DD 304 Ch 9 (Patreon)

I gave Charlotte the option of where to celebrate and she chose a familiar bar. It did not take long before I was recognized as a blue-haired Whalewyrn bounced out of her seat, waving and flagging us down.

"Ken!" Misha squealed. She was so excited that her fin-like ears flapped as she rushed up to us, her expression adorable, staring at us with open hope.

"Welcome," I said, not upset at her presence but also not sure if Charlotte had invited her. But regardless of if she’d given an invitation, Charlotte would never make the woman feel unwanted. 

"Misha, lovely to see you.” Charlotte wrapped the other woman in a hug that made her whale tail slap the ground.

"Thank you. You guys haven't been around much lately," she said, hesitation slipping into her tone.

"Blame Ken," Des offered, sticking a thumb over her shoulder at me.

"Of course, I figured it was his fault," Misha said swiftly, fitting right into the group.

"I knew I liked you." Des hooked an arm over Misha’s shoulder, causing the Whalewyrn to blush furiously, though she didn't pull away from the contact. If anything, she leaned into the touch, much to Des’ amusement. Des clung tightly to the blue-haired woman and pulled her along to the table.

"It really is mostly Ken's fault," Des said. "He got mixed up in all this Threadspawn business, and if he's involved, you know the rest of us are in it with him. We went deep, even had some cleaning up to do back home."

Misha blushed. "I must say, you guys are all so very close."

Des grinned. "Oh, you have no idea," she said playfully, and I flicked her before she could cause more trouble.

“Down.” I scolded her.

"What?" Des asked, not so much defensive as insistent, crossing her arms and daring me to challenge her.

"Nothing. We're out here to celebrate tonight," I told her before Des and I could get into a lovers' spat I wanted to make it clear why we were hear tonight. "Charlotte just got her trial ability," I grinned, like the proud partner I was.

Misha had the appropriate response as she squealed, clapping her hands before she pounced on Charlotte. "No way, that's a huge deal! I'm so excited for you. Which one?"

"Boundless Mana," Charlotte answered quickly, and Misha's excitement only grew.

"But that's far too difficult for a healer," she said, pulling Charlotte back to look her in the face. "Unless you've reclassed on me?"

"I would never," Charlotte said quickly. "I'm Ken's healer through and through. He'll have to fight me to get rid of me and even then, I think it's either me or death as his only options." I was slightly uncomfortable with how reasonable all of them seemed to find that statement, but I also knew it was true.

"Of those two, I would always choose you," I hugged my lovable druid.

Des rolled her eyes at me as if disappointed. "Death is rather unfortunate."

"Way to take the romance out of it, Des," I said, not giving up so easily, which only seemed to encourage the demonic mage further.

Des leaned into Misha and whispered, "See that? All that and more can be yours for the small, small price of—" She snapped her mouth shut when she noticed my scowl. "Well, think about it," she said quickly, then shot me a beaming smile before turning to pointedly check Misha out head to toe with a lascivious grin.

Misha was very attractive, with an athletic body and an alien cuteness to her. I blamed the ears. Yet I knew there was a deep sexual hunger underneath it all.

She didn't have to say anything more. I knew what was going through her mind. More people would, of course, speed up our stat situation. Des and I had a silent conversation through looks alone, a subtle tugging of wills in which I simply refused to lose out of sheer stubbornness.

Des eventually held her hands up before leaning over conspiratorially to Misha. "We'll try again later. Ken recently got some new incubus-related skills, and for now we'll just have to agree to disagree on how they should best be put to use."

Those words caused Misha's eyes to shift to me, excitement plain on her face.

"Des is a bit of a troublemaker, isn't she?" I said, forcing a small chuckle. I didn't want to give the woman false hope, not when my time was already split well enough.

"Well, it's good that you guys have been helping with the Threadspawn issue. I'm sure we should all breathe easier for that." Misha offered.

"I wish it were that simple," I replied.

"Oh, I'm sure," Misha said quickly. "But you've done so well with so many other challenges. I doubt this will be any different."

"I appreciate your confidence." I took a quick bow. "But we're not here to talk about me." I pointedly looked at Des. "We're here to celebrate Charlotte."

"Oh yes! The healer who went and got Boundless Mana," Misha emphasized. "How very exciting. How did you manage it?" She turned her focus on Charlotte, who beamed, ducked her head, and launched into a detailed retelling of her training with Grandpa, while sparing a few of the racier details of the adventure.

"That was the training with the old man?" Misha leaned forward, chin on her palms, nodding excitedly with every detail. The rest of us had heard this story a few times ourselves, but no one was rude enough to interrupt Charlotte's clear excitement. It brought me great joy to see her beaming smile as she proudly recounted every bit of it.

