Jebidiah's Change Bk. 01 Ch. 12

Welcome back gentle reader

Things are ramping up now, not many chapters left for this story. Hope you enjoy the ride.

Like the last, this is a chapter chock full of action and decisions so once again, I'm sorry to disappoint on the sex.

Once again the standard disclaimer, multiply ages by roughly two to get equivalent Earth ages. Everyone is a consenting adult.

-- Somewhen, Somewhere --

Darido sat on a crystal throne, watching with mounting frustration, as the caravan moved across the plains, carrying his captive chosen player along a path not wanted. Had he chosen wrong? It was a gamble working with the lizardfolk, their thinking was alien even to those like him. He could speak her language, even read her thoughts with ease. Comprehending them was another issue altogether. Bualdir had wanted something different of course, one of the dark races, vehemently opposing any human or elf candidates, pushing hard for a particular Orc champion she had in mind. Darido detested Orcs, only managing to get Bualdir to compromise on his choice of Kelek when Lashan, the only Orc among the Ascended, chose a human for himself. Orcs are useful tools but unreliable.

What to do about Kelek's situation? Her soul's ability to interrupt Comlain's conference with a hiss of displeasure was impressive, but he still could not decide on the best way to augment his player. His best course of action was to allow for a measure of the cooperation Comlain was proposing.

His contemplation was broken with the sound of shattering crystal. Darido looked up to see Bualdir herself walking towards him, her proximity to the nearby crystals was enough to create catastrophic failure from the smallest flaws. The crystalline structures leading up to his throne slowly broke in her wake. Darido sighed in annoyance, it did not look forward to the effort it would take to reset everything after this meeting.

"What is it now, I grow tired of your incessant bitching. Your goblin gambit nearly killed our own player."

Bualdir's mouth worked in exaggerated movements that did not match the words that originated in the air around them. "If you had fucking picked my champion, we would not be in this fucking mess, Vincent."

His answering roar shattered even more of his crystal throne room, "DO NOT DARE USE THAT NAME."

In a much calmer, conversational voice he continued, "You are the focus of Despair, you should be used to it by now." Darido laughed at his own jibe. Fuck her for getting under his skin like that.

"Fuck you, fuck Comlain, fuck that cunt Bora, fuck you all! I am done with this game and now I play by my own rules!" She turned to leave but stopped when the nothingness around Darido's throne room shook. Several cracks appeared in that gray nothingness. It was more a deformity in nothingness than an actual crack, but the crack analogy was the only one that came to Darido's mind. He stood to meet whatever attack was being unleashed when an impossibly large eyeball loomed before both of the Ascended. It swiveled around a few times, orienting itself before finding a resting point, focusing on the two figures before it.

"By the Power!" Darido cried an oath and pulsed raw Order at the distortion, causing the grayness to return with a baleful scream of agony that enveloped the two. Bualdir was curled in a fetal position, unable to do anything herself while so close to Darido's base of power.

A different voice, one seldom heard but instantly recognized by all the Ascended, filled the void left by the scream. "The rules are set, Mistress of Disorder, even you must obey. The Others await our failure."

Darido cringed himself as the strength and immensity of the Power pulsed over them and promptly vanished.

Bualdir slowly regained her standing position as Darido looked about his heavily damaged domain with a loud sigh. Every previously pristine crystal structure was nothing more than a webwork of cracks or piles of powder. He looked back to the goblin cowering before him, "You were saying?"

She flipped him off with both hands as she screamed in rage.

-- Chapter 12: Ruins of Valor City --

-- Second Tenday of Yantaen 813 AGR --

The difference between bad and worse is a lot bigger than the difference between good and better.

