Chapter 31: Arc VI – The Rat Trap – Chapter 31 – Adjustments

Chapter 31 - Adjustments

When I came to, I had a familiar pop-up waiting on me with a new little detail added on.

Fourth Layer of the Foundation, eh? That last part had never been there before, although Hess had mentioned something about it. They were probably related. Seeing it there felt like an unnecessary little detail, kind of like saying four and twenty blackbirds or something, but I could appreciate a little flavor text in my prompts.

After I closed that out, I got a new list of skill ups. It was quite a bit curtailed this time, which I could understand. I had achieved this Layer in a much shorter time-span than the last, so there was less opportunity to get in the necessary practice. That said, there were a few notables. I got a single point in Club Use, which I already had, unbeknownst to me. Battle Acumen had managed to accrue another two points, bumping it up to twelve. Forgotten in Stillness, consistently aptly named, had increased a point somehow, and my heal, Renewal of Consumption, was now up to nine. I paused when I saw that and wondered if it would improve somehow once it got into the double digits. I hoped so. The thing was a bastard to use.

My newest ability, Windfall of the Thrall, had somehow climbed all the way up to six out of nowhere. I had to assume that the fact that it was in near constant use helped a lot with that. Besides that, Running had gotten a few more points as well as some ability called Blind Sense, which again, I already had but was unaware of it. I had also picked up the new skills, Fire Starting: Primitive, which I was particularly proud of, and Battle Tactics. Personally, I felt that the many hours I had spent making plans and discussing tactics in D&D and such ought to count for that, but I guess an argument could be made for a separation from the imagined to reality. In any case, it was not like I could actually argue with anyone about it, so the point was moot.

Casually swiping the list closed after I had finished skimming it, a new and much more interesting one replaced it.

No wonder Jax had taken so long to wake up. According to this, somewhere along the way, his Core Condensation had gotten suspended, because his Layer was going to get higher than mine. I sighed. That would have been good to know about beforehand. Although, honestly, it had only happened because the guy had… prematurely fallen unconscious. For reasons. Nothing to do with me. No sir.

In any case, apparently Bline or whomever had decided to take the extra time he was going to be out and put it toward this ‘Characteristic Development’ thing. I was not quite sure, but I figured that it must have something to do with the continued changes I had been seeing in him. The big one, of course, was that new organ, which was weird but actually quite useful in its own way. There were a few other things, as well, which were… I paused, thinking. Secondary? Window dressing? Well, whatever it was, all it had amounted to so far was a little extra hair growth and the guy’s ears getting a bit longer. Nothing to worry over.

Speaking of, where was Jax. And for that matter, where was I?

Closing out of the windows, I took a moment to examine my surroundings… and was immediately confused. It was a pretty typical room for a medieval era peasant to live in with a shuttered window and little furniture to speak of. The cot I was lying in was an extremely basic sort of thing, constructed of rickety boards and hay for a mattress. Actually, the whole room would best be described as ‘rickety’. And that was all very nice, but the last thing that I remembered was getting kissed by Sherr Hess and then immediately hit by something that had felt like the mother of all belly flops. Clearly, I was going to need more information.

Propping myself up on an elbow, I found that the room was suffused with a pale blue light emanating from a very familiar looking crystal set into a small stand on a low corner table. I pursed my lips at that. Still in the Dungeon, then. Not that I had expected otherwise, but from my surroundings, I had gotten my hopes up a little. Oddly, there was no door, save for a hatch set into the ground with bands of iron going across it and a big O-ring for a handle. It was closed.

Perhaps, I was in some kind of safe room? The last time I had been in the Dungeon there had been one, and I had a hunch that the crystal would confirm it. If so, then probably, Hess had taken us here. I would need to find her to find out, though. As usual, I had more questions than answers, but at least I was becoming experienced enough to make an educated guess or two.

The only other things in the room were a discarded scrap of leather bunched up by the hatch, a pair of cots identical in description to the one I was currently lying in, and the person currently stirring in the one nearest me. The light was not quite good enough for me to tell immediately from that angle, but from their size, I figured it had to be Jax. Silently, I smiled in relief, glad that he was waking up finally. I had begun to miss our banter.

