Audrey had to be carried the whole way back to the others waiting just inside the forest. Cody made it back on his own but laid down and passed out right away. Tara was sitting up with about a third of her missing limbs back, it had been about six hours since he left so the timing was about right. He laid Audrey down next to Tara and filled her in privately about what had happened with her, how she had a good amount of soul damage and he shouldn't be around when she wakes up.
Eli walked back to Bethany and Stevens and sighed loudly.
"Bethany, I'm tired of this," he said while taking off his mask. "My real name is Elias Konzak, I've been hiding it because people I used to work with in the military and intelligence sectors know me, not to mention bad guys around the world I've pissed off. They would either try to force my recruitment or hunt me down out of fear. Audrey just went through something difficult and it might have been easier if everyone in our group was more comfortable talking to me. From now on, when my mask is on, I'm Lord Ash, Unapproachable paragon of power. When it's off I'm just some guy named Eli ok?
"Well, Eli, I'm glad you trust me enough to share this with me," She said with a sly smile and her best bedroom eyes looking up at him. "I guess it's only fair to tell you a secret of mine, I'm only here so I can get in your pants." She ended that sentence with a wink and walked out towards the hellscape she was about to enter to start training.
Eli stood still, not used to that level of bold forwardness. He looked at Stevens and he shrugged.
"Don't you think that was odd?" Eli asked.
"This whole group is odd, you'll have to be more specific."
"What kind of response is there to that?" Eli asked, scratching his head.
"Well, I'm 100% sure that she and Tara have already talked about this at length so my bet would be no response and pretend it didn't happen."
"What do you mean they already talked about it?" Eli said, completely exasperated.
"Tara finally has you, she is not going to let anyone or anything get between you. If she didn't want Bethany around she would have killed her the first time she showed signs of lusting after you."
"This was the first time," Eli said, "At least the first overt one… wasn't it?
"For someone who has the highest perception of all of us, it seems you are the only one who didn't see it."
"Ok, I'm done talking about this, we need to get going." Eli said, finally resigning himself to the sit-com fate of a love triangle.
The three of them walked out into the hot hellscape that was the area around the center volcano. Walking a different direction than he had taken the last group he was hoping for some monsters quickly so that the tension in the group would be broken. Another 90 minutes of jogging and they came to the first one, it was pretty easy since Bethany just had to keep it busy while Stevens fired damage at it. They did ok as a team, but he would need to see them fight something far more difficult to really be able to judge them.
Hoping that the second monster would be more of a challenge, he pointed them directly at the volcano and picked up the pace. Eli got his wish when they ran into some sort of lava golem creature. It was slow to react and not very mobile, but the heat coming off of it was burning the air around it and any physical attacks seemingly did nothing since it would just reform its lava. Stevens wasn't making much headway for damage but when he shot it with his fire arrow, it shot a similar spell back but it was more like a lava arrow covered in napalm.
Stevens wasn't used to ranged attacks and didn't even dodge, he just watched it hit him in the side. However, to his credit, he didn't make it seem like he was in pain at all, just continuing to move and use magic, sometimes it was a spell, and sometimes it was just magic. After an hour, with both of them nearing their limit of burns, melted clothes, and exhaustion, they were barely holding on, fighting naked and barely able to stand. Eli got bored, conjured a throwing cudgel and destroyed its core in one shot. They both collapsed to the ground, completely spent, Stevens recovered enough to walk after about ten minutes but Bethany was fully asleep.
Eli picked her up and carried her in a princess carry, mostly because he knew she would like that and she had impressed him with her determination. The two of them discussed what he could do better, they mainly focused on what he could do better in a group, and what would make him a more valuable teammate. Bethany woke up after about 30 minutes and wrapped her arms around him, snuggled her head up against him and went back to sleep. Eli smiled under his mask, he may not be able to give her the same feelings she had for him, but she seemed happy with some small gestures of appreciation for now. None of them knew what the future held and she was starting to really fit into the group so if he could show appreciation without pissing off Tara, he would give her small pieces of what she wanted.
