DREADWOLF

 

◈ Chapter 155:

Lyra slowly towelled herself dry, her mind still stuck in the moment Opal had accosted her and like some kind of breast massage wizard had driven her to climax through touch alone. Had the goblin girl always had such insane skill with her hands? It was honestly hard to believe.

 

Secondly, and perhaps more strangely still, why had she wanted detailed descriptions of her time with Rain, she certainly knew what that felt like so why did she want to hear it from Lyra's own mouth? And hang on, she paused, frowning in thought, hadn't Opal watched the whole damn thing from the shadows? They had stumbled upon both her and Red happily fondling themselves as they peeped after only a dozen steps so why the hell did she need to know what had happened when she had seen it for herself?!

 

Strange. Very strange. 

 

Could it perhaps be some kind of jealousy? 

 

She pondered that as she dragged out a spare set of clothes from the dimensional bag and put them on, slipping fresh short shorts over her hips, then digging free a few ribbons and neatly retying her hair buns before donning a blouse.

 

Maybe it was her own fault. She hadn't offered to share even a little, dead set on playing out her librarian fantasy and giving no thought at all to the goblin girl who hadn't had any true relief in some time. Gods, she was probably going absolutely insane with horniness! No wonder she had been masturbating as she watched her and Rain.

 

Humming and pondering the situation she pushed the door open from the bath house and trotted into the square of Warwick's compound. This time atleast she was presenstable, no longer a bedraggled sweaty mess wth sex mussed hair, she appeared neat and tidy which made her feel a little bit better about the sight she had presented on first entering.

 

Opal was there, sitting on the table cross legged and devouring a chicken. 

 

She approached.

 

"Opal, I understand how you must feel, and it was maybe bad of me to demand what I did after what happened. I just didn't think, but I know better now. I should have shared Rain with you, you could have been the librarian's assistant who gets trapped and hunted along with the head librarian, we could have trembled in fear together before getting ravished." Lyra nodded wisely, yes this would set things right.

 

Opal gave her a blank and completely uncomprehending stare, a piece of chicken hanging from her mouth.

 

"...What."

 

"Please, I know you don't want to say anything because it would be rude, but I understand, I do, you must be dealing with the worst kind of arousal to have become so desperate that you would accost me, to think you must be massaging yourself day and night to have acquired such skill with your fingers."

 

Opal chewed slowly as she stared at the sheep girl. She swallowed.

 

"I have literally no idea what you are talking about sheepy."

 

Lyra glanced to the side seeing Pickle looking at them while picking her nose.

 

"I get it, you don't want to speak about it here. But maybe we can figure something out, you can't do the deed with Rain right now, but maybe we can be together?" Lyra tilted her head and raised her eyebrows up and down suggestively.

 

"We… what??" said Opal, staring wide eyed at the sheep girl.

 

Is there something wrong?" said Velatha as she approached, a keg of something held under her muscular arm.

 

"Uhm, no, just ah, girl talk, between, uhm girls."

 

Velatha eyed her, "Girl talk. It's not really normal to treat a goblin in such a way you are aware of that right?"

 

Lyra blinked, she had gotten so used to thinking of Opal as a person that it was almost jarring to be reminded that others simply did not. 

 

"Uh, it's not normal, right, but it is how things should be, don't you think?"

 

Velatha sighed, glancing at Opal who was busy burying her face in chicken. She stepped aside from her and placed the keg on the table and began fiddling with the tap.

 

Lyra came closer, getting the distinct impression that she wanted a word.

 

"Listen," said Velatha lowering her voice, "I do get it I do, I've seen levelers become attached to monster slaves in the past, it does sometimes happen."

 

Lyra gave her a funny look, that wasn't something she herself had come across.

 

"But you should know it always ends badly. Warwick has lost many friends to monsters so he hates your goblin and kobold and he especially despises your wolf, he wants nothing more than to see them all die. Now, realise that he is perhaps one of the kindest most thoughtful men in this entire city, and consider just how a leveler who has had their family or children killed by monsters would feel seeing you treating one like a person?"

 

"They would feel… angry?"

