Chapter 86

As the four of us walked up to the strange pair of people I snapped on [Karmic Seduction], giving myself some much needed Charisma for whatever this interaction was going to be. The young lady looked fiery and determined, she had a strong and confident gaze despite her rough appearance.

"A charisma skill?" she looked back at Tarklin. "You're not assigning me to this snake just because you think I'm a noble are you?"

Tarklin put his hands up. "I mean no ill will young lady. I just thought Lilith here might be the best person to properly handle you."

Now that I was closer I could get a better look at these two. The young human woman had blond hair and blue eyes and seemed about fourteen years old or so. Her red dress looked fancy but was torn and dirty. Rather than being scared, exhausted, or worse, she looked strong willed and determined. I'm not sure how much of that was a mask and how much of that had to do with the seven foot tall amazonian looking woman standing right next to her.

The rabbit demi-human was tall and muscular, her hands were rough and calloused. She stood there watching everyone with intense focus but her hands were balled into fists. She didn't look hostile so much as ready to defend the two of them at a moment's notice. Her hair was dark brown and her lightly tanned tawny skin was covered in numerous white scars, the snow white rabbit ears on her head contrasted strongly with the rest of her body. She was mostly wearing rags and her breasts were wrapped with tight bandages to support them. She only wore a loincloth below her waist so her sculpted muscular legs were left on display. Just below her knees her legs shifted to become giant white rabbit paws that had her standing on the balls of her feet. Her bright yellow irises calmly flicked from person to person, trying to evaluate if any of us were a threat. Those eyes would look more at home on a wolf than a white rabbit.

I couldn't help but look at the dark steel collar that was around her neck. It was the kind of collar a crime slave wore, the collar of someone that received a life sentence as a slave rather than an execution. Despite that, the two had rather high Karma, which made me feel somewhat more comfortable trusting them. It's not fool proof but you wouldn't be able to keep a high karma if you often tricked people and murdered them in their sleep.

I gingerly raised my hands, intentionally leaving my stance open, relaxed, and non-threatening. Despite our show of non-hostility the rabbit woman remained on guard. It wasn't hard to guess who was in charge here so I looked at the young lady. I turned off my Charisma skill since she seemed to spot it right away anyway. Right now I would rather appear genuine and help defuse the situation rather than let it escalate over something like that.

"Hey, no need to be hostile. We're just passing through on our way to the capital. You look like you've had a rough trip. Are you hurt anywhere? My friend here is a healer." I gently indicated towards Bella.

The young lady quietly looked at Bella for a moment before looking back at me. "What is your name sheepkin?"

It felt odd being referred to as my species, even if it wasn't my true species, but I decided to just roll with it. "I'm Lilith, my friend here is Bella, and the two behind me are Morrigan and Torien."

The demi-rabbitkin suddenly had a look of utter confusion while the young noble squinted at me while studying my armor. "Are you a noble?"

I had no idea how someone came to that conclusion this time but I just shook my head. "No. I'm just Lilith."

She glanced over at Tarklin again before looking back towards me. "I could use some healing. I don't trust any of you but if you were trying to kill me you probably would have done so by now..." She faced Tarklin. "I have to remove my dress to show you the injury but I don't want the elf to watch me."

He nodded. "One moment then please." Tarklin pulled me a few steps aside. I noticed the rabbitkin's ear swiveled to follow us so I didn't have any illusions that this would actually be a private conversation. I doubt there was much to hide right now anyway.

He glanced at the two of them before looking back at me. "Do you feel comfortable healing them and figuring out what's going on with them? I don't think the young lady looks particularly untrustworthy but the rabbitkin looks dangerous, decently high level."

"I don't think they're a threat. The rabbitkin looks strong but she's defensive and calm, not bloodthirsty. She's probably following orders to protect the young girl."

He nodded. "I didn't notice a crest anywhere but she looks and acts like a noble. The fact she's here alone in a torn dress with a single bodyguard is incredibly bizarre. I'd like to know who she is before we decide whether or not we're going to help her in any significant capacity."

I raised an eyebrow. "You would turn a blind eye to a young girl based on who her parents are?"

"Everyone has enemies. I'd like to know who we're offending before I risk the lives of everyone in my company, yourself included." He replied coldly.

I sighed. "I'll see what I can do."

"Good. I'll be in earshot." He walked around the corner of the structure, leaving the four members of my party and the two strangers alone. Before I walked back to them I wanted to get a read on the rabbitkin's level.

-- "Mimi, can you tell me what level the rabbitkin is?" --

-- "The rabbitkin is a level 42, the young girl is level 15." --

I internally grimaced. I didn't know what it took to get level 15 at that age but it sounds hard. Not everyone gets a ton of free levels like I do.

I walked back to the pair, keeping enough distance to not alarm them. "We've been given the go ahead to heal you. Afterwards, we'd appreciate if you could tell us a little bit about yourselves and that will tell us whether or not we can do more for you than patch you up and leave you here alone."

