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Ryn fails to stifle the snicker at Zev's reaction.
Ada having done healing in the arena is used to naked bodies. "I won't bother you." she responds to Azura. "You can always let me sleep in. Speaking of sleeping, are we doing that in shifts?"
”Same.” Zev agrees with a hopeful smile. ”That would probably be for the best, Ayala did just try to get a drop on us.”
"Good idea. What should our shifts be?" says Azura. "Saersha probably needs rest so that she can recuperate her magical powers. I can take any shift."
I'll take the first shift. I can sleep just about anywhere. Ulfr offers.
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"All right, so Saersha and Ulfr will take first watch... and Embyr I suppose as well... so that once it's done they can all get a full night's sleep. They'll wake up Ryn and me for the second watch, then we'll trade off to Zev and Ada for third," says Azura.
She putters about to have a few more bites of biscuits interspersed with sips of water for her ration of supper, then doffs her armor and slips under her blankets to try to get some sleep.
"See you in a few hours," she says as she wriggles out of her garments and pulls on a simple chemise while under the covers.
Ada lays out a bedroll slips out of her chain shirt, and curls up to sleep. "Night everyone wake me up when it's time for me to take watch."
Setting her shield down beside her bedroll, Ryn removes her armor, changing into a simple shift before crawlig into her bedroll and also turning in. "Good night everybody."
”G’night, sweet dreams everyone.” Zev says while taking off his coat to turn into makeshift bedding to curl up on.
Ulfr settles in for his watch by the mysterious door. He sits on his bedroll crosslegged and busies himself with repairing his gear. After all, there are lots of dagger holes in it how.
Saersha accepted the arrangement of watches, it seemed reasonable, and it would let her get the needed sleep in so her magic would recover. The wizardess wasn't the most observant of people...ever...and so keeping watch was a bore for her. She was expected to do it though and gestured for Embyr to sit with her and keep watch. It didn't take Saersha long to get bored just sitting there and watching the darkness, her mind needed something to do, so she asked Embyr, "Tell me about yourself?"
Embyr blinks at Saersha as she sits next to her. Her cheeks flush and she looks at the floor.
"...there's not much to tell. I always had a talent for putting my fingers where they didn't belong--Mom said as much." She shrugs, still reluctant to make eye contact with Saersha. "We didn't have much--with two other brothers, there wasn't much to go around anyway."
"Had to live on the money of a seamstress, we did. There weren't much other work to go around, so my brothers and I ended up turning to thievery. They both ended up in jail after several months... I guess I was the only one who had the gift."
You did what you had to for survival. There is no shame in that. Ulfr says without looking up from his work.
"Try tellin' that to the guard." Embyr snorts. "Mom thinks I've got myself a job in some Alabaster noble's home as a maid--it's how she thinks I've been able to afford some good things."
"I've been sending part of my gains to her even before falling in with the Girls."
Saersha was amused by Embyr's refusal to meet her gaze but it didn't bother her really. She had plans for this young woman and being so submissive as she was just now was exactly what she was hoping for. The mage listened to her pet's story and found herself pleased, this one will have potential, she thought, I can train her to be what I want her to be and make good use of her talents at thievery.
When Embyr finished her story Saersha knew how to keep the young woman loyal easily enough. Looking at the young woman Saersha said, "That you show such responsibility does you credit Embyr, I can definitely use someone like you," she let her tone be suggestive at the word use, "Now you can tell your mother that you are a maid and not be making something up. I am taking you into my services and you will get a stipend which is yours to do with as you please. You are welcome to go on stealing if you wish so long as it isn't from myself or anyone we're working with."
Embyr's head snaps up and she looks Saersha in the eyes in surprise. "Really?"
Saersha was kind of startled that Embyr met her eyes but she nodded and said, "Yes, Embyr, I am." She gave the young woman an imposing stare in return as she said, "Realize I won't make it easy on you, I will have much for you to do, many things for you to learn." She arched one eyebrow, "If you do well you will be rewarded, if you do poorly you will be punished." She reached out to cup the back of the other woman's head and began to lean in so her lips were very close to Embyr's but not touching, "I give my word that you won't be bored." Saesha didn't kiss Embyr but rather waited to see what the young woman would do.
Embyr freezes when Saersha leans in to her. She's trembling a little, but she doesn't make a move to kiss the mage.
"...t-thank you. I, um... I don't even know how else I can properly thank you." The rogue slowly pulls away from the mage and starts making her way to her bedroll. "I-I should get some sleep, ma'am."
Azura is groggy and hard to awaken when her shift comes around. "Just... bluh... just um, a minute." It takes a couple of tries to get her to sit up, yawn, and rub her eyes. She splashes a bit of water on her face and says, "That'll do. All right."
She pushes aside her bedroll and pokes at the fire pit to get some more warmth out of it, and waits for someone to wake up Ryn.
