Chapter 57: Chapter 57 – A New Class, A New Skill, A New Problem

Chapter 57 - A New Class, A New Skill, A New Problem

After a brief conversation, it was apparent what had happened. Evidently, it was a thing for my Class that the first time I crossed lips with a new lilim, any and all language barriers that existed between us would be forcibly removed. I now knew every language that Arx knew and vice versa. And that included Words.

Of course, during my first experience with the phenomenon, Jax had been one in name only. And a dude. So it did not go exactly as it should have. Or that was our running hypothesis, anyway. There were some timing issues that were not quite resolved with that, such as the fact that Jax had been granted a limited amount of English from the outset. Moreover, she had gained everything from Arx at the same moment that I had. So we were still a little hazy on the details, but the kiss was most certainly the catalyst.

“It really is a shame, though,” I muttered finally, just as the first traces of light started to crest the horizon. I paused for half a second, reflecting on the moment. Not a month ago, I would not have been caught dead being up at this time of the morning. Shaking my head slightly in wonderment, I glanced at Arx, “Nine new Words and not a single one matches any of my skills.”

“Mmm…” Arx hummed in agreement, turning to face the sunrise with me. “That’s the way it goes. I didn’t either, if it makes you feel any better.”

“Somewhat,” I admitted. Then, glancing at Jax, I asked, “What about you? Any luck?”

She shrugged, “Nah. Ye’d think, though. Right? What with Moisture?” She looked at me out of the corner of her eye and waggled her brows.

I favored her with half a smile in lieu of response. She was like a perverted old uncle in a woman’s body. Or really, there was no ‘like’ about it. That is exactly what she was.

“What were you saying before?” Arx asked, drawing me back to the conversation before I could get sidetracked, “About my Class being incompatible?”

“Right, let me see…” Thinking back, I recited the message I had gotten as best I could from memory. I was mostly accurate.

“So I have to start completely over again?” she groaned, letting her head loll.

I nodded, “Yeah, sorry about that. But your attributes should be pretty good to start out. Half of what you had.”

“That’s not so bad,” she allowed. Idly tonguing her new dental structure as she considered the matter, she murmured, “Lady, what are my current attributes?”

She rocked back when the answer came, “What the…?” Swiveling about to look at us, she exclaimed, “That’s not the Lady’s voice!”

“Do She sound like a slatternly boot?” Jax asked nonchalantly, with barely a pause to consider the matter. “Like She’d as soon take ye to the sheets as look at ye?”

“That…” slowly, Arx’s head bobbed in acquiescence, “would be an apt way of putting it.”

Grunting, Jax simply folded her arms behind her head and laid back, “That’s Her, alright.”

“But I don’t understand,” Arx persisted. “I’ve heard the same voice for… I don’t know. I can’t remember now, but years anyway! Why would it suddenly be different? Because I’m of a different kind? And attached to you?”

“How would I know?” I spread my hands. “Welcome to ye olde Hamlet of Guesswork. Population: three.”

“We’re light on style, but the sex be wild!” Jax half-heartedly punched at the air.

“Nice,” I grinned, going for a high five.

Jax just starred at it blankly for a moment before tentatively reaching her own hand out and stroking my palm gently.

Well… that wasn’t awkward at all. Clicking my tongue, I turned back to Arx, “What did She say, anyway?”

“Best not say word for word,” Jax advised quickly, still looking a bit confused. “Ye’ll just make Master blush.”

“Okay, well now you’ve got me curious,” I said, quirking an eyebrow.

“Mmm… I guess, since you asked…” Then hesitating for a moment, she shrugged and affected a lilting sort of voice, “Sweetums, I’m sorry. But I can’t tell you that yet. Your Core is in Flux because your delicious Master hasn’t decided how to let you grow.” Pausing uncomfortably, she eyed me, “I’d rather not say the rest. But she was suggestive.”

Jax snorted, “That’s definitely Her.”

I blinked a few times. That had not sounded all that bad. The parts Arx had actually been willing to say, anyway. “Well… I don’t want to push you…”

Arx took a breath, “Mmm… she didn’t say anything… exactly untrue. They were just… personal sorts of things.”

