Fantasy Cursed Island

[Fangs9090]

"Hm... A live, friendly hydra would give me a ready supply of blood for more regen potions. Plus, if it grows enough, it would be useful in a fight. I don't know if I could do anything with the raw egg though. An omelet, maybe."

 

[Darkling0096]

Jerry thought about that, "Can you tell if the egg's fertilized or not?"

 

[Fangs9090]

"Mm...no, that's outside my area of expertise. I can tell if something has died, but if it has yet to live, I can't figure anything out. Try the druid. Maybe she can tell you."

 

[Darkling0096]

"Gotcha," Jerry looked around for the goliath, and she was hanging out with Joanne meditating. "Oh, hell, there's two of them."

 

[Fangs9090]

Niudisa glanced over. “Mm. If Joanne keeps her preoccupied, that’s fine by me.”

 

[Darkling0096]

Jerry shook her head, might as well just get this over. Glancing down at her time-rock it was the middle of the night, so she needed to get this over with and help Asta out of the harness so they could get to bed. "Is this alive?", she held out the egg in front of the goliath, who looked the thing over.

"It is fertilized, yes," Nalla nodded. "From which nest did you steal this egg?"

"The hydra's." Jerry jerked her thumb towards the head, "Asta and I found three total. Niudisa thinks they might be useful or they might be tasty."

"Have you ever eaten snake before?" Joanne looked up, "It is tough, and chewy. Like old jerky."

 

[Fangs9090]

Niudisa just waved Jerry off as she left before looking over as Erina called out to her. She fluttered over to see what she wanted.

 

[Darkling0096]

"Either way," Jerry shrugged, "We'll find something to do with it." She walked away back to Asta so she could take the saddle and harness off of the chimera. "So, the eggs are alive," she started, "But I have no idea if they're going to hatch or what can be done with them."

 

[Fangs9090]

"Well, if they're with us from birth, they should imprint on someone, and that should make them less of a threat."

 

[Darkling0096]

"We'll figure that out at some point," Jerry agreed. She set the saddle and harness on a piece of driftwood with the rest of her kit to keep it off the ground before unrolling a bedroll. No point in setting up a proper camp if they were only going to be here for a night anyway. She shrank Asta down to Beri's size as well, so he wouldn't have to lay in the dirt to sleep.

 

[Fangs9090]

Asta stretched once he was small again before a floating fairy light caught his eye. Niudisa was heading back to her worktable from Erina's loom. She seemed to be carrying something in her arms, but Asta couldn't tell what from this distance. Erina herself was settling down to sleep.

 

[Darkling0096]

The group settled down for the night, sleeping as comfortably as they could in the slapped-together camp. Morning came, some woke earlier than others due to their sleeping patterns. Jerry, having stayed up among the longest ofr her trip with Asta, woke up among the latest.

As usual, Adran worked his magic to conjure corruption-free food for breakfast. "Shuffle, put the puzzle down and come eat," Adran called to the amalgamation over to the breakfast table. The puzzle hadn't been solved very much, the new configuration was either more complex than the previous one or Shuffle wasn't very good at puzzles. It had taken her a week and a half to solve it the first time, so either could be true.

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle looked over and whined as she put the box away. She really wanted to get the box open again. She was starting to miss Nyah now that she actually knew she was gone.

Niudisa was wearing something new when she came to the table to eat. Instead of her usual robes that covered almost everything, she now wore a dark dress that definitely flattered her form more. She still had her usual boots, but now that her legs weren't fully covered, it was clear that the boots went up to her knees.

 

[Darkling0096]

Adran raised an eyebrow at the fairy as she reappeared. "Never pegged you to wear a dress."

"It looks good on you!", Veo added, "You should dress up more often!"

"Of course a necromancer would wear digging boots," Joanne shook her head. Paladin's turn to get smacked upside the back of the head, by Emfa this time.

"Huh?", Jerry sat up as the noise woke her up, glancing around and reaching for her sword, assuming the noise to be some kind of attack.

 

[Fangs9090]

Niudisa looked at them before shaking her head. "Erina made a change of clothes and hose robes were old anyway... That's all."

Erina smiled at her. "But I am glad to see you wearing it. It's certainly complements you more than those robes."

Emil nodded. "You are attractive in your own right. You shouldn't cover that."

Shuffle nodded her agreement. "You're really pretty."

