vessel in which those spirits could be purified and shaped into a blessing of fortune for those of this caravan. The spirits within Sir Gideon especially would not have gone away even with regular care from a loving partner, due to how long they've been left to build, causing his twisted personality. It is the honor and duty of the Daughters of Irminsul to help people in these matters."

"Huh." Basch looks a bit lost by your explanation. It's clear that he's going to need some time to process this. He pivots to something that he can understand a bit more than spirits and how they can form within someone's heart. "So what's this about a Blessing of Fortune? That... would explain why things are going so smoothly right now..."

"Everyone in the caravan should experience good luck for around one hundred days, or until the blessing runs dry forcing a stroke of great fortune to attempt to save those who have received it," you explain. You cast a lurid grin at Sir Basch. "Incidentally, this blessing lasts one day for every impure spirit my partners in the ritual emptied into the purification vessel~"

Behind you, Basch groans.

When you enter the young lady of the camp's tent, you can see the maid from before looking at you with eyes as wide as saucers, a heavy blush on her face. She definitely heard the bit about how those knights came on and inside of you at least one hundred times, and she's just as embarrassed now as when you talked about it casually earlier. You can see the gears of Marianna's imagination turning just like they did before, no doubt wonder what a hundred times in a row must feel like. Either that, or it involves your dress, as she's staring at the silk dress and how it clings so tightly to your tummy that your belly button can almost be seen beneath it.

"The lady of the hour doth heed my summons, and wearing quite the outfit I can see..." the girl behind the screen says. Marianna contents herself with pouring you a cup of tea as she did yesterday. It's quite delicate, tasting strongly of lemon peel and herb, a blend alien to your tongue but not at all unwelcome. "I wonder how different life in the Elvenhomes must be. Here among the Daedals, a woman's virtue is her armor. Dalliances with other men besides one's love are not unheard of, but... forgive my breach of decorum, eight? EIGHT MEN in one night? What wisdom of the Starfather have you been granted that eight men at once is anything remotely reasonable?!"

You take a long draw of your tea.

Marianna fidgets nervously while you can see the silhouette of the girl behind the curtain tugging at a braid.

"Yes, eight men," you answer her first question calmly, before proceeding towards the second. Marianna must have caught the predatory glint in your eyes and realized what it meant, as she claps a hand over her mouth and stares at you in silent shock. "Indeed, eight men in a single night. As for wisdom granted by the Starfather... none. However, to answer how I found it reasonable, I suppose it would be threefold. First, the eight bachelors in question were being tormented by lustful spirits, which I have exorcised from their hearts. You will find that even Sir Gideon is behaving well, or so I have been told.

"Second, I am only here for a limited time, and will be proceeding on my Travail today if not tomorrow," you explain. Marianna looks a bit disappointed at that, but both she and the silhouette of the girl behind the screen nod in understanding. "I thus decided to address them all at once, which in turn allowed the blessing born of their purification to last longer, and become stronger if its duration is burned away to give you a stroke of luck on something important."

"A blessing?" the girl behind the screen asks. She seems a bit calmer now.

"Yes, I cast a blessing upon this caravan to give everyone good fortune," you tell her. Your face breaks out into the grin of a degenerate when you move on to the third point. "Last, I've been a bit pent up since starting my Travail. The road has cold and been lonely, and the hospitality your knights showed me was oh so very warm~"

"Of course it was," the girl behind the screen says with a despondent sigh. "I cannot truly fault your reasoning - save for that last bit - and there's no use crying over spilled milk. Though dear Starfather, I do believe that phrase has been ruined for me forever now. There was just so much of... in any case, I would like to continue our game from yesterday, if you would not mind."

"As would I," you tell her. An evil grin crosses your face. "And since I do believe I just answered the fifth, sixth, and seventh question in a row, I am owed three answers from you now."