Relatively used to being awakened at need, when not on the tail end of a celebratory evening, Ryn opens her eyes, sitting up as Ulfr heads back over to his chosen spot by the door, giving her fellow gladiator a nod before flashing the clearly still sleepy Azura a smile. "Our turn." she says, stretching.
Saersha was only slightly disappointed in Embyr pulling away but she let the young woman do so. She knew it just helped her to learn her maid's personality and how much fun she was going to have with her new pet. She passed the rest of her watch quietly, making some notes and working on a few new spells in her book before it was time to switch shifts. Rising she went to where Azura lay and waited for the aasimar to turn her head just right, leaned down, and attempted to wake her with a very strong kiss on the lips while groping the other woman in the process.
Ryn is woken gently by gladiator or caravan guard standards. Ulfr walks over and kicks the bottom of her foot. Like any good fighter she's awake almost immediately.
Ulfr goes back to his bedroll and sits down facing the door. He crosses his legs and falls asleep upright with his club across his knees.
"Mmfmmm," says Azura as Saersha wakes her up in the lust mage's signature idiom. Her eyes flutter open and she murmurs, "Ah, Saersha. Thanks for the wake-up call." She glances down at and says, "Been waiting for your chance? You're very... aggressive." She smirks slightly.
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Ryn arches and eyebrow, shaking her head at Saersha's utter lack of self control. She couln't fault her taste, Azura was pretty damned intoxicating, especially her personality, but the lust mage's manner of acting as if everyone were her personal playground without boundaries made the gladiatrix twitch despite the woman's obvious beauty.
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"Can you give me a sec, Ryn? I think I've encountered a wandering hand."
The night passes...
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...and the morning comes without incident. Embyr looks like she's sleeping in.
"Sure, pesky things those." Ryn quips back slipping on her boots.
Azura tosses her blanket aside and sits up after Saersha's wake-up call. She stretches and twists her back and then, like Ryn, moves to put on her trompers and her regular garments. She takes a few moments to simply sit still and collect her wits, and moves precisely and quietly so as not to awaken anyone else.
"I'll be a little groggy for a bit still, I think," she whispers to Ryn.
Taking a moment, she cracks her neck as she moves to sit a bit closer to the fire.
after giving Azura her wake up call Saersha lay her bedroll out next to Embyr's and touches her wrists causing her clothing to shimmer away and shift into a sheer nightgown. She curled up next to her new pet in her bedroll and slept through until morning.
When she awoke Saersha noticed that Embyr was apparently deciding to sleep in and wasn't about to let that happen...for too long anyway, and after an hour of studying and preparing her spells she decided that it was time to wake her maid up. Saersha rolled over to where Embyr was sleeping and closed teh space between them before pressing her lips firmly against Embyr's and kissing her very soundly to wake her like she did to Azura the night before.
"I've had interrupted sleep a few times, but it still leaves me a bit groggy and disoriented," replies Azura. She hauls her armor out and sets it by the small fire so that it'll warm up before she has to put it on, then sits on her bedroll, which is certainly better than sitting on the cold, hard stone floor.
"There's many doors to watch in this room," she says as she gazes about at the various entries. "Makes it a little harder to keep watch effectively. Any advice for someone who isn't a veteran of the arena?"
Embyr moans in her sleep as Saersha kisses her, and her eyes flutter open.
"...mmm...? Mmmph!" The ex-Tower Girl's eyes snap awake and she flails about in surprise.
"Also, watch your partner. If I suddenly start moving really quickly, wake Zev and Ulfr. We'll let the girls sleep as long as they can,they need it for their magic right? Does yours not work the same way?"
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"Not really, no... I don't have to study magic to set it up; it just... happens. I need to practice my singing and I do need rest now and then but it's not as intensive as the kind of wizardry that Saersha does," says Azura in answer to Ryn's question.
"Saersha's power comes from study, but she needs a well-rested mind to maintain the kind of focus necessary to empower her magic. That's why it's generally more powerful than the parlor tricks that I do. She also gains power from seduction and gratification... whereas I gain power from satisfaction, but it doesn't push me into being as, um, aggressive."
"Speaking of that, though, I did leave out a bit when I mentioned how my religious observances work... yes, it's true that I have to do my prayers naked. Buuuut it's also part of this observance that I am supposed to achieve sexual release every day. Usually I get that done before I get up in the morning, but it's a bit more awkward under these kinds of conditions." She clears her throat. "Saersha may or may not know... I'm not sure how much she knows about obscure empyreal cults."
Not one to let up so easily Saersha shifted her position to try and straddle the flailing rogue. She continued to kiss Embyr for a minute then broke off and said, "Make sure to be awake before me next time Embyr, that way you can choose how you wake up." She shifted off of Embyr then and rose and said, "Come now, you'll miss breakfast if you don't hurry." With that she spoke a few words and caused her hair to go into it's normal style with a spell and moved to eat something before they headed out.
