CHAPTER TWENTY Gifts, and New Friends (Patreon)

Ribbons stretched a bit after checking her status. Going into that fight she had been level six, now she was level fifteen, and had gained a few new skills regarding the spear. Speaking of the spear, she had picked one up during the fight and actually used it on the line. Unlike her sister Aki, she had not really been dabbling in magic, and as such had not been able to cast spells down upon the Ants. That had actually been rather cool, but she had this nice spear now. It was made of some kind of hardwood with a bluish tinge to it, and tipped with a hardened metal point. She wasn’t sure what the metal was, but it was a gleaming black in color. Best part!? She gets to keep the spear. Perhaps she could consider learning magic as well? It would be a lot of effort, but one of her new friends had told her about this awesome advanced class that required someone to have both a warrior and mage class to unlock.

Speaking of advanced classes, she was no longer a warrior. Her natural skills with a spear had allowed her to meet the requirements for the class Spearmaiden. The new spear-related skills it brought seemed worth it, so she took it, and it still counted as a warrior class. Overall she considered her new status a sign of a good day.

Name:  Aoi ‘Ribbons’

Gender: Female

Race: Lesser Beastkin Demon (Catkin)

Level: 15

Age: 15

Health: 100% (Perfect Health)

Class: Spearmaiden

Shields: 0/0

Subclass: None

Mana: 200/200

Titles: None

Skills:

Novice Sexual Technique Grade C
Novice Claw Arts Grade C
Beginner Rapid Claw Style Grade A
Beginner Claw Step Stance Grade A

Apprentice Natural Armor Grade A+
Beginner Inspect Grade C
Novice Spear Mastery Grade A
Novice Dwarven Spear Arts Grade B
Novice Underdark Guardian Style Grade C
Novice Bulwark Stance Grade A

Traits:
Racial:
Demon Skin
Demonic Constitution
Natural Weapons
Alluring

Inherent:
Nature’s Embrace
Ribbon Lover
Natural Mother
Child at Heart

Acquired:
Warrior’s Instinct
Talent with the Spear
Guardian
Agile

It was a good status, maybe not the best. Yet Ribbons felt she was off to a very good start. She didn’t need to be the strongest, but that didn’t mean she wanted to stay a weakling forever. Ribbons had goals, just not the same ones as her sister Aki. She knew what she wanted, and being stronger would help with that. Closing her status, happy with her progress, she turned her attention to the gargoyles they saved.

Now that the battle was over, she was taking in details she had not noted earlier. Her eyes looked over at a nearby gargoyle girl, she was short with cute puffy cheeks. Her skin was a lovely grey-blue, and very smooth, like polished stone. Yet it seemed to have the same suppleness, and apparent softness of her own skin. Extending from her small butt, and through a special hole in her knee-length skirt, was a long gray tail, the base of it armored with dark gray and silver scales. That tail was arm thick at its base, and narrowed significantly towards the end, before bulging, the end of the bulge concealed a vicious-looking retractable stinger that was partially visible at the moment. Her exposed chest was small, and undeveloped, befitting her apparent age. From her back, a pair of large wings spread behind her. They were the same gray as her tail with streaks of silver running through them. Her feet were talons, with strong sharp claws that could easily dig into the ground, with dark gray and silver scales running up her legs and stopping just short of her knees. Her fingers were each tipped with short claws, and running up her arms were dark gray and silver scales stopping just short of her elbows. As far as Ribbons could tell, aside from her arms, legs, and tail she had no scales anywhere else.

Not far from her was a clear relative, likely her mother. She shared much the same features, except her face had matured, producing a striking beauty. She wasn’t much taller than her child, standing at roughly 140 centimeters, which made her quite a bit shorter than many of her compatriots. Her chest stood out as she had a large bust, perhaps suggesting how her child would develop. One that was quite exposed, allowing one to pick out her cute nipples, and bluish areola. Both girls shared the same shade of hair, a silvery white. Her clothing was a little different from her daughter’s. She wore a much shorter skirt, and had an empty potion pouch on her hip. Unlike some of the other adults, she did not seem to be carrying a weapon.

Then the mother-apparent moved causing her half-thigh length skirt to shift. Revealing her little addition, it seemed she wasn’t a pure female. Ribbons giggled, instinctively she knew those could be fun. Although, at the moment, she really liked pure females, it might be worth trying a not so pure one. It might give her an indicator of how much she likes boys. Then she glanced at the kid, then again it might be more fun to play a game of tag with the little one. She really wanted to chase her around the hill, and bring her down laughing before subjecting her to a tickle attack. Oh, that would be so fun. Her mind paused, as she weighed pursuing sex, or childish games. After a moment, she made her choice. Childish games it was!

She stretched and made her way over, with a smile on her face, and a goal in her mind. Closing on the little girl, she said, “Hello! My friends call me Ribbons, what about you?”

The little one blushed deeply, and turned away. Her mother smiled, “Forgive my sister, she is a little shy. I’m Petra, and you said you were Ribbons?”

“My friends call me that, but you can call me Aoi.”