- Turtledove

Kelek was having a rough day, tenday, month, life. She hated her circumstances. She hated her imprisonment, she hated all the humans and others around her, she hated the wagon, but she didn't quite hate the ceaseless walking statue that followed behind her wagon. It's not name was Sift. Much like Kelek's own shortened name her captors used, the statue possessed a longer one Kelek's language had no words for. The tall male that acted as if he was in charge had followed through on what he said, which was a new thing for Kelek. It was bad enough these people put a male in charge, but maybe that is why he honored his words unlike every lying, conniving female chieftess she had ever met. After using the statue's words to inquire of her needs, he had returned with her feed bag. She could go for long periods without eating the food these people brought every day but she was not going to let them know that. Most of what they brought was burnt and disgusting, she threw that over the side of the wagon to pollute some other creature's poor palette. The things not burnt she stored away to allow it to mature to a tastier state; time alone was the best way to cook.

She talked more with the statue as the journey continued, learning much. Sift had lain dormant for countless phases of the moon and was missing all history of the world. It shocked Kelek when Sift possessed no knowledge of magic and Kelek spent many hours discussing magical theory and how her tribe functioned with it. It was satisfying to have someone listen to her without interruption, who asked intelligent questions, while not trying to prove her wrong. If everyone else she encountered acted more like Sift, maybe she wouldn't hate everything like she did.

Jebidiah was having a rough day. He had spent most of the morning, the midday meal, and a better part of the afternoon darting around the caravan, tracking down people he needed to talk to. That was surprisingly difficult even though there were 'only' around ninety mobile people left in the pack train. Most of those conversations had become debates, learning moments, or bouts of frustration. It was approaching time to stop and make camp for the evening, which left Jebidiah with his last self imposed task of the day, visiting with the wounded. He felt in his gut it had to be done. If he had found himself wounded fighting someone else's battles he would expect a visit and word of thanks. But there were a lot of wounded and while he rarely felt guilt or regret it bothered him so many suffered because of his decisions.

He had elected to erect his larger tent as an infirmary when camp was set, the larger tent made it easier for the healers to slowly bring everyone up to full strength. He only had one corpswoman and a couple of others with some healing ability which created a bottleneck on magical healing. He headed to his infirmary first after getting his own accommodations out of the way.

The wounded were lined up on both sides of the interior, it looked like the more serious on one side with the more ambulatory on the other. Some of those better off were sitting up and talking, bandages stuck various places or splints where needed. The worse off just lay and sometimes moaned or cried out in pain. There were more than a few with stumps where limbs had once been. He found Second Lieutenant Francis Featherton sitting at a small field desk in the center of the tent.

"Well met, Lieutenant. I'm sorry we gave you so much work."

The healer was so engrossed in her notes that his voice startled her into knocking over her inkwell. "Damns what else can go wrong." She muttered angrily as she tried to blot up what she could of the ink spilled across her page. "I should have you brought up on charges for interrupting..." the words died on her tongue as she turned to see the target of her ire.

"My Lord, forgive me." Flustered even more now, she wiped her inked hands on her apron, probably permanently ruining it, and managed to knock the inkwell completely off her desk, spilling the rest of the ink on the ground.

"There's no need to apologize to me, Lieutenant, that is what I came here to do. And now I need to doubly so. May I try to rectify this situation to the extent I can?"

"Just Francis will do, my Lord. The rank reminds me I am a soldier. And I'm not sure what you mean to rectify but you are more than free to do as you wish."

"This is just something I figured out because I have a really bad habit of dripping ink as I write." Jebidiah lifted up the book she was writing on, holding it so the blotted side was aimed down, drew upon the threads he needed and cast a simple cantrip that made the ink from the blotted sections of the paper drip onto the grass underneath, leaving the legible portions untouched.

Francis blinked in surprise, alternating looking at the now clean paper and Jebidiah several times. "My Lord! I have never seen the like!"

"I don't believe this cantrip is available to divine magic but any of the mages should be able to do it. Most ink is water based allowing it to be manipulated with Shape Water, so long as the ink is still wet. Not much to do for dry ink. I'm afraid your apron will have absorbed too much of the water by now."

"That is ingenious. Remarkable. I was told you were an Artificer, I did not realize you had a mage Talent. The apron will be fine, there is a cleaning ritual that restores them. There are worse things than ink that gets wiped on an apron," she said with a rueful smile. "I thank you for the repair work on my pages, but how may I help you, my Lord?" Francis asked, still quite nervous.

