<~> Chapter 73After quickly celling our future reservations at the inn we headed back towards the adventurer's guild. Torien hung behind a little, waiting for me to fill her in on what was happening. I felt like everyone would be better off if I brought them into the loop so I let Bel and Man walk ahead a bit so I could fill Torien in first.

  "I don't know the full story but Bel was tricked into selling herself into svery by her abusive father and... a sver. At least a few years before that, her mother was beatey severely and ran away with Bel's aunt. Bel told me her mother abandoned her. At the time I assumed she just meant she left without taking Bel with her but I think there's more to it than that now. Bel has always beey hostile towards the Tamin churd retly even had an outburst that seemed pretty out of character for her at the time. I didn't really know what to think about it when it happened but this puts it all in a little bit more text. Do you have any idea what might have happened?"

  Torien nods solemnly. "The Tamin church is known fressively recruiting ahey . One of their prime targets are people who run away from family because they're so vulnerable. They take in broken down people and turn them into fanatical zealots. In cases like this they make people give up all former attats, property, family, eves."

  "And no ohinks that's fucked up?" I reply sharply.

  Torien sighs. "It's not universally seen that way. That's my perspective as a beastkin, I'd be the first to admit I see everything the church does in a ive light. A lot of huma as a benevolent church saving people at their lowest and giving them a pce to start over and rebuild their lives. The whole brainwashing aspect is just seen as the people being grateful for the 'good deeds' of the church that 'saved' them."

  "Sounds like a freaky cult more than anything to me."

  "You're n, best not to let people hear you say that though. Their zealots are everywhere and we know for sure they're in town. If you go around calling them a violent cult they'll do everything they to prove yht."

  The two of us caught back up with Bel and Man again. I gently pced a hand on Bel's shoulder. She leaned her head against my hand and took a few steadying breaths. Man took this as a que to hang bad get filled in by her sister.

  "Are you going to be okay Bel? I might be able to talk to the guild master if you o sit this mission out."

  Bel went quiet for a moment, lost in thought, but eventually shook her head. "No. That... woman already cut all ties with me and Bruno is gone now too. I am no lohat woman's son. This is something I o face, even if it's... hard."

  I squeezed Bel's shoulder reassuringly. "I'll always be here for you."

  A genuine smile broke through Bel's dour mood for a moment and she kissed my hand. "Thank you Lilith. I'll... tell you more about what happeer. We're almost there."

  As roached the adventurer's guild we could see the grumpy looking Tigerkin guildmaster waiting outside with six Tamin church adherents and two adventurers I hadn't seen around before. One was a enthusiastic looking male elf with a long ornate halberd resting against his shoulder the other was a incredibly muscur human woman with a pair of crossed swords on her bad sheathed knives ad most of the rest of her body. It was almost humorous how opposite they were from typical fantasy hero characters.

  The elf was crag jokes and talking a mile a minute at the people from the Tamin churd the woman was watg every shadow and er for an ambush that would likely never e. She had a bit of wildness or perhaps even madness in her bright blue eyes but you could sense her she was very self-disciplined from the way she moved. fident steps that didn't give off the same feeling of paranoia her searg eyes did.

  Raksha'va us when we walked up to the group. I was somewhat relieved she didn't seem upset with how much time we had taken. There was no way I would have rushed Bel iate she had been in earlier but I also really didn't want to get on the guild master's bad side.

  "Good, the four of you are back. There isn't much daylight left and it'll be necessary for you to make it to the base camp he dungeon as soon as possible. Luckily the church's padins have assured me they have no obje to entering the dungeon remains at night once you arrive.

  She turowards the two adventurer's that were waiting there with the guild master. "Nora, Tarklin, these are the four I was telling you about." She proceeded to point each of us out, "Lilith, Bel, Torien, Man. These are the four you will be esc to the dungeon and back." They both nodded seriously, clearly aware of the implications of the mission they were on.

  The woman walked up first and held out her hand. "Nora." I nodded and shook her hand, she had a strong grip and her ha hard and calloused.

  The young looking elf held out his own ha and smiled brilliantly. "Tarklin Silvergrove. I'm an elf from the Northern Greens. It's o meet such a pretty beastfolk, you look like you have fire in you. I like that"

  His smile was disarming and I felt fortable returning it. "o meet you Tarklin, I appreciate your presen this mission. You too of course Nora," I quickly added.

  "Alright, the twelve of you best get moving before you run out of too much daylight. I expect to see all of you back here by tomorrow nightfall. If you are still returning by then keep a for a rider. I'll be personally expeg you when you return. Uood?"