Ada is woken by Azura for her shift. "That time already?" She puts on her armor and takes a seat across from Ryn. She studies him for a few minutes, and then blurts out, "You aren't from around here are you?"
"Anyway," she says refocusing, "Given things....do you need someone to um, make sure you're undisturbed until you, um finish?" Despite her best efforts, Ryn couldn't help blushing, not due to embarrassment, but more because of how visual her mind was coupled with her attraction. "Especially given some people's issues with boundaries?"
"We should definitely look into tents when available." she says with a chuckle, running her fingers through her hair.
"Oh, I'll just get it done while everyone's asleep," says Azura.
"Sorry for making things awkward! I know, I'm just an oddball."
At Ada’s outburst he tilts his head at her and smiles. ”No, I’m from the Uskwood in Nidal.”
Embyr rubs her lips as Saersha gets off of her, and meekly gets dressed before getting to breakfast.
Ulfr wakes and helps break camp before leading the band into the dark unknown.
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With a wry smile Azura says, "Sorry to embarrass you, but thanks for your support. Just one last touch of the strange and that's all, I promise."
She unbuttons her bodice and shimmies her chemise down past her shoulders until it falls into a pool about her waist.
"This'll only take a short while, then I can get dressed again and go back to the watch."
She wraps her hands under her immense orbs and repeatedly squeezes and caresses until droplets of milk form, then turn into a spray of rivulets. She repeats this for several minutes until the flow finally turns to a trickle and then stops, then with a twist of magic she wipes the floor dry again with a wave of her hand.
"Going too long without that makes 'em sore," she says as she pulls her chemise back up and buttons her bodice again.
As she warned, in the morning Azura awakens, pushes aside her blanket, shimmies out of her chemise, and kneels on her bedroll naked while she gives prayers to Arshea.
Also as expected, she is a woman of hypnotic symmetry and exaggerated build, with fair skin and golden hair and an almost radiant complexion. Yet she doesn't seem particularly bothered by doing these prayers around others, and once she finishes, she pulls her chemise back on, then her bodice, then her gambeson and armor, as if it's no big deal.
Once dressed she practices her singing for a short time, then wraps up any lingering campsite clean-up issues and has a small bite to eat before joining the battle line once more.
As a veteran of the arena, Ryn was no stranger to nudity, the female for in particular. Even with magic, she could usually identify the signs of a woman who’d born a child at some point, and Azura’s flawless form didn’t seem to indicate that, which as far as she knew went hand ion hand with milk production. ”Uhm…wow. I could see how that would get uncomfortable. Uhm… do you have a kid? If it's okay for me to ask that is.” the gladiatrix asks. After all Azura was pretty open, at least with her so why not just ask the question.
Awakening early, Ryn sits up stretching and limbering up her body as she takes in her companions. Her eyes drawn to Azura for a moment, the gladiatrix takes a moment to simply appreciate her friend’s mind numbing beauty, not just the aspect that made her blood run hot, but the pure serene, almost supernatural beauty of her in prayer, the celebration of her form that made her outlook make sense.
Shifting her attention she looks over at each of the others, observing their morning rituals, each now a member of her circle, people she would protect with her life. Running her thumb along the ring she wore on her middle finger, she asks Falayna for the strength to defend those who would need her today, before getting up and donning her clothing and armor, taking out a brush form her pack and beginning to brush her hair.
"So this..." she says, pointing to her bust, "came about a few months after I joined the cult of Arshea, and as you might imagine, I was pretty scared! I thought I was pregnant. Not quite..."
"I've had some lovers here and there in my travels, but nothing very long-term, and I'm careful about not getting pregnant, so this was a surprise. What I eventually learned from a wet-nurse is that this is a result of my celestial devotion... as I mentioned before, I have to achieve sexual release every day as part of my devotion. Wellll that means that I spent a lot of time feeling these up... every day... so, according to the wet-nurse, that's enough to cause them to fill up. Anyway, quite a relief when I found out I wasn't unexpectedly expecting!"
"Soooo... where to next?"
Once the party has had breakfast and broke camp, they proceed through the siccatite doors to the dusty foyer beyond. The murals on the walls beyond look as fresh as though they've been painted yesterday--and are clearly of Thassilonian origin, depicting stylized mages weaving powerful magics from the fabric of reality itself. The cobweb-choked corridor runs to the north and descends into the darkness.
Beyond the stairway, the corridor winds for a bit before opening up into a room on the first floor of the Crow, cut off from the entranceway. The room itself has a domed ceiling that rises 40 feet overhead, and the southern entrance to the room (where the party entered) lies on a balcony 20 feet above the lower floor. Two stone staircases lead down the eastern & western parts of the room, with a narrow passageway to the southeast that leads elsewhere in the Crow. On the lower floor is a stagnant-looking pool of algae-covered water that looks barely 3 feet deep.