You hear a hissing noise from behind the screen. You know she can't complain, because she pulled the same trick yesterday. "Proceed."
>Continue playing to find out more about this nation and its politics.
>Play to find out more about her current situation.
>Play to find out more about her.
>Play to find out more about Daedalian custom and tradition
>Play to learn more of this Starfather and Earthmother religion

>>5485310
>>Play to find out more about her current situation

File: 28429012-EB72-4707-B415-9(...).jpg (153 KB, 1440x1018)

153 KB JPG

>>5485310
>>Play to find out more about her.

>>5485299
>deliciously flat chest

>>5485310
>>Play to find out more about Daedalian custom and tradition
I just want to say how much I appreciate the effort you put into what is a loli elf whore quest at its core.

>>5485310
>Play to find out more about her current situation.

>>5485310
>Play to find out more about Daedalian custom and tradition

Next post will be tomorrow, hopefully when there is not a tie.

>>5485310
>>Play to find out more about her current situation.

>>5486629
This is me changing my vote >>5486130

>>5485310
>>Play to find out more about her current situation.

>>5485310
>>Continue playing to find out more about this nation and its politics.

File: Rikardo Koppany Dominika (...).jpg (1014 KB, 1200x800)

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You heard the moniker of the Red Rider mentioned many times over the course of last night's celebrations by the knights and footmen, which left you curious. Who is it? What about it would make a woman so clearly of gentle birth command her men prepare a fortified camp to wait for its arrival instead of conveying her with all haste to the nearest friendly castle? Humans still use castles to fortify their homes and villages, you're fairly certain. One would sleep more soundly under stone walls than they would surrounded by a wooden palisade if they believe their enemies capable of commanding the Blighted.

So naturally, that makes it the first question you ask the girl behind the curtain. "Who is this Red Rider I've heard your men talking about?"

Marianna inhales sharply at the question, almost causing her refill of your tea to spill over. The silence and stillness of the young lady's silhouette is almost oppressive, as if you had laid down and she had begun to slowly pile heavy stones upon your the plane of your flat chest. Before the tea overflows, before you choke on the pressure the young lady exudes, the tension evaporates with a gentle sigh. Not a single drop is spilled.

"Thank you, Sister Lagneia. I shall need to speak with Sir Basch, and remind him that loose lips sink ships," the young lady behind the screen seems no more amused by this than she was when you flipped her trick from yesterday back on her just now. You can see her shadow raise a hand to her temple to rub away a blossoming headache. "The men were not supposed to know about that... though perhaps they just surmised it. Yesterday I would have asked to pass on that question, and today I almost want to, but you're too forward with my men and too distant from everything to be a proper spy.

"The Red Rider is Rikardo Koppany Dominika Alexandru Leonard Sandra Gizel Epoch Valerian Mihaita Brigitta Nikolai fon Zarnesti, first among my father's retainers, Archmagos of the Crimson Order, Seneschal of the Lion Guard, and my beloved fiance," the young lady declares. While you don't recognize the titles - for the institutions of the Humes are as fleeting as they - you recognize the passion in her voice. It tells you he means much more to her than just a marriage arranged for the sake of politics.

You nod along as she gives each title, not wanting to insult her with your ignorance.

On your side of the screen, Marianna's expressions shifts to the same starry-eyed flush of happiness you've seen countless times from your friends who like reading romance novels. Except this emotion from her Lady is something real and tangible that can be seen and felt. After a moments pause, the girl behind the screen elaborates further, as if realizing that you might not understand any of the titles she just spewed.

"He's one of the strongest mage-knights in the Empire," she explains, clearly wanting to gush about how great he is. "His teacher was one of your kin, an elf named Dianoia the Golden."

When you hear the name of his teacher, you force every bit of emotion off of your face that you can. You would not want to insult the young lady of the camp with your reaction.

Suffice it to say, while you know little of Crimson Orders and Lion Guards, you are painfully aware of the existence of Dianoia Chrysafenios. Every Child who grew up beneath the shade of Irminsul would know the name that is synonymous with the hubris of curiosity unfettered by reason and decency. You know well the story of the alchemist who abandoned all emotion and embraced a rationality so perfect and flawless that it stepped outside the bounds of understanding by Hume, by Stout, or even the Children and became something cold and monstrous.