"To Charlotte," I said, raising my glass, as much of our class had finally joined us.

"To Charlotte!" Everybody cheered in response, particularly Harley, who slid up next to me suspiciously, looking like a used car salesman angling for a sale.

"What do you want?" I asked the pink-haired bard. She was a former member of our group even if she’d moved onto another party. I would help her if I could and it wasn’t just nonsense.

Harley put a hand on her chest. "What makes you think I want something?"

“I know you.” I paused and kept staring.

Harley let out a long, put-upon sigh and shook her head making the bell she still had tied in her hair jingle. "Fine, maybe I want something. Is that the worst thing in the world?"

"No. But it wouldn't hurt you to admit it from the start. Otherwise it just comes off as sketchy."

"Fine, fine," Harley waved a hand. "What I really want… no, what I need," she emphasized, "is for you to help me find the trial for the White Quail."

"And what do I get out of it?" I asked, leaning back and crossing my arms. It would be bad to give into Harley so easily, I needed to make her work for it at least a little.

"My eternal gratitude. Is that not enough?" she made her eyes extra wide as she stared up at me. I waited, staring back until her eyes narrowed instead. "But because I know your time is very important, I'll give you at least some help when it comes to Des's latest plan."

That had my full attention. "Des's latest plan?"

"See? You didn't know about that one, now did you? I mean, you've got new sex skills, right?" Harley asked.

I squinted at her. My new skill really wasn't something that should have been talked about outside my party. Then again, Harley had once been a member of the party and perhaps could be trusted with this information. I paused. Trust and Harley was a strange combination to reconcile. She had a considerable streak of being terrible with secrets.

"Fine, I'll promise to assist you," I said after a moment of thought.

"Great. Well, since you're the kind of person who keeps his word, I suppose I can give you my half of the deal right now." She told me, seemingly in a rush to get it off her chest. She likely wanted to lock the deal in before I could reconsider.

"You see," she began, "I knew you had new sex skills because Des seems half ready to make seventy-four wives a reality. You lucky dog, you," Harley said, nudging me in the side.

"How?" I said.

"Oh, I have no idea on that," Harley said in a hurry. "Do you think she'd trust me with that level of detail?"

That statement made me scowl further. What an empty bucket of bull. She had no real information.

"No take-backsies," Harley pointed a finger. "Just because I didn't have all the information doesn't mean I won't be able to get it in the future. I gave you what I have for now, and the deal is in place."

"That's fine," I said. I wasn't actually too mad at her. To be honest, I would have helped her regardless. Still, I couldn't let Harley get away with this entirely for free.

"Harley," I said, in mock exasperation. "Finding the trial might be harder than you think. Not to mention you'll have to go through the dungeon for it."

"Not if you teleport me there," she grinned and winked. Any attempt to make her understand how I felt on this topic was completely and utterly defeated by her enthusiasm.

"Well I'm not sure Crimson would agree with you," I said, and Harley froze.

"You wouldn't," she slapped the table, her mouth falling open. Crimson really was her biggest weakness. Mostly because our teacher loved to torment the otherwise lazy bard.

"Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. Are you prepared to find out?" I asked.

Harley narrowed her eyes and searched my face with a level of scrutiny that made me uncomfortable. "Fine," she spat, after a long moment of consideration and got up before we could say more.

"And you owe me. Not the other way around!" I shouted after her as she darted away and returned to the group.

Des had been watching the interaction closely. "Just give me the word and I can make Harley disappear," she said, and I chuckled, shaking my head.

"You won't believe it, Des," I told her. "Harley says you have some master plan to recreate Penny's erotic fantasy?" I asked, watching Des closely.

The way she paused mid-bite and cautiously looked at me from the corner of her eye told me everything I needed to know.

"Damn it, Des," I put my drink down.

"What, can you blame me?" She held her hands up.

"Yes. That would be exactly what I’m doing right now," I deadpanned.

"Well, that wasn't the answer I was expecting. You're supposed to say ‘no’, for the record. Then you would talk about how beautiful I am and how you'd never blame me. Then hopefully you’d ruin me and leave me waddling for a week." She flipped her hair. "But I suppose we're past that now." She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. "You think I could fix this with an orgy? I bet I could fix this with an orgy," she said to herself, nibbling on her thumb and clearly losing herself in whatever thoughts were accompanying that concept.

"No, Des, you can't fix it with an orgy." I told her, bringing her back to the moment.

She squinted and tilted her head, as if asking whether I was sure that was my final answer.

"No," I scolded, wagging a finger at her. She looked at me with big, wide eyes that I refused to stare into. "Now we're done with this bit. Can we get back to celebrating Charlotte?"

