Kara is fast, equipped with built-in night vision — and Lily, who has a desire to please Kara unlike anything she has ever known, actually manages to keep up, owing mostly to her zealous trust in Kara that has her sprinting full speed into the dense forest, blind. All this means that, without any light to give them away in the black of the forest, the two lose their pursuers fairly quickly.
Kara spots a huge, dark leafed shrub growing in a natural depression — a perfect hiding place — and propels her new disciple into the damp underbrush, so that they’re lying together in the muck, both still naked, breathing heavily.
Kara barely has time to appreciate this, because the Perk List once more fills her vision. Makes sense, I guess — those farmhands must fucking hate me right now, hate me with a burning PASSION. Given she’s just cum and Lily is probably fine, there’s a bit of time to consider her choices.
The top of the list is headed by choices building on her prerequisites: Alteration Adept; Common Mastery; Sneakthief Invisibility. All fine choices, but it’s probably a better idea to spread her skills out — her first thought had been to dump into Alteration so she could get her pussy back, but honestly the novelty of the cock hasn’t worn off yet, and fucking Lily’s throat brought her closer to heaven than she’s ever been.
It’s mostly just that they’re in the middle of the forest that draws her towards Amateur Apothecarist — that, and an amoral girl can get a lot of mileage out of your basic sleep potions, disinhibitors, and aphrodisiacs. With Jaika to trawl for ingredients for her, it won’t even take up too much of her time.
But then again, as fun as it is fucking her way across the landscape, Kara’s at least distantly aware that she is, in a sense, fucking around, and hasn’t even reached the obvious tutorial village yet. Middling Merchant gives her the opportunity to make some coin, and empires run on coin, or at least she’s pretty sure she remembers someone saying they do, someone she respected, maybe?
In the end, as irresponsible as she is hot, Kara snags AA and finds her vision snapping back to normal.
Lily looks up at her with big eyes from her place across from Kara, lying prone and naked on the cold ground. It’s enough to make Kara’s cock twitch again, despite the cosmic orgasm that she just experienced that should have totally knocked her out. “They’ll be headed to Meadowbrook when they can’t find us,” whispers Lily, “to rile up the townsfolk. The mistress is a terribly vindictive woman.”
Being a wanted woman affirms her choice of perk — she’s not likely to get much bargaining done, it seems, which she supposes she should be bothered about, but right now all she can think about is a hot meal and a warm bed and Lily’s tight hole. She’s exhausted.
Automatically, and with hands numb from cold, she opens up the knapsack to see what Dalia brought for her before she became an enemy. Her dark-attuned eyes make out a fat loaf of bread, with only a few slices removed, two apples, a hunk of cheese and a wineskin as well as a tunic and breeches (plain, probably belonging to the husband, but miles better than her current rags, which are currently filthy and thrown over her shoulder).
As much as she wants to tear into the food here in the darkness, she forces herself to put it away, refastening the flap and pulling Lily to her feet in the fresh quiet. She kisses her new follower passionately on the lips before she leads her into the forest, towards home. Gods willing Jaika has done her job.
Kara, only mildly embarrassed to be leading Lily into a hole in the ground after all her grand promises, is overjoyed to find that Jaika has performed more than admirably. What was once a plain dirt hole is now a small, functional home. The goblin has gathered stones from the forest and pressed them into the mud to form a makeshift tiled floor, has reinforced the walls with a ribcage of bendy sticks, has formed a mud chimney in the ceiling, beneath which a small fire crackles, releasing clean white smoke up into the starry sky. A fat rabbit cooks on a spit over the flames; three more hang, bloody from the ceiling, amidst bunches of drying herbs that make Kara grateful she chose an alchemy perk. The remainder of the space is occupied by a large, makeshift bed, made up of layers of huge leaves and dried grass.
When Lily lays down her blanket and collapses next to the fire with a huff of absolute satisfaction and happiness, Kara knows she owes the unassuming little goblin a thank you. “You’ve done very well, Jaika. You were not wrong about being useful.”
Jaika, who earlier in the night was beginning to think about maybe questioning her sudden conversion, bristles with pleasure as her mistress, naked and damp from the night, collapses in front of the fire.
Lily, noticing Jaika for the first time, draws back ever so slightly, but is comforted by Kara’s hand on the small of her back. Nothing bad can happen here, she thinks. Still…
“This is the goblin from our fields?” she asks, looking up at Kara uncertainly.
“Their fields, sweetling,” says Kara, “she has stolen nothing of ours.”
Lily frowns between Kara and the fire, seems to come to some conclusion, turning to Jaika with her dazzling smile. “Then we have no quarrel, and we can be friends.”
The goblin feels like she has woken up into some strange but wonderful dream, surrounded by two of the most beautiful women she’s ever seen, stark naked in a tiny burrow together. When Kara opens a brown canvas knapsack to reveal cheese, bread, fruit and ale — which she shares evenly amongst the three women — Jaika loses all doubt about her conversion. How can she doubt anything at all, with her mouth full of juicy meat and melted cheese, and with drink tingling in her chest, making her warm? Like Lily before her, Jaika turns herself over completely to Kara’s trust, last mental barrier crumbling.
So, when Lily tells her of their furious pursuers, the witch-hunt which is no doubt being organised against them in Meadowbrook right now, Jaika only looks to Kara, ready for her to fix things.
Kara shrugs, washing her mouthful of bread down with a swig of ale. She has the beginnings of a plan working in her mind, a way to turn all this to her benefit, but she’s hardly in the mood to discuss plans. Not now. “Passion;” she says simply. “We have pleased our Goddess.”
“You must tell Jaika more of her,” says the goblin, scooching closer to Kara, who rewards her curiosity by lifting her by the hips and depositing her in her lap facing her, a hand stroking through her hair.
“She was the only Goddess, once, and all the world worshipped her. Before mankind sowed fields and stacked stones, it lived in communion with all else, and there was no such thing as taboo. The things we enjoy: fresh meat, juicy berries, sex,” Kara’s nails send tingles across Jaika’s scalp, “were simply to be enjoyed, not feared, not condemned. But the false Goddess, Thala, claimed these pleasures were sins, that denial was the path of salvation. Your false God, Rattlebone, demands we orient our lives around their end. Not Sayla. She asks only that we appreciate her gifts. She has gifted you to me, Jaika, as she has gifted me Lily, and I appreciate you both.” She cups Lily’s chin and inspects the pretty plump face, lest she feel neglected. “Do you appreciate me?”
“Yes,” they say in unison.
Kara expected to be ready to roll over and sleep by now, but with food and ale coursing through her system, and her two new disciples so eager to please, sleep suddenly doesn’t seem so important; her list of priorities shift, and she moves onto the next, washing off this filth.
“Jaika, did you see a stream today?”
“There’s one close-by. Jaika knows to find fresh water.” Goblins can go weeks without hydration — most are not so fortunate.
“Bring us there, Jaika, we will cleanse ourselves and our new clothes before the sun rises.”
Level 3
New Perk!
Amateur Apothecarist — Your understanding of magical herbs is middling, but enough to craft basic potions and identify common ingredients.