Chapter 120: Afterbath

FieryKathy

“Ami!?” I can hear my sister as someone is shaking my shoulder. I manage to open my eyes with great difficulty. I’m so tired. 

“H-hey sis.” 

“Are you alright? You fell from pretty high.” 

I try to look around me but apparently I’m half stuck in the mud in a small crater. I’m no longer wearing my armor and my wings are gone too. 

“I-I just feel exhausted… and my muscles hurt too.” 

“Wait, I’ll get you out.” 

“Ami!” Sam runs up to us. 

“I got her, don’t worry Sam, she looks okay.” It requires a bit of prying but Élise manages to pull me out of the mud relatively easily and it doesn’t take long before she is princess carrying me. 

From there I can see more clearly how the battlefield looks like now. A lot of Dwarger soldiers are walking around, mainly taking prisoners. Most of the player parties are being left alone. 

But soon my vision gets cut off by a concerned Sam who gives me a kiss. “Ami, please, don’t do that again.” 

“What did you do, anyway?” My sister asks as she carries me towards the gate of the city. 

“I’ll… I’ll tell you later…” It’s hard to keep my eyes open. “But… what happened here in the meantime?” 

“After you disappeared there was a bit of confusion as to what we should do next as our common enemy had disappeared.” Lise starts explaining. “Most of the soldiers laid down their arms and it didn’t take long for the Dwarger to sally out of the city to see what was going on.”

“Hilda has talked to them, together with Ruva and Nikki. The Dwarger promised to take good care of the prisoners since they helped to fight the big blob of evilness.” Sam then continues. 

“And the players?” 

“Some left after you disappeared. The ones that remain have promised to work with the city to help fix the damage the siege caused.”

“Hmm… that’s good.” I nod. “But I’m just wondering why the soldiers are not teleporting back, instead of getting taken prisoner.” 

“You should ask them but I think it’s because they don’t want anything to do with that ghost and whatever created it.” My sister nods. 

“Well… I have somewhat taken care of that…” 

“Really?” Lise laughs. “Well, you can explain what happened after you’ve rested a bit. I think we can all use a bit of shut-eye.” 

The three of us reach the gate where Hilda, Nikki and Ruva are talking to some Dwarger soldiers. Once the Dwarger soldiers see me, they get to their knees and bow their heads.

“Our lost Goddess returns.” Hilda smiles. 

“She’s exhausted.” My sis does the talking. “Do we have a place to rest?” 

“That’s what these men were talking to us about.” Nikki replies. 

The Dwarger soldiers get back up and continue their conversation which I’d presumably cut off. “We have a mansion ready near the center of the city. The council has put it at your disposal indefinitely as a small gift for saving the city.” 

“An… entire mansion?” I ask. 

The Dwarger soldiers are a bit surprised that I talked directly to them, but the one who was speaking first, continues. “Yes, it’s a mansion that was seized from some fraudulent merchant family a couple of months ago. It’s a bit dusty but a team of cleaners was sent there an hour ago.” 

“Could we go there already?” Hilda asks.

“If you wish.”   

“Then I’ll be going home.” Ruva says. 

“You’ll of course be rewarded as well, Miss Ruva.” The soldier says. 

“I didn’t doubt that for one second.” She smiles and then walks off into the city. 

“We can take you to your mansion with our walker.”

“Thank you. That’s much appreciated.” 

The soldiers bring us to the center of the city. Since its early in the morning not a lot of citizens are out and about, although there are quite a few people near the walls trying to repair the damage caused to buildings with siege artillery. 

Our trip downtown takes approximately five minutes. The mansion is situated in one of the side roads of the main street. It’s quite apparent from the architecture that a lot of the families who live here have a lot of wealth. The walker stops in front of a large two-story building with marble pillars surrounding the entrance. There’s another walker parked outside as well, presumably from the cleaners who were mentioned earlier. We dismount and while we are doing so, one of the soldiers runs inside. 

