The girls easily descend the cliff, and cross the river after making sure there were no crocodiles nearby. Well, crocodiles are ambush predators that depend on their stealth capabilities to eat, so if they haven't starved to death yet, chances are they are pretty good at it. They'd honestly have a much easier time if the crocs could use magic, then they'd be able to find them off that.
"Hm, do you think we should take the armours off?" Luvia asks while looking at the river.
"They are [Mystic Codes], so probably not? They are enchanted to be practically weightless, so I do not thing they will drag us down."
"After you, then."
"Alright."
The girls cross the river without any trouble, and emerge on the other shore with their long hair sticking to them like rivers of gold and midnight.
"And now back to climbing again..." Rin looks up at the edge of the cliff before them.
"Wait, I think I saw a way out when we were on the bridge, it should be this way..."
Indeed, they find a natural, though steep, way up. It only takes them a couple of minutes to walk up the cliff, and spot a couple of baby hyenas... hyeba cubs? Puppies? The puppies wander on their own near the end of the path, and the girls stop the moment they spot them.
"Hey, Rin. Do you like dogs?"
"Like Shirou, I am a cat person. Besides, have you seen the hyenas in this area? They are pathetically ugly, weak, mangy, and probably flea-infested. I would much rather not have one near me all the time."
Luvia doesn't has the heart to tell Rin she has been sleeping on hyena pelts for almost a month at this point. Well, she is likely to figure it out almost immediately if she ever decides she cares about it.
"Well, how do you feel about orphaning two hyena cubs and leaving them to die?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Because there are five hyenas up on that rock over there, and they are looking at us."
"Oh great. Let us go back down and climb up some other way, then."
"Too kate, here they come."
Indeed, the hyenas were growling in that particularly effeminate way of their kind, running towards them with open, drooling jaws. By the way, it is a little-known fact, byt hyena upper body strength and jaw pressure are actually top-tier. If it wasn't for their stumpy rear legs, they'd actually rule instead of the lions.
In a life or death situation, neither magus hesitated, and gandfr flew forth, taking down the animals before they could make it to them. It was over in but a few seconds, and when they bothered to check, the cubs had run away at full speed.
"I feel like we should kill them off too." Rin sees them run, but doesn't chase or fire at them.
"Really, miss Tohsaka? I never imagined you would be the type to abuse a puppy."
"You know what? Fine, let them fend for themselves, if they can."
They reached the top of the steep path and looked back behind them. Indeed, they were a bit higher, and further north, than the bridge, so they would need to find a way south through the rocky area they were in now. With the ease obvious from a healthy young magus with reinforced limbs, Luvia climbed/hopped her way up to look for a way around the rocks, and not finding one, signaled Rin to join her.
Doubtlessly, it was odd seeing two beautiful, rather petite young women leaping from rock to rock along the cliff's edge as they made their way towards the bridge.
"Oh?" Luvia looked at yet another of those large runestones. "More propaganda?"
They approached the runestone and laid hands upon it. As expected, the same alien, arrogant and condescending voice was heard once more, but there was just a hint of urgency on its tone:
Slave, War-maker Klael has ordered the sealing of the borders, including the destruction of the bridge. This is to discourage your treacherous kin from entering our lands. For hundreds of years, we have patiently welcomed your people into our lands. And out kindness was repaid with war. No more, Bonded One. You will break the bridge and as you do, think about the consequences of betrayal. Think about what your people have done to you.
"Considering that about 85% of the bridge is still here, I think they were not winning the war."
"No, you think? Who would have thought that enslaving a nation's worth of refugees would ever backfire, really? Because humans are such naturally meek and submissive creatures..." Rin rolled her eyes. "This is how you can tell these guys were not human themselves."
They found an abandoned campsite, and as they approached, a 'ghost' dancing by a fireplace that was no longer there. It jumped and twisted in acrobatic ways, switching between hands and feet as if they were all the same to support its weight.
"Hh. Do you feel that?" Luvia looked at Rin
"Yes, somehow, I just know I know this dance now."
"Let us never talk about it."
"Agreed."
They turned away from the river, and saw nothing but the mesa, stretching forth beyond the horizon, covered in cacti, sand, bushes and half-dead grass. A few large rocks here and there, and yet larger rocks still. The terrain was so full of obstacles they couldn't actually see very far, and yet they still managed to spot a tall black tower in the distance, a massive bonfire burning on its top.
"Well, if we wanted to find civilisation, that looks like the place for it." Rin began climbing some rocks to get a better, unobstructed view of the tower. "It's at the end of a wall, I think."