The Golden Intellect.
The Ring Forger.
The Blightless.
The Orchard Keeper
The Embodiment of Reason

All of these and more are monikers given to Dianoia over the ages, and yet crowning them all is one left unsaid outside old and dusty tomes, for it holds a truth that the Eldest of Alfheim would rather refrain from acknowledging. The Hall of Ceremony has seventeen balconies looking down upon those called by the Eldest. One balcony is reserved for the Eldest of Eldest, furthest from the entrance and highest upon the wall. The Eldest then fill in the other sixteen in order of their seniority, each pedestal reserved by the member's seniority.

On the day of your Centum Viginti, when the Eldest sent you out into the world and declared you a woman grown enough to journey the wider world, all of the sitting Eldest were present. Yet the pedestal closest to the Eldest of Eldest remained empty all the same, reserved for an unrepentant sinner should she ever return to the fold. The second Eldest of Alfheim, and the third Eldest Child of Yggdrasil in the world: Dianoia Chrysafenios, the Eldest in Exile.

You frankly don't know why she would take a Hume noble under wing and teach him the art of magic and war, save perhaps out of boredom.

Or maybe a desire to test how flawless a homunculus she could create in his image, after dissecting him and putting his still living organs in canopic jars where they could continue to suffer through a bodiless existence for the sake of some experiment. You only hope the young lady of the camp fell in love with her Rikardo after the switch, if that was the case.

Homunculus or student, you can at least understand why his arrival could turn the situation around. Anyone trained in magic by the Golden Intellect for even a mere decade would become quite the formidable spellweaver.

"Are you alright?"

You must have let your real emotions slip onto your face while you pondered Rikardo's teacher, as the lady of the camp is asking after your well being. Wait, no, that's the kind hearted Marianna, who offers you a plate of cookies and a fresh cup of tea. It seems you drained your first while thinking. With a busy mind, Marianna the maid and her mistress sound so very much alike, it's rather uncanny.

"Quite. I simply recalled the reputation of Sir Rikardo's teacher. Your mistress' fiance must be a truly formidable man, with such a storied tutelage," you answer Marianna's question for free.

After all, she's not involved in game between you and her mistress. Had the lady of the camp asked it, you would have demanded another free question as penalty. You still haven't forgotten how tricksy she got with you yesterday. All the same, she winces as if she wasted one of her mistress's questions. The lady of the camp herself freezes up as well, doubtless wondering if you intend to dock her a question due to her maid's words. Or perhaps you or Marianna breached decorum somehow, with too casual an address or some other courtly nonsense. It's hard to tell with Humes sometimes.

"If you're worried about me counting your servant's question against you, you ought not, Young Lady," you answer the unspoken question that hangs in the tent. Marianna gives you an odd look for a moment, and then shakes her head with a small smile.

"Well, I shall not abuse this privilege," the young lady tells you. She shed an aura of amusement that you can feel in the flow of magic beneath your feet. "A handmaid is a lady's hands and feet after all, and I would dare say my dear Marianna is close enough to me to be my very eyes and ears... and even voice, when I permit it."

"I am unworthy of such kind words, my lady," Marianna says with closed eyes and a bowed head.

"Nonsense," the girl behind the screen's voice is gentle as a warm summer's breeze as she chides her servant. "You truly are closer to me than any other. Never forget that."

Silence hangs in the air for a moment, though instead of the warmth and comfort you would expect to feel, all you feel from her is the mirth of someone who thinks they're hiding something. From her words, though, it's not difficult at all for your to piece two and two together. How could you call yourself a Daughter of Irminsul if you could not recognize their relationship for what it is?

For all that she clearly loves her fiance, she doubtless still has her needs on the road.

Who better to help her with them than her handmaiden... and secret pillow-friend? From what you have heard of Hume society, it's not cheating if it's just two girls comforting one another.

