DD 304 Ch 28 (Patreon)

I left Selene with her mother as I headed straight to Star City and into the Arbiter's office. After my talk with Amatto, I had decided that it would be best to get the conversation with the old judge out of the way.

When I arrived, I began noticing sidelong glances on my way in. I initially took them as merely curious, but when I got a bone-chilling glare from the receptionist, I knew something was wrong.

"You might want to come back tomorrow," the receptionist said, and went back to her work.

"I believe I need to talk to the judge. It's about the raid." I told her.

She let out a heavy sigh and stared into the middle distance for a moment. "I assume you know the way to his office," she said, and the door slid open for me to pass.

It was also odd that the old judge hadn't come to greet me. The whole situation made the corners in the room feel darker like I was walking into a more dangerous situation.

I walked down the hall; the whole place seemed to carry a grim countenance. When I reached his office, I knocked and slipped my head in.

For once, the old judge looked his age; his face was more deeply wrinkled than before, the hunch in his back somehow more genuine. He glanced up, and the smile that rose on his face was completely fake.

Their raids must not have gone as well as I’d hoped.

"Ken. Wonderful to see you," he said quickly, standing. "I apologize for not greeting you at the door. Today has been —" he hesitated, "— difficult. Come. I'm afraid I haven't been able to check on your raid. Was it successful?" he asked with a hint of trepidation.

"Unfortunately, we killed all but a single Threadspawn." I told him. “We did suffer losses, but we’ll handle those.”

"Oh, good." He let out a heavy sigh.

"The single Threadspawn appeared to be the leader," I said. "The truth is, we wouldn't have survived if I hadn't made a deal with Princess Xanthana of the demons. Of course, I’ll pay the cost for that."

The old judge's gaze dropped. "I assumed that hive was stronger than expected?"

"Yes," I said simply. "I'm not sure what level the Dwarven Queen was, but we were unable to do anything to her, and several of her subordinates stopped our push short. Once it was clear that even with a heavy sacrifice we were unlikely to kill the Threadspawn living inside the Dwarven Queen, I made the agreement with the demons for assistance."

I waited a moment, but when he didn’t speak, I asked the question in my mind. "And how did your own attacks go?”

The judge stood, crossed his arms behind his back, and stared out the window, his eyes distant. "Not well. I assume you've sensed the mood in my office. Unfortunately, three of our assault teams didn't report back today." His shoulders slumped, and he shook his head. "Completely wiped out. The dwarven hives they were assigned to were checked within the hour and had already cleared out."

The Arbiters had always seemed like paragons of strength, yet they lost three teams? The thought shook me to my core. Does that mean there were other hives that even Xanthana couldn’t have dealt with?

He projected a list in front of me. "For my sake, would you be able to use your Eyes of Wisdom and tell me if they're alive?"

I stared at the list. Being wiped out while attacking Threadspawn didn't necessarily mean they were dead. There was an even worse possibility. I asked the question carefully, wording it to ask if their hearts were still beating. [Eyes of Wisdom] showed me a faint glow off the window as I studied the names.

"This one. This one. And this one." There had to be fifty names on the list, but only three were dim. "They're dead. The rest —" I couldn't bring myself to finish, but we both knew what had happened. They'd most likely been turned into hosts for the threadspawn.

"As I feared," he said, shaking his head. "We were far too spread out. By the time word reached me that there was at least one difficult hive, I rushed there and dealt with it myself. But even then, I knew there were likely other teams facing something similar on their assignments. By the time I checked in on all the teams, it was too late. The hives were gone, and there were no bodies left of my men. For a moment I hoped the dungeon had simply absorbed them, but it seems my worst fear came true instead."

"The threadspawn are angry. In our fight they were spitting vitriol and ready to start a war in the dungeon," I said.

"Of course they are. A great injustice has been done to them. They were systematically enslaved and tortured into compliance. Perhaps if someone had come to free them, given them something more productive to focus on, it wouldn't be like this. But in the dungeon, violence is often the easiest answer, if not the best one. As for the debt you owe the demon, I'd be happy to take some of it in your place. I feel at least partly responsible for sending you and your people into this."

He shook his head. "So far, the threadspawn hadn't fielded anyone near this level," he said, as if that made a difference. "Mostly they've been restricted to the forties through sixties, with a few slightly stronger, or using threadspawn abilities to temporarily raise their strength. But it's apparent they now have several individuals over level one hundred. It boggles the mind how someone of that strength could be infected."

"Perhaps the dwarves made better targets?" I suggested.

"You may well be right." The judge clenched his jaw, and I saw the muscle work at the side of his head. "If the dwarves had been willing to parlay with the other races at all, they might have understood the danger and prepared better. Though perhaps their hive structures are simply perfect breeding grounds for the threadspawn. Either way, we must continue to cleanse this incursion. It seems the threadspawn are breeding at an alarming rate, and even the young ones can possess hosts many times their own level."

“Then we must grow stronger to meet the challenge.” I tried to raise his spirits.

The old judge turned and smiled at me. “Ah, youthful vigor. Sometimes the Arbiters need that, we are afterall all quite old. You grow a little pessimistic with age. Right, previously you asked for training grounds.” He tapped in the air. “On your way out please see the receptionist for a few options. I would love to see you and your people bounce back from this challenge even stronger.”

“Thank you.” I said with a small bow. That was something I could use to help smooth things over too. Not to mention it was exactly what I needed.

He let out a deep sigh and his gaze grew distant like an old memory came to haunt him. "I apologize, Ken, but would you leave me be for today? Come back soon and spend the day with my analysts, and after that I'd like to meet Princess Xanthana to discuss taking on some of your debt." He nodded and turned back to the window. His mind was elsewhere, and I was dismissed.