  The entire group of twelve people, including all of the church adherents, replied in various ways and the tiger beastfolk nodded in satisfa. The four of us were prompted to lead the way and all of us left the town in a rge group. The four members of my party were pretty quiet, still a bit morose from the previous versation. Nora walked o us, sing from outside danger while Tarklin chatted with the group of church adherents as if they were old friends, much to their annoyance.

  I opened my [Soultouched e] with Bel and transmitted the feeling of a f hug. I wao hold her hand and reassure her but I was also very scious of the group we were in. I didn't want to let on how close roup was to each other. These people were so bigoted that they would actively hunt down people engaging and same-sex and inter-racial retionships and they didn't think highly of beastfolk in the first pce. Best not make things worse uhe circumstances.

  I looked back at Tarklin who squarely held the attention of most of the Tamin adherents, anyone who wasn't being chatted up by him was focused on our surroundings instead. I wasn't sure if this was iional or not but he kept most of the attention away from roup which made me feel a lot better. One of the people in roup was Bel's mother, her eyes calmly sed the forest and she acted like the chatty elf wasn't there at all. It was kind of hard to tell everyone apart but now that I knew who I was looking for it was easy to identify her among the group. She was noticeably shorter than all of the other adherents and only two of the people dressed in priests' robes had e along.

  Bel retty determined not to look at her but I could feel her ahrough our link. For better or worse her emotions had numbed quite a bit after the rge release earlier. She was still nervous and upset but it seemed she was ing to terms with being near her for now.

  Things proceeded like this for a while. We ran into two groups of monsters on the way, both some kind of wolves. The church adherents quickly took care of them without any words betweehey looked effit arained, whily ted how dangerous they were. Though they made no effort to help kill the monsters, the two advehat were esc us quietly drifted to either side of my party until the threat was gone. Afterwords, Tarklin quickly went back to harassing the church members ohe danger had passed, like nothing had even happened.

  Despite feeling pletely natural, the gesture ted to me that he was iionally taking the attention away from us. I'm not really sure of his goal here but I appreciated the effort heless. I didn't want their attention on us any more than was already the case. Nora oher hand quietly walked o us the eime. She had been unsurprised when the monsters crossed our paths and remained vigint from any outside threats. It was obvious her priority was on us and wouldn't bother with monsters uhey threatened us directly. I was holy rather impressed by how serious and professional they were about this mission.

  Perhaps I'm uimating a personal request from the guild master herself though. It felt reassuring the guild master was willing to assign good adventurer's to protect us. And everyone in roup could clearly tell who they were actually proteg us from. If the church decided to attack us then it would probably devolve in an ht brawl. I was curious what levels they were but knew better than to ask by now. Though actually, I wonder if Mimi could tell.

  -- "Hey Mimi, you tell me the levels of the two advehat are esc us?" --

  -- "Sure, no problem!... The Elven man is 42 and the scary woman is 56." --

  I nearly choked. Both were so far above us, the woman was more than 20 levels higher than I was.

  -- "56? What level are the priests and Padins?" -- I asked.

  -- "Hmm... The lowest is 15, most of them are around level 28. That one over there is level 40." --

  Mimi pointed out one of the padins that was talking with Bel's mother. It seemed like he was the leader of the group. Some of the priests were looking over at us now, looking somewhat fused.

  -- "Mimi, thanks a ton but I think they might be able to detect you identifying them. That's it for now, good job." --

  -- "Sure thing! Tell me if you need anything else!" --

  I felt a gentle wave of emotions through the link, she was happy to be useful and liked receiving praise. I smiled to myself. She was cute, she was still trying to figure out how to i with everyo it was easy for me to tell that she had a good heart. Somewhat amusing for someone who had oeically been a demon.

  I looked over the priests again. The looks of fusion had passed and Tarklin had most of their full attention again. The exception was actually Bel's mother. She was watg the four of us like a hawk now. Her expression made me think she didn't trust us almost as much as we didn't trust her. This whole thing is really unfortunate. I don't really know the full situation with Bel and her mother and hell, I 't even remember my owionship with my parents but this situation was insanely awkward.

  I tightehe straps of my bag a walking. It would be a few more hours before we got there and it was clear my friends weren't as ied in talking as they were on the way back to town a few days ago. So instead all of us just kept walking in silence, only on guard enough to be alert when monsters jumped out before being cut down by the Tamin church adherents.

  The walk tinued like this as the te afternoon su on our journey.

  Saine

  Hello! This is a bonus chapter as a make up for postierday's chapter te. Sorry about that! Anyway, new characters! Things are heating up a little agai chapter we'll get a glimpse at how things he dungeon have ged. See you ime and thanks for reading!

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