“Uh huh…” I said slowly. That was likely all I was going to be able to learn about that. Expelling a puff of air, I slapped my thighs, “Well, then. I suppose I should figure out how to… let you grow. Or whatever. Do you think she meant your Class, maybe?” However, before she could hazard a guess, the customary bell chimed, heralding the arrival of my own iteration of the Lady. “Oh… never mind. I’ve just answered my own question. Let’s see here…”

“That’s all She says?” Arx asked after I had finished reading.

“Yeah, that’s it,” I nodded before hiking a thumb at Jax. “But as I’ve said, I think this is more of a generalized hint at what’s to come than anything exact.”

“I think ye were right, Master,” Jax added. “I nay had the choice for Caster. Most like, cause I were more used to being the physical type, where Arx here had them windy spells.”

“They were force spells, technically,” Arx corrected. “Not that it matters.” Then grimacing, she wondered, “Why all specialized Classes, though? I was a generalist before.”

Jax and I just looked at her.

“Right,” she grimaced. “The Hamlet of Guesswork. That’s a terrible name, by the way.”

“It’s a working title,” I replied nonchalantly. “So. Which one do you think?”

“What? Just like that?” she asked. “No suggestions? Preferences?”

I waved an unconcerned hand, “Ultimately, it’s your Class. Whatever you pick, we’ll make it work. But if you want my opinion… probably not Warrior. That’s Jax’s deal. Not that it would necessarily be bad per se, but she’s not great at range. If you took that, too, we would just end up… really good at up close and personal stuff.”

She nodded distractedly, inserting one of her claws between her teeth as she thought. Finally, she scrunched up her nose, “I just… really don’t want to make a bad decision is all. I’ve got a history of that, you know.”

I did. Or at least, that was her view. She had always been pretty bad-ass, as far as I was concerned, even if her old Class had been a little janky. Really, from what I had seen, it had been designed as a burst-damage heavy, front loaded Class meant to end fights quickly. However, once her hedonism tanks emptied, she was all but useless, needing large amounts of down time in order to recharge. And if she had taken skills with that in mind from the outset, perhaps focusing more on minimizing those periods of weakness, she probably would have been an absolute monster.

But that was all in the past. She had a fresh start and a new Class to build. And I would be there for her, every step, to help build it into something she could be proud of for once.

“I be surprised ye’d not jump at being a Caster,” Jax offered, completely ignoring Arx’s self-doubts. “I wish I had the choice meself. Blasting beasties from afar? Slinging fire about? Sounds exciting!”

“Yeah… that would be nice,” I added dryly.

Jax just batted her eyes at me.

But Arx looked hesitant, “I hear you… and that probably would be good, but then wouldn’t that put a strain on you? I mean, Dearest is no warrior, and it would be hard to protect both of us, I would think.”

“A solid point,” I nodded appreciatively, taking the barb in stride. I knew my lane. “See? Maybe a little experience with bad choices can help you not to make more.”

Arx sat up a little straighter at my comment, smiling contentedly, “Also, I’ve already got a bound arrow. And a magical knife of some kind. So Scout seems natural. Not that I know a thing about woodcraft.”

“Meh, I can teach ye,” Jax smirked. “And anyway. I could scarce hold me axe the right way up when I started. Ye’ll learn.”

“And I can help out with the knife,” I added. “I’ve got this new spell—”

“Absolutely not!” Jax cut in loudly.

“What’s this now?” Arx leaned forward intently. “How do you have a spell to ‘help’ with my knife?”

I grinned conspiratorially, “Well—”

“Not,” Jax interrupted again, jabbing at her upraised palm to punctuate her words, “In. The. Dungeon.”

“Hmm… Agility and Charisma? Instead of Toughness?” Arx asked, turning to me after the Lady had finished delivering Her message. “I suppose that makes some sense, what with me being a Scout-type. But… what is a siren?”

“It’s a… magical noise box,” I explained off-hand. “In my homeland, we use them for alarms and such.”

She frowned, “That sounds like a terrible sort of scout. And it doesn’t mesh with you two, at all. Isn’t our whole thing supposed to be about sticking to the shadows and going unseen?”