Luvia climbed behind her, and shielded her eyes against the she to look at it.
"I do believe you are right, but at this distance, it is hard to tell the size."
"Should we go there?"
"I do believe so, but not just yet. I..." Luvia looks back towards the river. "I … yes, that is the source of the river by those large stone archs."
"Hm. I am amazed we could not see them from the bridge, they are quite large."
"Yes, it feels as if whomever built these ruins was compensating for something, does it not? Anyway, we could go back to the cave and check on the Animal Pen, or head on towards the riversourve. I think I see a thread of smoke in that direction."
"You are right, let us approach cautiously, there is no need to rush."
With that, the two young magus began walking on the plateau's top, though it was more about leaping 5m over the cliff side from rock to boulder until they hear a woman's war cry, and the laugh/growl of many hyenas. Obviously, they rush forth, reaching the scene in moments, seeing an statuesque, dark skinned woman fighting against four hyenas.
Luvia suddenly finds Rin's hand on her shoulder, holding her back.
"What, why do you-?"
"She's wearing human bones." The dark-haired girl whispers as she crouches to watch the scene. "She's one of them."
One of them. Luvia immediately knows who Rin is referring to. Indeed, the tall woman's body is wiry with musculature and there's plenty of scars all over her body, yet she moves in a more intimidating way than the hyenas, not just slashing and bludgeoning them with her sword and mace, but also kicking and even punching, keeping the beasts back as they whine and whimper, legs broken, jaws unhinged, eyes popped and furs covered in blood.
"She is not actually in trouble." Luvia finally notices, the woman seems to be toying with the hyenas. Or rather, she's basically abusing them.
"No, she really is not."
Rin agrees, and continues to watch. The woman is wearing a long and thin wooden mask with a bone-white face painted on it, its mouth open and showing sharp triangular teeth, bits of fur and red feathers glued around its upper edge. Her 'clothes' are practically identical to those of the cannibals that attacked the girls' shelter, except for the fact that they look as if they had been sewn carefully and with double layers of materials, which is both repulsive and impressive in equal measure when you realize we're talking about human skin for leather and tendors for stitches.
A wide set of wraps keep her breasts affixed in place, while she barely covers her privates with a loincloth. Her wrists and ankles are covered in thick skin bracelets with tiny fingerbones dangling from them or afixed over them to use as 'armour', and the long collar hanging from her neck is but a long thread of tendons and dangling bones.
With a sickening crunch, the last hyena falls dead. The woman was bitten on her left thigh, but it is a hollow wound that she allowed to occur in order to bait the larger of the hyenas into offering its back to her.
"Should we kill her?" Luvia seems hesitant.
"Well, it is not as if she has attacked us, but she is a cannibal. Arguably, it would be a public service." Rin thinks about it for a bit. "Let's see what happens next. Maybe she will show us to her village."
"I think I would rather not see what a village of cannibals looks like."
"Well, knowing where it is is the first step in avoiding it."
Or wiping it out. Though neither magus voiced her thoughts, they were both thinking the same thing.
They made their way back to their base, and noticed the loud sound of puffing and huffing coming from the Animal Pen. It had taken them a few hours to reach the cannibal's village, and neither of them wanted to talk about what they saw, though they had quietly decided to wipe it out. They didn't even need to discuss it.
Their dark mood got a little better when they found the shellbacks in the Animal Pen had indeed grown up. They had four normal (green) shellbacks, and a massive red one with eyes that shone white with magical energy coming from within. With a magus' cold detachment, they named the green ones One, Two, Three, and Four, and Rojo, meaning red in Spanish.
It was quite satisfactory to test and check that indeed, the turtles were their familiars now, and they could easily command them to move, attack or guard at any time. Rin was a little less happy when she realised that they wouldn't simply eat whetever was at hand, so they'd starve even if they were standing guard next to an edible bush, but after a while, they decided this was a feature, now a flaw. After all, a watch dog that ate whatever was at hand was basically just asking for a thief to throw poisoned meat at it. Instead, she had to build an specialised magical feed box where they could simply leave their familiars food, and that was the only place they'd eat from.
Plus, it turns out it also had a preservation function, so they made one for the kitchen and were quite pleased to find that it was basically a magical fridge. It didn't completely stop decay, but asking for a magical pet feedbox to control time was, quite sincerely, a bit much.
They refilled the Animal Pen with new hatchlings, this time including a baby crocodile they found in the river's northern shore.
"Alright, let's go get that silk." Rin looked at Rojo with pleased eyes.
