City of Fallen Souls: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 3) by Jez Cajiao (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕

“Look, it’s not that easy, okay? The Smuggler’s Guild makes us swear a very specific Oath, and I can’t repeat it, but it includes a section that we cannot hold back information that could be vital to the Guild. I can’t swear an Oath to you, because I’d then have to tell the Guild about it, and all the details of that Oath if they asked me. This…” he said, gesturing all around the cavern, including the bodies and then finishing with me, “….and you, are exactly the kind of information I have to give the guild. I can’t swear to you, because I’ve already sworn that the Guild will be my only true master, and that the Guild’s needs come first. I have to report all of this to the Guild leadership; who you are, what’s been going on down here, all of it, okay? I’m not playing games. I can’t take a second Oath, because the Smuggler’s Oath is so specific. You saved my granddaughter. Believe me, if I can, I’ll help you, Oath or no Oath, but all I can do right now is warn you, and these idiots are willing to take the Oath because they think they can get away with it. I’ve seen what happens when Oaths fight for dominance; they haven’t.”

“Is that possible?” I asked Yen, and she nodded slowly.

“It is, but it’s unusual. Are there levels of Oath?” she asked him, and he nodded.

“Yes; you take the basic Oaths when you accept the contracts, then more as you move up the ranks. Theirs will force them to return to the Guild and tell all they’ve seen… mine will kill me the moment I try to speak secrets only known to the caravanners.”

“So, what do we do?” I asked, “I’d rather not kill them, not after I’ve just saved them.”

“We can try to get into the Enclave? The Prefect was rousing the Legion when we left, preparing to fight our way out if need be. Barabarattas’s forces are well dug in, though, and under the guise of ‘protecting’ us while he investigates the Legion General’s death. He has declared we are to remain inside, and his forces are ready to enforce that, but they’re only regular soldiers, and we are the Legion,” Tang said proudly.

“We’re also on the wrong side of the Enclave’s walls,” retorted Yen, shaking her head. “We would have to fight our way through to the Enclave, and who knows who we might lose. Add to that, Barabarattas would know and would use it as an excuse to storm the Enclave. He’d be justified by the declaration of war, as well. He’d kill us all.”

“Then we go out fighting!” snapped Amaat, shaking his wings out fully and glaring at Yen. “Better to die an eagle than a sparrow… we are willing to die for the Empire!” he stated, his fervent gaze focused on me.

“Or, better idea, we make the other guys die for the Empire, and we all fucking live,” I replied. “Better that we live than them, right?”

“Well, yes… but…” Amaat said, his wings drooping slightly.

“But you liked the sound of it and just went for it?” I asked, and he nodded.

“Okay…so, maybe you don’t get to talk for a bit.” I dropped into the chair I’d abandoned when accepting their oath, putting my head in my hands and taking a deep breath. “God, I miss it being just us and Bob…” I muttered to Oracle, and she snickered.

“We have a minion called Bob; he’s a really big skeleton that Jax rebuilds and makes better after each fight,” Oracle explained to the room, and Yen frowned at her.

“Very well, but I must ask, Wisp, why have you assumed this form?” Yen gestured to Oracle, and my companion drew in a deep breath before using a chunk of my mana to grow to full size.

“Because Jax loves it! I mean, I looked in his mind, okay? He let me see what he liked, and I saw all these pictures…and memories, and he just loooooved these girls. They had, like, really big boobs like these…” She cupped her chest, making them bounce for the entire room. “And really long legs, and he loves my ass too! I…”

“Enough!” I cut her off, getting to my feet quickly, before Oracle could show off any more of her body, or her excitement and pride in the details she’d collected. She’d literally gone through my mind like a hoover, stripping out every sexual thought I’d ever had, and patterned herself on a mix of them, because she’d heard that sex was ‘fun’ and it’d looked interesting when she was an asexual wisp dedicated to the Tower’s library.

The combination of adopting these forms and her already ‘happy-go-lucky’ nature, added to the bond she’d created between us, had given her a personality that was one minute ‘sunny and sensible,’ and the next, ‘nympho on crack.’

She bounced across the spectrum constantly. Her natural cheerfulness was supercharged by my own borderline manic-depressive tendencies and my natural male libido to create a supercharged sex kitten, who had absolutely no sense of modesty.

I loved her for it; well, I loved her for who she was, and when she’d been kidnapped, I’d well and truly lost my mind entirely. I’d admitted to myself that I loved her, and, yeah…pretty soon, she was going to be getting to experience things as she’d always wanted. I admitted that to myself as well, as she was literally my kryptonite, sexually. I couldn’t resist her much longer.

The one thing that held me back… besides the obvious fact that we were effectively behind enemy lines and I didn’t have so much as a bedroom door between me and the rest of the group… was that once I crossed that line, it would change everything.

I’d been alone for years, ever since Tommy was taken from me. I’d met girls; hell, I’d dated a few dozen over the years, but the only one that I’d trusted, the one that