“Ideally, yes,” I nodded. But then, I had a vague memory cross my mind. Of a painting and a man being dragged under the waves. “It could be referring to something else, though. There’s an old legend, back home, about creatures called sirens. According to the tale, their singing could make passing sailors go crazy with longing, and then they would steer their ships into the rocks to get to them.”

Actually, now that I said it out loud, that was almost certainly what the Class was referring to, and I felt a bit silly for having thought otherwise. Although, that also raised the question of where the name had come from. Did they have those here? I mean… they had Goblins, so maybe.

“That’s more like it,” Jax grinned. “Having a skill like that would be ruddy useful.”

“For you maybe,” Arx argued back, “But a Scout-type shouldn’t be luring things toward them. That’s a good way to wind up dead.”

“Better you than Master.”

She grimaced, faced now with her new paradigm of reality. Like Jax, she was now immortal as long as I remained alive. I was a living phylactery, a vessel tying her being forever to this world. Of course, we had no idea what would happen if I were to expire, but it was not a thing that either of them were eager to find out. And not just for that reason. Actually, that was probably the least of the reasons.

“I think it’s best not to be too literal with it,” I advised after a moment. “You’re not a real siren, after all, and we get to pick your abilities.”

“Hopefully, it doesn’t require much singing,” she grumbled. “I may enjoy an occasional drinking song or two, but I’ve never been one to carry a tune.”

“We’ll just have to see,” I responded. Then, scratching at my beard, I asked, “So, shall we head out? Or do you want to pick your skill first?”

“I say skill,” Jax said. “Ye got nary a one to yer name, and I’d not like to hit troubles before then.”

“Fair,” I nodded. “So what do you think? Something to do with your arrow maybe? I doubt you can throw it anymore, or not as well, anyway.”

“It only ever really worked with your buffs going,” she sighed, confirming my guess. “If only I could get my hands on a bow…”

“I… suppose we could make one,” Jax offered after a moment. “Seeing as we can control when them scarecrows pop out, I can hew us up a branch. Maybe get some of them beetle webs for a string. Take a couple of weeks to temper the wood proper, though.”

The three of us shared a look. Sort of like what you might expect a clowder of hungry cats to make when presented with a tray full of asparagus.

“Right… so that’s out,” I muttered. Then, heaving a sigh, I mused, “I mean… technically, the skill can be almost anything as long as it’s… scout-like, right? What if… you got something to just propel the arrow? Like point it somewhere, say the magic word, and then zip! That would be good.”

Technically, I would not expect a scout to have a skill like that, at all. That sort of thing smacked of wizardry. But if Jax could make shadow doubles and steal Life Energy… why not?

She waggled her head a few times, considering the idea, “It’s… sort of basic. But it would cut down on the equipment we’d have to lug around. May as well check.”

Jax and I settled in to wait while Arx negotiated with the Lady. As was often the case, getting exactly what you were looking for was an exercise in patience and perseverance, and more often than not, you had to settle for something ‘close enough’. And from her increasingly frustrated expression, she was running head-long into that yet again.

Meanwhile, Jax draped herself across my lap, wanting me to stroke her horns, and with a grin, I complied. I rather liked the faces she made as my thumb ran across the ridges of the curved length of bone. Of course, she was not long satisfied with just that, and after a few moments, she directed my other hand to cup her breast.

“Really?” I whispered, not wanting to distract Arx. “We just had a marathon session not a few hours ago.”

She shrugged innocently, “Be it such a bad thing to want yer hands on me? Besides,” she smirked, “ye like it.”

I mean… that was true. And much as I tried not to think about them — being in the buff constantly will do that to a fellow — Jax’s breasts were starting to look pretty nice. They were of a decent size, if on the small side, nicely rounded, and were fresh enough still that sag was a far off myth the old-timers liked to scare the young-uns about. And if my stirring groin was any indication, they felt amazing.

And maybe just a little too amazing.

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I narrowed my eyes at her, “Jax…”

“Yes?” she blinked at me innocently.

“Okay,” Arx said abruptly, glancing up, “I think I’ve got… uhm…” She paused and leaned forward, her tongue lightly parting her teeth as if scenting the air, “Now that’s an interesting sensation. It’s… nice, but… off? Somehow?” Her eyes trailed down to stare at where my hand was resting, and the corners of her lips curled upward.

