Chapter 5: Chapter Five Settling In for the Ride

The GEN is the Great Elf Nation, but everyone just says GEN. It is surrounded by a shield that keeps most undesirables out, other than goblins and Green Dragons.  The Dragons and the elves of the GEN live in a sort of semi-symbiotic relationship.  Once a dragon gets powerful enough, they take an oath to leave the elves alone and vice versa.  The young dragons and the elves fight for experience.  The older dragons make lesser creatures that lower level elven heroes can beat, prolly.  The other monsters in the GEN are generally mana mutated animals, or magical animals. A bear is scary, but a bear who throws a fireball at your party, or adds 50 hit points with a ward, and then wades into combat is terrifying.  

Chapter 5

Settling In for the Ride

"Is it over?" asked Allie.

"Well, there are likely more bugs, but I guess they ran out of soldiers," said Tira. "Gather up the bugs for the chickens, and let's head back to camp; digging up bugs seems more like a job for males. Also, nice to see your Elven is improving, Allie."

"Yes, your greatness," said Allie.

Twixia looked at the bugs and saw the rest of her team gathering them up into bags from their packs. thought of picking some up and threw  up.

"Are you ok, Twixia?" said Star, flopping another bug piece into a bag.

Twixia retched and ran out of the mill and towards the camp.

"I guess her don like bug much, mmm mmm," said Allie.

Zip shrugged, "She is a level one scholar after all, they don’t cut up and carry giant termites much."

"Hey. Tira asked, "why do your bites for the most part just have red spots while I am bleeding over here?" said Star.

"Probably the sword maiden physical damage reduction." said Tira, "that is why I didn’t bother to ward."

"I couldn’t smash them at all," wailed Star.

"Don’t worry, when we get you your abilities, you will be slashing up monsters soon enough; I didn’t expect you guys to get into combat so soon," said Tira.

"What did you find anyway?" said Zip to Raythiel.

"Oh, right," said Raythiel, as she showed off a tiny rectangular metal frame. "This is magical, I guess."

"I guess I can try to identify it later," said Tira. "I do have some skill in that area. For now, let's head back to camp."

The girls trudged back to camp, smarting from their leg wounds. Tira went off to report to the knight, Phenaquar. The rest of them went to the kitchen to help Allie with supper while taking turns being attended to by Raythiel’s healing skill.

"Be careful with the chickens, Allie; a single bit or spur could kill you as you only have one hit point," cautioned Star.

Allie began to shake and tremble.

"I’ll hold them for you, Allie," said Star, "then you can get closer to getting your level."

The girls started an assembly like for killing, plucking and dismantling chickens. Twixia came over to apologize, saw them chop off a chicken head and the chicken move about for a bit, and passed out.

"Tough day for our delicate scholar," said Raythiel. The others laughed as they moved her to the wagon.  But what bed should they put her in? They needed three sets of two.  "I call the princess," said Raythiel. 

"Zip sleeps during the day now, so I suppose Allie gets to decide.  Do you want to sleep with Twixia or Tira?" asked Star.  

Allie trembled and thought about it. If she chose Twixia, her dirt would be a bad match. Tira could just clean herself.  She remembered her gentle touch as she ran her fingers through her hair. No wait, not letting the freaking sword maiden decide was at best mental, and at worse fatal. "I choose to let the sword maiden choose next." said Alliasaz.

"Sure," said Raythiel, "I guess that makes sense." The girls laid Twixia in the middle bed as Raythiel and Star decided on the third bunk furthest from the door, as that seemed safer. Let's go and cook for everyone, Allie!" said Star. 

"Let's see, we have noodles, eggs, chicken, and spices," said Star as she and Allie started making chicken ramen for 24.

Knight Phenaquar and the summoner took the two males not being used to craft or drive the wagons and the other wagon of elfesses to the mill to hunt the rest of the bugs to make sure they would not be a threat and for experience and chicken feed. Tira and Raire organized the waggoneers to gather stones and cut down dead trees and tree limbs at a rapid pace for the fire.

As they were cooking the ramen, the girls laughed as girly screams pierced the air; they guessed the other group had found the nest and was engaged in combat.

"Looks like we have a runner, Raire," said Tira as one of the girls from the other wagon started running away into the forest in panic. "Better grab her before a goblin does."

Raire took off after the elfess, and Tira looked at the waggoneers. "Don’t even think about running off," she said to the elves as she tossed a branch in the air and cut it into three pieces with a hand axe before it hit the ground. "You wouldn’t want anything to happen to a limb by accident. The elves all nodded in agreement except for one who acted unimpressed by the sword maiden’s prowess.

