Page 66

The race was a lot closer than either of us expected it to be really. We spent around 3 bells running around the city. Torien was a lot better at running on the uneven or unstable parts of the trail that I struggled a lot with but I would usually catch up or push ahead on any straightaways. I'm not really sure where our stats came in to play here but towards the end of the race neither of us had a clear advantage over the other. Unfortunately for me, the last section of the trail was an uneven track of land and I hadn't gotten far enough ahead in the last flat stretch. Torien had won pretty handily by the end.

When I caught up to her at the designated meetup spot she looked a bit sweaty in her casual clothes but had an ear to ear grin. She probably looked more joyful in that moment than I had ever seen her.

I smiled at her. "Well, looks like you win. Congrats."

She tilted her head but continued to smile. "That's a weird way to shorten that word."

I shrugged. "Anyway, looks like you get that favor. You come up with anything during the run?"

"Nope! I'll have to keep thinking about it."

"No problem, for now let me sit down for a minute."

I sat down on a log that was clearly well used as part of a campsite by the trail. My heart was still beating heavily and my limbs were tired but I didn't have that sweaty or overheated feeling you often get when exerting yourself. Another thing that I wasn't sure if it was a me thing or a 'beastfolk' thing. If I didn't have [Infernal Heat Resistance] would I be panting right now? I honestly didn't know. It felt like a weird thing to ask so I just set it aside. It was probably a me thing.

"That was fun Lilith." Torien looked up at the sky and paused for a little while. "You know, for a long time I had been hoping to get a good master or mistress that would treat me and my sister well. In the back of my head I knew that even if we went to a generally nice person, we'd still probably have a really hard time. I was prepared to work myself to the bone after we got sold to prove my loyalty and secure good treatment for us. Instead we suddenly got sold to you and instead of having this drive to impress you as hard as I could, I instead feel... free," she finished with a laugh.

"Free?" I asked.

"Yeah, I know it sounds kind of weird after being sold to you like an Uuna. I know we'll probably have plenty to do in the coming days and weeks. But instead of feeling like I need to do everything I can to impress you, to make sure I can trust you not to hurt my sister, I'm looking forward to what we'll see. What we'll get to do. All of the things the five of us will get to experience together. I've had a lot of fun today and the run gave me plenty of time to think about everything that's happened." She turned her body to face me and looked at me directly. "Thanks for everything Lilith, truly. If you want to be with my sister, I trust you not to hurt her. You don't need it but know that you have my blessing."

I smiled at her. "Thanks Torien, that does mean a lot coming from you. Just know that I didn't bring you out here for that. I want to get to know you better too, I want to be your friend." I looked up at the strange moons visible in the afternoon sky. "I don't know a lot about this world yet but you've taught me a lot about it in the short time we've been together. You even tried not to learn too much about me simply so someone couldn't use your knowledge against me. I already trust you a lot too."

Torien puffed up. "I know what I want you to use your favor on! I want you to promise never to sell the two of us."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Don't be ridiculous, I would never sell the two of you anyway." Feeling a bit theatric I looked Torien in the eye and crossed my heart with my fingers. "I Lilith, promise never to sell Torien and Morrigan to anyone and if the opportunity presents itself I will free the two of them from slavery."

[Lilith has made an Oath to Torien under the eyes of Charon and Sorsette]

Torien looked at me with wide eyes and I couldn't help but laugh out loud. "Of fucking course. Everything is an oath around here."

Torien touched her collar. "Lilith... A binding oath recognized by the system and the gods can only be made if you truly mean it... and two gods acknowledged it."

"Well, I meant it. I was kind of just being goofy, I didn't think it would turn into a whole thing. But I did mean it."

Torien got up and sat next to me before giving me a tight hug. It would be a lot more touching but honestly Torien was covered in sweat and kind of gross right now. I still returned the hug. When she finally let go she was beaming with happiness, her smile was infectious and there were the start of tears in her eyes.

I got up and stretched. "Let's get back to town. It's not too late but I'm kinda sore from the run."

"Sure."

We started heading back. My sword felt rather heavy on my back right now. I really hope we don't run into monsters at this point. The two of us could probably handle anything that would normally be in this area but I just really didn't want to deal with it. Torien walked close to me, almost shoulder to shoulder. I didn't intend for that oath to be a whole thing but I'm happy it brought us closer together. With the system and magic involved I'm going to have to start watching my words and actions a lot more carefully. Ugh, there's always too much to think about, I just need to relax for a minute.

I bumped my shoulder into Torien's softly. "So Torien, you never used that favor. If you thought of anything, now's probably our last chance before dinner."

She looked around for a little bit but it didn't seem like she could think of anything. "Hmm, I'm still not sure. I'll probably have to hold onto the favor for later. If that's okay."

