We parted ways at the gates to New Haven with Phee and I heading towards the jungle while Yunni and Devena headed back to the inn.

“Man, I really can’t believe her,” I lamented to Phee as we began hacking our way into the jungle. “She wouldn’t even come with us as a healer in case we got into trouble.”

I was still a pissed at Devena for being so stingy with her powers, but now I was even more so. When I’d suggested she join us a few minutes ago, the dragon lady stuck her guns about it being quote, “beneath her station” to be running around in the jungle chasing wild beasts. “I had a good mind to just force her to come with us.”

I took out my frustration on a hapless Ogre Fruit tree, slicing it in two with my long sword. The straight blade wasn’t as balanced as a Bokken, and was a heck of a lot heavier too, but I managed to swing it swiftly as I cut my way through the overgrowth.

My irritation probably helped too.

Phee pushed aside a bamboo tree as she plodding along behind me. “It’s no use arguing with her. Once Devena has her mind made up about something, it’s impossible to change. At least she’ll be doing something useful now though.”

“True,” I said.

I wasn’t sure what Devena was going to get up to back at the inn, besides lament over how deep in the hole we were, so I set both her and Yunni with the task of digging up any information they could on the other guilds and the labor unions. Once we got out of our debt crisis, building a work force would be the next big challenge.

“But yes, she’s a stubborn one,” Phee added with a chuckle.

“Either that or she’s just damn lazy…or chicken shit, I don’t know.”

“Chicken shit? What does that mean?”

“It means she’s afraid,” I said, hacking down a large fern.

“Oh,” Phee said. “Perhaps…” She then paused for a bit before adding softly, “Although I’m probably not one to talk, given what happened earlier.”

I stopped and looked back at the Half-ogress, reminded why I had eventually let it slide with Devena. Having both her and Yunni tag along would have been safer for sure, but I actually didn’t mind getting a little alone time with Phee for exactly this reason.

I took her hand into my own. “Hey, you don’t need to worry about what happened back there, okay? It’s perfectly understandable given what you went through. I’m sorry I didn’t think about that before picking a fight with those Fire Guild assholes.”

Phee smiled a little, but still looking sheepish. “I appreciate that Cole, but honestly I still feel really bad about it. I mean, Devena of all people had to save you. I’m your Firstbond. It should be my job to do that… always. And I couldn’t.” She rested her forearm against a tree trunk and let out a sigh. “I just couldn’t help it. As soon as I saw those flames…” She shook her head. “I’m sorry I failed you, Cole.”

“Hey,” I said again, wrapping an arm around her waist. “I told you, it’s okay. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. So what if scaredy-cat-dragon lady is immune to fire? That still doesn’t take away from you being the bravest most badass chick I’ve ever met. You think Devena could face down a rampaging boar with nothing but an axe and a bikini?”

Oratory vs Phee: Success!

+100 Relationship

She grinned and laughed. “Oh, Cole. You do have a way of making a girl feel better about herself.” She leaned down and planted a kiss square on my lips. “Thank you for that.”

I gave her waist a final squeeze. “Come on. Let’s see you put that sexy brawn into action. Where’s our first camp spot?”

“Not far from here,” Phee said taking the lead and looking about the jungle to gain her bearings. “This way.”

I followed Phee through the jungle as she seemed to regain her confidence. She eventually stopped and looked up into a grove of towering rubber trees. Cupping her hands to her lips and she let out a trill like whistle that sounded like a bird call.

“What was that?” I asked.

But my HUD revealed the answer before even she could.

Phee uses Call Pet.

A faint Meep sung out from the trees and moments later I saw the cat-lemur scrambling down the gnarled tree trunks to land on Phee’s shoulder. She nuzzled the little creature with her cheek. “There you are, little one. Did you miss me?”

“Holy shit,” I said. “Meep!”

In all the excitement of arriving the night before, I had actually lost track of where he had gotten to. “Was he out here in the jungle the entire time?”

“Of course,” Phee said. “This is his home.”

“I didn’t even realize he wasn’t with us.” I extended my hand to scratch him on the head. The Cat-lemur responded by purring and licking my fingers. “I guess I figured he was just sleeping around the inn or something.”