"The eighth question is asked and answered," the young lady behind the curtain reminds you. She seems mildly irritated when she realizes that you counted her flustered questioning earlier towards your game. "You still have two more questions to go before it's my turn again. Stingy Sister..."

"I learned from the best," you all but sing in response.

"I guess I deserve that," the girl behind the screen says with a sigh. "Ask away."

The next question is another bit of low hanging fruit for you to go after, as it ran through your mind when you asked after the identity of the Red Rider. "Why make a fortified camp instead of seeking refuge within the estate of a friend?"

"After the attack by the Blighted, I took council with Sir Basch, and we agreed that none of the local lords could be trusted at this time, even ones my family counts among our friends," her voice has returned to the calm and bell-like melody from the night before, which makes you wonder how you mixed it up with Marianna's in the first place. "A castle would make for a safer haven in theory, but right now the only people I can trust are those in my camp, my dear Rikardo... and you. I selected all of my retainers by hand, down to the lowliest scullery maid, and while they have their rough spots, I know they are loyal. My dear Rikardo is beyond reproach, for I know that he would move mountains to keep me safe."

Marianna gets that dreamy look worn by lovers of romance novels everywhere as her mistress speaks of her beloved. She's a good pillow friend, supporting her mistress's pursuit of romance instead of trying to get in the way. Even as a mere trainee among the Daughters of Irminsul, you needed to learn to intervene in a pillow-friendship where one person saw it as skinship between friends, and the other's heart bloomed with thoughts of romance.

It never ended well. You're glad Marianna's not like that.

"As for you... from what Rikardo told me of his teacher's kin, an elf would rather die a hundred times than work alongside the Blighted, so you are in the clear," the girl behind the screen says. She's not wrong, not in the slightest... even if it makes you a little queasy to agree with the Golden Intellect about anything. But, if it's the Blight being an existence that does not belong in this world, then you suppose it can't be helped. "Besides which, you're too frank and forward with your desires to make a good spy. The local lords, however... most actively avoid the politics of the capital. They have a saying this far out, that politics comes from the Elfish tongue. 'Poly' means many, and 'Ticks' means blood sucking insects."

"Well, they have the first part right," you say with a dry tone that tries to hide the laughter in your eyes. "The second... I think that's a somewhat more local term."

The girl behind the screen chortles like a silver bell, and Marianna joins her. "Yes, well, t'is a most beautiful attitude in my opinion. Yet all the same, one of them had to shelter whoever sent the Blighted after us. So even if nine of the ten closest would welcome us as friends with open arms and warm hearths, the tenth might slip poison into our meals and leave us dead before the dawn. Thus, we secure our camp as best we can, and wait for my darling to arrive and escort us home. That answers the ninth question, you have one more before I can finally go again."

You can feel the girl behind the screen pout. She doubtless had something that she wanted to ask you when she called you hear, and you did milk her reaction to your activities for all it was worth. Feeling a little bad about it, you throw her a softball question.

"Where is 'home'?" you ask

You can feel her mood brighten when you ask the question, the rhizome of Yggdrasil and the roots that spring forth from the greater ley-lines responding to her thoughts with a hum of positivity. You learned to read someone's mood through you connection to Yggdrasil from Begierde herself, though she told you that Humes and Stouts rang fainter than your fellow Children in the energies that ebb and flow. The way the young lady's emotions resonate feels different than your fellow children, but not nearly as faintly as the others in the camp. Theirs are like looking at faded text, while hers - like those of the Children - read like a freshly inked letter. Just in an unfamiliar script that takes some getting used to.

"Two months west of here, by way of carriage, or perhaps two weeks if you have horses that you're willing to run to death," the young lady tells you. Marianna has a particularly satisfied smile on her face as she pours you a cup of tea. "Atop the great peak of Nibaros, which overlooks Lygos, the city that strides the border of Alagonia and Assuwa like a great titan. Though it is not the House of my birth, the House of Oracles has been my home longer than my Father's estate ever was. Perhaps you can stop there, some time on your Travail? I can promise the view from the edge of the observatory is truly a sight to behold..."

