"Well, what do you know, it did grow up overnight." Shirou tried feeding some large river crabs to the shellback, while ready to pull his hand back at any time.
According to the bracelet, the magic formations on the 'animal pen' would cause animals inside it to mature overnight and, better yet, ensure their loyalty.
The ox-sized turtle(-like) creature gently reached forth and started nibbling at the food Shirou held for it, then licked at his hand before looking at him with expectant eyes.
"Alright, you're Raphael now." He smiled as he opened the cage and let the shellback out. "I wish I tried this on my first week... anyway, I guess you'll need a bunch of training, uh?"
It should have been a refreshingly normal sight. A young man throwing (rather large sized) sticks on the beach for his pet to fetch, except for a few details. One, said beach was right next to a jungle full of reptilian monstrosities, flamingo-colored terror birds, tank-sized scorpions, and worse. Second, the young man was wearing a full suit of light armour and carrying multiple weapons on his waist and back, just in case. Third, the 'dog' was an odd mix of turtle with gorilla. That one was an important one, really.
~O~
"Is this really alright, miss Tohsaka?" A nervous Luvia did her best to keep as light a touch as possible.
"Just call me Rin already." Rin sighed as she adjusted her posture under the blonde.
"Yes Rin."
"Luvia." Rin's breath was warm and moist. "I cannot hide my feelings anymore, I..."
"Y-yes?"
"I think that bust is really tacky." The dark-haired girl sounded almost apologetic as she looked at the white stone bust the blonde had decorated their living space with on their first week.
"Really?" Luvia sounded a bit nervous as she looked at it. "I thought mother had a fetching, noble bearing."
"Wait, that is your mother!?"
"Yes?"
"I thought it was you!"
"That would be in really poor taste."
"..."
Luvia finished removing the last of Rin's bandages, and the dark-haired girl let out a moan of relief at the sensation of fresh air on her skin.
"How is it?" She asked nervously. "Did it left any scars?"
"Your back is beautiful, Rin."
"That almost sounds like you are trying to soften the blow. Did it leave any scars?" She was worried now.
"No, its perfectly soft and smooth. I bet Shero will love it." Luvia ran her left hands fingertips up Rin's back all the way up to the back of her neck. "Really."
Rin's relief was audible, literally.
"Alright, I think it will still be a few days before I am back to normal, but I should do some work as exercise to help speed it along."
"I placed your tannery next to the hut. We will have proper armour-grade leather by tonight."
"Hm~ I can use hemp thread for the basic ones, but I really want to get my hands on some silk."
"For silk thread, or cloth?"
"Yes." Rin smiled. "Luvia?"
"What is it?"
"Are you getting off me any time soon?"
"Oh!" The blonde almost fell to the floor on her rush to get off Rin's prone figure. "I am so sorry!"
"You did not need to react like that, that just made it awkward." Rin turns away, a little red.
Seeing a chance to tease the dark-haired girl, Luvia's smile stretched from ear to ear.
"Can I get back on tonight?"
"What?" Rin turned her head around in a rush to look at the blonde.
"Or would you rather be on top?"
"Luvia!"
"You actually look funnier embarrassed than angry, Rin. I wish I knew that sooner."
"Gee, thanks."
"You are welcome. What will you make first?"
"Beg your pardon?"
"For armour. What are you making first?"
"Two good pairs of leather sandals. I am tired of those sock-like hemp things, and I bet you must find it really uncomfortable to use shoes three sizes too big."
"Oh, God yes!"
"Say that again?" Rin smirked
"Oh God, yes?" Luvia looked at her friend with a curious expression.
"So that is what you would sound like in bed."
Luvia blushed so bright, she would have glowed in the dark.
"I guess I had that coming." She smirked softly.
"You started it."
"Yes, yes. I am sorry, miss gorilla."
"You will have to do better than that."
"I shall keep it in mind." Luvia stood up, walked over to her dresser/wooden box, and took out a fresh change of clothes before heading to the 'bath.' "I will not miss these."
"Which these?"
"Hemp underwear. I will be so happy when we have silk."
"Oh God, yes!"
"So that is what you sound like in bed!" Exclaimed a triumphant gold-haired heiress.
"Walked right into that one, did I not?"
Luvia went to wash up while Rin lingered on the bed. She had promised herself to stop doing that, but she felt too content and relaxed to care right now.