Giving an audible stretch, both out of a simple need to wake myself up fully and as a signal to him that I was there, I sat up and swung my legs to the floor. Curiously, I noted that, somehow, the tip of my left shoe had gone missing. Added to the gaping hole in the right one from the thorn that had speared through it, they made for a nearly matched set. However, of a somewhat more immediate concern, my left pant leg was now ripped clean off, and shifting in my seat a bit, I noted that I was feeling a little bit oddly breezy down there. But before I could investigate, Jax rolled over and stretched grandly, arching his…

…

…

…

Whatever else I had been thinking about simply flickered and died. A very deep-seated, very primal part of my brain had just caught sight of something, and it demanded — demanded that I devote every scrap of attention I could muster to it. Something had shifted on Jax’s chest. Something that should not be there. But I knew what it was. What they were. It was impossible for me not to know.

To be sure, they were not large — really barely there at all. Just enough to say ‘here I am’. If Jax had been wearing his shirt, I probably would have never noticed them. But I had. And I could never unsee them.

Slowly, he rolled over and sat up. He did not look at me at first, pausing to yawn contentedly and continue his stretch. The view of his open mouth gave me pause, though I barely had the capacity to pay attention to it. His canines and the premolars just to the outside of them had grown out just a hair. Enough to be noticeable. They looked sharper. More predatory.

But I was not really looking at that. I was still taking in the chest that was laid out right in front of me. His nipples… where before they had looked swollen and irritated… Well, now I knew why. This was no longer the chest of a man. They were now perky little eraser heads surrounded by puffy, still slightly distended darker tissue that, in the blue light, looked faintly gray.

A hand passed in front of them, and went up to scratch at his scalp. Something was off about it. Enough so to pull me out of my instinctual trance, and I jerked my head a bit as the rest of the world filtered in quickly. Trying to focus, I soon realized that his fingernails had elongated and sharpened. He was now sporting what I would call the human equivalent of claws and scraping at something just past his hairline, like he had an itch. And it was making an audible sound.

There were other changes, too. Difficult to quantify, but noticeable. There was a certain… roundness to him that had not been there before. A slight softness to the the skin. An angle here. A bit of a taper there. My immediate attempt at a mental inventory of these was soon interrupted, however.

“Yer face be lookin’ like a skelped arse, Mah—” he stopped short and scrunched his face up in irritation. It looked… almost cute. “Fah! Minced doaty fer brains…”

His voice had changed again, rising into something like a smoky alto. My suspicions were beginning to fire on all cylinders, now. There was more going on here than just a change in his kind… unless lilim just had breasts for no reason. And a woman’s voice.

“Uhm…” I said, trying to think. “My face looks like a what now?”

He… he shook his head at me, sadly, “It be red. Like it were whacked a good’n? Honestly, I’d be afeared to take ye in public lest ye embarrass yer ownself. Not knowin’ how to talk proper?” He tilted his head then, his lengthened ears twitching a bit, seemingly getting a sense of me. “What be gettin’ yer panties wadded?”

“What…” I blinked a few times at him incredulously. “Jax, have you looked at yourself?”

He tutted at me, “An’ how am I supposed ter go about that one, yer so smart? Ain’t got a mirror, now have I?”

“That’s… Look at your hands! Your… your…” I sputtered out. I could not get the word to come forward, so I just gestured inanely.

“What about me hands?” he said, holding them in front of him. But then he took a second look, and his eyebrows rose a bit, mildly surprised. Turning them back and forth to inspect them properly, he began to smile faintly. “Aye. That be the right of it,” he whispered.

It was not quite the reaction I had been expecting, but I really could not bring myself to care. “Your chest, man! Look at your chest!”

At my exclamation, he spread his hands, and leaned back to look down his front. “What?” he asked, confused. Clapping his hands to his stomach, he ran them up to cup what he could of his new breasts and gave them a little bit of a jiggle. He frowned a bit then, “Well now, that ain’t quite…” Suddenly, his head jerked up and he stared at me.

His casual self-manipulation had caused a certain part of my anatomy to wake up and take notice, despite myself. And Jax had picked up on it immediately, almost like a cat spotting a slight motion from behind a corner. Slowly, he sat up straight and arched his back, thrusting his little bosom forward.

My eyes widened at the forward display, and my pants began to slowly deform as I grew in response.

Jax’s eyes began to dilate, and his lips parted, his breathing heavy.

Seeing that, I drew back. No! This was wrong! Jax was… Well, I did not know exactly what, but I could not allow myself to jump down that path blindly. Closing my eyes, I pulled my gaze away, trying to calm down.