"Perhaps I shall," you say. No promises are made, but you leave the door of possibility open. After all, the Emperor favors the Oracles, or so the girl behind the screen said. "That's our tenth question, I believe it is your turn now."

"Finally," the young lady says. Excitement hums and buzzes all about her, and you can feel a wide eyed stare from behind her screen of privacy. Her thoughts are so one track that you can taste her desire for a story before she can even express it. "What is life like in the Elfhomes? I have only heard fables and fairy tales, and would like to hear something more real."
>Tell her a story that is liable to turn her ears a bright crimson and get you gently escorted out of the tent by her pillow friend and handmaiden.
>Tell her some of the more innocent antics that Children still in the Gymnasium got up to when you were Seven of Twelve.
>Tell the tale of your Anointment upon the celebration of your first decade, and what that entails.
>Tell her of the regimented schedule of the Gymnasium and the strictness of an education in the style of the Children of Yggdrasil.
>Tell her of the journey taken upon the Centum, through the Arkoudan massif and the Great Inversion to see the Sun and Stars Within.
>Tell her of visitors you received as a Daughter of Irminsul from across the nine lands.

>>5487249
>Tell her some of the more innocent antics that Children still in the Gymnasium got up to when you were Seven of Twelve.

>>5487249
>>Tell her of visitors you received as a Daughter of Irminsul from across the nine lands.

>>5487249
>Tell her of the regimented schedule of the Gymnasium and the strictness of an education in the style of the Children of Yggdrasil.

>>5487249
>Tell her of the regimented schedule of the Gymnasium and the strictness of an education in the style of the Children of Yggdrasil.

Screen girl has us in an illusion doesn't she? Or does Marianna have us in one, and screen girl is just a figment?

>Tell her of the journey taken upon the Centum, through the Arkoudan massif and the Great Inversion to see the Sun and Stars Within.

Give me the FAT LORE. I kinda wish we had an option to do talk about Dianoia though.

>>5487249
>>Tell the tale of your Anointment upon the celebration of your first decade, and what that entails.

>>5487249
>>Tell her of the journey taken upon the Centum, through the Arkoudan massif and the Great Inversion to see the Sun and Stars Within.

>>5487249
>Tell her of visitors you received as a Daughter of Irminsul from across the nine lands.

>>5487249
>Tell her of the journey taken upon the Centum, through the Arkoudan massif and the Great Inversion to see the Sun and Stars Within.

Noting that something something, post will be tomorrow probably. You can expect a post schedule of Mon, Wed, Fri for the time being.

>>5487768
This may or may not be the case.

As for FAT LORE, I don't want to spoil too much, but the Great Inversion and what is seen by the Oracular Observatory atop Nibaros are more or less the same thing. A bit of a peak down below, into the Lands Within.

>>5487249
>>Tell the tale of your Anointment upon the celebration of your first decade, and what that entails.

>>5487249
>>Tell her of visitors you received as a Daughter of Irminsul from across the nine lands.

>>5487249
>Tell her of visitors you received as a Daughter of Irminsul from across the nine lands.

File: Marianna.png (1.05 MB, 871x1216)

1.05 MB PNG

"Then allow me to tell you how we Daughters of Irminsul received guests from all corners of the Nine Lands."

The voice with which you weave the tale is one well practiced in storytelling. One could easily mistake this voice to be vocal alone, but the body language that accompanies it is perhaps even more important than your tone. Begierde called it the Voice of a Thousand Stories when she taught this method of speaking to you and your peers. For every word you draw out and emphasize, a hundred little motions add layers of meaning and emphasis that sound alone fails to capture.

For example, the playful and flirtatious shrug with which you respond to the young lady behind the screen's stifled gagging sound - accompanied by a look of mild disgust from Marianna - is just as much a part of your performance as the bell-like laughter that answers their unspoken question.

