DREADWOLF

 

◈ Chapter 158:

It wasn't long before morning light filled Warwick's home and the devastation was lit up bright, all the rubble of Rain and Erin's fight strewn across the grass, the long dining table shattered, stone and tile pockmarking the ground and of course the hole he had punched through into the floor below.

 

Warwick was left looking hungover and gloomy sitting against a piece of detached wall half embedded in the ground.

 

"What's got your panties in a twist?" said Lyra, yawning as she arrived beside him, a cup of lightly steaming tea held in hand. She was wearing sheep themed pyjamas plus a pair of sheep themed slippers having apparently acquired a few things from her parent's house.

 

"Your shitty deal... Valetha won't allow Pickle to kill your slave."

 

"Oh?"

 

"No. Tell me, did you expect this from the start? Did you plan this all along?"

 

"What? That the tiny goat child would make friends with the terrifying giant killer monster? No, not precisely."

 

"That somehow makes it worse, who the hell would think she would make friends with that thing?!"

 

"Eh, you probably should have seen it coming, it's not like Bean is any different, plus Rain has the fluff advantage."

 

Warwick closed his eyes and groaned as he slumped against the chunk of wall.

 

"Hey Rain! What happened to cause such a mess? Did I sleep through all of this?" she yelled.

 

"Erin visited in the night."

 

The sheep girl froze mid step, her herbal tea sloshing over the rim of her cup.

 

"Huwhadidyoujustsay?" she squeaked. 

 

"The succubus, she's been following us."

 

"As in, that succubus, the one that very nearly killed you in Lynthia?"

 

Rain looked grim.

 

"That's uhm, not good.

 

"No, but one small blessing is that she seems obsessed with me to the point that I don't think she's running around draining from random levelers to become stronger, maybe because she doesn't want to risk being discovered before she can drain more from me."

 

"More from you?"

 

"I… don't want to talk about it." he grumbled unhappily.

 

"A succubus is just the cherry on top of the shit pie isn't it?" spat Warwick glaring up at him. 

 

"Oh hush. If it makes you feel any better my actual plan was to push off the moment of killing Rain indefinitely by telling you about my deep emotional connection with the priesthood which states that optimal level gain can only be acquired under a certain kind of full moon in some unspecified future. But uh, you should know that Rain doesn't actually have any heart pins or anything like that, he was never going to to be killed because he isn't a slave." 

 

There was a moment of fear in the leveler's eyes, legs drawing up as a dagger materialised in his hands. 

 

After a moment of pointing it at the motionless Rain he deflated, the dagger dropping from his hands to go rolling in the grass.

 

His voice was low and defeated.

 

"I've been speaking casually with a monster capable of killing me with ease at any moment with nothing to stop it and it… chose not to."

 

"You can call it another mind game if you like," said Rain with a huge yawn.

 

He shook his head, "I don't know what to believe. But it doesn't matter in the end, the entire point of not reporting you has gone out the window and Pickle lost a life changing opportunity."

 

"She met me."

 

"That's life changing in the worst way possible!" hissed Warwick, putting a hand to his head.

 

Rain tilted his head then turned and picked up Lyra.

 

"Uh, Rain?"

 

"Wool. I want to access your wool space."

 

"Okay…?"

 

Lyra's white wool washed to black and he stuck one arm into the wriggling squeaking sheep girl's thighs, his paw disappearing in a cloud of fluff. He dragged his arm back out and with it came a barrel.

 

"What is this?" said Warick, peeking from under his hand.

 

"You can't level Pickle's future, so instead you will buy it."

 

Rain upturned the barrel and gold and jewels poured out of the thing like a waterfall of wealth, a staggering amount of coin and gem that roared with clattering metal as it poured onto the grass, a pile building up and up and up until it was spilling over Warwick's lap and the man was staring at it jaw hanging slack, eyes popping out of his head.