“Sorry, hen. I were salting it a bit,” Jax chuckled, trailing her fingers over top of my wrist. “Tell ye about it later. What have ye got then?”

“Oh, mmm…” She licked her lips lightly, still eying the motion of my hands, and distractedly, she reached up and began to rub at her horns. Disappointed at what she found there, she asked, “Does that really feel good? To me, it’s like I’m rubbing at a dead lump.”

“Oh, they ain’t dead,” Jax smirked at her. “Far from it. Come,” she crooked a finger at her. “Master will show ye, if ye ask nice.”

I sighed, “Shouldn’t we talk about your skill first?”

Arx decided to ignore my suggestion, though, preferring instead to sidle closer. Squeezing her arms together so as to give herself a bit of cleavage, she lowered her chin and made her eyes wide. Rather like a puppy dog. “Please, Dearest?”

I snorted, glancing down at the proffered valley despite myself. “Well, that’s a change. Yesterday, you wouldn’t bare yourself for anything, and now you’re pushing them into my face?”

Her breath quickened slightly at the brief touch of my eyes upon her, and she swallowed, “’Snails, that’s… I don’t… W-why would I ever want to hide myself from you?”

My mouth twisted to the side, unbidden. That was a lilim-typical response, if I had ever heard one. Even if my sample size was vanishingly small. “Fine. Come here.”

Smiling toothily, she settled onto the other side of my lap, and very gently, so as not to overwhelm her, I began to trace my fingers over her horns. Twitching from the stimulation, her eyes fluttered closed, “Oh, ‘Stits… That is… beautiful.”

Bemused, I asked, “Can you describe it? Jax has never been able to put it into words.”

She lay there silently for some time, pondering the question. Though, it probably did not help that I was shattering her concentration with my every caress. Finally she began, “I once worked at a parlor where a famous masseuse was in residence. People would pay vast sums to let her work on them, often as a warm-up for the rest of the workers. One day, before she moved on, she offered to do a session for all of us, as a thank you, and of course, I took her up on it. Her hands were… magical. Many times, I have looked back on that day as one of the highlights of my life. But now? With a single touch, you have made her a gross amateur.”

I pursed my lips thoughtfully. That was high praise, for sure, but it still did not answer the question beyond ‘really really good’. Though, I might be able to add ‘relaxing’ to the mix.

“Do you know,” I mused, “I’ve never had a massage that I’ve really enjoyed. I always feel like I’m being mauled.”

Jax cracked open one of her eyes to look up at me, “That do sound like a challenge, don’t it, Arx?”

“That it does, Jax,” she smiled in response.

Neither of them moved, though. They were still quite engrossed with my own ‘magical’ fingers.

I rolled my eyes. I guess that’s a later then. Fine. “So. Your skill?”

Arx grunted, evidently not wanting to talk about it, “I haven’t taken it yet. She’s being difficult. I can get one like you described just fine, but it’s all weird. There’s no incantations or pools to maintain or anything like that. But every version I can think of, She tacks on this bit where I have to ‘make the arrow dance’. It’s infuriating.”

“Make it dance?” I repeated, curiously. “How?”

“Oh, different things,” she explained. “Whistling, dancing, playing different instruments, and of course, singing. I’ve managed to get Her to agree to let me control it with just the tone of my voice, but it seems so impractical. How would I hunt or take something by surprise that way?”

From her description of the problem, it sounded a lot like her Class was more in line with something like a Bard than the Rogue that I had been envisioning. And given her history and the Class she had just given up, that would be beyond fitting.

I looked down at her, “Okay… but what do you mean by ‘make it dance’? That doesn’t sound much like shooting it with a command word. More like… Are you saying that you can control the arrow mid-flight?”

She lifted her shoulder off of my lap slightly, “I guess? The wording wasn’t very specific. Why do you ask?”

“Uh… because that’s insane?” I responded incredulously. “If you can correct the path it takes, then who cares if you have the advantage of surprise? You could make the arrow swoop around no matter how they dodge or where they run. You could even launch your attack from completely behind cover!”

