Rebirth of the Nephilim

“Do you ever think about how… morbid this is?”

Dys paused at Sorcha’s question. They had just crested the top of a small hill and had stopped to survey their surroundings. There were a few sickly, blighted trees dotting the mound around them, with browned grass poking up through half-dried mud. The column of marching soldiers was visible to the north a couple of miles away, and the Leviathan was floating in the sky above, but there was nothing else moving otherwise. Their hunt for Demons had been fruitless thus far. Only a couple of hours had passed since they had started, so there were many hours left in the day, yet the lack of encounters had Jadis wondering if all the Demons in the area had been killed off during the ambush. Or perhaps the remaining Demons had withdrawn to Kastoria, or some other gathering point.

“In what way?” Dys asked, not bothering to turn her head.

Sorcha was sitting on top of her right shoulder, balanced on her perch to make travel quicker. The goblin had her left hand on Dys’ head to help keep her from falling off, and she had her newest offensive wand in hand. Jadis hadn’t seen Sorcha use the spell yet, since it didn’t work on test dummies, but she was looking forward to finding out how effective the wand would be.

“Well, we’re out here hunting for Demons,” Sorcha explained, her words coming out slow and her tone thoughtful. “Back when I thought they were just mindless monsters, it was easy to kill them. It still is, I guess, since they’re always trying to kill us. But being around Alex all the time… and then there’s Oats, and Crash, and the other Demons… and I guess I’m just—I don’t know. It feels like I should be giving them a chance? They’re avatars, aren’t they? I wouldn’t hunt you or Meli or Sev. But here we are, hunting Demons. It feels… I don’t know.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Dys said after a motionless pause. “I could lie and say that I don’t think about it. But I do. I could tell you to just keep thinking of them as monsters. But I don’t think you should.”

“Then how are you thinking about them?” Sorcha asked after Dys was silent for a few minutes.

“They’re people. Living, thinking, intelligent people. They’re also my enemy, and they wouldn’t hesitate to kill me or my loved ones given half a chance. If I can offer mercy, I will. But I’m not in that position right now. The Demons here are our foe, and they will do everything in their power to destroy us. So, in the same way I would fight and kill an enemy soldier, or a cultist, or a bandit, I’ll fight Demons. It’s what must be done.”

“…you didn’t kill every bandit you fought,” Sorcha whispered.

“No, I didn’t,” Dys agreed, reaching up to comfortingly squeeze the witch’s thigh. “And I thank D every day that I didn’t. But I was in a position to offer mercy back then. I’m not now. Not with the Demons here. Maybe if some of them tried to surrender… but even then, how could we trust that it wasn’t a trick?”

“I could see that Desire Demon doing that, yeah.”

“Exactly,” Dys nodded, then let out a heavy sigh. “I want to help everyone. I want the Demons to turn away from Samleos. I want to find a way to help them peacefully coexist. If possible, I want them to one day be seen as no different from any other person out there. But I’m not going to live in a fantasy, pretending that all of these Demons are just innocent little squids and that all they need is just some love and understanding and then they’ll be our friends. They’re killers. They’ve killed and destroyed and actively participated in the devastation of a nation. They aren’t innocent. They’re intelligent. They know what they’re doing, even if they have been misled by Samleos. Deluding myself into thinking otherwise won’t help anyone.”

“I guess I’m just overthinking things,” Sorcha responded to Dys’ thoughts after a few moments of quiet contemplation. “I just… I made mistakes before because I didn’t think it through, and I guess—I should just shut up and focus.”

“No, you’re right to think about it,” Dys shook her head. “I’m happy that you do. You’ve got a big heart, Sorcha. I appreciate you thinking about these things.”

“Thanks…”

Having spent enough time observing the land, Dys started walking again, heading east, the same direction as the marching column. Her other two selves were spread out, Jay with Sabina and Syd with Maeve. Jadis wasn’t sure how her bodies being so separated would affect the bonus experience, but she figured that by splitting up, Sorcha, Sabina, and Maeve would not be draining off each other, at the least. However, since they had not run into any Demons so far, their efforts to avoid sponging off each other were starting to feel pointless.

As she walked, Dys could still feel the stiffness of her lover’s body. Sorcha was tense, more so than if she were simply prepared for battle. In a moment of insight, Jadis realized what was bothering her little goblin probably didn’t have anything to do with Demons.

“You aren’t nervous about reaching level sixty, are you?”

“…why would I be nervous about that?” Sorcha said in a tone several pitches higher than normal.

