Chapter 30: Chapter 24

In the center of a large room, filled with dozens of women busily moving about or hunched on the floor molding inscriptions onto numerous clay tablets, stood two familiar girls with a group of women clustered around them.  This group, led by two women who wore more expensive looking clothing, hovered over Sarduna and Naira as they inspected both of them, while making notes onto their wet clay.  They worked studiously while also ignoring the girls who were the subject of their scrutiny.

Only for the entire room was thrown into pandemonium as I barreled into the room at a full run, with Meskia under arm.  The entire room stopped and turned to look at my interruption of their work as I continued my charge straight towards Sarduna and Naira at full pace.

One of the richly dressed women stood in my way.  “Halt!  You are in the Sun Cult’s dedicated scribal hall, now sto…”  She managed to declare before I flung her to one side without slowing down.

I released my rag doll… uh, I mean Meskia, from my grasp as I arrived in front of my girls, I only needed her to point me in the right direction anyway.  Barging through the cluster without a second thought.  Wrapping my arms around and pulling both of them into a hug, Sarduna eagerly leaning in as expected but I was mildly surprised at Naira who was also pressing in from the other side, pushing her nose into the top of my breasts.

“How are you?”  I whispered towards Sarduna.

“Oh, fine.  They just held us here while blathering on in their gibberish words.  Neither me nor Naira could decipher what they were saying so we decided to wait for the time being.”  She stated coolly.

I sighed in relief, then smiling as I quietly spoke.  “I’m just happy that you two are safe and sound.  Now we should move to someplace more private.”

“You!  Do you know what you are doing?”  The woman I had shoved aside question indignantly, having recovered from the floor.  “You have assaulted a priestess of the Sun Goddess, and now you’re pawing her latest gifts, such sacrilege!”

I didn’t respond to the woman’s words as she stamped towards us, I simply step in front of Sarduna and Naira prepared to defend them from this lot.

“*COUGH* Excuse me miss, but these girls are to be inducted into the Sun Cult.  We require you to give us some space so that we can finish their registration so that they can be inducted into the Pure Sun Warriors.”  The other expensively dressed women spoke up in that feigned polite tone but there was an implied a threat of ‘I’m giving you a way out, now get out of my sight’ while veiled in superficially polite words.

“I couldn’t care less about what you want, these are my girls.”  I stated tightening my grip around Sarduna and Naira.  “And why should I be listening to you anyway?”  I questioned furiously.

“I am the Chief Scribe for the great Lugal Utu-banda, the compiler and maintainer of her records.  When my mistress speaks, whether to convey messages, dictate laws or keep account of gifts and tribute, I am the hand that ensures all she wills is recorded for all of eternity.  Thus, I am fulfilling the will of the Lugal, you are now to step aside.”  The woman spoke with a self-assured and subtly arrogant tone.

But the only thought that ran through my head was.  ‘Why am I taking shit from a bureaucrat?’

“No.”  I gave a clear and emphatic answer.  “I will not let thieves take what is mine.” 

“What!?  What kind of accusations are you claiming?”  The priestess shouted in fury as her response.

“You heard me.  Your Sun Cult is a pack of thieves if you think you can just steal my girls so that you can force them into your cult.”  I stated loudly.

The room was filled with a strange mixture of awkward silence and indignant outrage as the numerous workers made different reactions to my words.  From the corner of my eyes, I could glimpse the scribes in the room gathering around me.  The furious Sun priestess stomped towards me, glaring intently in barely contained rage.  She stopped a short distance in front of me before snapping off.

“Karla!  Get out here and deal with this annoying little girl!”  The Sun priestess yelled in frustration.

Following the direction of the priestess’s eyes I found an armored warrior emerging stiffly from an alcove that I had previously not noticed.  She was elegantly tall, standing at half a head taller than most of the local women, with poise and grace as she sashayed across the hall.  Her wheat blonde hair and ethereally light skin tone that poked through her armor tipping me off that this girl wasn’t a native of Sin’yar.  Could she be from Norgard like Aura or maybe from somewhere else?

But what really surprised me was the armor she wore; it was made of iron.  Only just now did I suddenly realize that I haven’t encountered any iron made tools at all, almost everyone I’ve met used copper or bronze tools.  Even the elves wielded weapons made of some misty, silvery looking material, for some reason thinking of elven metallurgy the word ‘mithril’ popped into my head, and I don’t know why.  But iron itself, that was something I haven’t seen… until now.

Anyway, this woman, Karla apparently, came up to us paused for a brief moment as she sized me up, then turned towards the priestess to ask a question.

“Her?  Why?”

“She is disrupting the recruitment of two new girls into the service of the Sun, it’s blasphemy to disrupt such a sacred rite.  Now just teach this little butt-slut a lesson!”  The priestess blurted out immediately, fuming with each syllable.

‘Your princess is the butt-slut here.’  I retort to myself wordlessly, my eyes flicking at Meskia momentarily, as I prepared myself for the fight to come.