***

I sent my report off to President Amatto and found myself lying back on my couch, staring at the ceiling. On one hand, I was mortified that I'd led everyone into such a precarious situation. On the other hand, the fact that the Orkai had fallen into a similar trap gave me an odd sense of relief. If they'd run into that much trouble, it was only reasonable that we would too, if not worse. And I knew that had the demons not come and helped, we would have been infected similar to the Orkai that had been lost.

I let out a heavy breath and stared at the ceiling, only for Felin's face to pop into view above mine.

"Felin, what are —" I began, before she grabbed my head and kissed me upside down, silencing me, her tongue slipping into my mouth as we tangled together for a moment. I forgot my worries as Felin broke the kiss, her brilliant blue eyes slightly hazy. She pushed my shoulders down, flipped over the back of the couch, and landed deftly in my lap, grabbing my head again to resume kissing me as she ground against me. Her tail twisted around my wrist and pulled until she had my hand planted firmly on her leather-clad rear.

"What are you doing?" I asked, giving her a sharp squeeze.

"Distraction," she admitted, tilting her neck to the side, and I trailed kisses down her offered neck.

"In that case, you're succeeding," I said, and she gave a throaty purr, pushing herself further into my lap.

"Oh yeah?" she asked. "I bet I can think of another dozen ways to keep you thoroughly distracted. Des said you might be brooding tonight."

“Me too.” My hands roamed over her athletic form, savoring each and every inch. They stopped at her chest as I cupped them and lifted an eyebrow at what I found.

Felin peeled off her shirt and flung it aside, showing me that she didn't need a bra at all. And that despite having very little body fat, she was still generously built. She kissed me again, purring, as my hands trailed up her waist, tracing the blue tiger stripes along her skin.

"Felin, how do you feel after the raid on the dwarves?" I asked.

"Don't care," she said, tossing her hair aside and leaving a trail of kisses down my chest.

"You can't just not care," I said.

She grinned, wide enough that the tips of her canines flashed between her teeth. "Try me," she said, and pushed me back against the couch, her hands working to free me from my jeans. “I have something I want before me and I’ll just enjoy it rather than worrying about the past, let me show you.”

***

"You look like you're in a fantastic mood today, Ken," Crimson offered as I sat hunched over a bowl of cereal. In fairness, I did have a broad grin that I couldn’t seem to wipe off this morning. Last night had been great, Felin had successfully pulled me away from going to dark places in my mind. It was strange thing, so often influenced by external factors.

I glanced up and squinted at her. "So you and Des colluded on all of that last night, did you?" I'd meant it as a tease, but by the way her expression fell, it was truer than I'd expected. "Come on, Crimson, I wasn't going to be that broody."

"Of course you'd take some of the blame onto yourself. I would too," Crimson said. "But you didn't need to wear the poor kitty out that much. I bet she’d going to sleep through the whole day."

"Felin bounces back fine. She's made of strong stuff," I said, trying and failing to hide a smirk. There was something primally satisfying about bringing your woman to such heights that she was completely and utterly worn out after.

Crimson rolled her eyes and started sorting through the fridge with her rear high in the air and wiggling tantalizingly. "The real question is what's next. Right, Ken?" She peeked around the fridge door. "Or are you content?"

I rolled my eyes at the obvious provocation. "Somehow I don't think 'content' is the best description of anything right now.”

“Obviously, after all there’s too much wonderful stuff in front of you.” She bobbed her eyebrows suggestively.

“Well, that is just too tempting. You might regret your offer later once I’m through with you. But outside of this, everything boils down to we need to keep getting stronger. We're getting close to being done with the area we've been grinding."

“Yeah.” Crimson put her ingredients on the counter and kicked the door closed. “That’s the nature of the dungeon. Do take breaks to enjoy it.”

I played with my spoon for a moment before sticking it back in the cereal, fishing out five kernels as if they represented my group. "We'll keep pushing ahead like we always have. But I think it'd be good to hand this leveling area off to the rest of our class, and eventually Haylon. In fact, we should be doing a lot more to level up humanity in general."

"Go on," Crimson said, rolling her hand. She at least didn’t point out the massive bottle neck it could create and I appreciated that.

"I don't have anything specific yet, and you know that. It's just… with my recent understanding of the Orkai Arbiters, they have a whole program, basically level one all the way up for training the best Arbiters in the world. They make incredibly powerful individuals. My only thought, after everything, and our most recent tragedy, is that we can do more. A lot more." I told her.

"Of course we can," Crimson said, a touch too quickly. Then she paused. "We can always make something.”

“This could be the start." I agreed.

"And if it doesn't work?" Crimson asked.

"Then I'll eat my shirt. But I doubt it simply ‘won't work’." I air-quoted. "There's already plenty of opportunity out there."

"Well then, I suppose that's a wonderful way to improve going forward," Crimson said. "Who knows? Maybe when this is all done, you could become a teacher at Haylon." She grinned, a sparkle in her eye that told me she had some plan in motion.

"That's an oddly specific recommendation," I said, watching her out of the corner of my eye.

"Oddly specific sounds more nefarious than anything I'd actually have planned," she said in a hurry.

"So you do have plans."

"Sort of. Not as nefarious as you think." She suddenly found making her food far more interesting.

"Well, if we're talking about plans, what's happening at this year's end-of-year party?"

"Oh, look at the time! I forgot… my thing. You know." Crimson chuckled, pretending to check her watch, rapidly shoving the rest of her meal to the side and promptly exited the kitchen.

I sat shaking my head. I knew she and Des were up to something, but I still didn't have a clue what they had planned. And it was driving me no small amount of crazy.

Hopefully it was something worth taking my mind off the present challenges.