"Not like that, I can assure you," you tell them. Both the unseen lady and her maid sigh in unison with one another, relief apparent on Marianna's face and in her lady's posture. "Though we sisters did offer such hospitality and comfort to Alfheim's visitors, such matters were left in the capable hands of the older and more experienced sisters. We fledglings were responsible for preparing and maintaining quarters for the guests, under supervision of one of the more junior sisters."

"That sounds like an awfully laborious task to put in the hands of children," the girl behind the curtain says. You suppose that with the technologies the humans have developed, it would be. "You're so petite, I could scarcely imagine you performing heavy labor now that you are fully grown, let alone when you must have been small. Then again..."

Ah. It does not take you much to realize the implication that she left hanging in the air.

You took last night's rigors better than most experienced human prostitutes would have, with none of the soreness and dopey fugue that they would have been left with. Mental and physical endurance were something the Daughters of Irminsul train all aspirants in from the moment they chose their path. They need to learn it, or else the Divine Beast will break them in mind, body, and spirit instead of implanting them with his Divine Gift.

Incidentally, though it happened almost a century ago now, the forty days and forty nights over which he took your virginity and engraved his Divine Gift upon your soul with his thick cock and potent seed remains the longest fucking session you've been a part of.

"Oh, we used the Orbs to assist us with the truly heavy work," you explain to her. This gets an arched eyebrow from Marianna, but nothing more than that. Drat, she won't be tricked so easily into asking a meaningless question in your game. "Our job was less in decorating and cleaning, and more the arrangement. Five of the Nine Lands have visitors who cannot survive in our lands without assistance. Fledgings were tasked with providing that assistance."

You can sense excitement coming from behind the young lady's curtain, and Marianna too has a bright light in her eyes as she clings to your words. So you decide a bit of showmanship is in order. With a flourish of your arms, the metal from your many bangles and armbands flows off of your body and joins in an orb. Each alloy becomes a pigment for you to play with, the air an empty canvas for your art.

"Alagonia where the Sun Above rises..." The metal flows into the visage of a castle-palace, a structural shorthand for the Hill Kingdoms.

"Assuwa where the Sun Above sets..." The metal then molds itself like clay into the shape of a terraced pagoda, the castle of the Land of the Setting Sun.

"Oneiros across the Sea of Dreams..." In place of the pagoda, the gold now forms a pyramidal ziggurat with a stairway leading up one side.

"Even Giskonis-Taken-By-the-Blight, though only the island Elfhome of Bostana remains untainted of that blighted land..." For this, you strip away every metal but iron, and shape it into a leafless black tree.

"I am familiar with these lands well enough." The girl behind the screen nods along with what you've said, though both she and her servant seem captivated by the way you make gold, silver, and iron flow like water into the shapes you desire them to be. "Merchant vessels from as far as the Sunset Isles pass through the Channel Scar to reach the Port of Lygos. The House of Oracles has played host to the Astrologers of Oxtche'tuun once in my time there as well. Though I have only heard rumor of the Elves of Bostana, who are said to have skin like the bark of an oak tree."

"Only in coloration," you explain to the young noblewoman. She nods in understanding, so you return to the story. "Little needed to be done to prepare their quarters, for they could as easily walk the earth as you or I, and among we Children the custom is to adopt the ways of the hosting Elfhome until we depart. I am told Humes and Stouts have similar custom, though we hosted precious few of them in my time among the fledgling sisters."

You shape the metal into different common furnishings as you speak. A comfy bed. A plush chair. A desk with a lamp to write at. You attend the details well, to help the mundane reality of your work become a bit more mystical.

Then your shape it into a disk, and split it into nine parts, four cast to one side and stuck in the shape of Castle, Pagoda, Ziggurat, and Blighted Tree.

"Bythese-Beneath-the-Waves, where the roots of Yggdrasil break free from the Ocean Floor..." You shape the fifth fragment into the shape of a whale.

