Chapter 172

Our group was chatting excitedly as we went down the stairs of the Ruby Vixen. It was still pretty early which made it kind of a surprise that the lobby was so busy and full of people this morning. Oceane, Grace, Lia, Eira, Nadia, Jade, Tisha, Theo, and the many other women I've talked to and spent time with here were all gathered waiting for us.

Oceane slithered up to us and took me in a hug that caught me off guard. "You will always be welcome here, Lilith. You are our family, our Mother," she said somewhat sarcastically, "and you will always have a place to come home to." I could feel the sincerity in her words through the bond and the honest emotion from someone who was usually so stern almost made me tear up.

When she let go Grace and Lia took her place and pulled me into a hug between the two of them. When they pulled back Grace cupped the side of my face with one hand. "Lilith, I can not begin to thank you for everything you have done for me and my sister. I will always be indebted to you, stay safe, come back home someday, and keep us in your heart." She leaned in and kissed me on the lips which drew a few gasps from the crowd around us.

Lia smiled at me with a lopsided grin. "Thanks again for giving me a second chance at life, with what you've done here at the brothel, I'm sure it'll be an exciting one."

When the two of them let me go it was Eira and Nadia's turn to give me a quick hug. Nadia leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek before giving me a sad look. "I'm sorry that I didn't get the chance to get to know you better, you probably saved my life too. I'm not sure if I would have recovered from what felt like my life crumbling around me when we first met. Maybe I was overreacting over losing my arm but I really wasn't sure what I was going to do. Thank you, Lilith."

Eira laughed and pulled me into a bear hug. The enthusiastic demi-cheetah woman never failed to lift my spirits. "I'll really miss you. If I was an adventurer like the rest of your girlfriends, I wouldn't hesitate to try and join your harem! I'll just have to settle for leaving an open invitation to join me in bed anytime you're around!" I could feel her cock harden against my leg as she squeezed me tight. "Hehe, sorry, I'm still getting used to it. It has a mind of its own!" She pulled away and showed me her goofy grin. "Come home to us someday, I won't tolerate this being the last time we see each other!"

I patted Eira on the shoulder. "I'll be back someday, I promise."

Eira moved on to hugging and flirting with my girlfriends as Tisha and Jade came up to me next. Jade gripped my shoulder and smiled. "We'll be keeping an eye on you through the bond like we said. Be careful, you're strong but there are always others out there that are stronger. I want you to know that you're important to all of us even the ones here who don't know you too well." The two of them pulled me into a hug. "Stay safe, Mother."

I flushed a bit as they pulled away from me and a crowd of other girls that I didn't know circled around me to say their goodbyes as well. I couldn't help but smile from ear to ear as all of the different women thanked me and told me how I changed their lives. Long marathon orgies aside, this was the first time it really sank in how much I changed the direction of all of these people's lives for the better. I couldn't help but be embarrassed by how many of them called me mother though...

I wasn't the only one who received hugs from everyone. Bella was pretty popular with the friends we've made here and Mimi basically had a crowd of girls around her giving her teary goodbyes. Mimi wasn't quite sure how to react to it but she did her best to comfort some of the girls that were... maybe a bit too attached to her.

Theo had a surprising number of women who were sad to see him go. He was... a lot more popular with them than I had thought. I knew he was sleeping with girls basically every night in the short time he had stayed here but several of them actually looked a bit smitten with him. Four different girls even promised to write to him, something I wouldn't have expected from women who lived at a brothel and chose to become Succubi. One of them was the towering horse beastfolk who clearly held the top spot in their relationship if how possessively she groped his ass was any indication.

Sibyl said her goodbyes to Grace and Oceane, they didn't outwardly hug the same way a lot of the other goodbyes went but I could feel the melancholy in it through the bond. The three of them have been friends for decades and the goodbye was bittersweet. Sibyl also had a number of other girls she said goodbye to, no one was quite as close to her as Raya had been before her transformation, but she was still close with a lot of people there. I got the feeling that none of them held Sibyl leaving against her though, if anything they were happy that the loner had finally admitted her feelings for Raya.

Oceane held Raya in a hug for much longer than I would have expected. A perhaps... inappropriate peek at their emotions showed me how surprisingly proud of Raya Oceane was. Earlier I had thought that Oceane and Raya had a bit of a mother-daughter relationship with each other and that didn't seem far off from based on what I was seeing right now. Maybe a mentor-student relationship didn't feel quite as dirty for how much they fucked a few nights ago.

Unfortunately, as heartwarming as all of this was, we were probably pushing it on time. It was Grace who reminded everyone that we didn't have all day to say our goodbyes, it wasn't going to be me who ended the moment, I'd rather be late. Grace commanded respect in a way that I might have thought was odd if hadn't seen firsthand how strict she could be the night before last. My ass still had phantom soreness when she spoke in that tone.

It wasn't until we were actually walking out of the Ruby Vixen that our goodbye became teary. I couldn't help but wipe a few tears away from my eyes as we headed towards the stable. It was odd, we had only been in town for a week but so much had happened in such a short amount of time that it felt like much longer. I shifted the bag on my back as I thought about all of the different people we've met here and what they mean to me now. It's been about a month now since I've come to this world and even without the memories of my past life I knew that this month has felt like the longest month of my life.