"Dibs on Rojo!" Luvia called out loud
"Eh? We can both control it, what are you talking about?"
"I want to try riding on its back."
"...alright yes, that does sound nice."
They rested for a bit, had a light meal, emptied their bracelet's inventories, and prepared to go spider hunting and silk collecting.
~O~
"Mei-san, good day." Shirou politely greeted the lemurian warrior.
"Oh, good day, Shirou."
Mei The Blade, as she is endearingly called by the older warriors, is a young woman of about Shirou's age. Her straight, strawberry blonde hair reaches to the back of her knees, and she has the figure of someone who hasn't just trained with the blade from a young age, but actually used it to fight off pirates and beasts for most of her life. Which is to say, she is muscular in a lean way, and despite having a classically attractive figure with wide hips and a wasp's waist, steel muscles rolled against each other under her glistening skin whenever she moved, and Shirou couldn't help but admire the hours of hard work and training he could read on the large two-handed sword strapped to her back.
On the other side, the ultimate cleavage-like cut down her armour's front conspires with her healthy figure to make it hard for the redheaded young man to look at her straight. Who knew innerboob cleavage was a thing?
"Is Adon-san home? I got an entire load of lobster for him. He promised to teach me how to make lemurian armours in exchange."
"That old guy? You want to talk with Fia, she's our actual armourer. I mean, yeah, I guess he knows how to do it, but you want to learn to do it right, isn't that so?"
"I'd feel bad leaving Adon-san just waiting after we had agreed to it. I think its not a bad idea to get a headstart before I go bother an actual master."
"Well, alright. He should be by the northern bonefire, the one looking down on the pirate's bay."
"Thank you Mei-san."
Shirou is already a few meters away when Mei calls out to him.
"Shirou?"
"Yes?" He turns around.
"Are you really going to help us raid the pirates' base?"
"I said as much." He nods.
"You seemed quite against enthralling them at first."
"I... thought about it. I am pretty sure I could remove their bracelets and just send them away, but if I do that, they'll just go rape and plunder somewhere else. I refuse to kill them, and I understand you don't have prisons. Can't send them away, won't kill them. It seems like the best way to keep them alive and make them useful." The young man pauses and looks around, finding the pirate-turned-thrall helping to chop away at the vines creeping into the great temple's stone roof. "After everything he did, I expected you'd treat him harsher than you do."
"What for? A broken thrall can't work."
"Fair enough. I'll deliver the lobsters and talk with Adon-san abour the raid."
"Alright. Let me know how it went on your way back."
Shirou bows slightly, and resumes his walk.
~O~
"Rin, stop sulking." Luvia couldn't help but to smile as Rin quietly walked by her side.
"You didn't even got wet."
Indeed, Luvia had crossed the river while riding on Rojo's back, and the massive shellback was so large she had barely even skimmed the water's surface with the soles of her boots.
"Well, I called dibs."
"Hm~m."
They were leading their small turtle squad up the hill. A hyena pack saw them and charged, showing they either had no brain, or trusted the normally peaceful animals would turn around and flee, leaving them pick on the slowest of the group.
Instead, the turtles crouched slightly, then leaped at the approaching beasts.
What does it look like when a 2000 pound turtle-gorilla beast lands on a hyena that barely reaches up to its knees? Wet and messy, that's what it looks like.
"Hm, I had no idea they could jump." Rin commented off-handedly as she drew her skinning knife.
"I had seen them do it before, but its still quite surprising, is it not?"
Various wet sounds and six hyenas later, the turtle squad finally approached the spider's canyon.
"Alright those are some rather large spiders." Rin looked at the dog-sized spíders, and had to admit that it would be a perfectly reasonable thing to be afraid of.
The turtle squad ran up to the dog-sized justifications for arachnophobia all over the cannyon, and began to smack at them with paws the size of bowls as the spiders tried to jump on top of them and bite them on the back of the neck.
"You know, this looks like a more even fight than I thought it would be." Luvia comments as she dismounts from the massive red turtle.
"Not really? I mean, they just need to keep them away from us."
"Agreed." Luvia orders Rojo to rush ahead and assist.
The massive shellback leaps a ridiculous distance to squish a spider under its weight, then trots towards the closest one to continue its attack, while Rin and Luvia easily snipe at the spiders with gandfr from a safe distance. The fight, if you can call it such, lasts but a few minutes.
"I assume we need to collect the webs?"
Luvia watches as Rin tries to 'skin' the spiders. Surprisingly, the bracelet does hold instructions to do so, and their inventories quickly begin to fill with chitin, ichor and feral flesh.