 

Velatha nodded, "It happens, monster slaves aren't treated as anything more than objects as to do otherwise is an insult to those who've lost everything to them, it's the only way it's tolerated. A goblin treated as a leveler will eventually find itself dead at the hands of the grieving or spiteful, and if they are hateful enough they will kill you too. Look, all I'm saying is keep your treatment of this goblin on the down low okay?"

 

"Like your children do?"

Lyra glanced to the side and Velatha followed her gaze with a frown, finding Pickle and a human boy and girl giggling and racing around Rain as he sat cross legged. Occasionally Rain would lift his tail and they would collide with it, sputtering as they got a face full of fur causing the others to laugh.

 

"They… shouldn't be doing that, it's not natural. Well, perhaps for Pickle it may be of some temporary benefit, anything is better than her attachment to Bean." The woman shuddered at the mere thought of the bald lizard. "But no, I won't allow this to remain as it is, it's too risky."

 

Lyra rubbed her chin looking between the playing children and Velatha. "Say, don't you think it's interesting that children have to be taught to fear monsters? Doesn't that tell you it's not natural?"

 

Valetha looked a little uncomfortable hearing that. "That's only because we haven't taken them down to the dungeon yet, a few trips down there and they will come to fear and hate them as everyone else does once they understand the monster filled hell pit this city rests upon."

 

"But-"

 

"I don't want to talk about this. Listen girl, monsters are dangerous, you think you've formed an attachment to these three slaves of yours? You're lying to yourself, and someday they will turn around and kill you."

 

"Aheh, I'm not really sure you know what these three are like-"

 

"And the big one? Don't think I didn't notice how the lot of you acted when it hadn't been fed. There was real concern there, you were worried that it would become dangerous if it got hungry enough."

 

Lyra had to admit that was unfortunately true, but that wasn't Rain's fault!

 

"That's not his fault, that's just an appetite problem!"

 

"Uh huh, and you expect me to trust my children around it."

 

Lyra blew out a breath. "I don't, but he's been fed plenty and if it's up here where no other levelers can see then what does it matter if they get on well? 

 

"It still matters… They need to learn."

 

"Pickle's learning alright…" said Lyra nodding her head in pickle's direction.

 

The larger of the two human children, a girl, had gotten a faceful of Rain's tail and this time she snapped when Pickle giggled. Storming over to her to exact some revenge she picked up a stick in passing, raising it to start hitting.

 

She found her way blocked however when a large paw came down in front of her path, a paw as large as she was. She looked up to see the monster it belonged to not even looking in their direction, instead devouring several roast chickens from its other paw.

 

Pickle stepped close and peered over the paw at her smugly, sticking out her tongue.

 

The girl scowled from behind her long curly fringe but didn't move to approach further. 

 

Seeing this Pickle patted the paw and it smoothly grabbed hold of her, lifting her up into the air as she stared the girl down, only breaking eye contact when she was dropped into Rain's lap where she promptly curled up for a nap.

 

"Don't tell me that's not cute, because I know you'll be lying," said Lyra, lifting an eyebrow.

 

"Making friends with a monster is a bad thing, this will do nothing but harm to Pickle because it's just going to be that much harder for her to kill her first monster when the time comes."

 

"But for now… in the moment… she seems happy, you know." Lyra gave her a piercing look.

 

"I… I suppose that is true."

 

Velatha stared at the goat child gently snoring, and her two children behind fighting and laughing over the monster's wagging tail.

 

She sighed. 

 

"Maybe, maybe this isn't so bad,"

 

Lyra tilted her head lifting her brow in question.

 

"Yes okay okay I see your point, at least this monster doesn't lick people's eyeballs while they sleep."

 

Lyra gave her a smug look reminiscent of Pickle. "So maybe you weren't so right?"

 

"Gods, you are a one for getting your own way. I'll… try and be a bit more open minded…"

 

"Immediately? You did say it wasn't so bad?"

 

"How am I-"

 

"You can try, it doesn't cost you anything to try! Come on!"

 

A strained expression appeared on Velatha's face but she looked down at the keg she had placed on the table in thought then shook her head. "Not the expensive stuff."