"Luvia?" She called from the bed.
"Yes?" The 'bath' was just 7' away.
"You explored the rest of the cave, right?"
"Yes. Once you swim through the entire spring, there is a large round cave with a meditating gorilla statue and some remaining psychic impressions that most people would take for ghosts. I told you this before."
"Could you help me across? I would like to take a look at it myself."
"After you make the sandals. That cave is full of crystals, too."
"Alright."
Luvia came back in full itchy garb. Underwear, shirt, pants and gloves, all of it hemp, with an obviously-too-big armour on top.
"I think this thing is about to fall apart." She said while pulling at her chest plate.
"I may be able to adjust it, or repair it, once we have the leather for it."
"I would much rather have a new one, if possible."
"Right. Alright." Considering that the armour's previous owner had tried to assault Luvia as soon as it seemed obvious the advantage was on his side, Rin couldn't blame her for wanting to get rid of it.
Rin stared at the blonde.
"What is it?"
"You look good."
"Are we still doing that?" Luvia smiled.
"No, I mean, you look stronger than a month ago. Not in a muscular way, just... dashing, I guess?"
"...thank you." She blushed. Just a bit. "I do believe I pull 'warrior princess' rather nicely."
"What?"
"Old television show, do not worry about it. Anyway, I am going now. I am exploring upstream today."
"Alright, please be safe."
Luvia nodded, and made her way out of the cave, then hid the trap door under a rug and some furniture before leaving the hut and checking the surroundings were clear, then finally heading upstream along the river.
'Come think about it, the blonde was the sidekick in that show... No no, this charming me cannot be anything but the heroine, obviously! Yes, Rin is the quirky sidekick, surely.'
She had walked for barely ten minutes when she heard a human voice. Or rather, a scream, loud and coarse, though still recognisable as a woman's voice. Remembering her own experience with the locals, she reinforced her body and rushed to it, getting there within the length of heartbeats, and yet clearly too late to help, as the reason for the cry had been a crocodile sneaking up to a camp site and catching its occupant by surprise.
The beast had tore its victim into shreds, biting down and shaking its head from side to side, tearing the flesh and shredding the woman in moments. It was impossible to help. All Luvia could do was gandr the animal to death, then dig a grave for its victim.
And skin the crocodile.
With new insight about the local fauna's diet however, she decided to skip on the meat of carnivorous creatures going forth. She wasn't a fan of indirect cannibalism, after all.
The woman's camp site was extremely plain. A bonfire, a hide to sleep on, and one stretched on thick wooden beams to act as a windbreaker against the storm. The blonde considered it, packed it up, and kept moving.
'She wanted to be seen.' Thought Luvia. 'Or she would have taken shelter in a safer place, and out of the wind.'
A fair distance upstream she found quite the sight. Two massive stone statues of monumental size stared at each other across the river, carved at the end of long and tall plateaus. They must have been easily over 60' tall, and while they stood as straight as men, their faces were smooth, with slits for eyes and no visible nose, and their severe mouths were frozen in a scowling shape.
'Everything but their faces is flooded with detail.' Luvia looked at them for a long moment. 'Everything but the face. Or am I looking at an alien race?'
As she walked closer still, she noticed a camp site at the feet of the statue this side of the river, to which she approached with caution, wanting to be seen while keeping as few hiding places as possible on her way to it. A boat had been laid on its side and half buried on the sand in order to make it a long hard barrier against the wind. As she got closer, she spotted a man feeding one of the giant turtles, rubbing the creature's neck and head while it mildly chewed at the plants in the man's hand.
"A princess?" He immediately ingratiated himself to her, as he was obviously, in her opinion, a man of clearly superior taste and culture. "Or a high priestess, perhaps?"
"Hm. Greetings, sir. You have good eyes, if I do say so myself."
"The name is Arcos, madam. Formerly a sailor." He bowed. "Now just a wanderer. Have you arrived recently?"
"Luviagelita, chosen heiress of house Edelfelt." She nodded in approval, her opinion of the man climbing even higher as she noticed he was wearing cotton pants and a white shirt under an sleeveless jacket, a blue silk sash secured around his waist, matching a length of cloth wrapped around the top of his head. Of course, it all had a washed off tint, but one could hardly ask for more, given the circumstances. "Why are you here, Arcos the Wanderer?"