"How is it feral?" Rin wonders aloud.
"I think its just a way to say it comes from a carnivore."
"...fair enough."
They approach the walls of the canyon, and begin gathering the cobwebs into their inventory, though these turn out to count as quite pitiful amounts of silk. The spider cocoons, on the other side, are easily a pound each, and they quickly make their way up towards the top of the hill.
"Miss Tohsaka."
"Yes, miss Edelfelt?"
"What is the definition of arachnophobia, again?"
"An irrational fear of spider." Replies the frozen stiff dark-haired magus.
"So, fearing this one does not count, am I right?"
"You are quite right."
They are looking at a spider slightly larger than most tanks as it calmly struts around the top of the plateau, keeping in the relative vicinity of a chest that, to the girls, seems to ooze magical energy. The thing is matte black and hairy, though its hairs are about as thick as the girl's fingers. Its fangs are thick and long, and it doesn't bear any special markings they can see. Then again, it is tall enough there's no way they could see its back.
"...are you curious about the chest?" Asks Rin
"I would be lying if I said that I am not, but that thing seems to have been put under a geas to protect it."
"If we were to fight it..."
"Let us not."
"But if we were to. Do you think our familiars could hold it back?"
"Maybe? Do you want to waste one in an experiment?"
"We need data."
"How about coming back when we have a dozen or so extra shellbacks?"
"Sounds reasonable to me."
They discreetly made their way downhill and back to their base. They had come for silk, and they had gotten away with it, so by any metric, their little excursion had been a success.
As soon as they got home, they set the shellbacks as guards, and went inside to wash up and turn the gossamer into proper silk. They placed large bronze pots on the oven, then boiled the cobwebs and cocoons until the threads came loose before using the bracelet's magic to weave it into rolls of proper silk.
"Ah... this softness." Rin is happily rubbing her face against the white silk roll.
Well, Luvia is calmly taking her hemp clothes off, then throwing them into the closest brazier.
"Rin, I am borrowing these two rolls."
"What do you want them for?" The dark-haired magus asks while looking at her with curious eyes.
"I am going to stretch them over the bed, then roll around in them."
"Would you believe I hold no impure intentions if I said I want to join you in this revelry of yours?"
"Why yes, miss Tohsaka, I would indeed believe you."
~O~
"So, you could take it off if you wanted?" Adon looks at Shirou with a dubious look.
"Well, I haven't tried, but I am fairly certain, yes."
"Hm. Well, we are about to have a couple dozen pirates you can test it on."
"...there is no way I could do that, Adon-san."
Adon nodded. He had been talking with the redheaded young man for a while now, so he had a fairly good idea about his philosophy and beliefs.
"How about trying it on an ape first, then?"
"...that may work."
"Of course, first you need to try and see if removing the bracelet by force kills the ape as it would a man."
"Well, I have seen your people use ape fur, and I assume you also process the meat and other parts?"
"That we do."
"Then it would be no different from a regular hunt."
Once again, Adon considered. Of course, Shirou was talking about ethics and morals again. Of course there would be a huge difference between killing an ape, and wrestling one down to place a bracelet on it, so he wasn't taking the difficulty of the task into consideration, but Adon had already understood that's just the way the young man's mind works.
"You may want to head deeper into the ruins, then."
"What for?"
"There's ape men in the ruins. Half way between the two, really."
"...are they intelligent?"
"Are you asking if they can talk?"
"Can they?"
"No, they can barely use sticks to catch bugs in a tree hole."
"Hm. So what makes you think the bracelet will affect them at all?"
"They are us. In a way."
"Eh?"
~O~
"A~ah~ " Luvia happily stretches over their new sheets, enjoying the sheer tactile sensation against her skin.
"Here." Rin placed Luvia's share of their brand new silk clothing and underwear on a neat package atop the bed.
"Miss Tohsaka, you are actually kind of amazing."
"This." Rin points at the bundle of clothes. "Is what made you finally notice?"
"It is a godsend. No, a Rinsend!" The blonde looks so happy Rin can't even come up with a retort.
"Well I also crafted us a couple of iron shields, they have a rather minor [Mystic Code] that will help keep us fresh or warm, as needed."
"Rin-sama, you are amazing."
"I just want something substantial to block with, if needed."
Luvia dons the underwear and short robe, admiring the snug, comfortable fit.
"Side tie panties. Is this your preference, Rin?"
"I don't have any elastic to secure them with."
"It was a compliment. Maybe we can get enough silk for stockings and a garter belt tomorrow? I bet Shero would love it."
"I told you before, I think of you as an important friend now, but I am not sharing Shirou."