Looking up at me thoughtfully, she nodded, “You talk sense. Still, a skilled archer should be able to take out a few sentries before being discovered. I wouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Maybe,” I acknowledged, but then I had a thought. “But then… we have the next skill point to worry about that. Don’t we?”

“That be a truth,” Jax added. “Skills can be made to work off skills. Together like. And besides, nobody said ye’d never have ye a bow. Just not yet.”

“Oh no…” I grinned, stroking their hair as my imagination began to churn. “No, I don’t think she’ll ever need a bow.”

---

“Okay,” I admitted, my dreams of Arx taking out small armies, Yondu-fashion, dashed against the rocks. “Maybe I spoke too soon.”

It turned out that controlling an arrow with your voice, while neat in theory, was considerably more difficult than it sounds. Arrows, it seemed, had a sort of default need to go forward. Always. So, whichever direction it was pointed in when Arx began was the direction it wanted to go. And it would. As long as she kept the tone going, the arrow would zip along in a perfectly straight line, irrespective of gravity, and at about the speed you would expect from a projectile fired from a bow.

And while altering it’s path was more than possible, it was extremely easy to over correct. It reminded me rather of trying to steer a car at full speed along a pedestrian filled city street in a video game. One wrong twitch of the thumb, and you would go careening through the crowd. And the next thing you knew, you would be nose down in the water fountain in the middle of the shopping mall. Followed shortly by the car exploding.

All of which was… good enough for a starting skill. Or so you would think. Just point, sing a note, and Bob’s your uncle. Instant projectile. The problem was, Arx had a little bit of trouble when it came to things like holding a steady pitch.

“’Stits and toes!” Arx shouted angrily. “This is impossible!”

“Ye just need a wee bit of practice, hen,” Jax said from beside me, about ten paces directly behind Arx, and entirely by coincidence, the only safe place we had found to stand. “Even if ye were a real archer, ye’d nay expect to hit yer target dead-on the first day.”

“Never mind hitting the target,” she groused, pointing at the little circle that Jax had carved for her. “I didn’t even hit the building!”

Right about then, the arrow thudded to the ground about a pace in front of Jax and I. The three of us stared at it, temporarily shocked into silence as it dissolved back into nothingness., and as one, the two of us both took a large step backward.

Her last shot had veered straight up, and we had lost sight of it in the clouds. Fortunately, the thing seemed to lose power once she stopped vocalizing, or we would have never seen it again.

Trying to ignore the goosebumps that were crawling up and down my spine from the near miss, I put on a reassuring smile, “I think we may be trying to run before we can walk, here.” Going to stand next to her, I spun her around to face the target again, “Right. Now, instead of trying to direct the arrow the whole way, let’s think of this like you’re shooting an arrow normally. If you just give it a quick burst of sound and let go…?”

She nodded, following my line of thinking, “I see. Good thought.”

Summoning the arrow again, she held it by the tail in her right hand, and imitated the stance of a practiced archer, aiming with her left extended. I did not see any real need for that. This was more like shooting a crossbow or an air cannon than anything, but whatever made her the most comfortable was fine. Carefully lining up her shot, she took a deep breath, and yelled, “Hah!”

The arrow shot forward like a bolt, and immediately diverted straight into the cobblestones about five paces in front of us.

“’Snails…” she growled.

“Uh huh… okay,” I said, trying to remain encouraging. “I think your pitch died a little at the end there. Let’s try it again, but this time, just go with a quick and crisp ‘ah’ sound.” I had never been much of a choir brat, but I had seen a few of those ‘Pitch Perfect’ movies. Okay, one. But I had a decent enough ear.

We practiced for a little while like that, and it was not long before she was hitting the target. And once I added in my accuracy spell, she was hitting it pretty close to center in no time.

Clapping her hands together gleefully, she turned and hugged me, bouncing on her toes in her excitement, “I got a skill point! Ha ha! Oh, I haven’t been so excited to get a skill up since I was a child!”

“I don’t blame ye,” Jax said, coming to stand next to us. “I don’t think I could’ve done ye better. Ruddy difficult looking, that were.”