“No!” Jax exclaimed. Rushing forward, he repeated the word over and over, and grabbed my face in his hands. “What? What’d I do? Why d’ye stop? Bring it back!”

Bewildered, I looked up into his eyes. His face was fully repaired now. Symmetrical. Not a perfect face nor even fair, but by no stretch the ugly deformed thing it had been when I had met him. His eyes were a clear blue, his nose perhaps a shade smaller though still scarred, his lips a touch fuller, and it was all drawn up into an expression that was a jumble of emotions. Sadness, confusion, abandonment. More than I could begin to deal with.

Slowly, I grabbed his wrists and pushed him gently away. “Bring it back? What ‘it’?”

“I…” he paused, having to think, “I ain’t sure. But it be… it be wondrous. I felt it. Ye felt sommat fer a scanty. I ain’t never…” he stopped again. Slowly, his gaze drifted away, like he had remembered something, “Well, now… wait a moment… Yes. I have, now’n I think on ‘er. Aye.” He glanced up at me out of the corner of his eyes, and a knowing smile curled his lips.

My eyes widening, I quickly broke eye contact, afraid that he might start getting ideas. “Uh… Jax are you aware of what’s happening to you?”

He was still looking at me with a sly speculation, but after a moment he replied, “Aye. I think. I be lilim. But… I were needin’ to grow into it a bit.”

“Then,” I turned to face him again, more curious now, “Do you know what a lilim is? What one looks like?”

Giving his head a hesitant shake, he said, “Nay. Only that… before I were wrong. Now I ain’t… or not quite. Less wrong.” He paused, considering what he had just said, and then gave a satisfied nod. Focusing on me once more, he quirked an eyebrow, “I told ye before, ye nyaff. But ye were in yer own head then. Did nay listen.”

Had he? I thought back to our earlier conversations. The last time we had discussed something like this had been when we had discovered his rash. But it was not a rash. I knew that now. He had been developing… And I had casually gotten him to take his shirt off. And then lost it… Oh, dear. Slowly, I lowered my face into my hands. My entire countenance was wrought with shame.

Jax sighed. Plopping down onto the cot next to me, he patted my back roughly, “There, there, mate. It ain’t that bad. Ye can nay expect yer ownself ter know the ins and outs o’ things afore ye know ‘em. Mercy be. I did not know meself. Can nay expect more’n that o’ ye.”

His attempted consolation did less to break my mood than did his lack of understanding. Finally, unable to take it anymore, I burst out, “But you’re growing boobs! Your voice! Jax, you’re becoming a woman!”

Jax scowled at me. Jumping to his feet, he put his fists on his hips and pushed his face into mine, “No, I ain’t! I told ye. I be becoming a lilim!”

I sat back, totally flummoxed. “What?! J… I… But…” I splayed out my fingers in frustration as I tried to find the right words. “Boobs, Jax! Breasts! I mean… have you checked your…. You know?”

“What?” he deadpanned, standing up straight again and crossing his arms.

Flushed, I just gestured to his crotch, “I… Down there!”

He glanced down and frowned. Slowly, a hint of curiosity crossed over his expression, and he pulled open his waistband. Shoving his hand inside, he felt around for a moment. Flustered, my gaze twitched back and forth from his face to the shuffling going on at his crotch, unsure of where I should be looking. Finally, he sighed, pronouncing, “I do nay think that be done yet.”

“Wha… uh…” I stammered. I was not at all emotionally or psychologically prepared for this conversation. “What were you expecting?” I mean, I knew what I was expecting… but if he claimed that he was becoming specifically a ‘lilim’ and not a ‘woman’, then… maybe there would be something else down there? My imagination started revving into high gear.

He lifted his shoulders a bit, unconcerned, “I’ll know when I know.” But then he narrowed his eyes at me, and that sly grin crinkled the corners of his eyes again, “Do ye wanna see?”

Hell, no. “Yes?”

His smile grew, and satisfied, he turned and plopped down onto his cot, “Good.” Crossing his legs at the knee, he kicked his foot at me like he was impatiently waiting for me to get some joke.

Slowly realizing what had just happened, I sputtered, “B… Jax! Come on, show…”

“Do nay command it!” he interrupted me forcefully, stiffening.

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I stopped short, realizing what might have just happened had I continued. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I wasn’t thinking.”