When they were all together again, everyone that wasn't Eli, was looking at Eli, and everyone was doing it for a different reason. Stevens had seen how mad Audrey was and was then looking at him to figure out if he knew why. Bethany, still in his arms, was looking up at him in quiet admiration. Tara looked like she wanted to play at being mad since he was holding Bethany, but she was trying to support Audrey's anger so she kept quiet with a neutral face. Cory looked confused and was looking at Eli for answers. Audrey was staring burning hot daggers at Eli, her hands were clenched into fists at her side and she was grinding her teeth audibly.
Eli set Bethany down softly and she pouted, still not bothering to cover her nakedness. He looked at each person just waiting for a solution to come to him, but since nothing did, he picked Audrey up and leapt north and just ran until he was at least a day away from the others at their top speed. This needed to be a private conversation where he could let her yell and call him names and be disrespectful without losing the respect of the others. He used to do this with Tara during deployments when her agitation would build, he would let her take it out on him.
"Ok," Eli said calmly, "We are alone, let me have it. Yell, scream, punch me, call me names, do whatever it is you need to do to get it out of your system and we can be good again."
Audrey began to pace as he took his mask off and leaned against a nearby tree.
"I am angry with you, but if we need to be good, then I need to enter your soul like how you entered mine." Audrey said while she was still pacing and it was mostly mumbling to herself. "You know more about me than anyone, because you violated my privacy and entered my soul. I'll admit that if you hadn't it would have killed me, and I got my soul to level 1 just from holding that piece of you inside me. But it was still too much to look past, but I think if I do the same to you, and can learn the secrets your heart holds, then it will feel more like a shared experience, and less like my boss learning about my high school relationships."
"Wait, weren't you like 10 in highschool, you shouldn't have had relationships." Eli said with a disgusted look on his face.
"No, I was trying to be relatable."
"Ok, good, continue"
"Let me into your soul," Audrey said, "It's the only way to make things ok between us. It will make us even."
"I'm not sure that's safe, I've been in yours and I don't think you would survive it."
"I will if you let me."
"I guess, if this will help, let's give it a shot," he said, sighing. Eli slumped down and sat, leaning back on the tree.
Audrey put her hand on his forehead with her other hand on the back of his neck. She focused on her magic sense and pushed her awareness into him. Audrey was expecting a struggle, and having to force her way in, but she basically tripped and fell into his soul. For the first five minutes she was completely blinded by his soul in the shape of his will skill. When she was able to study it, she took her time and memorized the shape as best as she could. She wanted to duplicate it on her own soul to get his will skill or at least a version of it she could use.
Then she moved on to his emotions and feelings toward others. To her, this all felt muted, like it was a chained animal that wanted to run rampant and cause chaos inside him. She could sense how he felt about each person, there was a warmth that she could only describe as the feeling of home for Tara. Stevens was surrounded by a feeling of an old friend and camaraderie. The feelings around Bethany were complicated, some annoyance but that was fading, now it seemed he was developing an appreciation for her. She made him feel wanted and not so alone which led to a feeling of joy.
Finally there was her, and the main emotion was duty, or maybe it was responsibility, along with a deep yearning to protect and shield. Her spot in his soul had a barrier around it that was keeping emotions at bay. He was forcing himself to not have emotions for her, it was like he didn't want her to feel like family. At first this enraged her, and his soul reacted and started pressuring her to leave, it was like his soul was threatening hers and she knew he would win. She calmed her mind and searched for the answer, she was running out of time so she started just searching and memorizing everything she could.