Phee smiled. “Tam-Tam…I mean, Meep, comes and goes as he pleases. But he answers my call anytime I’m here in the jungle. He helps me find my prey.”

“Hmm,” I said and studied Phee a bit more with my discernment ability.

Name: Phee

Race: Half-Ogre

Class: Barbarian

Insight Level: 1

Strength: 12 (+5)

Agility: 7

Dexterity: 6

Constitution: 10 (+5)

Will: 8

Intellect: 5

Charisma: 13

Class Traits

Tracking

Wilderness Survival

Animal Tamer

Racial Traits

- Great Strength/Constitution

- Non-Magic Bonus (Plus to Physical traits)

I focused on Animal Tamer and a new sublist appeared.

Animal Tamer

Proficiency Level: 1

Pets 1/3

Pet List

Tam Tam

Level: 1

Race: Lemuri

Primary Skill: +5 Tracking

Secondary Skill: +2 Trap Detection

Hot damn, she has a whole subclass to level?

I dug down into her stat sheet some more, trying to find out more about her Tamer ability, but I didn’t find much. I guess I had to maybe get her to use it to determine how it actually worked. I thought a moment more and searched for ‘weaknesses’.

Phee: Disadvantages

Psychological Weakness: Terrified of Fire

Psychological Weakness: Outcast - Great Shame

I expected to see the fire thing, but Outcast - Great Shame? What was that about?

“He’s found something,” Phee said, motioning to Meep, who was now sniffing in the air upon her shoulder. He then leapt off with another loud Meep and went dashing through the trees.

“Let’s go!” Phee said taking off after him. “It’s time to hunt!”

* * *

I had scant time to catch my breath as we ran for what had to be half a mile. We arrived at a sizable clearing that was dominated by a layer of three foot high grass and the occasional palm tree.

“Nice,” Phee said staring out at the open area with a gleam in her eye. “Wait here.”

She left, heading back into the jungle, drawing her axe. I heard a couple of chops accompanied by the shaking of leaves and then Phee reappeared carrying what looked like a giant prickly watermelon in her hands.

“What’s that?”

She held it aloft by the stem. “A Camphras Fruit. Poisonous to us, but it’s the favorite food of crab beetles.”

“What the hell’s a crab beetle?”

Phee grinned at me as put the fruit on the ground and chopped it in half. It split open, revealed a dark red pulp inside, accompanied by a pungent rotten egg smell that permeated the air. “You shall see.”

She grabbed one half of the fruit and hurled it into the open field of tall grass.

“Now what?” I asked, blocking my nose.

“Now we wait.”

It didn’t take long. After perhaps only a minute, I felt the ground vibrating beneath my feet. Close to where the hunk of fruit had landed, earth and grass was thrown high into the air as a black shelled crab the size of a forklift burrowed its way out of the ground.

“Holy shit!”

“I’ll keep it focused on me,” Phee said, brandishing her axe and shield. “You pierce it from behind.”

“R-right!” I barely managed to say before she took off in a dash, charging at the giant, soil laden crustacean.

I followed after her and my mind reeled at the size of the thing. It was as big as a horse and while it was definitely a crab, it had a curled abdomen of sorts, like a lobster tail. It looked familiar to me, and suddenly I recognized it as being akin to robber or coconut crab back home, albeit a hundred times bigger of course.

Phee slammed into it with her shield, knocking the crab off balance while taking a swing with her one handed battle axe. The heavy blade, surprisingly bounced off of its shell, proving just how tough the thing was. The creature immediately raised it huge claws in an aggressive, or perhaps defensive posture and began taking swipes at Phee.

The Half-ogress nimbly avoided one claw, which looked big enough to snap even one of her huge thighs in two. She deflected the other attack with her shield and then struck it with her axe again, causing a fracture in its shell.

“Hurry!” Phee cried. “We need to kill it before more come!”

I wasted no more time and positioned myself behind the giant crab and began stabbing at it with the tip of my sword. The first couple of blows glanced off of its shell as the crab kept moving to attack Phee, but finally I managed to pierce a section of leathery flesh between one of its leg joints.

Critical Hit!

Your Sword skill increases by 0.5!

