“Here, it’ll be dangerous to go alone. Take these.”

Jay blinked slowly, a spark of a memory tickling the back of her mind at Amarantha’s vaguely familiar words. She quickly shook the thought away, as she didn’t have the time to ponder where she had heard the phrase before. Instead, she took the nine flasks that her catgirl lover offered her. Leather straps had split the bottles into groups of three, making Ammy’s intent for one bundle to go to each of Jadis’ bodies clear. The clear glass showed a purplish clear liquid within that had tiny motes of sparkling gold suspended in the fluid, giving off a faint light visible even in the day.

“What are these?” Jay asked, holding one of the bundles up to get a better look. “Healing potions?”

Jadis guessed at the purpose of the potions; all of the healing potions she had purchased in the past had been either red or green, seemingly depending on the strength of the effect, or possibly related to whether it was an instant effect or a slower regeneration. Purple with golden light was a new sight for her.

“Yup,” Ammy chirped as she hopped back on top of her walking stone cauldron. “The best I’ve ever made, all thanks to you! Each one will restore twelve hundred health points.”

“That’s a lot of health,” Jay examined the bottles with increased appreciation. “So that means this is over ten thousand points worth of healing in my hands?”

“Almost eleven thousand,” the Lares agreed as her tail swayed happily behind her. “I would have been able to do more, maybe get past fifteen thousand, but I couldn’t get the right ingredients here in Thracina. Anyway, I’ve given one of each of those to everyone else, for emergencies. Except for Willy, he got four.”

“But I get nine?” Jay’s lips twisted into a teasing smile as she regarded the fiery minx.

“Of course,” she grinned right back, showing off her sharp little fangs. “I need you to keep all of your parts intact for cuddles and fucking, so you get the Lares’ share. Willy’s just the Hero, so he’ll have to make do with four.”

“Thank you, Ammy,” Jay bent and kissed the silly grin off the catgirl’s face. “I really appreciate it.”

“Not as much as I appreciate the extra five hundred and seventy points in Eldritch,” Amarantha murmured dreamily. Then she put her hand on Jay’s face and pushed her away. “Now stop distracting me! I’ve got very serious business to attend to and I don’t need you seducing me away from it!”

Jay laughed as the Mystic rode her cauldron away towards whatever purpose she had set her mind to. Jadis had no doubt that what Ammy was up to was important, but she also didn’t try to unravel the details. The Lares liked to keep people guessing, and there was simply no controlling her. It was better to just let her do what she was going to do and trust that she had everyone’s best interests in mind. Which was something Jadis had no trouble doing; she trusted Ammy implicitly, just as she did all of her lovers.

Which was a big reason why she hadn’t used Wanton Replication to get an extra fifty points in her Eldritch stat.

Much like Maeve giving her Counterespionage and Noct giving her Unbreakable Hold, Ammy had also insisted on giving Jadis a skill to replicate for herself. While she had not shared her entire sweep of abilities, she had quickly reviewed several of her more potent passives with Jadis and Aila and, after a short yet passionate discussion, had strongly insisted Jadis take one skill in particular, even though it wasn’t the one that either Jadis or Aila had thought would be best.

Amarantha did not have any passive skills that multiplied her Eldritch attribute. She was ostensibly an Eldritch caster class as she was a Mystic, which was essentially an enhanced Witch class, so Eldritch was her primary attribute. However, almost everything she did was dependent on the quality and quantity of ingredients more than her attributes, so she had never been offered anything to boost her Eldritch to insane levels like Jadis had. She did have a skill that let her increase the potency of her potions based on her Eldritch attribute, so getting the extra five hundred and seventy points from Lewd Lover’s Bond was a huge help, but that was somewhat beside the point. Ammy’s biggest natural boost to her Eldritch attribute was a passive skill that gave her a straight fifty extra points, which both Aila and Jadis had clocked as an easy choice for duplication. Ammy, however, had argued for a different passive.