“I know it,” he reassured me, relaxing back. “And ye’d not forgive yer ownself if’n ye did. Be why I stopped ye.” Then he grinned at me again, “I do nay care fer the taste o’ yer guilt.”

I glanced up at him. Was that… some sort of innuendo?

“Uh…” I cast about, trying think of something to say. “Okay, so… do you still think of yourself as a man, or…” I trailed off, unsure.

“Lilim,” he repeated shortly.

Right. I had expected as much. Unfortunately, I was not at all equipped to deal with that. There was no category for ‘lilim’ as a gender in my mind. Heck, the language did not have a category for it. Neither man nor woman? I mean, I knew that there was a subsection of society that dealt with these kinds of things back home, but I had never associated with those circles. It was not a conscious decision. I just had not been around them to talk about it. But I had read a few things, here and there.

“Alright…” I began slowly, “well… what about pronouns? What are your pronouns?” That was important to know in these situations, right?

He frowned at me, “I do nay know what that means.”

“You don’t…” Oh. Of course not. I blinked a few times, switching gears, “Well, when people refer to you. Uh… Talk about you. Would you prefer them to say things like ‘he’ or ‘him’?”

He lifted his chin, “What?”

“Like… if I were talking to Sherr Hess, for instance? And she asked me where you had gone off to, would it sound right to you if I said, ‘He’s off collecting firewood’?”

“No,” he said immediately. “But why’d I be collectin’ firewood again? Ain’t we got lots o’ firewood already?”

“Well, no… not anymore. But that’s not the point!”

“Why not? What did ye do with all the firewood?” he asked, getting agitated.

“Never mind! I’ll tell you later. I’m just using it as an example,” I explained, and then quickly went on before he could interrupt again. “What about ‘She’s off collecting firewood’?”

He stopped as he took in the new question. He did not respond immediately, instead taking a moment to look around the room, seemingly thinking it over. As I waited, I watched his face. He had rolled his lower lip under his teeth and begun experimentally working at it with one of his elongated canines. Clearly, he was unsure about how to answer. Finally, reluctantly, he said, “I… suppose that be better.”

I nodded slowly. He seemed awfully slow to give way on that, understandably. Or I suppose I should use ‘she’ now. That would take some getting used to. Although, I was having trouble understanding why… she would be okay with those pronouns when she did not want to be thought of as a woman.

“Okay…” I said, trying to just lay it all out, “So, would you say then, that maybe… you aren’t a man, and you aren’t quite a woman?” I paused, looking for confirmation.

She nodded slowly.

“Do you think that might be because, as you said, you aren’t exactly finished?” I asked cautiously.

She took a breath, and then held it a second before letting it out again. Twisting her mouth back and forth a few times, she finally said, “Nay. I think ye said it aright. I ain’t a woman, but I definitely ain’t a man. I be sommat else… I think.”

“Something else? Like… woman adjacent?” I asked in confusion. But at her frown, I quickly rephrased it to, “Similar to a woman. But not?”

She brightened, “Aye! That be it! Ye got ‘er!”

Hmm… similar to a woman… but not a woman? What could be…

But then I had another thought. “You’re not a hermaphrodite are you?”

She gave me a vacant look, and then shook her head, “I nay be knowin’ yer fancy noble speechin’, Donum.” But then, after I explained, she laughed brightly and made a limp throwing motion at me, as if I had just told some joke in poor taste. However, seeing my expression, she sobered, “Wait, yer serious?”

 

We talked a while longer, after that. I had to fill her in on the events of the last day and of our eventual semi-triumphant defeat of the Tongue-Flower. But through my recounting, she kept fidgeting and shifting about. She would turn her shoulders a bit, pause, turn the other way, pause, tilt her head back, and etc. And she watched me the whole time.

Finally, I stopped, “Jax, what are you doing?”

“Nothing, apparently,” she huffed. Waving the back of her hand at me, she asked, “What happened then?”

Mystified, but unsure what to do about it, I continued, “I don’t know. We got hit by the explosion. I think it must have forced me into torpor somehow, because I just got my skill ups and such. You?”

She pursed her lips and began idly studying her new fingernails, “Aye… I been gettin’ a few skills aright.”

From the way she had phrased that, my curiosity was piqued, but… I also was not at all sure I wanted to know. As I thought about it, my eyes slowly and unconsciously drifted down to her chest and settled there for just a touch too long. Realizing what I was doing, I quickly jerked my eyes away.