"To Charlotte," Des grinned and lifted her drink. "The best healer there ever was." She added, making Charlotte blush furiously into her drink.

"Thank you," Charlotte said quickly. "I couldn't begin to do this without the rest of my party."

"Hear, hear," Des cheered as she beamed and got the whole class drinking again, even Helen. Whose eyes tracked me as I moved.

I shook my head at Des’ antics, but the giant smile on Charlotte's face made the moment worth it. "You get some props for that," I told Des, who only pumped a fist in the air. "But no seventy-four wives."

"Just a few more," she asked, pinching her fingers together, her gaze shifting to Misha. "Even if you don't want to go all the way, I do think it'd be good if you at least brought her along to level. Her pod, or whatever they're called, has already left Star City, and she's kind of isolated. Just give her the chance, let us be her pod."

I stared at Des, and she batted her lashes. I stared harder, and they just continued to flutter. Des was very hard to say no to. "Fine, I suppose if she's staying here it would be rude of me not to help her out some."

"Yes, exactly that," Des latched onto my words. I tried to glare at her, but she tucked her arms behind her back and swayed side to side until I relented with a sigh.

"One of these days it's not going to be so easy for you to get out of trouble." I told her.

"Sure," she said, not sounding convinced. Des was incredibly attractive and I loved her enough that I wanted to spoil her rotten. The problem was she had started to enjoy getting her way a bit too much.

"Do me a favor and let's focus on Charlotte for the rest of the night," I asked, and her eyes went wide.

"For the whole night?" Her tone laced with sultry surprise.

I facepalmed. "Head out of the gutter," I said quickly, only to hear her laughing as she dodged away, leaving me hoping to make someone else question their life choices. Though, while I was being dramatic, I wouldn't trade any of them for the world.

***

"Really?" Misha said later that night, wide-eyed, after I floated the idea that she could join us on a leveling excursion.

"Of course," I said quickly. "We would be absolutely thrilled to have you join us. Besides, several of my party are taking things slower right now." She squinted slightly at that wording. "Nothing bad. They are just working through all their trial abilities before we continue to level."

Misha nodded. "That makes sense. After all, trial abilities are incredibly valuable and only get harder the longer you take.”

“I knew you'd understand," I said.

She smiled back, flushing slightly, her fin-like ears doing that cute flapping that seemed to convey all manner of emotion.

"But you already have your trial ability," she said, "so I suppose the number of you left to work with is smaller than usual."

I hummed in agreement. "Charlotte's back on board. I'm unsure if the elves will have time for anything. They're trying to grow, but like so many things, they have too much occupying their attention. One of them is an Empress," I told her.

"I can imagine it being incredibly difficult for her to find time for something like leveling."

"You'd be surprised," I said. "It's hard to rule a race without sufficient strength backing you. My understanding is it's pretty much impossible to keep everyone's respect if you can't prove yourself as an adventurer."

"Wouldn't much know about that," Misha shrugged. "My people aren't very hierarchical like that." She paused, tilting her head. "Though I suppose others would see it differently, given the de facto leader of our people is simply the strongest." She considered her words again. "Well, maybe it's more accurate to say my people have chosen not to have leadership, and it's only natural for other races to place respect on our strongest individual."

"We can go with that," I chuckled. "It doesn't particularly matter to me how it works, just that it does.”

“I think many people would agree with that sentiment." She agreed.

"Including yourself?" I asked.

"Very much so. What's anything worth if it doesn't work?" she said. "So, when are we going to go level, then?" she asked.

"Tomorrow," I suggested.

Misha's eyes widened once more. "I suppose you aren't the type to put things off, are you?"

"No. In fact, I'm the type who wants to get things done as quickly as possible." I told her.

Misha gave me a sharp nod of acknowledgment. "Tomorrow, then. I'll be at your place in, say, twelve hours." She said the last part with a touch of hesitation.

"Okay," I said, giving it a moment of thought. We still operated off a twenty-four-hour clock on our CIDs, but she'd needed something a little more relative. "That works."

She smiled, bounded up to me, and pecked me on the cheek before blushing and darting away. I turned to find Des in her place, wearing far too wide a grin.

"Trouble," I said, wagging a finger at her.

"She'll be a wonderful addition," Des replied without an ounce of guilt.

"Okay. Tomorrow," I said. "You're up bright and early, and we're taking her leveling."

"Oh yes, we should definitely try out the goods first," Des nodded.

"That isn't—" I started, and stopped. "You know that isn't what I mean."

"But it got you thinking," Des countered, and I avoided her gaze. She knew she was right, even if I was completely unwilling to admit those words out loud.