"Rin..."
"No."
"Rin-sama."
"No."
"I did come with you to look for him, did I not?"
"Ah, well..."
Seeing as the black-haired girl didn't immediately reply with another 'no,' Luvia felt satisfied for the time being.
"Oh, I also made two simple iron shields. They are very basic [Mystic Codes] that should help keep us fresh or warm as needed. The heat out there is insane, after all."
"You are a miracle worker."
"...you did build us a home. And furniture."
"Its work distribution."
"Alright." Rin smiled and switched topics. "Should we just have dinner and rest? The next batch of familiars won't be ready for a while yet."
"Sounds good. What did you make, honey?" The blonde smiles softly.
"You do remember I went out with you, right? I did not have the time to prepare anything yet."
"Well, what are you waiting for, relocate yourself into the kitchen and make my dinner, woman."
"...you are not serious, are you? I just made us four sets of underwear, lined the inside of our armours, and spent the rest of the evening in the forge making us shields while you just rolled around in bed."
"Hurry up and I won't even slap your cute behind." Luvia smirked as she sat on her heels atop the bed, and made a small spanking motion with her left hand, keeping an eye closed as she did so, and using her best ojou-sama tone of voice.
She laughed as she got a pillow to the face, then retaliated with a magically-reinforced throw of her own. The brand new silk pillow burst as it hit Rin flat on the face, feathers flying everywhere around the black-haired girl.
"Do you seriously want an underwear pillow fight?" Rin was equally pissed and amused.
"I have been led to believe it is an essential part of friendship between girls."
"...you are on." Replied Rin as she reached for the next pillow over.
In the end, neither of them had dinner, and the legs of the bed broke, and the room was covered in feathers, but they both kept smiling even as they slept. Rin didn't even minded when a sleeping Luvia pulled her into a spoon and wouldn't let go. This was the most wholesome fun she had on a bed, yet.
~O~
Shirou rolled around on his bed. The room's walls were covered in weapon racks displaying multiple weapons in different styles the bracelet had shown to him. He had noticed that this world didn't erode his traced weapons, so he could theoretically have covered the walls in legendary swords, but he wasn't Gilgamesh. He felt far too much respect for the weapons and the heroes that used to own them.
Displaying his own personal work, on the other hand, was just right.
Adon's words had left him confused and worried in many different ways. Modern lemurians follow Derketo, goddess of fertility and death. Up to there, it was perfectly fine, as those were indeed impofgzng facts of life. It certainly was better than the religion of their ancestors, as they had worshipped the self declared demon god Dagon, lord of the depths, who in exchange for filling their fishing nets, demanded human sacrifice, including any males born to the royal household, which automatically made lemurian society into a matriarchal one.
That sounded like a good change to Shirou. Drop the man-eating demon god and embrace the goddess of fertility. An upgrade all around.
According to Adon, though, that was the beginning of the lemurians' twilight years. A great deal of Derketo's rituals were themed around fertility and sex, causing an explosion on birthrates that, while useful during war times, spelled doom for the lemurians.
The giant kings had been their friends for nearly a thousand years, and the bracelets were made by both them and humans working together, a tool that would translate any language, allowing two very different races to communicate even without the corresponding senses and communication organs. Furthermore, the bracelets carried knowledge and limited sorcerous abilities within them, making life easier and more convenient.
At the time, every single lemurian had wore them. And when the giant kings cursed them, the lemurians as a whole were trapped within the limits of the ghost fence, unable to leave to explore, trade or fish in the high seas.
With incredibly high fertility rates, no fishing and no trade, the population collapsed unto itself. Civil unrest led to plundering, looting, civil wars and a complete infrastructural collapse. It had been hundreds of years since, and their society had done nothing but devolve. The goddess continued to bless them, but when all you have is a few dozen square kilometres of jungle to feed your population with, it didn't really help.
Despairing and looking for a way to keep the goddess pleased and somehow stop the population boom, the rites were modified to include creatures other than men. But the Derketo was a goddess of fertility, and her blessings were powerful indeed. Something that should have happened, happened, and the ape men of lemuria were born. Too stupid to build or work, barely above the great apes that sired them in that they walked upright most of the time.
These people were dying a death from which there could be no return. They were devolving into beasts and worse, barely under a hundred actual lemurians left. Shirou Emiya wanted to save them, but how?
Step 1 – Get rid of the pirates. Once external threats had been taken care of and he had earned their trust, perhaps he could move on to step 2. Whatever that was.
He turned around and rolled in bed. Sleep did not come easily that night.