As the water cascaded over her body, Aria brushed the slime off of her skin. The warm water gushing down soothed every tensed fibre and even helped her mind calm down a little. Letting it shower over her, she looked to the ceiling and closed her eyes.
'I...I'm useless...' Seeing flashes of her party doing all kinds of versatile tasks, she felt as if she was lacking in her abilities, especially since the only other elf could summon not just monsters but herbs and teas to cure the party of numerous things. 'The tomb was the only thing I could use but now I can't decipher any more of it. Not that I want to rely on it anyways, but still...'
Her powers were borrowed and her strength relied on the gauntlets so far. That very reliance and the feeling of being a hack because of the tomb, she was slowly falling into a deep dark well of self-doubt.
"I suppose I should work on my barbarian abilities instead," with a sigh, she dropped her gaze down and let her gaze wander aimlessly. Deep in thought still, she wondered if she could convince Helga to train her once more, but since the chances were slim that she would agree, Aria wasn't sure what to do.
In the background, she could hear some clatter in the hall as well as the dog's barking. It distracted her for a moment, but her mind quickly slipped back to a depressive state. That is until she saw something in the corner, through the steam she noticed something slightly protruding from under a glass cabinet filled with hair and skincare products.
"What is this?" She wondered, slowly walking over to the cabinet and pinching the frame sticking out from its underside. However, instead of coming out from the front, a latch opened downwards. A clatter of framed paintings fell to the ground from the secret compartment and as soon as Aria grabbed one of them and looked, her eyes widened in utter shock.
It was a painting of Raven and Mel from the very same catalogue that was being sold at the maze. Raven and Melicia were both aware of their painting in intimate poses being sold to the masses of Athenia–and although Aria knew it too, seeing it in Helga's bath was more than a little surprising.
'To my winged friend, call onto me whenever and I'll send my imps to paint you a portrait.' Letting the words simmer inside her head, Aria wondered about something quite revealing if it were true. And so, quickly getting the previous portraits, she brought one of them as close to her eyes as possible and looked for a small indentation of numbers.
'These are marked with numbers for stock count if I'm not wrong.' Having never seen another portrait of anyone else being sold at the maze before Raven and Mel, and pairing it with the fact that the frames Mel had were marked with numbers for a count, Aria searched for the same to ensure her doubts were on the mark.
"One..." I was the number, revealing the fact that Helga received the very first portrait from the sex catalogue.
'She commissioned these?!' Putting two and two together, Aria couldn't believe what she was seeing–especially since the intimate time between Raven and Helga had remained a secret between them only. 'But why–'
Before she could finish her thoughts, something clicked in Aria's head. She knew she'd stumbled onto one of Helga's secrets and just a moment before she was worried about her not agreeing to train her, but...
"This is all sorts of messed up and blows in my face, but!" Holding all the frames in her hand, Aria got up and decided to keep the portraits in case she needed to use them. "If she agrees, I'll just return this here."
Leaving the bathroom and going into the joint dressing room, she walked over to her stack of clothes with the tomb resting on top. Untying the bag in which the book was, she quickly stuffed it with as many portraits as she could and decided to leave them there with the tomb.
'I'll come back for it if she says no.' Grabbing a clean towel from a basket she quickly wrapped it around herself and finally headed outside, and as she did, she was thankful that she didn't have balls as she feared the thought of being pinned by them to the walls, just like the Kobolds had been.