Mystic’s Greater Immunity

Passive Skill. You are completely immune to your own poisons, regardless of their potency, unless they possess a modifier that specifically counteracts this passive skill. You are immune to the effects of poisons and diseases that are classed Greater and below. You have a 0.5 increased resistance to Superior class poisons and diseases. Minor and Lesser parasites die when entering your bloodstream and you have a 0.5 increased resistance to Greater class parasites.

The skill was absolutely powerful and also did a lot to explain why Amarantha was so carefree about her potions and poisons. She literally could not be harmed by her own efforts. Then again, Jadis had the feeling that Ammy had been just as reckless before she had gained Mystic’s Greater Immunity as after, so that explanation was likely faulty. Regardless, even though Jadis didn’t make her own potions, the rest of the skill would grant her immunity to a wide range of powerfully debilitating poisons and diseases. As Amarantha had argued, Jadis was about to be flying around a battlefield where being infected by all manner of nasty surprises was an inevitability. Better to have as much of an immunity to those effects as she could get, rather than rely on Eir healing her up after the fact.

While Jadis wanted to take the extra fifty Eldritch attribute points since it would help not only herself, it would also boost all of her lovers as well, she had to admit that not everything was about raw stats. A skill that protected her against poisons and diseases was, frankly, invaluable. She wouldn’t always be able to get one of her bodies over to Eir to purge a debilitating poison from her system while she was in the middle of a fight. Plus, those purging spells had high costs; the less the saint had to spend on curing poisons and diseases, the more Eir could use her magic to heal others.

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Thinking about the fight they were all about to walk into, Jadis knew they were going to need all the healing they could get.

With a shake of her head, Jay set thoughts of stats and skills aside. They had done as much as they possibly could have last night. Ammy still needed to choose a skill for Salacious Transposition, and Noct was still taking her time to think over whether or not she wanted to perform Lewd Lover’s Bond or any other rituals with Jadis, but all other rituals were complete. Preparations had been made, intentions had been set, and the final moments before the storm had passed. The march on Kastoria had begun.

“Let me… Help…” Alex said as she came up behind Jay. “All else… Are ready…”

Jay let her demonic lover take the helmet from her hand and put the piece of black metal over her head. Alex was already in her own full set of armor, as were the rest of her lovers. Sabina had worked long and hard to make sure that everyone’s equipment was in top notch shape, and standing in the light of the sun that filtered through the Senate Hall’s windows, the effort showed. Metal armor gleamed, leather and robes were spotless, and the subtle glimmer of enchantments could be seen in the passing shadows.

“I’m ready, too,” Jay said, her voice echoing inside of her helm.

“Yes… You are…” Alex agreed, her confidence unwavering. “Lead us… To victory… My love…”

“To victory,” Jay repeated, her voice filled with strength and certainty. “And to an end to this stupid war.”

Her words weren’t as eloquent as the speeches that had been given earlier. Wilhelm and Jadis had been forced to stand with the Voltonian senate heads for several hours that morning while stirring orations were given to the gathered populace of Thracina. She hadn’t understood much of it, as the speeches had been given in Voltonian, but she got the gist of the idea. Lots of talk about how great Volto and its armies were and how they were going to defeat the evil Demons with the help of the Hero and the Nephilim. The crowd had certainly reacted well to the senatorial words, so she assumed the speakers were saying all the right things. For her, though, she was glad to finally start the fight. Because, in her mind, now that the true fight had begun, Jadis felt like the end was within sight. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

The majority of Volto’s military force had already gathered at the border of the Demon-infested territory. Their staging area was, by coincidence, only forty miles away from Nonia, where they had fought the trio of Demon shells. The plan was to go in a nearly straight line directly from that point to Kastoria, covering thirty miles a day. The only reason why they could even hope to make that distance in that time was due to Wilhelm and Jadis’ involvement. With the power that the Hero and the Last Nephilim could provide, all major obstacles could be swept away and the main military force could focus on rapid transportation.

Hopefully.

Without a need for further words, Alex climbed onto Jay’s back, using her tentacles and larger pair of arms to secure herself. There would be no safety harness, as it was likely that Alex would need to get off of Jay quickly once they made contact with the enemy. Having passed the bundles of Ammy’s potions to her two other bodies, Jay cast Wings of the Succubi and lifted off the ground. Turning in midair, she gave one final look over her gathered lovers and friends.