The young woman looked at Bella. "What kind of healer is she?"

Bella looked towards me and I gestured for her to speak for herself. "I'm a nature healer. My healing works through improved regeneration."

The girl nodded. "Good, I'll allow you to heal me. Silva, please help me with my dress."

I decided not to say anything about the 'allow you' thing she said but it did rub me the wrong way. She's a noble, maybe I should expect it but she came off as a brat.

Once her dress was removed a giant mess of bloody bandages was revealed under it. It looks like there was a rough attempt to bandage it by someone who only barely knew first aid. Silva, the rabbitkin woman looked away at the sight, giving me a clue who may have been the one to bandage her.

Bella gasped. "This is a deep stab wound. It's amazing you're not already dead. I'll have to remove the bandages pressed inside here before I can heal you. Torien I need your help."

Torien nodded and walked over from where she was standing. Silva almost looked like she was going to protest before she looked down at the bloody bandages and thought better of it.

"Okay Torien. I need to pull these bandages out of the wound, then I need you to press the wound closed as best as you can so she doesn't lose too much blood while my healing regenerates it from the outside in." She looked down at the young noble. "I'm going to cast a spell that will put you into a trance for a few minutes while I do this, otherwise the pain will be hard for you to bear. You'll have to trust me."

The young woman stared into Bella's eyes for a moment before nodding. "Fine. Do it."

Silva's features hardened but she didn't make any move to interrupt. Motes of green magic flowed from Bella's scepter before turning to a fine mist and settling over the woman's face. Her eyes turned glassy but she kept staring at Bella even in her zoned out state. While the magic was working I insisted the two of them rinse their hands in clean water and dry them on a clean towel from my bag. We didn't really have access to soap right now but this was better than nothing. Once that was taken care of Bella and Torien took positions at either side of the young woman.

"Alright Torien. I need to remove as much of the bandages as possible before I start the healing. Once everything is removed press the skin together and put pressure on the wound. While you're doing that I'll be using my magic. Ready?"

Torien nodded. "Ready."

"Okay, now." Bella carefully tore and started pulling the bandages out. A bulk of them came out all at once completely soaked in blood. Solely from the amount of blood that came out, this kind of would be enough to kill most people if magic wasn't involved.

Once the bandages were removed from the wound, Bella's magic pulsed through the woman's body, pushing out leftover fibers and clotted blood and rapidly healed it until all that was left was a thin scar where a gaping wound had once been. After the wound was completely sealed, Bella used some of the water we prepared to wash the wound and inspect other parts of the girls abdomen to make sure there weren't any other serious wounds. Once she was satisfied she released the trance spell and the young woman sat up and touched the thin scar on her body.

"You're really lucky to be alive, that was a very serious wound. That stab wound managed to barely avoid your kidney. If you hadn't found a healer any sooner you'd probably be dead right now. ...sorry I couldn't do anything about the scar."

The young girl smiled. "I don't mind the scar. Looks like it was a good idea to dump five levels of stats into Vitality after all." She looked over at the rabbitkin. "Can you heal her next? She has a broken foot."

Surprised I looked over. "What really?"

Silva smiled. "It actually really hurts. I'm glad you guys didn't try anything, I really didn't want to move from this spot."

"Alright then, sit down here." The rabbitkin hopped on one foot over to half broken wall and sat down. Bella knelt down and slowly examined the giant rabbit foot. "Alright, no problem." Bella held the foot in two places and the bones visibly snapped into place as the magic pulsed through them. Morrigan and I couldn't help but wince. The young noble girl was either tough as nails or sadistic because she didn't even react, she just impassively got dressed as it happened.

The rabbit beastfolk woman wiggled her toes once they were all healed and gingerly put pressure on the ground before feeling confident to stand. "It feels good again. I'm so glad you healed it up before it healed wrong and a different healer had to go in and break all the bones before they could fix it up."

I mentally cringed at the idea but I suppose even in the modern day there were similar techniques.

Bella brought her attention back to the noble. "You lost a lot of blood so make sure you drink lots of water. Healing magic isn't great at regenerating blood so you might be a bit anemic for while, make sure you eat lots of meat and eggs until you feel better."

The young lady nodded. "Thank you for your advice Healer Bella."

Bella turned to Silva. "Your foot should be fine now but your muscles might be prone to soreness for a little while. Just take it a bit easier if you can." Silva nodded.

I cleared my throat. "Now that you're out of danger. I wanted to know if you could give us any information about who you are and why someone tried to kill you."

The young lady adjusted her dress before sighing. "Since I doubt you would go through all that trouble just to turn around and kill me now, I might as well tell you. My name is Sera Faelyn Morrister, I'm the daughter of Baron Norrin Morrister. ...My father is dead."