"Visitors from these lands would need their quarters sealed and filled with water, be they Mer, Sahuagin, or one of the Children. These chambers were specially made and furnished, sung from stone and using fabrics that remained light when soaked through for their beds and blankets. The peoples here are brightly colored in hair and skin, most especially the Children born of Yggdrasil's Coral."

You let a smile onto your face as the girl behind the screen fills the room with childish wonder as you weave the more fantastical parts of the story. It's clear that this sort of thing was what she wanted to hear of, the stranger things of the elvenhomes that could set her imagination alight.

"Last facing the Sun Above is Eorise-Over-Void."

You shape the emblem of the Confederacy that holds those islands together. The thousand elvenhomes, the largest concentration of your kin. Beyond the bounds of [The World], where its laws begin to fall apart, living without the magics and technologies of the Children of Yggdrasil becomes a fools errand. Humes visit, and some do stay, but after two or three generations they always return to their kin.

"Beyond the Wall, past the point where the world falsely circles back upon itself, the land begins to break apart as the laws which govern what is real and what is not fall into error," you explain. This knowledge is not secret, though it is hard to observe, for the very act of observation reinforces reality and disproves the existence of the Sixth Land. Suffice it to say, while the young lady seems frozen in rapt attention, Marianna the Maid blinks and tries to parse what you said.

"Guests from Eorise have their methods to avoid observation when in public, for observing them reinforces the fact that they do not actually exist within [The World]'s law," you tell the pair of young women. It would not be unfair to say that you find no small amusement in their confusion. "To allow them comfort while they stayed, we would retrieve a special cage shaped from the Irminsul's fallen branches to and set it up around their beds. This would allow them rest in peace throughout the night, without being disturbed by the pain of being [Seen]."

"You're making that up." The girl behind the screen finally worked through everything you said. Annoyance rolls off of her in waves that wash over you. "The world doesn't have any ends or edges, it's a sphere. You simply need measure the angle of the sun casting shadow at noon in Albion and Lygos. Its spherical nature will make itself seen, plain as day."

"Yes," you agree with her. "Eorise lies beyond Edge of Existence, but Yggdrasil's roots still reach it."

"..." You can see both the girl behind the screen and her maid twitch in irritation. "I'm afraid this might be getting a bit too abstract for me now."

"I could tell you instead of our guests from the Lands Within," you nearly ask a question, but you caught yourself and made sure it was a proposition instead. The Lands Within are much more empirically provable than Eorise, as the Reverse of the World can be reached physically if you know how to get there. "Kyrea, where the Sun Within was forged and rests upon the Tower of False Night. Phora-Li, where live the Faithful of the Evenclock. And lastly Choroste, the great expanse where distance has become unfixed."

"Perhaps another time," the young lady says. You can tell that she's curious about these other lands, but something about Eorise especially appears to have left her weary. "This makes the eleventh question asked and answered. The twelfth is yours to ask."
>Play to find out more about this nation and its politics.
>Continue playing to find out more about her current situation.
>Play to find out more about her.
>Play to find out more about Daedalian custom and tradition
>Play to learn more of the Starfather and Earthmother religion
>A new line of questioning comes to mind - write in option.

>>5489556
>Continue playing to find out more about her current situation.

>>5489556
>>Play to find out more about Daedalian custom and tradition

>>5489556
>>Play to find out more about this nation and its politics.

>>5489556
>>Play to find out more about her.
I suspect the princess (?) Is fairly important and buddying up to her might help us in our goal of renewing the treaties.

>>5489556
>Play to find out more about her.

>>5489556
>Play to find out more about her.

>>5489556
>Play to find out more about her.

>>5489556
>Play to find out more about Daedalian custom and tradition

I've been sick these past two days, and this weekend is not looking great for doing a post. Next update will be Monday, unless I somehow get over this by tonight.

>>5490870
Get well soon

>>5489556
>Play to find out more about her.
>>5490870
I hope you get better soon, QM. You have a very nice quest going on here.