"I had come to see the wounded."

"My Lord, I guarantee you we do our best to take care of them. As you can see everything is tidy and in order. We use our available spells on the most severe first to stabilize everyone then begin working on full repair as time allows and the Divine are willing. I hope you approve of our methods." Francis answered, the nervousness in her quivering voice becoming more pronounced.

"Relax Francis, I was not coming to review your work. I had just wanted to talk with the wounded, apologize for their suffering as it were, see if I can help, that sort of thing."

Francis blinked rapidly. "Apologize, my Lord? I.. I don't understand."

Jebidiah waved his hand to encompass the people laying in the tent, "They are all injured because of me. I'm new to this, the leading, the fighting, all of this, so I'm certain that after review I will discover how I contributed to more injuries than were necessary."

"You seem serious, my Lord. I do not mean to question you but I have never known a commander, much less a Lady or ah Lord in this case, to do such. I do not disapprove in any way, in fact it may help ease some of their minds, but my confusion is in the why of it. I honestly did not think those that sent women and men to their deaths cared, at least not in my experience." Francis' voice took on a normal tone for the first time since the discussion began.

"I suppose maybe it absolves their feeling of responsibility if they keep themselves away from those affected? I'm not sure why it is the norm. My thought this morning was that if I was among the wounded I would be grateful for an apology or at least an acknowledgement of what I went through for someone else."

"That you have the right of, my Lord. And a good man you are for it." A woman's voice from one of the pallets behind them said.

Jebidiah turned to face the row. "Who was that?"

A young woman, Jebidiah scoffed at that thought, she was most assuredly older than him, spoke from where she sat with her arm in a sling and leg bandaged from knee to foo, "Begging your pardon, my Lord. I didn't mean to speak out of turn."

"What's your name, soldier?"

"Heather Kline, Private Kline, my Lord."

"Well Miss Kline, you did not speak out of turn. I meant what I said." In a louder voice he continued to address the others now listening in. "I offer you all my sincere apology for what you suffered on my behalf. I understand there are duties and oaths taken when signing up for service and now that you are attached to my House let me make something clear. I offer my own oath to each of you. I will remember that you are people and not tools, I will treat you with the respect you deserve, I will not endanger or throw away your lives without due reason, and when it comes to the sharp end I will be there with you when possible. You have my word." Jebidiah finished with a salute.

A cheer went up from those able to voice it with much clapping and banging. When it died down Heather once again spoke, "My Lord, this is my second tour and I have served under three Houses in those years. Never has one of those women shown a lick for us as you just did. What say your wives?"

Jebidiah wasn't sure how to approach this question at first but he knew his internal calculator had been working on it because the answer now came when prompted. "Understand this, I am the ruler of this House until my death. My wives are my equals, their word is mine as much as my word is theirs. Our society has long treated men as something to be protected to the point where we are now almost second class citizens, here to be told what we are allowed to do. I cannot change this imbalance, all I can do is set how House Valor works. Men and women are equal. Period. End of story. If you all are to serve under our House, that needs to be understood."

Most of the faces before him had shock plastered on them but there were a few nods and one dwarven man toward the back of the tent began laughing the hearty belly laugh only dwarves possessed. When he regained control of himself he cried out "Wish us luck, my Lord! If you can stop them calling me a worthless man I will follow you to the underworld itself."

"I wish only luck for all of you. I will get out of your hair and let you get back to resting. Again, thank you all for your service." Jebidiah turned back to Francis. "I do not see Farrah here, an elven mage. I was told she had some bad injuries."

"Oh the elf, I'm afraid her wounds are severe and she may not survive them. We have her in the wagon still, her state is too fragile to move around."

Jebidiah sighed. "She is worse than I feared. Can you show me to her?"

"Of course, my Lord. If you would follow me." Francis led him out a short distance to a wagon parked near the entrance. Farrah lay swaddled in cloth and bandages showing splotches of blood, unconscious and unmoving. She had no visible injuries, everything was hidden under her coverings, only the splotches of blood showing where the worst was.