"No problem, just don't hold onto it for too long, if we keep racing you're bound to stock up on them."

She laughed in response. "I'll keep that in mind."

Checking back into town wasn't a problem since it was still a bit before the rush. We already ate lunch and it was only a couple bells before dinner so we just headed back to our inn for now. I was a little disappointed I couldn't stretch our day together a bit longer but Torien understandably really wanted a bath after our run. She did seem to have a lot of fun and combined with the oath I accidently made, it was probably the happiest I'd ever seen her.

Part of me wondered what it would be like to sleep with a pair of twins at the same time. But I did my best to push the thought down. Torien didn't seem to be overly interested in me and that was fine. I was already sleeping with most of my party members, I didn't need to sleep with all of them.

While Torien was in the bath I looked through the demon summoning book I had found on my first day on this plane. Like I had expected I still didn't recognize any of the text in it, I still had no idea what language it was written in. I suppose now that the twins knew my secret I could show the book to them but I hesitated. It was one thing for me to claim I wasn't a demon and another to see an almost cliché demon summoning book with my picture in it. I just sighed and shoved it back down into by bag again. I should probably give it to Mimi to hide for me when she gets back with the girls.

I spent the next bell or so rereading my ritual book, trying to see if I could spot any consistent shapes or images among the magic circles I may have overlooked. I closed the book and looked up when I heard Bella and Morrigan fiddling with the handle on the door.

I set the book down next to me and waved. "Hey girls, have a good time?"

Bella and Morrigan had come back with a surprising number of bags between the two of them. Bella looked a little sheepish as she set the bags down by the door and Morrigan was smiling good naturedly as she sat the bags she was holding next to them. My stomach twisted in anxiety a little bit when I saw Morrigan.

Bella cleared her throat and looked at me, "I um, may have gone a little bit overboard with the clothes shopping."

"You should have seen her, I've never seen Bella so excited and happy before. I've never seen anyone act so shy and nervous to go in a second-hand clothing store, only to turn around and try to buy out the whole place!"

Bella's ears turned bright red and she looked away. "I... wasn't that bad was I?"

Morrigan wrapped her arm around Bella's neck and pulled her into a side hug. "You were so cute!" She punctuated it with a quick peck on her cheek that made me smile.

Torien opened the bathroom door and whistled at the sheer number of bags on the floor. "Are those all clothes? Are you sure you want to carry everything for all of us Mimi? I feel kind of bad about it since I got a bunch of clothes this morning too," she said pointing to her own pile of bags on her side of her bed. Our room was mostly filled with bags right now.

Mimi morphed out of the sheathe Bella had been carrying and looked around at everything. "I'm sure it'll be fine, they don't look all that big." She tapped a finger on her chin in a way that looked like she had copied the motion from someone else. "It might be difficult to keep everything separated without mixing any of it up though."

Torien sat on the bed and dried her hair with a towel. "Maybe we should buy some chests or boxes to separate our things? That way Mimi can just plop down our chests instead of trying to remember everything. Would that take too much space?" she asked glancing at Mimi.

Mimi tilted her head to the side in thought. "Well, that would make separating things easier but if we do it that way it would eat up some of my storage space. I don't think I want to risk expanding it much further right now so we would have to be careful choosing the boxes we use."

I nodded. "That sounds good, we'll each get a box for ourselves and that way we can take things along without overburdening Mimi too much. Each of us won't take more than our boxes allow except for special cases. Would you be willing to do that for us Mimi?"

Mimi smiled. "That sounds fine, as long as the boxes aren't too big or heavy. It would make it a lot easier to keep track of things. I'm already having trouble keeping track of Lilith's and Morrigan's clothes, trying to keep track between four people plus the other stuff I have to carry around would be pretty hard."

"Sounds good then. We'll go visit Twill and Meena tomorrow and look for lightweight boxes or crates for that. For now I guess we'll just leave the bags where they are." I said looking around.

Morrigan cleared her throat. "Lilith, the thing we talked about yesterday. Should we talk about it now or after dinner?" she asked.

I smiled wryly. "We should probably talk about it right now. It'll probably be too distracting to put it off any longer. Did you come to a decision?"

Morrigan looked serious. "I did. I want to join the two of you."

I looked over at Bella. "Did you two get the chance to talk about it today? How do you feel about it?"

Bella smiled. "We did, the two of us talked at length about it and I'm very happy to see Morrigan joining us."

I stood up and walked over to Morrigan, the cat girl with cute black ears and mysterious red eyes nervously looked up at me. I gently cupped the side of her face, leaned in and kissed her. Bella walked forward and before Morrigan could recover from my kiss, turned Morrigan's head towards herself and traded places with me. Stealing her lips as well.