I paused for a moment before taking the item from Altria's hand. This was the thing I had been waiting for. The item that had seemed like it would be impossible for me to obtain, right from the moment I first heard about it. Now it was being handed over to me after Altria had acquired it, seemingly with ease. I took in a deep breath and grabbed the relic from her hands.

The first thing I noticed was weight, the thing was heavy. Next it was the appearance, what I had at first thought was tinted glass turned out to be a faintly glowing complex pattern within the item. It was a collection of thousands of specs of light all slowly turning inside the ball. As soon as I saw this, I wondered just how Altria and Olentri's contact would have been able to reproduce such a thing.

"You're sure that no one is going to notice this is missing?" I asked.

"Pretty sure… The thing I swapped it with, it looked exactly like that. I couldn't tell them apart."

"That's reassuring."

I was relieved. One thing was certain, Altira's eyesight was much better than mine. If she couldn't tell them apart, well I probably couldn't ask for more than that.

"Is that really the first thing that came to your mind?"

"Yes… I mean thank you Altria. I don't know how I can thank you enough for doing this for me."

"Well, I can think of a few things." She said with a laugh.

"Whatever you want."

"I can hardly wait… You must feel quite relieved now, to have that?"

"I am, I really am!"

"Remember you're going to have to protect that like your life depends on it."

"I know, I will. I probably need to find somewhere safe to keep it."

"That's probably a good idea…" Altria said trailing off as she was distracted by something from behind her.

Something had caught her attention. At first, I had no idea what it was, but then a figure appeared from the darkness after having leapt across from the building next door. I took a step back as they crossed the gap and went to full alert, until I realised who it was.

"Lillia!" Altria said while glancing over her shoulder at me. "What are you doing here?"

"Theo didn't say anything in case you were wondering. I thought you were visiting your mother, but then I noticed he had left the inn as well. I checked your location on the party function. Seeing that you were both all the way out here, I came to check."

"Sorry Lillia, I asked Theo to say that."

"I did guess that much. Anyway, what are you two doing up here? I'm not interrupting something funny, am I?"

"No…" Altria said glancing back at me.

"We were just meeting up, Altria found something. We were going to wait until we left the capital to tell you just in case, but you're here now so." I said walking towards the pair with the relic in my hand.

"What is that…" Lillia was cut off mid-sentence, suddenly grabbing her head.

"Are you okay Lillia." Altria said running to her aid.

Lillia had dropped to her knees, her head still in her hands. As Altria reached her, she looked up.

"You shouldn't have that!" She suddenly shrieked.

There was a flash of movement from Lillia. It was too fast to make out what had happened, but the cry of pain from Altria drew my attention. Sticking out of her back was the tip of a blade. Lillia pulled the blade back and Altria dropped to her side clutching the wound.

"What the fuck Lillia!" I shouted as I ran over.

I immediately started to heal Altria as soon as I reached her. She had already lost a lot of blood and was drifting in and out of consciousness. Lillia was just standing there motionless looking down at us. I looked up at her while I attempted to heal Altria and noticed the look of anguish on her face, with tears streaming down her cheeks.

"What are you doing Lillia? You don't look so good. What's going on?" I asked while pressing down on Altria's wound. "Lillia!"

"I, I can't, I don't…" She mumbled.

"What?"

"I don't want…" Her eyes glazed over. "I can't let you leave with that. A shame, you were just starting to become useful." She said in an unfamiliar and cold tone.

"I don't understand, what are you talking about?"

"This is goodbye."

Lillia dropped the knife and it hit the ground with a clang. She held her hands out in front of her, her eyes begun to glow blue, and her hair started to stand on end. I knew she was preparing for a large attack. Altria was still bleeding too heavily for me to move her. I knew I didn't have long, I needed to do something…

"Just leave me Theo… You won't survive that, neither of us will." Altria said weakly, opening her eyes for a moment.

"No, I won't do that… Lillia stop this!" I shouted.

There was no response.

"I know you don't want to do this. Please stop, we're your friends!"

There was still no response. I slowly got to my feet holding Altria in my arms. I could carry her and heal at the same time, but I wasn't going to get anywhere fast. The chances of me escaping the blast zone were slim like this.

"Lillia. Come to your senses! We're your friends!" I shouted as I backed away.

No response, then a moment later there was crackling noise and I felt someone touch my side, before everything turned white momentarily. Then there was a blur of colours and finally I found myself sat on the grass, what appeared to be some way out from the city walls. Altria was unconscious again, her wound was starting to close, but it still didn't look good. I continued healing her while I glanced around wondering what had happened.

"Made it just in time, that was close!" Said a familiar voice.

"That was you, Celine." I said recognising the voice at my side.

"Yes." She said laying down on the grass next to me.

"We shouldn't have just left Lillia like that. She's going to do something stupid. I don't know what's up, but she doesn't seem to be in control. We need to get back there."

"She already has, and we can't."

"What?"

"Look over there." Celine said pointing in the direction of the city.

There was already an orange glow somewhere past the wall, it lit up the billowing smoke in the night sky above it.

"That's from Lillia?"

"Yes."

"I could've stopped her!"

"You didn't manage it. I only pulled us out of there a split second before she let lose. If I'd waited any longer you and that girl would have died. I wasn't going to let that happen to you."

"Celine… But we need to go back, I need to get to Lillia."

"You can't, we can't. I used every last bit of strength to move us. I can barely stay conscious. I need to feed before I black out."

"Damn. I can't do much until I've finished healing Altria."

"I can see that, just let me do this while you do that."

Celine crawled up onto my lap and started top undo my fly. What was this situation? I was trying to save Altria whilst Celine was pulling out my dick, but I didn't stop her. I could see that she meant it when she said was close to collapse. I would just let her feed for now and hope everything would play out okay. It didn't take Celine long to start her feed.

The sensation from Celine's succubus technique made it harder to concentrate on healing and at the same time my strength was being drained from two sources. Luckily, I had decided to change into my new armour before I left the inn. My potions pouch was attached to my belt, so I quickly took a stamina and mana potion before it became too much. I had just swallowed the second potion when Altria opened her eyes with a cough.

"Uh, oh my, I feel… Good. What happened and where are we?" She asked.

"We're somewhere out of the city… Something happened to Lillia, she stabbed you."

"I-I remember now, she had this strange look in her eyes then…" Altria said trying to sit up.

"You should lay still. I'm still trying to heal you."

"I can feel that…" Altria's eyes fell on Celine who was still hungrily sucking away.

"Theo what's happening?"

"She's feeding, there was no time…"

"I can see what she's doing. What is she doing that here and why are you letting her?"

"Because she saved both of our lives. The only reason we managed to avoid Lillia's attack was because she brought us here."

"She saved us!? Are you sure you haven't fallen under her control?"

"She did… No, I'm not, not that this isn't enjoyable. Look over there." I said pointing to the orange glow where we had been stood only minutes before.

"Lillia did that?"

"Yes."

"Shit… Well, that complicates things."