"What's with that one, Raythiel?" said Tira.

"Oh, you don’t recognize that he is a Star elf?" Raythiel said, "They have a lot of pride and make good heroes, but very poor low-tier commoners. He insisted on driving the lead wagon. You should let Allie interact with him instead of the rest of us. He will like how subservient she is. I don’t think he will run or anything; getting a class is like getting a hedge class; it will be like having a second chance at life for him."

There was nothing wrong with the boy's ears, and he refused to look at any of them as those same ears turned red as he was working on the fire from Raythiel’s appraisal.

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"Look, he is embarrassed about having Allie talk to him," said Tira. The Star elf turned to face them, glaring at Tira and Rathiel taking about him like that, but his green star filled eyes soon was staring at Etherstaria instead, and his ears turned even redder. "Aww, how cute," said Tira as she moved like a whirlwind, capturing the star elf, and then sat down again with the star elf in her lap. She stroked his enflamed ears and whispered to him. "How about you help Allie and Star with the chickens and level up so you can help protect the princess?"

The young elf nodded and leaned into her touch, so taken by surprise that he hadn’t quite realized what was happening, affected by the sword maidens' skills. "Good little Star elf," said Tira. "Now start by feeding the chickens the bug parts we brought." She lifted him from her lap and spun him around, kicked a bag of bugs up into the air, placed it in his hands, and spun him toward the chicken wagon, lightly pushing him toward it. There were, of course, gasps, chittering, and so forth by the young elfesses about the boldness of their heroine, along with comments about Twixia missing everything!

"What is this about goblins all the time?" asked Star of Tira out of the blue.

"Goblins are one of the main menaces here," said Raythiel. "We have to fight them off with bows and swords in my town. They always try to kidnap wood elves."

"What happens if you get napped?" said Allie, trembling.

"Well, I heard they sell you to dragons if you are a girl, and keep you as a slave if you are boy," replied Raythiel, making grand gestures with her hands.

"Why would they keep males instead of elfesses?" said Star.

"Well the same reason girls like bigger creatures and males like small girls like Woodlings." said Raythiel sagely.

"Makes sense," said Zip, nodding her head.

Most of the young male elves had come over at this point to listen in on the goblin stories.

"You ere see un live un?" questioned Allie.

"Well," said Raythiel dramatically, "there was a hero in our village that captured a female goblin, and she followed him everywhere like a puppy."

Tira’s detect lie skill went off like mad, and Tira smiled to herself, listening in on Raythiel’s completely false goblin story, that she probably was told by her grandmother or something to scare her into revelry.

Raythiel continued on for several turns about how close the pair was, just like a husband and wife. Including sleeping together. The young elf men all crept closer and listened intently. A few years later, the female goblin started to age. Her elf eyes started to roam to other elfesses in the village. Finally, he broke up with her, as she was no longer a looker, even for a goblin.

"Then one day, we only found a bunch of blood in his cabin—no sign of the goblin or our hero! From that time onward, goblins have not been allowed inside the village. Even the tame ones will turn on you, even if you treat them nicely, even if you love them," Raythiel finished her moral of the story's ending.

The boys nodded to themselves; such a thing was bound to end in tragedy, if not today then tomorrow when other races’ females grew jealous of their longevity. Everyone knew that! They also agreed with goblins wanting to kidnap them, they were the best after all! But the goblins would all grow jealous, and then the knives would naturally come out, and many goblins would die fighting over them. Naturally, they would just sell the common girls to dragons for magical items. Elven males were the true exotic creatures everyone wanted!

There was a clatter through the evening as the group returned from the mill, some of them with bites. They had a termite with them that was bigger than a dog! It had a long, white body.

"Two of them gave hero experience," said Phenaquar proudly.

"Good job with the bug hunt, I sent Raire after the girl that ran from the fight," replied Tira, disrespecting the bravery of Phenaquar with her tone, of his mighty slaying of mostly defenseless bugs, while being backed up by Manuel, the summoner's powerful pet. Males are just so annoying when they are trying to show off! Star and the other girls, catching on to this, giggled at the knight dragging a bug like it was an important trophy.

"What girl?" said Phenaquar as he started counting. He was a short one! Not only that, it was a clan members' daughter, Grey. Summoner, did you notice her running away?"

The summoner, who looked like he could barely see though all the wrappings and hoods on his head spoke in a very strange voice. It was as if he was talking with a sore throat. "I thought she would just run back to the camp," replied the raspy voice of the summoner. "Let that be a lesson to you all; don’t run away from the group," rasped the summoner. "As you all eat, I will set up the watches; I will have my angel companion watch during the night; along with Zip, who is a Woodling warrior, they will be on both shifts. 