The man seemed to freeze, then laughed, trying his best to do so in a different direction as to not be impolite.
"I am sorry, princess, but I thought my mind was playing tricks on me again." He said as soon as he recovered. "But I had never heard a mirage before. I am sorry, but I cannot offer even a place to sit, for I have non- oh wait!"
He had two each of large clay pots, jars, jugs, and wooden barrels. He did his best to shake off the sand accumulated over the last two, and moved them under the shade of the large fur sunscreen at the heart of his camp site.
"Please." He gestured at the improvised seats.
"Thank you." Luvia nodded, and made her way to her 'seat,' sitting with as much dignity as if she was in an European court, and crossing her legs in a demure way. "So, you are wearing a bracelet as well, Arcos the Wanderer, care to tell me about it?"
"Ah..." The man seemed to sink in the depths of his memory for a moment as he sat across the blonde girl. "I happen to be one of the original crews, back when we were hired by the Shemite crown to hunt for treasure in their name." He made a pause to let Luvia ask anything, then continued when she gestured him onwards. "At some point, they must have figured that if they were going to betray and leave us stranded here anyway, why bother paying our initial fee? It was then that they began throwing criminals, nonconformists and even politically problematic people over the fence as quickly as they could. These days, not a week goes by without some new face showing up. People of all walks of life, from all nations. If you draw too much attention in Shemite, you are almost guaranteed a one-way ticket to... here. What about you, princess of Edelfelt?"
"A friend and I came here looking for an... acquaintance." Luvia smiled softly. "We did not expect these to be part of the admission price." She lifted her wrist to show off the bracelet.
The man nodded, and fished in his jacket's pockets for a pipe and tobacco bag that hadn't been there for a while. With a sigh, he nodded and assumed it was his turn to talk.
"It looks good on you, all the same. Leave it on!" He grinned at his poor joke. "Saw a fool cut his arm to try and find a way around the ghost fence without triggering the death curse. He bleed to death right there on the sand, nasty business."
"The ghost fence? I have yet to see it myself."
"It surrounds the entire region. I walked around the entire perimeter, once. It goes up so far into the north that your hair will freeze. It wraps around deserts, jungles, savannahs and more. It goes all the way to the shoreline, but there's tall fence posts some distance from the shore. We're inside quite the trap, but it is a trap nonetheless. Have you heard the voices yet? They come to you when you approach certain ruins."
"I have." Admitted Luvia. "I've seen ghost-like people as well, performing the same actions over and over again."
"Yes, the ghosts. They show what used to be, I believe, just like how the voices speak to people that are no longer around. Whatever happened to these lands, I believe we missed the show for... give or take a couple thousand years or so."
"Hm. I heard about cities nearby?"
"Yes, there's a few, and some of them aren't even ruins!" He continued when he saw it didn't make his counterpart laugh. "The original settlement of those who, like me, were 'hired' for the job, as well as some tough northern folks, Cimmerians, Nordheimers and such. Sour, grim people the lot of them. Many folk will attack on sight... well, more like almost everyone will attack on sight. Everyone grows desperate to defend what little they have. Its why most people don't build despite having the bracelets to teach us how. Why bother when it only means you have more to lose? Its a damn shame, is what it is."
Luvia thought about Rin in the cave. The trap door was well hidden, but she suddenly wanted to go back and double check, just in case. Maybe she'd explore just a little more before going home.
"Do you have any theories about the ruins? Any rumours?"
"Plenty. More than a few scholars have ended up in these lands. They talk about Lemurians, Giant kinds, Serpentmen, and people of Khari, but do any of those names mean anything to you? They don't, to me. Almost all of them end up eaten by crocodiles as they forget to pay attention to their surroundings while looking at the stones."
"I was wondering about that. You sleep at the edge of the river. How come you haven't been dragged off in the middle of the night?" The blonde asked while looking at the man.
"You noticed my shellback, yes? Raised and trained it myself. It keeps watch while I rest, and scares off anything with half a brain."
"How did you do that?"
"The bracelet has much to say about survival, and that includes the rearing of beasts. Once you build an animal pen to its exact specifications, you can raise animals overnight. They'll be as loyal as a family dog, too!"