Petra smiled, “Sure Aoi, so what brought you over here?”

“I was wondering if your sister would like to play? Maybe take her mind off all the bad stuff that happened recently?”

Petra nodded, and then glanced at her sister. “Hear that Tetra? The kind demon wants to play, how about it?”

Her tail perking up, Tetra inquired, “Play? Can we um, play hide and seek? With my friends?”

Beaming, she replied, “Sure! Now, where are you friends?”

Tetra moved closer, and hesitated for a moment before grabbing her hand and pulling her along. Petra called after, “Have fun!”

Meanwhile while Ribbons was off having fun with the few kids in the clan, Aki was talking to a couple of the leaders. They had just finished thanking her for the assistance, and helping them find a good spot to make a stand.

“So what are you going to do now?”

“Well we can’t go back, the ants destroyed our village. We were lucky to get out with what little we have.”

“I see, I take it you plan to rebuild around here?”

“We were thinking about it. Would you, um, you know you never did mention where you came from?”

“Didn’t have time. My home is a small dungeon, on a hill a short march to the south of here. You will be welcome there.”

The other woman nodded, and stroked her hair thoughtfully, “Tempting, nice to have friends nearby, but I think I like this hill here. If we get started now, we could have a central square built before too long. It may take some time to get new fields growing, but this spot is quite defendable.

Aki nodded, “Yes it is, perhaps we could offer some assistance?”

“That would be quite welcome, we gargoyles can’t really operate up here during the day. Any help would be quite welcome.”

She smiled, “I’ll get some of my sisters out here, then.”

The other woman sighed, “We can’t really pay you for the help, so we are in your debt. Treat us well.”

New Quest!
Establishing a Settlement
A clan of gargoyles seeks to settle a hill on the edge of your Mistress’s territory. This is a good opportunity for you and your Mistress. Help them build shelter, seed fields and establish defenses.
Difficulty: E

Rewards:
Friendly Relations with Clan Riki
DP income for your Mistress

Failure:
Clan Riki is Destroyed
Dewari’s Displeasure

Aki blinked, apparently it was easy to get quests while out exploring. “Understood. So what do you need? Right now, of course?”

She blinked, “There are only about thirty of us left, thanks to the ants. Luckily, we did manage to save some of our eggs. In the short term, we need a central square, and a hatchery. Later we can build out a few proper houses with their own hatcheries. Getting a steady supply of food, and storage before winter would be critical as well.”

The woman paused, and seemed to think for a moment, “Some proper defenses would be important as well. We might have repelled those ants, but I don’t think we would do so well against a goblin clan.”

Aki nodded, and looked around, “Plenty of space for a village here.”

“We like to build underground, up here would mainly be farms, and a few defenses. The rest of the village would be underground.”

“I see. I guess we better get started on digging,” then she turned to one of her fellows. Ordering her to grab one of her sisters, and head on back to get helpers. Glancing at the moon, she felt they would need at least ten additional demons to get things done properly.

The other one nodded, grabbed her nearby sister, and ran off to recruit helpers.

With that done, Aki and a few Gargoyles turned their attention to building a village entrance. Near the top of the hill, they used magic to reshape the earth. Shifting logs, and stones to support a new entry into the earth.

At the same time, a tunnel was dug into the hill. One that headed straight down with spiral stairs placed along the edge, but keeping the center clear. It would lead into the middle of what would be the central square of the new village. Some homes would be built in this square, while the rest would be placed along the edges of the square.

Aki stretched, hours had passed, the moon was setting, and the sun was starting to rise. By now the entrance had been fully built, and an octagonal space had been dug out; in which they had begun building their new village. A few trees had been chopped down, their timber quickly processed with magic to build proper supports. The crude entrance was being shored up, and some shaping had been done for the outside of the hill.

The gargoyles were already settling into their new underground village, and she felt it best to let them do the work there for the night. While it occurred to her that she had not rested in a while, she felt the need to keep working. At least for a little while longer, she planned to get a nap soon though. In the meantime, she was coordinating the help her mistress had sent. They needed to build walls, a keep, and a few watchtowers on the hill so that the clan could defend themselves more easily. Timber, and earth seemed the best materials for that. Right now anyway, stone would be stronger, but timber and earth was readily available. Not to mention they needed to clear space for fields, this accomplished two tasks at once.

Already they had cleared some space, it would not take much longer before they had enough for the fields. Aki was tempted to seed the fields herself, but apparently the gargoyles needed to do some ritual to prepare the fields first. What that ritual was, she was not sure. So clearing them out, and getting them ready for the ritual was all she could do. Getting them some walls, and a proper keep to protect themselves seemed to be the best she could do.

With that in mind, she set out to do just that. While a few of her other demon sisters set up a camp for them to rest in while they worked. At this rate, it would not take too long to get the settlement established. She had a few groups working to scout the surroundings for things of interest, and to clear out threats. As her mistress planned to expand and claim this entire area. A village living near her dungeon was a good boon to her, they would need to survive of course, and grow. Putting those thoughts aside, she started smoothing a path down the hill from the entrance to the village.