"Just how bad is she?"

"I'm told she suffered severe injuries from several ghouls that cornered her. The injuries they gave her fester and resist my healing. We must get her to one of the highway stations to see if they have better healing magic. If not, we must reach Soldier's Rest as quickly as we can."

Jebidiah gave her words some thought. "We cannot risk moving across the plains at night, it makes us too vulnerable." He weighed the risk to the guard suffering ambushes in the dark versus Farrah's chances of survival. It brought to mind the debate earlier that day with Michael, about determining the line between when you decide how much harm to a few was allowed to justify the safety of the rest. He was judging the probability of risk to the rest of his soldiers, many already wounded, against the probability of Farrah's demise. He was sure if Michael were present he would frame the question as determining what was the 'greater good'. There was no clear answer, which he hated and not expected to run into, especially after just lecturing his tutor on the subject,, but it was the reality of his situation. Someone would get the short end of the stick. He would have to save this thought for later discussion with Michael. "When we reach the highway, if there is not adequate healing we can try nonstop traveling till we reach the city."

Francis nodded. "I suppose it will be the best we can do. Thank you, my Lord."

Jebdidiah left, his thoughts weighing on him, and searched out some food. He spent a few minutes with each of his partners making sure they were ok and sharing some intimacy, then crawled into his tent exhausted from the day. Once he was undressed and in his blankets and drifting off to sleep he felt Joy crawl in next to him. "I'm sorry munchkin, I'm not sure how much energy I have to work off the frustration tonight."

Joy giggled as she crawled under the covers, over his feet and legs. "It's ok husband of mine. Just let your Joy take care of you." He felt her hands run up his thighs until they reached his flaccid cock, quickly working him into rigidity. She used her hands to play with him at first before she moved in for a lick. "There's something about the smell of a man after a day's travel, don't you agree?"

Jebidiah thought the question was odd but too tired to fully think about it. "I'm not in the habit of smelling men after a day's travel, but I tried to freshen up before I crawled into here. You can forgo this, don't think I am demanding it." His response was met by more giggling which was cut off when a warm, soft mouth began to suck on the bulbous head of his stiffening cock. She would suck on his head for a few moments then relent, leaving it cool in the air, before doing it again, which was a pleasant experience but not her usual routine. He didn't mind new at all, especially when it was this relaxing.

After several minutes of this activity, fingers began lightly raking down his thighs, relaxing him more, and he felt himself drifting off to sleep. Joy took him fully into her mouth when she sensed him drifting off, bringing him back to wakefulness at the fierce pleasure that jolted his body. She held him in her throat, making swallowing motions that massaged his cock, before pulling her mouth back off him. When she engulfed him again, it wasn't to the same depth, only about halfway and there was some bobbing and gagging this time, not like her at all, before she once again backed the whole way off. Some more giggling was followed by her completely swallowing him again, this time with her tongue swirling around his base and the top of his balls. The alternating tactics kept going and it felt heavenly, but something was very different and he couldn't figure out what until Joy giggled and swallowed him again but the giggling continued a second longer than it should have.

Jebidiah pulled aside the blanket to find two Joys, one staring up at him with her lips around the base of his cock and the other frozen like a possum caught in torchlight.

"Ahem." Jebidiah said.

Joy lifted her head, releasing him once again to say "Go to sleep you doofus, and give me back the blanket, it's cold." With that she grabbed the blanket and tried to get it back over the two, failing when Jebidiah did not release it.

"Are you sure about this Mila?" Jebidiah said instead. "Don't let this little minx over here push you into something you don't want."

Mila just smiled and winked at him. "Older than you am I. Know what I do."

Joy giggled again and resumed her ministrations.

Mila watched her work and said, "Seen it from afar enough. Up close, tis big. Often wondered the fit."

Joy popped him out of her mouth again. "You want to try?" She asked with a lot more excitement than Jebidiah thought was warranted.

"Joy, careful now. Don't push her to what she doesn't want. Have you even discussed this with Crystal and the others?"