“I don’t know. Why would you be nervous? You have nothing to worry about.”

“You say that like it’s so easy,” she mumbled in a way that Dys knew meant the goblin was biting her lip. “I mean, there are no guarantees—”

“You will be offered a bonded class,” Dys asserted, not letting Sorcha finish her sentence. “There is absolutely no doubt. And just to be clear, even if you were by some terrible prank not offered a bonded class, or the one you were offered was a joke, that wouldn’t change how I feel about you, or your position in my life. I love you, Sorcha. You’re my lover. I’m going to marry you and we’re going to have dozens of tiny green children together. Don’t ever doubt it.”

Sorcha was silent for a long while as Dys continued to march forward, eating up ground with her long stride. When the goblin did speak again some time later, it was in a quiet tone, with her cheek pressed against the top of Dys’ head.

“I don’t think our children will be all that tiny.”

“I’m hoping at least a few take after you. Can’t you picture a tiny Nephilim with big ears and eyes like their mother? Adorable.”

“You’re a bloody bugger, you know that?”

“Yes.”

“…I hope our first has violet eyes, like you.”

“I’m hoping for green.”

As Dys and Sorcha continued on their patrol, Jadis considered what she would have to do if they didn’t run into any more Demons for the rest of the march that day. Not that she thought that it was likely, but the fact that several hours had passed without an encounter made her worry that she might not be able to help Sorcha reach CLR sixty, at least not without ranging further afield. She didn’t want to do that, since it would mean moving out of easy range of the column, but she would if she had to. Ideally, Jadis wanted all of her lovers to unlock their tertiary class before they reached Kastoria, since it would give them all a far greater amount of power.

At that moment, Sorcha was the closest to leveling. She had not gained any levels during the ambush, mostly due to the fact that she had spent almost the entire battle aboard the Leviathan and had not truly engaged in any combat. However, she had gained one level in her secondary class, Villatic Wand Witch, a day later when she had helped Thea and Meli clear out a pocket of Demons during one of their patrols. Since she had raised her level from twenty-eight to twenty-nine, she had been offered two new skills, though neither had been what Sorcha would have called special, in the goblin’s opinion. Both were stat-booster passives, and so Sorcha had gone with the one that shored up one of her lacking magic attributes.

Villatic Witch’s Reservoir

Passive Skill. Increase the Focus attribute by 10 points.

While Sorcha didn’t think the skill was interesting, Jadis’s opinion differed. She knew that Sorcha had been given a nearly identical skill some time ago called “Witch’s Reservoir” that had given her five points in her Focus. The fact that the specification of “Villatic” doubled the offered number of points was a fascinating facet of how the system worked, in Jadis’ opinion. It seemed to her that the more specific a skill name was, the more powerful it was, even if it was essentially the same design as the more generic versions.

Other than Sorcha, the remaining four women who had yet to unlock their tertiary classes were getting close, too. Jadis wasn’t sure they would be able to reach CLR sixty that day, but she didn’t doubt that she would be able to boost them to that level before Kastoria. It was all just a matter of how much danger they were willing to get themselves into in order to get the job done faster.

Sabina had increased her level by two, taking her to CLR fifty-two, while Maeve had gone from fifty to fifty-one. In both cases, neither woman had participated much in the ambush battle, which was why they had fallen behind. Sabina at least had the advantage of constantly working on more additional buzzers for her budding communication network. She had put together five more of the wrist-mounted devices during their downtimes, which was where one of her levels had come from. Those buzzers were actually the whole reason why Jadis was able to spend some time power-leveling rather than acting as a communication device herself, since certain individuals had been given access to those devices and hastily written guides that contained the basic code system that Aila had put together. The generals could have their communication with the airship and each other in the form of subordinates who had taken enough Focus and Will points that they could operate the buzzers for them. Jadis was no longer required.

Aside from the generals, which accounted for two of the seven total buzzers that had been made, one had been given to Wilhelm, one to Jocelyn, one to Severina, one to Alex, and the last had been given to Nevan and Orla, who were piloting the Roc back to Eldingholt for another supply run. While there were only seven points of communication, and all had to run through the central hub first in order to communicate with each other, it was still an amazing amount of progress. If so much could be done in just a few days, Jadis couldn’t imagine what Sabina might do given a year to work on the buzzers.