 

At one point a Kobold dove from Lyra's wool with a shriek of outrage before Rain picked him up and roughly stuffed him back inside, tears running down his scaled cheeks.

 

"This isn't real…" breathed Warwick, staring round eyed at the treasure, running his fingers through the heap of gold.

 

"That's all for Pickle…?" came a strained voice from behind.

 

They turned to see Valetha looking shaky, her two kids beside her as she stared at the pile of wealth. 

 

Lyra scratched her cheek. "I guess so yeah."

 

"I can't, this isn't, why do you even have that!?"

 

"Oh, you know, reasons."

 

"Reasons," she said faintly. "I… see."

 

Valetha keeled over on the grass, muscular arms spread eagled, eyes rolled up, her two kids looking down at her with alarm.

 

"Think yah kinda might have overdone it a bit Rain?"

 

"Maybe…"

 

She sighed but then slipped a hand into her own wool, scrabbling around until she found what she was looking for.

 

A rapier was pulled free, the one that had been stabbed through her chest.

 

She held it and stared at it for a moment, but then held out the grip for Warwick.

 

"Here, it's worth a bit I think, the high grade enchantment on it so it never snaps is remarkable. Hang onto it, and then when Pickle is old enough, hand it down to her."

 

Warwick hesitantly took the thing.

 

"This thing screams extremely wealthy nobility, you know that right?" 

 

"Ehhhh, they won't be needing it anymore." Lyra flapped her hand.

 

Warwick hefted the blade a few times, feeling its balance, then with a flicker the rapier vanished into thin air before materialising in his other hand a moment later.

 

"I suppose if anyone can hide a valuable weapon it's someone with a Class like mine," he mused.

 

"Perfect! Now hide the damned thing away before Opal sees I've given it to you and starts yelling, quickly now, vanish it!"

 

Warwick did so. He still seemed to be struggling to mentally deal with the treasure spilling all over his legs, running his fingers through the gold like a kid playing with sand. 

 

Lyra, deciding to leave him to it, finished her tea and got changed, returning back to the square to find Opal peering down the hole in the grass to the rooms below. Warwick's family were busy trying to organise the literal pile of treasure they had been gifted, occasionally fending off Red who kept hovering around them, making distressed sounds, or giving strained advice about the proper care and guardianship of gold.

 

But eventually they left the increasingly excited family behind with their pile of treasure and descended into the slums once more where Lyra hid them with her invisibility. They made their way to the higher leveler area of the city where they found an alley. There Rain slipped inside Lyra's wool and they set off for their true target of the day.

 

Shopping.

 

Rain watched from within Lyra's wool as they blended into the crowds, Lyra with her goblin slave stepping along beside her. 

 

First and by the most important thing on their list (In Rain's opinion) was a stop at a high end black smiths where Lyra inquired about not buying any of their weapons or armour (although Opal tried very hard to sneak some by) but about their cleaning potions. 

 

They had been given a small crate full of the bottles which Lyra crouched in front of. After a moment a huge arm reached out from her legs, grabbed hold of the crate and dragged it inside. That got her some wide eyed looks from the metal workers, but the stack of coin Red had prepared stunted their curiosity.

 

Inside wool space Rain set about laying out the cleaning potions on the stone bench where he kept the others, after using one on himself of course, in his opinion cleanliness mattered even more with the sheer amount of fur he now possessed.

 

It was the first time that the excessively vast amount of gold and treasure that they had acquired from the Orc clan's plunder was making itself truly useful, which was a pleasing thought.

 

The next stop was supplies, mostly this consisted of tents, bedding, flint and tinder, useful things like that, as well as a number of knives that Opal insisted on, lastly some minor emergency food supplies for Rain, a few cows.

 

Rain watched carefully from the wool of Lyra, peeking from her fluff as they went about splurging coin, occasionally reaching through to grab things and haul them inside. Red, despite being strongly against it, had carefully prepared a series of coin pouches so at least they weren't just in his words "fountaining gold at random levelers like gold hating crazy people!" Rain had to admit it was probably the better way of spending money rather than just throwing fistfulls of coin at shopkeeps and hoping for the best as they usually did.