“It’s not… so bad,” she returned. “It’s just, I’ve never had to think about what I’m doing with my voice. None of my other skills used anything like that, and any time I had to sing before, I was worried more about having fun than anything like… doing it right!”

Jax nodded, “Aye, well I understand that. Just wait until ye have to learn how to express yer lust proper.”

Then, in lieu of further explanation, she waved her hand to the side, and as she did, another shadowy hand came unstuck from it, waving slightly out of sync with her. She glanced at me then, and I could almost feel the burning passion hidden just beneath the surface. Her need for me was as constant as it was, in that moment, palpable.

Arx blinked slowly and licked her lips, “Why, uhm…” She cleared her throat, “Why would I need to know that?”

Jax just shrugged slightly, her eyes still focused on me, “Call it a hunch.”

“Right,” I said, clapping my hands together and swiveling on my heel. “Let’s get out of here. We don’t want to overstay our welcome, now do we?”

Keep it together, man. Just don’t think about it. I could not speak for the others, but the first thing I was going to buy once we got back to civilization was some heavy woolen pants.

“Mmm, what is that one?” I heard from behind me. “It’s kind of… sour? But in a cute way?”

“There be a toss to it, but yer tasting shame, mostly,” Jax chuckled. “He be trying not to let his ownself ‘spring into action’, as ye might say.”

“Oh?” she said, surprised. Then raising her voice, she addressed me, “Why not? Surely you don’t think we would mind?”

“Because,” I explained exasperatedly, “It is uncouth for a man to be so uncontrolled. Especially around a pair of quite naked female-adjacent persons. And maybe the two of you would enjoy that, but eventually, we’ll be around other people. And they will.”

“Don’t ye worry, Master,” Jax said, hurrying forward to walk beside me. “We’ll make sure to keep the flies away.”

“The flies?” I repeated, looking down at her askance. “What am I? A jar of honey?” I shook my head, “In my experience, women are much harder to get than that.”

“In fairness, Dearest,” Arx said, coming up to my other side. “Though I realize that not all will see you as we do, you are much more attractive now than you were. I think you will find their reactions quite different than you are used to.”

“We’ll see,” I muttered doubtfully. “Truthfully, I think you two will have a harder go of it than me.”

“Why’s that?” Jax asked seriously. “Women are plenty aggressive when the mood strikes them. Least as I recall. Don’t know the other kinds too well.”

“It varies from place to place, people to people,” Arx explained. “Some kinds are a little weird to our sensibilities. Like the Forga. They’re both sexes at once, you know.”

“The tree people?” I asked, once the distant memory of the name of that race drifted back to the forefront of my mind. I could not say that I was surprised at that bit of information. I never had been able to tell them apart.

“Nay call them that,” Jax scolded me. “Lest ye be looking for a scuffle.”

Right about then, we arrived in front of the large… whatever-it-was in the middle of the square, and all thoughts of kind and gender relations fled from our minds.

It was an imposing sort of thing, big as it was and with that great velvet tarp over top of it. However, if Arx was right, this was our doorway out of this place and back to reality. All we had to do was to pull the cloth away and reveal whatever final bit of fuckery the Dungeon had in store for us.

Jax grunted, looking up at it, “Best step away, Master. No telling what might happen when we pull this back.”

I nodded once, and along with Arx, we quickly jogged over to a nearby building, and hid ourselves around the edge.

“Alright,” I called, poking my head around the corner. “Go ahead.”

Summoning her axe just in case, Jax hefted it over a shoulder, and with her free hand, she grasped the tarp and pulled. It came away easily, sliding along as though fine silk, and pooled at her feet to reveal a great glass mirror. Framed in gold and intricately wrought with unidentifiable carvings, it stood well over a story in height and was easily twice the width of a man grown. And it hung there, mounted on absolutely nothing. Thin air. And motionless as boulder.

As strange as that was, it was nothing compared to what it reflected.

For there, staring back at her, was Jax. But not Jax as she was. It was the Jax that had been. The Jax before he even bore that name.

The Bandit. He stood, wielding an axe — twin to her own — in exactly the same pose, his face in just the same manner of shock and disgust.

And when she began to scream, he screamed with her.

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