《The Crimes of Lilith》 Prologue Hello everyone, this is my first time writing a story and English isn''t my native tongue. That being said I hope you will enjoy my story. I enjoy stories with characters that have flaws because I believe that''s the only way to create interesting characters. It gives room for character growth. I am not sure about the release schedule yet, but I hope to establish a regular schedule soon. I hope to receive a lot of constructive criticism that will help me to improve. Without further ado enjoy! Memories... They are quite a curious thing, one moment you are feeling down and depressed about your day, the next you are remembering something delightful, and it can mend your mood at once. Then again, especially for me, it can go the other way around and a peaceful mood can be shattered by the past randomly invading your mind. Just like now, I was reading a book about a stupid girl name Alice who got herself trapped in a world of witchcraft and sorcery, and out of nowhere came a memory of my 5th birthday. It wasn''t a particularly bad memory, just not something I would call peaceful, after all, it was the day when I first killed somebody. You see I haven''t grown up in what you would consider a "traditional family". First of all, I didn''t have a mother and that''s definitely the least of the issues that prevented my family from being "traditional". If lack of maternal affection was the most insignificant of all the reasons that made my upbringing rather unconventional then the most glaring would most likely be the fact that my father was an extremely savage criminal with a penchant for cruelty and murder. Admittedly His character wasn''t that strange given his circumstances, after all, trench warfare can change anyone, especially if those trenches were in Somme, France. That''s where my father together with all of his brothers and most of his friends fought against the Germans during the cold fall and bleak winter of 1916. He was the only person from his battalion that managed to survive the first day of that meat grinder. His three brothers and all of his friends joined the other 19000 people who died on the very first day of that battle. Most of the people who fought in that battle were volunteers who saw combat for the first time in those deadly trenches. 141 days after losing anyone he ever held dear in his life my father was lucky to have avoided joining the ranks of 420000 British and 450000 German corpses. Though, I believed that not a single person from that battle ever came home truly alive. After the war almost exactly 2 years after getting a taste of his first battle my father returned home to London. Where together with thousands of other war veterans he found that the only way to survive after the war was to embrace the welcoming cruelty of criminal life. With a bit of luck, a dash of savagery, a cup of cruelty and a huge pile of corpses my father managed to set up himself as one of the most influential people on the dark streets of London. During his rise to power, my father met my mother. A year after I was born, a cute little girl that had no clue what life would bring her. On the day of my first birthday, my father killed my mother after he discovered she was having an affair. My father thought that it was an omen and decided to make it a tradition, and so on every birthday after that, I was in the company of death. On my second, third, and fourth birthdays father killed someone in my presence. That''s how I reached my fifth birthday with the first really clear memory that I have. My present on that day was a straight razor, with an extremely sharp edge and a cursive carving of my name on the handle. To christen my new blade father brought a tied-up man to me, who after a few attempts to plead for his life became my first victim.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. Now after thirteen years have passed since I claimed my first victim, I would dare to call myself quite a competent killer. To be honest I have long since lost the count of people I have killed, since not only have I kept receiving the same present from my father on every birthday, but I have also gone out of my way to find a way to feed my razor fresh blood as often as possible. My father believed that only through cruelty, bloodshed and death could a person truly be forged into a competent leader worthy of taking over his empire. After all, that''s how he became the person that he is today. Many people would consider him insane and cruel, and they would be right. That however doesn''t alter the fact that my father was also right, I did become a person he could proudly call his successor. It is funny how a single random moment you happen to recall can take you down a memory lane and force you to think about your entire life. I wouldn¡¯t say that I hate my father for the kind of life he forced upon me, after all, it was the only way, his broken mind could manage to ¡°raise¡±, and I use that term very loosely, a child. Then again, I can''t say that I say that I love him either, but I am not sure if that is the consequence of the