I smiled and looked around at all of my friends. I've grown closer to all of them. Raya and Sibyl were coming with us hand in hand. Silva and Torien were chatting, the tall demi-rabbit's teasing was constantly making the catgirl blush. Bella and Morrigan chatted like close friends and even had moments of chaste flirting between the two of them. Mimi was constantly looking around, examining everything we walked past while keeping hold of Bella's hand. Theo seemed happy to chime into conversations where he could, he did a good job of navigating when he could join a conversation and when to exit one when it was clear the girls were more interested in flirting with each other than actually discussing anything.

Eventually, we reached the stable. The place was even crazier than the last time I had been there with all sorts of people running around and getting things packed and loaded onto the carts and carriages. Despite the chaos, I was able to pick out our behemoth of a carriage near one of the exits. The thing looked huge with the two uunas strapped to it, especially compared to other nearby carriages made for horses.

Our group was able to successfully navigate through the crowd to our carriage and Cecilia spotted us coming right away. "Great! I was hoping all of you would be here on time! We're still a bit later than I would have liked to leave but I know from experience that goodbyes can take a while."

Nikka and Landa chuffed merrily at my arrival, clearly happy to see me again so soon. I peeked into the back of the carriage and saw everything that was loaded into the back. Boxes of fresh food and barrels of water were loaded up. It looked like a lot of food there for a place that still currently had a food shortage but maybe priority was given to carriages. There were also six crates with red paint markings on them.

Cecilia noticed me peeking in the back. "I took a deal to transport those crates to the capital for this merchant I know. It was how I was able to secure as much food and water as I did with the shortages. It still probably won't be enough to make it the whole way there without hunting but it'll take a lot of the pressure off."

"How many days travel is it to the capital?" I asked.

"Ten, twice as long as the trip to Traehall but much less dangerous. You'll be bored most of the way rather than getting knocked on your ass by a featherjacks."

I felt really embarrassed of the reminder and it unfortunately made Raya grin at me with her mischievous smile. "Oh? I don't think I've heard that story."

"Not much to tell," I quickly interjected. "I was fighting off a featherjack and got pecked through my armor. It wasn't pleasant."

Cecilia sighed. "Way to ruin it. Don't worry hot stuff, I'll tell you later," she said to Raya with a wink.

Sibyl patted me on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Lilith, I know featherjacks are much harder to fight than people make them out to be." I could tell Sibyl was trying to comfort me but it kind of just made me feel even more embarrassed.

I cleared my throat. "Aren't we on a schedule? We should get loaded up and ready to go right?"

Rather than change the subject that only invited a round of laughter.

When Cecilia finally got control over herself again she smacked me on the shoulder. "Lilith is right though, we're wasting daylight and we have a ways to go. Everyone into the carriage. I want someone with good eyes on the cart today, if we're going to run into bandits there's a good chance it'll be in the first three days of our trip."

Torien raised her hand. "I'll do it, I have the best eyes in the group."

Cecilia took one glance at her bow and nodded. "Great, Torien was it? You're with me up front. Everyone else, there's a door here in the side. Don't make the carriage rock too much while we're riding, I don't want us to tip over!" Her joke got another round of laughs as we got on board the carriage.

The carriage was pretty nice on the inside. Eight padded couches and four tables lined the edges, making it look like four carriages stuck together with a small aisle down the middle. It kind of reminded me of a tour bus or something on the inside. There was a small locking door in the back that led to the storage compartment I was looking inside earlier. A long nice-looking rug ran down the aisle that covered the cherry colored wood flooring. The four large windows had white curtains and locking folded wood shutters on the inside that could be closed and locked into place to protect everyone inside. On the roof near the front was a top hatch that was also locked from the inside. This carriage was rather amazing.

The one downside of this carriage is that there isn't any way to talk to the people in the coachman's seat without sticking your head out of the hatch in the roof or signaling by banging against the side. I sat in the seat nearest the door as everyone found their way inside. Each couch could comfortably seat two, meaning a total of sixteen people could theoretically sit in here, though I'm not sure if the uunas could handle that many people riding at full capacity. Practically speaking though, it meant that all eleven of us including Cecilia could sit inside comfortably if we needed to.

"Alright! We're headed out! We'll have to stop by the gate for an inspection so have your identification ready. All of you should have your guild cards right? Oh, I suppose the rabbit-kin doesn't need one. Okay! I'm closing the door and we're going to get moving!"

I latched the door shut from the inside and banged on the wall opposite the coach seat to signal it was shut. After a few moments, our carriage lurched forward and we were soon approaching the gate.

One of the guards stopped us to look over our papers and identification before nodding. "Everything looks good. Oh, I was told to look out for a Lilith, one moment please."

My friends looked at me nervously before he came back carrying a thick letter. "The head priest told us to give this to a Sheep-folk named Lilith if they came through here."

I accepted the letter with raised eyebrows. "Oh, er, thank you." He nodded and waved us through. Our group quickly got back in and peered out the windows as the carriage began to move again. I decided to look at the letter later, I was more interested in the sights going past right now. I was excited to be on the road again.

The fields outside the gate were being planted right now since it was early spring. There were dozens of people all working the land as our carriage rode by. Several people on horseback patrolled the outskirts of town to protect the farmers. They had what looked like glaives and longbows as their horses walked the nearby trails. In a few places, I could see the bodies of dead monsters being dragged back for their meat by some of the workers. It looked like the armed people on patrol were a necessary expense.

Terrain passed us by as we made our way away from Goldenhearth. We were finally headed to the Capital of Torlimal.