Then again, considering the eccentric smith was already banging around with a new project that seemed unrelated to the buzzer, Jadis couldn’t assume that any more progress would be made on the magi-phones at all. Not until they got her back to the Fortune’s Favored workshop where Sabina’s father, brothers, and Violetta could start work on expanding and replicating the new technology.

Brushing those thoughts aside as concerns for the future, Jadis focused her attention on the last two on the list who needed to reach CLR sixty. Namely, Alex and Noct.

Jadis wasn’t sure she could call Noct her lover yet but considering how well their connection was going thus far, she wasn’t about to start treating the woman differently from the rest of her companions. She also didn’t know much about Noct’s primary and secondary classes, since they hadn’t discussed anything in detail, but she knew that Noct had just reached CLR fifty-five and was thus nearing her tertiary class unlock. Even if their relationship didn’t deepen beyond friendship with benefits, in the same way that Jadis and Cora felt about each other, she would still do everything in her power to make sure Noct got her tertiary class unlocked before Kastoria. She deserved that much for all of her help, if nothing else.

Alex was the next closest to reaching her sixtieth total level, having gained two levels during the ambush, which put her at CLR fifty-eight. Unfortunately, she had not been able to put into much time power leveling during their downtime, since her abilities were needed by Tiernan and the rest of the mages, and that need had not been diminished now that they were back on the march again. In fact, Alex’s magic-transfer skill was in even more demand thanks to the loss of so many of their earth mages, which had put a greater strain on the ability of those who remained to smooth and compact the ground. Still, since Alex didn’t need to eat or sleep, Jadis knew that she would be able to find time to help train her demonic lover. It would just have to happen at night, when the soldiers were camped for the day.

All of which was to say, since Alex wasn’t available and the other three were further behind, Sorcha was absolutely going to be reaching CLR sixty next. They just had to find some Demons to fight to make it happen.

“Maybe all the Demons ran away?” Sorcha said after another half an hour had passed without any encounters.

“More like they withdrew to a new ambush point,” Dys muttered with a scowl that was hidden by her helmet. “I mean, this is good for the march, but dammit why are the Demons never around when we actually want to fight?”

“That’s just how my luck is,” the witch sighed as she leaned heavily against the side of Dys’ head.

“Well, if this keeps, we can fly ahead and see if we can find some enemies closer to Kastoria. Or we can ask the scouts if they’ve spotted any movement.”

“That’s probably the best idea,” Sorcha agreed. “The scouts, I mean. Someone has to have spotted something.”

As Jadis relayed the plan to Maeve and Sabina, both of whom were growing bored with the expedition where the most dangerous thing they had encountered thus far was the fog of toxic gas that swept over the land, Sorcha tapped on Dys’ helm and pointed.

“Hey, let me down over there, okay? I see a plant that I want to pick.”

Striding over to the indicated hillock that sported a few sparse tufts of a gray-green weed, Dys lowered Sorcha to the ground to let her harvest the plant.

“What is that?” Dys asked as she kept an eye on their surroundings, just in case there was a hostile hiding nearby.

“No idea,” Sorcha quipped as she used a small knife to dig the plant out of the ground at the roots. “But I’ve seen it growing in a few places ever since we came to this blighted land, and it doesn’t seem to be affected by the poisons in the air. I thought Ammy might be able to use it for a potion. If she can, then I’ll cultivate it back at the compound, and—”

Sorcha abruptly went silent, her form frozen in place as the plant she had just dug up slipped from her fingers to fall onto her boots.

“What’s wrong?” Dys was instantly on high alert, axe already raised. “Did you see something?”

“I leveled.”

“Pardon?” Dys paused, her mind experiencing whiplash switching from danger mode to celebration. “I mean—what?”

“I leveled,” Sorcha repeated, her face a stunned mix of confusion and happiness.

“From picking a plant?” Dys asked incredulously.

“I’m an herbalist,” Sorcha shrugged in an almost helpless way. Bending down to pick up the gray-green weed she had dropped, she then held it up for Dys to see. “I mean… I leveled?”

Still too stunned herself at the sudden change in their fortune, Dys stared at the humble-looking plant for a few seconds.

“Um,” she eventually mumbled, “what… what classes were you offered?”

The tears that stared to pour down her lover’s cheeks instantly had Jadis on edge. Immediately kneeling down and wrapping her arms around Sorcha to comfort her, Dys started to repeat her reassurances that everything would be alright and nothing had changed between them, no matter what kind of classes she had been offered. Her words were cut off before she had even started the first syllable, however, as Sorcha let out a joyful exaltation.

“All three! Jadis! All three are bonded!”