After a small fight with the party–one that she won easily thanks to her surprise summon of a tentacle monster from the ground. Flinging everyone through hoops of portals connected infinitely to themselves, the creature made the party nearly vomit their guts out, but being an elemental witch, Linkle forced the liquid to get back into their bellies.
"Next time if you teleport here while my butt's hanging out in the open, I'll leave you guys spiralling through the infinite loops!" Still pissed while stuffing her clothes into a bag, she was getting ready to leave for Elenaris and get started on the cave excavation.
Sitting on the ground inside her bedroom, everyone looked at her with their bellies churching still. However, the moment the witch was done packing, she had everyone follow her out into her shop. There, she handed her bag to Vlad and pulled herself a seat behind the counter.
"Sit down, I have to talk to you before leaving," Linkle ordered, correcting her golden earrings as well as her light-stringed necklace glimmering with self-crafted diamonds.
"What is it?" Raven asked, taking the seat before everyone else.
The others, being as disoriented as they were simply leaned against the walls, all the while, Linkle plucked a lipstick out of thin air. Conjuring a mirror next, she quickly applied the bright pink lipstick before letting it disappear into thin air–soon replaced by a small box of vanity.
"Well..." Pursing her lips, she rubbed them together before opening them back up with a loud pop. "Soon I'll have a treasure trove of resources. I may leave this city once I'm done selling the stuff I make from it, or I may not, but one thing's for sure."
Letting down both the box and the mirror, Linkle set her hands down and looked into Raven's eyes. Shimmering like a star her gaze was flooding with dreams of better days, and the lavishness of her slitted dress and makeup, reflected how she felt on the inside.
"I'm done dealing with gold, it's cheap," shaking her head, she kept her eyes glued on Raven. "I never liked gold, it's hard to acquire, even harder to play with, but secrets and souls, well they have worth far greater than any pile of ingots."
Her words made no sense to Raven, after all, he'd often seen her as a gold-hungry witch. Yet now she was complaining that that's not what she wanted, then what exactly did she want?
"What the hell?! My breasts aren't even that big you jealous bitch!" Finally catching up as well, Erika tried to fire back at Linkle, but it wasn't as effective.
Moving swiftly onto Aria and instantly her gaze alone had her tensed, Linkle looked at her hands once adorned by a pair of silver gauntlets.
"And you've been sacrificing your blood to a devil for power god knows how long," quickly shifting her gaze to Mel, Linkle glared daggers at her for a moment before speaking. "And you...where do I even start? Because believe me the goddess of bounty may not have blessed you with in the departments that matter, but she definitely overpowered hypocrisy."
"WHAT?!" Catching stray even though she hadn't said anything, Mel felt a sudden pain in her chest just from Linkle's words alone.
In the meantime, the witch turned back to Raven, but instead of insults, she had something else entirely to say.
"You have some sense, an opportunistic bastard like me, why don't we talk without these idiots dropping in?" Familiar with his any-means-necessary approach to any problems, Linkle wanted to lean him into her side, especially since he was also the leader of his group.
"So are you gonna criticise me for my deal with the devil or hear me out and maybe earn my favour for any future help that you might need?"
It wasn't even a question, as Raven knew how integral Linkle had become for their operations. Especially with the teleportation rings–most of them now distributed to every one of his girls in Elenaris. Even so, turning his head towards his party members, he looked for any signs of dissent.
However, after being called out by Linkle for their hypocrisy, none of them had the galls to continue going against her.
"Like Helga taught us," shifting his attention back again, Raven took a deep breath and sighed. "Any means necessary, that's how you win wars."
And to his answer, Linkle once again smiled.