Hah, this is going to be tough.  I have no weapons, or armor to fight with, facing off against an opponent decked out in vastly superior equipment and most likely far better trained than I am.  She didn’t seem to be terribly concerned but that didn’t mean she had taken her eyes off of me, gripping her weapons at the ready to fight.  This all spoke of both her confidence and caution not to underestimate me no matter how much of an advantage she held.  To say nothing of the dozens of other enemy girls surrounding me from all sides.  

Yeah, I’m pretty much fucked.

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Honestly, maybe I shouldn’t have been so hasty, running headlong into this.  Here I am in the middle of enemy territory, taking on superior foes with far greater numbers, there is no way I can realistically expect to win this, yet here I am attempting exactly that.  I jumped into this without properly preparing or making any plans, not that my current situation has allowed me the time to do any of that.  Besides what kind of girl would I be if I just stepped aside and let them take MY girls away, like hell I’m going to be some coward handing and let Sarduna and Naira to be taken by these self-righteous thieves.

But it’s too late for that now, I fucked up and now I’m going to get fucked.  So, I’ll fight, and I’ll almost certainly lose.  I gulped down hard, grit my teeth, lock eyes with this Karla and steady myself for this.  Prepared to do what I must.

Stepping forward… and I’m immediately interrupted.

“Karla, Karla!  Hold on, there is no need to fight, just hear me out.”  Meskia called out suddenly, jumping between myself and this Karla woman, stopping me in my tracks.

Karla blinked in surprise at Meskia’s sudden intrusion.  “Meskia, what do you mean?”

Meskia in turn gestures at us three.  “These girls are my new servants, I only just acquired them recently and they were never supposed to be given to the Cult, please just tell Utu-ningal and we can discuss this later at her convenience.”

There was a pause that stretched on for far longer than it had any right to, then Karla just nonchalantly shrugged her shoulders.

“…Okay.”

That was it?  Meskia looks visibly relieved at that one word; Karla for her part has taken a step back and relaxed her posture.

“What are you doing?  That girl has insulted the honor and authority of our institution.  Why are you not punishing her?”  The priestess screeched.

“Because she is apparently Meskia’s slave and Meskia is friends with the high priestess.  We can hold off and wait for what the High Priestess says.  Now Meskia, in the future make sure to have your slaves properly disciplined, now would you?”  Karla said casually, practically dismissively.

“Y-Yes, I’ll be sure of it.”  Meskia replied sheepishly with an embarrass blush on her face.  Grabbing my hand, she pulled me along wanting to quickly leave. 

Why do I feel so disappointed by this?  After all of my dread and impending sense of doom, to have such a simple and diplomatic outcome, it seems so anticlimactic.  And all I could do was sigh.  Thankfully I felt tug to my side, looking over I see Sarduna smiling at me.  Naira just scowls, but I see concern in her eyes, she takes up position on the other side of Sarduna defensively.

It was then that my eyes caught sight of a table that I had missed sight of during all of this.  Laid on top were the various tools and weapons of the elves we had killed on the way here, including the tiara that I remembered vividly.

“Wait.”  I immediately called out.  “Those are mi-" “No.  You are already wearing my good will with Karla thin; I can’t be making more demands from the Cult.”  Meskia cut me off with a deadly serious low voice, her eyes flicking briefly back towards Karla and the Sun priestess.  “We have to leave those to the Cult, now we need to leave.”

Seething rage bubbled up from within me, an immediate impulsive urge of fury threatening, demanding to be unleashed upon those who would deny me.  Every part of me screaming out that I should take them.  And for a brief few seconds my mind was flooded with the thought of saying ‘screw it’ and launching an assault on everyone here with explosive violence… but I quickly realized that it wouldn’t work.  I understood that she was right, that I couldn’t just fight or intimidate my way into getting everything I wanted. 

But those were MY treasures, I had killed the previous owners, they were mine by right, yet the Sun Cult gets to take what’s justly mine?  Unfortunately, since I don’t have the means to secure my property from these thieves who out number and out class me, walking away is the only rational way out of this, no matter how much I hate to do so. 

It was at that moment that I felt a pleasant sensation on my cheek.  Sarduna had just pecked me with her soft, warm lips, she didn’t say a word just stood next to me with a bright smile as she held my hand with her own. 

I could feel myself deflate as my anger receded.  Ah screw it, the Cult can have the weapons and tiara… for the time being.  Right now, I just wanted to bask in Sarduna’s affections.

After that I merely took Sarduna and Naira, and followed Meskia out of the room, while all of the scribes and priestesses glared at us as we waltzed out.

While walking down the halls I was struck with a question, why am I so furious about these artifacts being stolen?  I mean I had secured Sarduna and Naira, I should have at least been happy that I was able to save them, but I wasn’t.  I know it’s normal to be angry when someone steals from you, what’s strange is how overcome with absolute wrath I was over weapons and a tiara that I thought gone until just recently. 

I have the feeling there is something more to this aspect of myself than I can currently fathom.

The short silence was broken by Naira as she asked something that was on all of our minds.  “So, what’s going on?” 

I sighed and directed my gaze at Meskia’s back.  “That’s what I intend to find out.”

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