I ripped my blade back out and thick blue blood flowed with it. The crab immediately spun about and I had to dive into an Aikido roll to avoid its claws. Emerging from my roll, I thrust upwards into the underbelly of the crab and found another soft spot.

Critical hit!

Gurgling bubbles began to foam around the crab’s nasty looking mouth, its mandible chittering away like an old fashioned typewriter. I heard Phee cry out with a loud shout and the entire crab shook as she brought her axe down upon its back. This time the blade sank into the hard shell with a satisfying Crack!

The creature went limp and I had to roll out of the way again to avoid it landing on top of me. Phee cheered, lifting her axe and shield high into the air as a white vapor poured off the now dead crab, forming a mana crystal.

“See how much it’s worth,” Phee said excitedly.

I grabbed the crystal and crushed it in my palm.

You gain 33 mana.

“33,” I said, “Not bad. And that wasn’t too hard to kill either.”

“Yes, thanks to you,” Phee said. “I usually don’t hunt these because they’re a pain to kill and pretty high level too. But I figured with that sword of yours, you could attack their vitals easily if I kept its attention focused on me.”

I laughed. “Classic tank and DD duo set up.”

“What?” she said confused.

“Nevermind.” I grinned at her. “Let’s kill us some more of these crabs.”

Phee retrieved the half a Camphras fruit and tossed it into a new area of the open field. Just like before, a crab beetle appear within a few minutes and we went about the job of killing it. The second one was larger than the first and took a few extra chops and stabs but it released a crystal worth 37 mana. Before throwing the fruit again, Phee spent a few minutes butchering the carcass, cracking open the shell and sticking her arm into its squishy blue guts to pull out a pulpy yellow sack.

“That one was a female,” Phee explained. “The roe is worth a lot to the culinary guilds. We should be able to sell this for at least 5 gold.”

“Sweet!” I said. “Let’s find more.”

We spent the next four hours hunting crab beetles, which were not as densely packed as I had first hoped. At times we’d have to lob the Camphras fruit three or four times for a kill. But we eventually killed a dozen or so of them and I took a break to check my collection of mana crystals.

Along with the 4 sacks of roe we’d managed to harvest, I counted fifteen man crystals in total, all of similar size.

Accessing my amulet, I pulled up the link back to the exchange and got a price on the crystals. Each one was worth around three gold give or take, giving an average of 1 gold per ten mana. I frowned inwardly. As relatively easy as the crabs were to kill, it was still a lot of hard work, and gaining only 70ish gold total really put into perspective the task before us.

“No way we’re going to make 11k gold doing this,” I said.

Phee frowned. “Sorry…this was the best area I could think of.”

“No it’s not your fault,” I said. “We just need to get stronger to fight bigger things.”

Takes money to make money, I thought as I absorbed the mana crystals and then checked my total.

Mana: 257

“What are you doing?” Phee asked.

“It’s time to power you up, girl,” I said jokingly.

Phee grinned excitedly. “What are you going to do to me?”

“Not sure yet,” I said pulling up her stats again.

Name: Phee

Race: Half-Ogre

Class: Barbarian

Insight Level: 1

Strength: 12 (+5)

Agility: 7

Dexterity: 6

Constitution: 10 (+5)

Will: 8

Intellect: 5

Charisma: 13

I saw an option to enhance and a little equation popped up in my vision.

Total mana: 357

[Bond Bonus 50%; First Bond Bonus 50%] Total 100%

Max transferrable: 357

Wow…I could see now why being a firstbond was so important. With only regular bonding, I could only transfer my mana at a 50% efficiency rate. I looked over her stats and with the mana I had, saw that I could level her up three times to level 4. I temporarily adjusted her strength and to my surprise it went up by 2 points for each level instead of 1 thanks to her trait bonuses. Her constitution went up by the same amount too.

Getting more bang for the buck spoke to the min-maxer in me, but should I pick Strength or Con? Phee seemed sufficiently tanky for now, I thought, rarely getting hit anyway, so increasing her damage was probably the best means of increasing our kill speed. I tried to confirm the option for raising her Strength by a level, but the figures didn’t move.

“Hmm,” I said. “Doesn’t seem to be working.”

Phee shrugged. “Is it just supposed to happen? Or do you need to do something special? Like a ritual or something.”