“Nay, boil ye! Stop that!” she admonished me.

“I’m sorry,” I quickly apologized. “It’s… they’re distracting is all. I can’t… It’s hard to not look.”

She scoffed angrily, “I ain’t talkin’ about that, ya numpty. I finally get a hint o’ ye somehow when I weren’t lookin’, and then ye blast me with yer guilt! I told ye. I don’t like the taste o’ yer guilt!”

I sat back, befuddled and unsure of what she was getting at, but just then, we heard some kind of clamorous thumping coming from below. Whatever anger she had been feeling, at the sound, her expression shifted totally, and she jumped between me and the hatch, summoning her axe and crouched for battle. But when the hatch popped open, and Hess poked her head through, she relaxed. She did not move, though.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Hess said happily. “Good. We’ve got work to do.”

As she climbed up through the hatch, I could see that her vest had been replaced with a scrap of familiar looking off-white linen, and she had acquired a set of boxers from somewhere, though it seemed to have a rather distractingly snug fit. Jax noticed, too.

Quickly glancing at me with a slight flush to her cheeks, she exclaimed, “Them ain’t your’n to wear!”

“What?” she said, taken aback for a moment before she looked down. “Oh, this? My vest finally gave it up when that over-grown weed blew up.” Climbing the rest of the way through the hatch, she let it fall behind her. She looked positively filthy. Bits of plant matter and dirt liberally stained every square inch of her body, but she seemed to have mostly healed from the fight. There were only a few scabs left, here and there. “Blew a big hole in Donum’s britches, too. Figured I’d use the scrap as a wrap.” Turning around and posing a bit, she asked, “How does it look? Did it turn out okay?”

Jax hissed at her, “I ain’t talkin’ about yer doaty wrap, ye hackit cow!”

Hess stopped and looked at her for a moment before an almost wicked grin traced her lips, “Oh~ Are you perhaps talking about these, then?” She traced her finger just under the drawstring in a seductive manner.

Jax started to positively tremble, and she sputtered.

Slowly putting two and two together, I suddenly realized why it was that I had felt so… unsecured down below. Eyes wide, I jumped to my feet, “Hess! By Maeve! Those are… Well… they aren’t exactly clean you know?”

Hess and Jax, as one, looked back at me, and both sets of eyes immediately dropped down to my crotch. Jax’s eyes widened and almost unconsciously, she hunched over and moaned loudly. She quickly clapped a hand over her mouth, but not before a shadow flickered into existence right beside her.

Hess chuckled knowingly, “Yes, it must be quite strong for you now.” Flicking her eyes back to me, she said, “Donum, dear? Adjust yourself, please. You’re going to give the poor thing a heart attack.”

“What?” I said, glancing down. Apparently, the ‘hole’ had take so much of my pant leg, that my block and tackle were hanging loose. Quickly, I spun around and frantically tried to tuck it back in, but it was a lost cause. My pants had a good amount of crotch room just as a matter of their cut, so there was no way for me to really secure anything that would stay.

“Dear?” Jax growled from behind me, not quite recovered from whatever it was that was affecting her. “Since when do ye be havin’ the right to address him so?”

“Well…” she said, seemingly thinking it over, “I suppose that would have been when we kissed?”

“When ye…” Jax trembled for a second and then, screaming, she and her shadow launched themselves at Hess.

Hess smirked, and ignoring the shadow clone, casually caught Jax by the neck. Her amusement rapidly faded.

Jax wildly gnashed her teeth and clawed at her arm in a frenzied, flailing assault, yelling, “I’ll kill ye, ye slattern! He were… Ye got…” but suddenly, she stopped cold. One of her new claws had managed to draw the tiniest bit of blood. Bringing her fingers to her nose, she sniffed at it curiously. Slowly, she calmed. And then grinned toothily, “Well, now… I suppose ye do have the right, after all.”

“Could you two relax, please?” I said from the side. “And stop talking in code? I don’t have a clue what’s going on.”

“Donum, butt out, this is between…” Hess started, but she stopped when she looked at me. “What are you doing?”

I flushed a bit, put on the spot, as I was awkwardly pulling my slacks up and to the side. Quietly, I mumbled, “The hole is too big. It keeps falling out.”

They both stared at me for a moment. Slowly, they both started cracking smiles, and then tittered, and before I knew it, they had progressed to full on belly laughs. And I just stood there, self-consciously holding my pants.

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