"Can I see yours? Your animal pen, I mean."
"Lost it on a purge, is why I don't build any more. Easier to just pick up your scarce belongings and run away than it is to defend a house against a group of well-armed mercenaries."
"What? Purge?" She decided maybe she'd go back right away, after all.
"Yes, remember we were sent in as treasure hunters. They never intended to let us out, but they do want anything of value we happen to find, so they send in mercenaries to take anything of value we manage to dig up. Specially magic items. Oh, they really want those."
"Well, it was a pleasure talking to you, Arcus the Wanderer, but I fear I must be going now. Perhaps we will talk more tomorrow, if you are still here."
"As you will, princess."
Dreading the sound of incoming raiders, Luviagelita made her way back in a rush. She still had enough foresight to pick up two shellback hatchlings along the way, though. Ox-sized guard dogs seemed like a good thing to have.
~O~
Rin considered her furnace. It was taller than her, though not by much, and reinforced with magic. Or rather, it was a 'simple' Mystic Code made with the bracelet's assistance. It had a surprising amount of functions, but its main purpose was Alteration, speeding along any process requiring a direct flame. Processes like glass work, it seemed, as she quickly found she could turn crystal bits into clear panes of glass.
She didn't have any use for them right now, but she was certain she would, eventually. In the time being, she tried a number of things, turning rocks into cooked bricks and iron ore into ingots.
'Oh I bet Shirou loves these. He'll probably want one in the house somewhere when we go back.' Looking at the iron ingots resting placidly in the middle of the hot scum of dirt and ash, she realized she still needed to make a couple of tweezers to pick them up. She was pleasantly surprised when, upon wishing for the ingots, she found the bracelet directly interacted with the furnace and moved them to her 'inventory.'
'This is handy.' She admitted to herself.
Now that she had iron ingots, she went to the artisan bench Luvia made, and began going through the list of items her bracelet could help her with.
'I hate to admit it, but this thing is incredibly useful.' She mused while looking at the options floating through her mind.
Then immediately took two iron ingots and began pushed magical energy into them through the bench, shaping them into a wide-mouth, tall iron pot.
'Yes! Goodbye shell!' She hadn't felt so victorious since she beat Illya at Mario Kart. 'Now some actual tableware.'
In went the ingots, out came plates, bowls, cups, forks, knives, spoons and more. She even made a tall iron brazier for lighting the bedroom, and was extremely pleased to find it used ambient magical energy to sustain an small, yet very bright flame. Discreetly, she tried to check and yes, she could turn it on and off at will.
'We have to keep these when we leave.' She thought while looking at the bracelet on her wrist.
Now that she has made a definitive contribution to her and Luvia's quality of life, she felt as if she had let go of a weight she didn't know she had been carrying. After she was done with utensils and tableware, she went on to make a blacksmith's bench, complete with an anvil, tools, and a small forge. The dark-haired girl was equally amused and disappointed at the fact that she still needed to do physical work on it, rather than just brute force her way through with mana like she did at the artisan station.
'Alright, what to do first... ah.' She made a set of iron tools. A new pickaxe, hatchet, cleaver and skinning knife in iron with an ergonomic shaped wood handle to replace Luvia's literal stone-age tools with.
She was sweaty, and tired, and smiling from ear to ear as she stood by the anvil and hammered away for her friend's sake.
'Friend, is it...?' She considered while looking at the lined-up set of tools. 'Yes, that is how it is. I will talk with her about it when she comes back?'
She heard noise coming from further up the cave, and went over to welcome Luvia home.
~O~
It send a shiver down her spine as she saw the half dozen warpaint-dressed savages swarming the entrance of the hut. Their weapons were made of wood and stone, but made in a way that spoke of pride and malice, rather than the haphazard despair in the sharpened rocks of most people she had found. They wore long wooden masks and adorned themselves with what Luvia didn't want to admit were human skulls and bones hanging from leather cords around their bodies.
Their excited cries of 'drag her out!' had the blonde see red.
~O~
Rin stared at the amused face of a boy younger than herself as he peeked through the trap door. All she could see was his head and shoulders, bare as they were except for the thick lines of bone-white paint on his skin and the bone piercings on his nose.
"Oo~oh!" He cried as soon as he saw her. "It is a larder!"