 

They finished collecting their purchases together and Rain reached his arm though for the lot collected in a pile, a huge black arm appearing from Lyra's held together legs that latched onto the supplies and dragged them inside to the various clerk's shouts of alarm.

 

They were on their way to their most important target destination shop when Opal suddenly grabbed Lyra and hauled her aside, pulling her into a shop that made Lyra blush when she realised where she was. Rain peered through her wool, wondering what it was the shop sold.

 

At first it appeared as some kind of herbalists, with dried leaves and plants and things, but then he started noticing the leather whips, lacey underwear, and… phallic shaped objects. He jerked back from the dark wall in wool space in surprise, what the hell was this place?

 

Opal pointed a finger up at the clerk behind the counter. 

 

"Give me all your sex magic."

 

The woman looked blankly at her then turned to Lyra.

 

"Aheh, I uhm, think she, uh, that is I am after a certain tea, that uh, helps with, uh, difficulties in the b-bedroom?" Lyra managed to get out.

 

"Ah, your husband cannot perform, I understand perfectly ma'am."

 

"Uh, h-hold on, no-

 

"We have many kinds of aphrodisiacs designed to enable a near permanent erection or to greatly increase the quantity of seed."

 

Rain thought he could practically hear Lyra blushing. 

 

"Th-that's not-

 

"All of it, we'll take everything." said Opal slamming down the remaining purses of gold on the counter.

 

The clerk stared at the shiny coins spilling from the strings as Opal began grabbing up boxes and jars and then roughly shoving them into Lyra's wool, Rain jerked back in wool space as the things rained down around him, falling from all over the dark wall to come down on the carpet of treasure below, some of the jars shattering as they hit and spilling what looked like blue garlic powder everywhere.

 

He shuffled backwards in increasing alarm as a floppy phallic shaped object fell through. He quickly decided to let the goblin girl do as she wished and moved away, far away.

 

There was a lot of mess however still so he turned to Red.

 

"Organise that stuff on one of the benches."

 

Red gave him a look of open dismay, but unable to defy the command he hesitantly approached the mound, he was about to pick up one of the boxes when a big floppy equine phallic thing fell through and smacked him on the head.

 

"Gah!" cried the kobold falling back onto the carpet of treasure that filled the woolspace, the big floppy thing falling on his chest.

 

The kobold recovered and a moment later realised what it was that was lying on him, he cried out and flung the thing off in a panic, shuffling frantically back as more phallic things fell from the black wall.

 

"I'm not touching those things!"

 

"Do kobold tribes not have sex toys? They were common around the whorehouse that I- a whorehouse I knew of."

 

"Of c-course we do! But that doesn't mean I want to touch them!"

 

"You are the treasurer."

 

"Dildos aren't treasure!"

 

A green head poked through the black wall.

 

"Oh hey, stack those up over there will you Red," said Opal looking down at the fallen kobold

 

"N-no!" said Red crossing his arms.

 

"If you don't then I'll try that pegging thing the clerk was talking about on you."

 

"What is… pegging?"

 

"No idea. Okay, If you don't stack 'em you're banned from peeping, forever."

 

The kobold's mouth flopped open in betrayal.

"That's not fair!"

 

Opal threw a large phallic object at the kobold and he was forced to catch it. He looked down in dismay at the thing flopping in his claws and made to throw it aside.

 

"I need a test subject for some of these teas and pills you know,-"

 

Red whimpered and backed away, scrambling with the floppy thing before slamming it down on the nearest bench. "F-fine!"

 

Opal smiled pleasantly. 

 

"Don't worry, this is all very useful and practical stuff."

 

Rain somehow doubted that. Although… his eyes came across an odd looking metal cage lying amongst the pile.