It doesn’t take long before he returns. “The cleaners are about done.” He reports. “They will be out in a minute or two.” 

“That’s fast if they had to clean the entire building.” My sister gives an appreciative nod.

And just like our guard said, two minutes later an entire team of Dwarger people jog out of the house, all their cleaning equipment in hand. 

“The mansion is clean and all yours.” The Dwarger man who looks to be the leader of the group gives us a bow, after which the rest of his team does so too. 

“Thank you very much.” Hilda smiles. The rest of us thank them as well. 

“We’ll leave you to it.” The two soldiers get back on their walker. “Thank you again for saving our city.” The party waves them off as they return to the main street. After which we enter our new abode. The entrance hall is impressive with a big marble staircase in the back center that leads up to the second floor.  

“Hey, Sam, could you try to find the bathroom and take Ami with you.” My sister, who has been princess carrying me again after we exited the car, hands me over to my girlfriend. “I think she deserves to have a nice long bath.” 

“Definitely.” Sam gives her a nod.

“I’ll come along to open some doors for you.” Hilda says as Sam starts walking. It’s a big house so it takes quite a while for us to find what we are looking for. 

We find the bathroom attached to what looks to be a lounge with a big fireplace heating up the room. The cleaners must’ve lit it up for us.  

The bathroom has a small heater too so when we enter it’s nice and toasty as well. As for the lighting, most of the room is lit up with candles. It gives it a very romantic feeling.

“Woah, that’s a big bath.” Sam calls out when she sees the big, sunken in marble bathtub. 

“Yeah, definitely.” Hilda chuckles. “I doubt the previous owners of this house were Dwarger.” Hilda walks over to the side of the bathtub and turns the valves attached to the wall. “There you go. If you need me, give me a call, I’ll be lounging on the sofa over there.” 

Sam puts me down for a second and opens one of the multiple closets in the bathroom. There’s an assortment of big looking towels inside.

“Uh yeah, could you look for a change of clothes for us? Especially for Ami.” 

“Right, I’ll go and take a look.” Hilda closes the door behind her. 

Sam then turns her full attention back on me. “Let’s get you out of those clothes and into the bathtub.” She helps me undress. My muscles had been starting to ache a little bit more because of my exhaustion so the help was more than appreciated. After undressing me Sam checks the water to see if it’s not too hot for me and once has done that she takes me back up and slowly lowers me down into the warm water. The warm water feels so comfortable I let out a soft moan the second most of my body is submerged. 

Sam blushes slightly. “I’ll be joining you in a second.” Then she quickly starts getting out of her clothes. She joins me soon afterwards, taking a bit of soap and a washing cloth with her. 

“Oh darn, the water does feel good.” 

“I knoooow.” I smile at my beautiful girlfriend. 

“Turn around so I can start scrubbing your back.” 

“Okaaaay…” I do as she asks and turn my back towards her. She starts soaping me in and I can only describe that feeling as heavenly. The washing cloth is just the right texture to give me a good rub and Sam is applying the exact amount of pressure to also massage my back muscles. My body reacts by starting to purr. 

“I’ve not even started to soap in the front yet.” Sam chuckles. 

“It just feels too good, Sam.” 

Sam takes a little bucket that is by the side of the bath and uses it to rinse off my back. She then pulls me close against her by pulling me back by my waist. After that she softly starts soaping in the front of my body while she whispers in my ear. “Hey Ami, you need to promise me something…”

“W-what?” 

“Never leave me behind again… ok? I don’t care what it is or how dangerous it is, I just don’t want you to face the unknown alone…” Sam gives me a kiss on my neck. 

“Hmm… I promise.”  I look back at my girlfriend and look her in the eyes before I plant a kiss on her lips myself.

“Good girl…” She smiles and kisses me back. “Now let’s get the rest of you cleaned up as well.”  

FieryKathy