Finally she found what was probably causing it, a spot in his soul that was locked tighter than anything else. It was of a girl, a little older than her, a sister or something close. His feelings to protect her were astronomically powerful, but she could tell they were fading. They were fading and being transferred to her. That's why he went to such lengths to protect her, he is transferring his feelings to protect his little sister to her, feelings that felt more like a compulsion, and maybe a compulsion placed from the outside like his emotional seal. Whatever had damped his emotions to begin with, also forced these feelings toward this other girl. While the hold on his emotions weakened, these feelings got loose and transferred.
Almost out of time, she left and came back to herself. She had some residual feelings from him rolling around inside her though, like a strange urge to slap Tara's butt. They weren't very strong but they felt like they might persist for a while. Eli slowly opened his eyes and looked at her and smiled, he didn't speak, he didn't need to. They now shared a mutual understanding of the other that went beyond anything thought possible before they experienced it.
"I need a couple things before the others catch up," Audrey said
"You want me to help you with your will skill…." Eli paused and scratched his chin in thought. "...And you want me to help you level your body."
"Yes, I need more options when fighting and protecting myself and our group, I'm too fragile."
"I'll help you with that, if you help me come up with a better name for our group." Eli said, proposing a trade that he knew she didn't want to be responsible for.
"I'll try to think of something for our… crew?... gang?... collective?..." She put her face in her hands, "I'll work on it."
After a brief explanation of what Eli wanted to try to help her level her body they sat across from each other and got started. She pushed magic into her body and at first he dumped about a quarter of his life node magic into her as she ramped it up. Then he pushed his magic into her body, a lot of his magic. It was roughly three times the amount of magic she could normally hold and her body started to dissolve. She gritted her teeth and it took everything she had to not scream at the pain, but she pushed through it and after a few hours, her body started to change. She got taller, and her body started to look more like a woman and less like a girl.
When they finished, she told him that her body had leveled twice and they stood up. Her armor had adjusted to her new body just like how the armor adjusted to fit everyone when they put it on. She was at least 4 inches taller and had very feminine curves. As she studied her new body noting places where there were more changes than other places she had a big smile on her face. Eli began to worry, she was still a 14 year old girl, but now she looked more like an 18 yr old and men would hit on her not knowing how old she was. His big brother instincts were kicking in and he was going to have to keep an eye out for her.
"Well how do I look?" she asked.
"Like I'm going to want to meet any of your boyfriends while holding a weapon."
"I'm asking if you think I am attractive."
"Yes," Eli said without hesitation. He knew she wouldn't let him sidestep this answer even though it felt like calling his little sister attractive.
"Good, now I need to rest before we move on to the skill"
"Let's discuss this since I think there might be a way to make it work if we modify it," Eli said
They talked about it for another 30 minutes or so and came up with a game plan. Eli's concern was that their connection as Lord and Servant wouldn't let him have the same skill since it was most likely a Lord specific skill. His idea was to try modifying it to be subservient to him. Eli's will skill forced everything into the ground, even causing the ground to be indented, due to his will changing reality to make the area of the skill subject to his will more than it should normally be able to. If they could make her skill do the same thing but on his behalf, and not hers, it should allow her to use it, and maybe even draw strength from him while doing so.
With their plan laid out they put their foreheads together and put their hands on the back of each other's heads for the best connection possible. Then they got to work, first she joined him in his soul scape and they used magic to copy the shape of the rune. They then spent hours and hours working slowly to reshape it and test the result. Both of them were intensely focused, their hands were shaking and they were dripping sweat soaking the ground beneath them.
Finally after what felt like days they had a working shape and together moved from his soul scape to hers pushing it into the bright sun shining shapelessly in her soul. They combined their wills and pushed her soul into the shape slowly and deliberately making it fit into each arm and offshoot of the rune. When they finally separated with the job done they both fell to the ground exhausted, barely able to move. It wasn't until they had been laying there for almost an hour that they noticed that everyone else was there, and had been there for a while. They sat up and looked around.
"Should I be jealous?" Tara asked jokingly, "I take it Audrey leveled her body?"
"No and yes," Eli answered