The team said their goodbyes to the Mackenzie brothers and Morgana, then prepared to follow the beasts to their destination.
“Before we go, there are a few ground rules you should be aware of. This is not a human nation, so we expect you to be on your best behaviour. Your military and government ranks mean nothing to us. Beasts have our own ranking system.
The only reason we have agreed to this is that we don’t want to offend the gods by refusing.
Now, if you understand that, we should get along just fine. If you have abilities that let you travel more quickly, I suggest you use them now. We won’t open a portal directly to the destination.” The High Priestess explained.
Dana activated her movement skill, but neither cleric had anything that was going to help them much with that. However, as High Priestesses of the Dragon Gods, they did have some dragon features and solid stamina.
However, when Ophelia transformed into her Dire Bear form, the big Monarch Rank Dire Rank bear made a rumbling noise that almost sounded friendly.
“I think you have an admirer.” Dana laughed as Ophelia rolled her eyes at be Bear.
“Calm down, big boy. She’s a Werebear, her default form is human, not Dire Bear, this is a skill she learned.” Tessa teased.
The High Priestess in the beast group laughed, then winked at her huge, furry friend.
Then she led them through the portal, leaving the Bureau team behind.
The beastkin on the other side of the portal didn’t seem impressed to see the group that had come through, but they should have heard most of the conversation, and they didn’t try to stop them from leaving the area, jogging down a well travelled dirt path.
They could hear laughing in the distance, and the Dire Bear huffed in amusement.
“It seems your friends will be waiting for you. They’re back out again after dinner, working with the children.” The High Priestess explained.
“Is this some deal you’ve made with him?” Tessa asked.
“Not exactly. You will understand when you see it.”
Karl had no idea that anyone was coming for him so soon, so he was overseeing a sparring match between the Acolytes and Cara, preparing them for when they might have to deal with a rampaging feral beast.
The others were too large to fight without skills, or in Remi’s case, too deadly in her smaller form. Remi’s only attack in snake form was a venomous bite, and at her rank that would instantly kill the Acolytes.
Cara, on the other hand, could deactivate her skills and play with the kids as long as they wanted.
She puffed up her back, like she was angry, and let the kids circle her. The older clerics laughed. A Void Badger rarely got defensive and angry. They weren’t afraid of anything, they just attacked when they were angry. But she was fighting kids under seven years old.
Once she was certain the kids were in position, Cara moved, grabbing a boy around the waist and spinning him around to body slam him before nuzzling his belly to simulate a bite attack.
“What did we just go over? You can’t let her grab you like that. If you do that with a feral beast, they’ll eat you.” Karl reminded the kids.
“The one targeted should use their weapon to bash at her paws while the others move in to capture and restrain her.” He explained.
“Now go again.”
This time, the boy used his training sword to bat away Cara’s claw as he retreated, and the Void Badger began to chase the others around as their plan fell apart.
“Gather around. Force her to the ground. You can hit her, it won’t hurt her.” Karl encouraged.
She swatted one a bit harder than intended, and Karl darted forward to catch the little acolyte before they hit the ground.
“Keep your guard up. Fighters with shields to the front, keep her occupied.”
That was how Dana led the group into the training grounds at the Temple to find Cara with a werewolf in a headlock, giving him a wet willy.
“Karl, what are you teaching the children?” She called.
“Dana! How did you get here? I didn’t expect to see you until I got back.
Meet Cara, the winged void badger, and the newest member of the team.”
Cara let go of the boy to fly over to Dana and tackle her to the ground, where she could be properly examined.
[Your friend is a human mage? They’re kind of squishy. Give her the bracelet, or I’m going to break her just trying to say hello.]
[Kindly don’t break my team members. There are likely going to be two clerics and a berserker coming, all human.]
Dana looked up at the Void Badger, who was sniffing at her and pulling at her armour to inspect the equipment.
[The robes smell like Rae. That’s good, they shouldn’t tear. Oh, more people.]
Cara spread her wings and launched forwards, only to be intercepted and grabbed by Lotus.
“You are adorable. I’m Lotus. Are you one of Karl’s friends?” She asked.
[This one doesn’t listen well.]
Cara spread her wings and flapped hard, lifting both herself and Lotus into the air, so she could deposit the cleric on Ophelia’s back.
Then she slid down to examine Tessa, leaving Lotus confused.
“I swear I had a good grip on her. Badgers are hard to hold on to.” Lotus noted.
“Even with magic. They mostly do what they like. It’s good to see you all again, but how did you end up here? Unless my map reading skills are exceptionally poor, we are a long way from the border.”
Tessa chuckled at Karl’s question.
“They brought us to you because of the contract. Apparently, you have things to do before you leave.”
Karl nodded.
“That is true. I’m in the middle of teaching the kids to use their innate skills, and we learned some very interesting new things in the last day or so.”
“Oh, what did you learn?” Tessa asked, as she realized that Karl had become fully side tracked in a temple full of beasts.
He was as bad as the Nature Priests, but he was focusing on expanding his System Skills, not just on the new experiences.
“Well, the first obvious one is that I’m quite good with children. But more importantly, I discovered that I can use skill books in a whole new way. We were just about to start, if you want to watch.”
They were confused, but when Karl called Remi out in her Naga Queen form, they were all shocked.
“Oh, right. Remi advanced. She can only speak serpent so far, but we’re working on it.
Now, for the part that we were about to test.”
Orthos came out with a freshly written book in his hands, and reluctantly handed it to Karl. If this went wrong, from the Dragon’s point of view, Karl would use the book and it would vanish.
Their Inscriptionists had spent half the day on this. He didn’t want to lose it, but Karl was confident that his theory would work.
Karl opened the skill book, and began to read it to Remi, while focusing on using [Skill Master] to transfer the knowledge to Remi.
It was a four-armed combat style, and the chanced of Karl being able to use it were very low. But if they gave the book to Remi, should be able to.
The dragon wouldn’t agree to that, but he had agreed to lend it to Karl, with the condition that he replaced it with something of equal value if this didn’t work.
It took fifteen minutes of chanting the instructions before Karl was done, and Remi began to make her way through the movements of the skill.
She still wasn’t quite there, but she had the basics, and with practice she was getting better by the minute.
“Come back and I will try again. A second lesson might help.” Karl offered.
He was right, the second time around, Remi was much better.
She still didn’t quite have the skill, but she was getting close.
Karl closed the book and settled down on the grass.
“That took way more energy than expected.” He explained.
Orthos took the book back before Karl got it dirty, but the ancient Dragon was beaming with joy.
“It really works, you can teach a beast to use a skill from the book without destroying it. There are so many books that we can’t duplicate, but can’t afford to not have anyone know.” He cheered.
“So that is the thing that was so important that you couldn’t leave. They want you to teach a beast how to use a rare skill.” Dana realized.
Orthos nodded. “Not just a rare skill, I want him to teach one of our prodigies an Epic skill.”