The summoner continued rasping, "The eight of you who went on the trip will have a night watch, four at a time, with Zip and Manuel." "Well, if the other girl comes back safely. The two boys will be on the first watch, along with two girls, and then the other four girls, or rather, young elfesses, will take the last half. You will switch as directed by a hero or Zip. We will form a heptagon each night with the horses around in the middle, leaving them enough space to graze. This way, there will be someone on top of each wagon, and we will face the lookouts so that if anyone goes missing, they will be seen by multiple people. Some of the horses are trained and will let us know if they hear something. The war wagons will be manned by the heroes and Manuel."

"Hey, it looks like the Raire is back with our runaway," said Tira.

Raire walked back into the camp, holding the young woman’s hand. "Nothing happened, but she was pretty fast," said Raire. Star waved at her as the blonde girl with the grey eyes, named Grey, blushed and headed over to her group after getting some ramen.

Manuel was very shiny, and the young elves were naturally drawn to the creature. Manuel turned out to be quite patient with all the questions about what being an angel was like and so forth. If the girls had wanted to leave before, they seemed to have less incentive now. The boys started sulking a bit since Manuel got more attention from the elfesses than they did. Star used her charismatic skills to keep them from becoming too angry.

Finally, everyone but Zip headed to the wagon, and they asked where Tira wanted to sleep. Tira thought to herself, I did basically order Star to take care of Raythiel, so its alone, Alliasaz or Twixia. "I will take the first bunk, so I can protect you better, and I guess Twixia needs the most space, with her papers and books and all." It was pretty obvious for Tira, sure Twixia was cuter, but in the dark Alliasaz had those huge breasts. She would make a much softer pillow with her extra meat and fat. Plus, she was used to having someone larger than her to sleep with.

Twixia slept through the soft moaning as Star needed to give Raythiel enough massages to slate her magical creature nature. They tried a few things, but in the end, the princess massaging her back was the best. Normally it would be your ears or other sensitive lady parts, right? Was there something wrong with her back? Maybe that is where her unstable mutations were taking hold?  More questions, with no answers, thought Raythiel.  Just what the heck did the system do to her? Why did Star smell like strawberries?  She finally drifted into revelry.  Star knew she had to massage Raythiel enough to keep her problems in check. Star was still a little too nervous to ask her about what exactly her problems were from being a magical monster girl or whatever. Finally Raythiel entered revelry, and she snuggled up with her new, lover? Star didn't get much revelry that night thinking about it. 

Tira tried out her naked commoner body pillow, as having clothes on her would make sleeping impossible as her innocent status would negate her usefulness as a squishy warm pillow and the system would protect her. "You can touch me through my clothing without any problems," she told the trembling naked girl in her arms. Tira slid herself on top of the much bigger girl and taught her a little about her new adult body.  

Half a week passed with not so much as a stray goblin, not even a rainstorm, just a few sprinkles. Which in the GEN, was a blessing indeed. The caravan traveled through two towns and a small city without so much as an attempt at escape. They did get a lot of stares and questions from city guards. But their paper work from the great oracle meant they had no real issues. Star introduced everyone to Blue, which got him beaten up a bit by the other waggoneers out of jealousy until Star got around to talking to them as well.

The magical item turned out to be a steel bedframe that expanded when you said a command word. Of the five of them, only Raythiel and Star could even hold or activate the item, since it was made of steel. Raythiel pointed out this was about the most worthless magical item of all time, I'm sad that I almost was eaten by termites for this silly thing.

Allie and her Star elf chicken killer helper were just a few days of chicken slaughter away from a level. The girls were mostly done with skill training from the system, and Star and Raythiel had made the acquaintance of everyone, including Manuel, who it turned out was an actual angel. Everyone was super curious about him, but he mostly mingled with Zip and Star, as he tried to avoid the paper elves, as he called the first level elves he said he was afraid he would accidently brush up against them and accidently kill them.  He really wasn't very cleaver, but Zip and Star saw him covertly steal glances at an elfesses named Angel, in a sort of protective way.  

Twixia needed some help getting over her new phobia of bugs. They would catch bugs during the day and expose her to gross and then grosser bugs.  It passed the time, and her shrieks were the best. It was quiet most of the time during the day since Zip had to sleep after their lessons with Allie. Since everyone had a skill slot open, they all started learning the human language together, including Tira, because, as it turned out, with the system, you had to practice a language after you learned it or it would fade a lot.

Then, one day, by the side of the road, they came upon a giant tree with a large sign saying "The Weapon Museum" out front.

 

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