Niudisa looked at them in turn. She seemed...conflicted, her expression confused. It softened for a moment before she scowled and clenched her fist. "Grrr, SHUT UP!" She paused for a moment before promptly turning to head back to her stuff.

Emil and Shuffle looked at the others in confusion, while Erina rested her cheek on her hand. "Oh, dear..."

 

[Darkling0096]

Veo put a hand on Emil's shoulder at his compliment, giving him a light squeeze. She didn't sound too keen on letting her lover get away with complimenting another woman's figure in a way that sounded vaguely like flirting.

"You're getting compliments and your reaction is a tantrum," Adran shook his head, "Even Asmodeus wasn't that bad."

"Did I miss something?", Jerry looked really confused as she stood up and stretched.

 

[Fangs9090]

Emil tensed a bit at Veo grip. He was used to throwing out compliments, so it hadn't occured to him how she'd take it.

Erina looked over at Adran. "Something we said must have bothered her. Perhaps you could talk to her. She seems to respect you more than the rest of us."

Shuffle looked over at Jerry. "Food time. And Niudisa's angry about being pretty."

 

[Darkling0096]

"Of course she is," Jerry ruffled her wings a bit and sighed, "Adran."

"I know, I know," the wood elf shook his head and went to the fairy's stuff to see how she was doing. "If there's something you need to say, you can come out and say it."

 

[Fangs9090]

Niudisa was starting at her alchemy setup when Adran walked up. She looked over at him and nearly just told him to fuck off, but she paused for a moment before letting out a sigh. “I told you about how I used to be a mature fairy, yeah? Well, my wings were green and yellow back then. I was really...colorful. Other would always throw compliments at me, left and right, everyday. That all stopped when I turned, of course, and I haven’t heard that stuff ever since. So now, hearing it all again just...” She shook her head. “It took me back to a place I don’t want to go. I’ve spent a long time trying not to think about my life before dark magic.”

 

[Darkling0096]

Adran blinked. He wasn't expecting her to just spell it out for him. "Ah, shit," he picked something to lean on that wasn't very spiky, "Look, we all have bad memories from before... this." He gestured to the caverns. He wasn't used to playing the therapist, but he could relate to the sentiment in Niudisa's words. Normally it fell to Emil to be the therapist, that's how it was with Veo, anyway.

The elf thought about how to handle this. "Back when I was the Feywilds, I was a cripple as far as my village was concerned." He held out his hands, "An elf with no magic of his own? Pathetic. I was the child my parents hid in the basement when guests came over. I was only even allowed out of that basement because I was a good shot." He shook his head, and gestured to Beri, his hunting loyal hunting companion for the last decade. "That leopard is my only connection to my homeland, and in another year or two old age is going to take him to the next world. I've seen it start to take its toll on him. Since corruption began to touch him, it's breathed vitality back into Beri, but..." he stared off into the distance as he tried to imagine what he'd do once Beri was gone, "I don't know where I'm going with this, but I know what you're feeling." He pushed off of the hedge, "The past hurts, but one thing working with demons has taught me, either you run from it, or you learn from it. If you run from it, it's a bigger monster than anything the world can throw at you."

 

[Fangs9090]

Niudisa was quiet as she listened before looking down at herself. "Mm... I suppose you have a point there. Well, thanks, I guess. I'll be back over there in a bit, just make sure no one's waiting for an apology."

 

[Darkling0096]

Adran nodded, "Nobody ever expects an apology from you." He turned to head back to the table, and explained that Niudisa had a thing about compliments and just don't give her any, cuz that's bad, m'kay?

"Whatever," Jerry rolled her eyes in between bites. Massive appetite had returned after the hydra incident. A faint glimmer of blue could be seen under the crispy remains of her hair. "Anyway, what made Niudisa pretty all of the sudden?"

 

[Fangs9090]

Niudisa managed a grin at his response.


Erina spoke up. "I finished the outfit I was making for her. In truth, it's more that her fur pattern is rather striking, but the robes she wore before covered it all."

 

[Darkling0096]

Jerry raised an eyebrow at that, "She's got fur?" She'd kinda figured it was just on her tail and face, some kind of fairy magic to it.

"Her former court resemble small beastfolk, yeah," Adran nodded. Jerry just shrugged again.

"As long as she liked the dress," Jerry glanced around the camp, "After we eat we need to load up to move on."

 

[Fangs9090]

Various others agreed as they continued eating. Niudisa returned to the group before long to eat her share.