Rin's blood ran cold. The first sign of life she had found in this world was a suicide note writen by someone submerged in despair. It warned about cannibals. All the same, she didn't want to believe...
'He is fresh out from being a boy.'
"Kid, you do not want to try me." She said while raising her hand and taking aim. "I am... a powerful witch!" No point in calling herself a magus. Simple was best.
"But I do want to try you." He smiled, and she saw his serrated teeth, and thought of a shark. "You look delicious." He hoped down, gripping a thick-shafted shortspear and an axe.
Both were decorated with the same bone-white paint as he was, and despite their heads being made of stone, Rin didn't doubt their edge. The man-child dropped like a puppet with its strings cut as she landed two gandr on his head.
A chorus of enraged cries came from above as one after another, darfari cannibals began flooding the cave. Rin began a fighting retreat, moving deeper into the cave while bathing them in curses with the same impact as a 50 caliber round.
"Are you stupid!?" She cried as she kicked over the table she and Luvia had breakfast on just a couple of hours ago, then took shelter behind it to avoid a spear and arrow shot. "Can't you see I'm killing you!?"
A few of the cannibals paused to laugh, while two more hurled heavy spears. She let out a cry as one pierced through the table and barely missed being a death blow as it cracked one of her ribs, the sharp stone head making a deep cut from which blood began to ooze, the smell driving the cannibals into a frenzy.
They just charged.
"As if I'd let you!" She saw Luvia beaten by a mob, and had an almost full month to chew on it. She was alright (now) with admitting Luvia is a better fighter than herself.
No matter how talented the fighter, they are fated to fall before she weight of the mob. There's a reason even lions flee from swarming army ants after all. So Rin considered the problem. It is said a fool will repeat her failures, while an average woman will fail once and learn from it. A smart woman, however, will watch the other two and avoid their failure altogether. And Tohsaka Rin?
Tohsaka Rin is a genius (and a bit of a brute).
Rin made a circular motion with her left hand, drawing out small crystals out of her bracelet and holding them in mid air through sheer magical force while holding her right hand half way between her chest and the circle of magically-charged crystals.
She could already shoot her gandr like an assault rifle's bullet spray when she wanted to, but it would still be mostly focused on an small cone before her, and it'd leave her drained afterwards to boot. This way, however, she was able to shoot everywhere in front of her, basically covering her entire field of view with gandr shots.
So many gandr shots it looked like as if a high-pressure shower spray of curses burst forth as Rin channeled the ridiculous amounts of magical energy in the cave through her and into the floating crystals. They may very well be the lowest-quality gems she had ever worked with (the pauper's choice, according to Luvia), but they'd do until they managed to find better.
The Darfari were hosed down. Rin was shooting everywhere in front of herself in a mostly random way. There was nowhere to dodge to because a gandr was heading in every direction you could possibly dodge to, and hundreds more were coming right behind it.
A sniper rifle is all good and well when you have time to line the shot. A minigun, however, was an absolute nightmare in the confined cave.
The cannibal's flesh practically liquefied under her attack, ripples running from every impact even as they fell. The frenzied mob mentality that had served them so well in the past had doomed them in the present, and when Luvia dropped down the shaft after taking care of the few Darfari left outside, she found Rin standing with a grin at the very end of a river of bodies.
"Hey honey," The dark-haired girl joked. "back so soon?"
"...idiot." Luvia felt relief wash over her. "The house is a mess." She smiled.
"Ugh, do you think we should move?"
"We were planning to as soon as you could fight, after all."
"I can fight." Rin's smile was plain to see.
"Let us properly start looking for Shero, then. In a couple of days."
The black-haired girl looked at Luvia with curious eyes as the blonde walked over the cannibals to her.
"Why not tomorrow?"
"I learnt a good thing~ " Luvia started with a smile. "Let's talk about pets."
Author's Note: So a good friend told me that brunette usually implied brown hair, so starting this chapter I'm using 'dark-haired girl' instead. If you have other suggestions, please feel free to let me know, as it feels a bit wordy to me. Also, it should be obvious from my sentence structure, but I'm not a native English speaker, so please point these things out if you can, alright?
Also I don't know if I mentioned this before, but for some reason my word processor automatically switches She with Sun, so I have to go back and manually change them back. If you spot some Suns that should be Sun, let me know so I can go back and fix those, please.