 

She stalked over to a shed on one side of the compound's square and disappeared inside for a moment before reappearing with a fresh keg, this one black. She hesitantly stepped over to Rain.

 

"Want a drink… R-Rain?" said Velatha, voice uncertain.

 

"Don't you dare accept wolf, you've already eaten me out of house and home!"

 

Velatha sighed. "This is that rotgut stuff Warwick."

 

"Oh. In that case, drink as much as you want."

 

Lyra narrowed her eyes at Velatha. "I smell a scam, what's wrong with this so called rotgut?"

 

Velatha heaved the keg onto the table.

 

"There's nothing wrong with it, well, actually there's a lot wrong with it, it's a viciously strong drink distilled from god knows what taken from the dungeon, the kind of drink the slums drowns its misery in. My husband here takes it as payment from families in exchange for a captured monster to kill, not because it's worth anything, but because that way the children don't suffer the abuse of their drunkard parents."

 

Warwick glowered at her. "You didn't need to tell them that."

 

"And you didn't need to keep a shed full of the stuff because you never throw anything away. The monster is welcome to it."

 

Rain leaned over the table and took hold of the black keg, he brought it up to his mouth with both paws. With a quick bite down his teeth sliced through part of the wood and the alcohol immediately poured down his throat. He finished the keg in a few gulps and placed his impromptu beer mug aside. Surprisingly it tasted pretty good, although it did burn like a mildly poisonous acid on the way down.

 

He found Warwick across the table from him giving him a venomous stare, his own beer tankard held in hand.

 

Rain glanced at it and lifted an eyebrow. Warwick sneered at that, then lifted the tankard and drained it in one. He reached for another keg as Velatha returned with two more under arms and poured her own drink, although not from the black kegs. 

 

A rhythm quickly built. The children would supply Rain with a fresh keg of rotgut rolled over for each he drained and in turn Warwick would drain his own tankard, his gaze becoming more and more angry with each passing moment along with his face which became redder and redder. 

 

Warwick lifted a wobbly finger to point at Rain, voice slightly slurred.

 

"Monster, do you have any idea how many of your kind I have defeated and laid low?"

 

Rain shrugged, "Do you think I haven't killed monsters?"

 

Warwick scowled hearing that. "You should be angry, I killed your kind, I've killed so many."

 

"And how many levelers do you think I've killed? How does that make you feel? Do you feel differently when hearing about stronger levelers slaughtering weaker levelers?"

 

Warwick's mouth opened and closed, struggling to find words. "Yes of course I bloody do!"

"Why?"

 

Warwick slammed his tankard down, beer sloshing over the edge.

 

"B-because it's different!"

 

"Hmm. What's worse, a monster killing a leveler in self defense or a leveler killing another leveler for fun?"

 

"...You like your mind games far too much for a monster," said Warwick, narrowing his eyes at Rain, "There's… something about you that I can't quite put my finger on, something almost levelerish." He downed his pint slowly.

 

"Let's uh, get off the dark topics for a little bit shall we dear," said Velatha quickly shoving a fresh drink into Warwick's hands, "Not really the right thing to be talking about around children yes?"

 

Warwick scowled but held his silence as he noticed Pickle staring fiercely at him from where she stood up on Rain's lap.

 

The effect of the booze was starting to hit home despite Rain's resistant body, whatever the spirit was it was extremely strong to the point his vision was shifting and wavering.

 

After the twentieth keg things started to become blurry, awareness coming in flashes, doing battle by drinking Warwick under table became various other contests Velatha organised, including trying to throw a stone at a target- Rain sent it through several buildings, trying to walk in a straight line- neither of them could (especially not Warwick with his limp), and last of all a general knowledge quiz- Rain didn't have a clue due to his upbringing (Although Warwick was somehow not much better.)

 

Rain was vaguely aware that at one point there had been some kind of singing contest too which Velatha had entered with them and won, although how that had happened he wasn't sure, and of the actual singing itself his mind had forcibly forgotten it, thank the gods.

 

The sun was set by the time they finished as Rain, the only one left standing, staggered into one of the compound buildings, he had no idea which one, and finding a bed keeled over onto it, instantly smashing it to splinters.  

 

A moment later he was out like a snuffed candle.