“I’ll see you on the battlefield,” all three of Jadis called out.

While a multitude of voices called back to her, it was Eir’s quiet whisper that caught Jay’s attention the most.

“Stay safe.”

As much as Jadis wanted to follow Eir’s wishes, she knew that what she had to do next meant that she couldn’t. Leading an army to victory wasn’t safe. There wasn’t anything she could do about that. But she would do her damnedest to stay in one piece.

With a last wave goodbye, Jadis shot up into the air with Alex and sped off in the direction of the military staging grounds. While she wasn’t going anywhere near her maximum speed, she was going fast enough that she would be there shortly after noon. As she flew through the sky, she took a moment to observe the rest of the movement that was following behind her.

Tegwyn and his team had control of the Roc and were transporting both supplies and various mages and priests who had been stationed in the capital so that they could join the march. The Dryads who had volunteered for the fight were among their number, and Jadis guessed that the Roc had possibly the second highest gathering of magical power in one spot on the whole continent.

The absolute highest gathering was the Leviathan, or at least it would be soon, once everyone had finished boarding. Aila and the rest of Jadis’ lovers would be flying in the airship along with Jocelyn and the rest of Wilhelm’s party. They had packed the cabin with all kinds of strange, enchantment-related devices that Sabina and Tiernan had been working on in preparation for the march. While Jadis didn’t know much about how the devices worked, she knew that their magics were going to be helpful in establishing the safety of the camps that the army would be using on the march.

The two airships would take longer to get to the staging ground than Jadis on her own, but they would still be moving much faster than the military force Jadis could see departing the city below her. Approximately twenty thousand soldiers, most of them from areas that were further afield in the Volto territory, had gathered in Thracina. They would be marching to the staging ground for the next several days, carrying with them a huge number of rations and other needed supplies. They were only the backup force, however. They would be coming in at a delay, providing support and resupply. The main force of the army was already waiting at the staging ground.

Eighty thousand men and women had gathered on the border. It was practically the entirety of Volto’s remaining military force. Every city garrison had been emptied, every town guard called upon. At least fifteen thousand of that number didn’t even have combat classes, from what Jadis knew of the reports she had read. They were volunteers who had been trained and equipped as best as could be done under the circumstances, then sent to the staging grounds. Jadis knew that even more volunteers would have come, but the nation simply didn’t have the armor and weapons necessary to equip any more militia. They would just have to make do with the men that they had.

There were some mercenaries bolstering their numbers, though not as many as were in the empire. Alfhilderunn paid well, so most of the better mercenary groups flocked to the empire rather than nations like Volto. Still, Jadis knew there were at least three thousand total mercenaries spread across fifty different companies, including the Nox Archers led by Kerr’s brother who were also already at the staging grounds. Noll had run ahead the previous day to join them and Jadis was certain that the famed “Noll the Savage” had bolstered the morale of the mercs significantly. She hoped that his instruction and leadership would do even more to help.

Glancing to her right, Jadis saw that the three of her were starting to fall behind so she picked up her pace. While the rest of her flight-capable companions like Severina and Noct would be staying with the airships to act as escorts, Jadis and Alex were flying ahead of everyone with one other person.

Wilhelm, Hero that he was, rode upon his griffon steed through the sky just ahead of Jadis. She moved to flank him, surrounding him on three sides as they rapidly left Thracina behind them. The plan was for them to reach the staging grounds later that day where they would join up with Noll. Together, the four of them would clear the area of any Demons who were lurking in the fields beyond the staging ground walls. The airships would arrive later that night and by the next morning, the army would begin its march towards Kastoria.

“Hey,” Syd shouted over the wind as she drifted closer to the Hero and his mount. “How wrong do you think everything is going to go once the fighting starts?”

“The better question is,” Wilhelm shouted back, “what do you think will go right?”

“You and I will be there,” Syd replied dryly. “Beyond that, only D knows.”