“I guess maybe I need to touch you, like how I have to absorb mana from the crystals. Maybe it’s the same kind of thing.”

“So I need to touch you?” Phee grinned and gave me a sultry look. “I’ve got an idea.”

Before I knew it, Phee grabbed my crotch and closed my dropping jaw by sticking her tongue in my mouth. She rubbed me through my pants while deepening the kiss and I saw the enhancement option in my vision turn a permission green. I willed my strength into her as I kissed her back and felt a spark of electricity flow between us.

You use Enhance on Phee!

You exercise 100 mana.

Phee’s Strength has increased by +2!

Phee has gained 1 insight!

Phee is now level 2!

Phee moaned into my mouth, shuddering, like she’d just had an orgasm.

“By the goddess,” she gasped, pulling away. “What did you just do to me?”

“I don’t know,” I said grinning. “But I think your body liked it.”

She leaned back against the shell of the crab beetle we’d just killed, catching her breath. “Did it ever! I need more, Cole. I need you inside me. Like right, now!”

“Whoa! What?” I said, as she dove for me again. “Right here?”

Phee answered by dropped to her knees in front of me and whipping down my pants. She had me in her mouth in an instant, the slippery warmth of her throat bringing me quickly to attention. She started going so hard and fast that my knees went weak. The enhancing process obviously did a hell of a lot more than just increase Phee’s Strength.

That stuff was like an aphrodisiac on crack!

Phee looked up at me with her gorgeous violet eyes, her thick lips wrapped around my shaft as she pumped me back and forth with her hand. Seeing her down there, my sexy subservient Firstbond, it all became too much for me and I released deeply into her mouth.

Phee continued pumping, not wasting a drop. Only when I was truly spent and softening did she finally release me. “Wow…” she said, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. “Looks like someone needed that. I hope you’re able to recover as quickly as you did this morning, because I’m not done with you yet.”

I leaned back against the crab shell, catching my breath. “Yeah, sure thing...just…give me a minute.”

I leaned my head back and stared up at the sky, still recovering.

Damn, I thought. That was probably the best blow job I’ve ever had in my life!

Meep suddenly appeared in my field of visions, leaping atop the crab shell. His ears were flattened against his head and his eyes were focuses on something dead ahead of us.

Oh shit…I’d seen that look once before.

“Meep?” I said. “What is it?”

Phee was suddenly standing next to me, her lusty desired wiped away and replaced by a look of discernment and concern. She didn’t say anything but immediately peered in the same direction as Meep.

The little cat-lemur began to growl and Phee slowly reached for her Battle Axe.

“Cole,” she said slowly. “You may want to pull up your pants.”

I reached down and had only just managed to slip them up over my hips, when a ferocious growl ripped the air. Something big and black came darting out of the tall grass, speeding right towards us. It was moving too fast for me to register what it was, but I saw flashes of claws and teeth.

“Cole!” Phee cried, pushing me out of the way as whatever it was jumped at us.

The Half-ogress screamed and I turned to see the biggest cat I’d ever seen in my life pounce on top of Phee and slam her into the carcass of the crab. The feline’s massive jaws engulfed her entire shield and shook both her and it like a rag doll as it whipped its massive head from side to side.

“Phee!”

I was on my feet in a second, unsheathing my sword. I had no idea what level this thing was, or if I could even hurt it, but I wasn’t about to let it kill my Firstbond right in front of me. I ducked into a roll and performed the same stabbing maneuver as with the crabs, aiming for a vital area. My blade just barely managed to pierce its thick black fur and the giant panther, I decided, which was at least the size of a rhino, snarled viciously. It then whipped a paw at me so quickly, that it only missed me due to me falling backwards by the sheer force of its movement alone.

It released its bite on Phee’s shield and then focused its yellow eyes on me as my ass hit the ground. Air escaped my lungs in a woosh and I lost grip of my sword. I struggled to sit up right, winded, trying to remember how to breathe again. I finally caught myself with a gasp, but by then the panther had closed in on me, its slather jaws now just a few feet from my face.

Cold fear gripped my heart as the giant cat growled low in its throat.

Oh shit…I thought.

This thing was going to eat me alive.