peculiarities of his character, or which is more likely due to the fact that I have never loved anyone in my life, be it my first pet, friends I played with, people I plied my craft with, my teachers, the cute girl I shared my first kiss, the countless girls whose hearts I have broken since, not even myself. Sometimes I don¡¯t think that I am even capable of feeling love. Maybe the creation of that inability was the reason behind my untraditional upbringing. My father does say that ¡°Love is the single most useless emotion a human can have¡±. A sentiment I actually share with him, since through my 18 years of life I only saw the great weakness that love introduces into people''s lives. Men become weak under the soothing voices of their wives, women betray their families and children for a tryst with a charming gypsy, and children risk their lives to save their beloved puppy. Nothing good ever comes from living with others. So, I am glad that I don¡¯t seem to be able to love, and if there exists a person in this vast world of ours that can move my heart, I hope that she isn¡¯t even on this planet so that I never run a risk of running into her. Chapter 1 It is quite funny actually how fast your life can change. This morning I woke up in a bed of a particularly attractive woman. It was quite a task to seduce her, being a daughter of gypsy royalty, she considered herself quite a catch and took the game of hard to get to the extreme level. Also being caught with another woman could have ended quite badly for her since she was expected to continue their family line. Even so after a month of lying and promising her the world, she gave in, and I got what I wanted. Like every time after my conquest is complete, I was doing my best to leave without a sound so I can get away without getting caught without the need for awkward conversations about me getting what I wanted and having to listen to pathetic sobbing and blabbering of heartbroken girls. Sadly, the passions of last night haven''t exhausted my ¡°girlfriend¡± enough and she managed to wake up while I was getting dressed. ¡°Where are you going so sneakily baby?¡± she asked still trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes. I hated these moments; they were always so boring and identical. People could never read the signs, if I am sneaking out it means I don¡¯t want to be caught because I don¡¯t want to see you anymore. Guess I will have to do this anyway, eh, who cares. ¡°Look, Jasmine, we had a lot of fun last night, and I admit that you are great in bed, but this is where our relationship ends. I got what I wanted from this, and I hope we can both leave without regrets¡± I thought I was quite considerate in my explanation, now I guess I will see some tears and maybe even hear some begging not to leave. Wouldn¡¯t be the first time. As long as that¡¯s where it ends, would hate to have to kill her if she became too obsessed. Wouldn¡¯t be the first as well. She looked quite confused for a moment ¡°you said you love me, you promised me that we would escape together, we would go to Greece and live together! How could you lie like that?¡± her voice was getting angrier with every word she said. ¡°Calm down Jasmine, I would have said that I am a fucking queen of bloody England if that meant I get to fuck you and enjoy your perky tits, now it''s time for me to go. Stop being mad.¡± Being a woman myself I should have understood sooner that telling a scorned lover to calm down and not be mad wasn¡¯t the best choice of words. I never was very good with these morning-after conversations no matter how much practice I got, that¡¯s why I tried to avoid them. I freely admit that I have never seen anyone as angry as Jasmine at that moment. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"is something I had heard often before, but for the first time, I believed that saying. I could almost visibly see her rage as a cloud of red fog around her. ¡°How dare you do this to me! Have you no fucking heart? Do you fucking feel no emotions you cursed bitch!¡± she was screaming at this point, and I was getting irritated, I never liked people screaming at me. ¡°You are right I don¡¯t feel anything, not for you, nor for anyone that I ever fucked, and hopefully if God is on my side I never will. Truly, you should consider yourself lucky and quite privileged, since out of anyone I ever wanted it took me the longest to get in your bed, and I didn¡¯t even get bored of chasing after you. So shut the fuck up, stop screaming and after some time hopefully, you will remember this fondly as the best orgasm of your life, that you can think of fondly when your future husband fumbles around your asshole while looking for your clit.¡± At this point, Jasmine was on her feet with a blanket wrapped around her body still getting visibly angrier if that was even possible. ¡°I will fucking have my father and the clans of all his brothers and cousins declare war on your family you fucking rotten bitch!¡± she was screaming even louder and that got me properly irritated, so I slapped her across the face ¡°Shut the fuck up! I told you to stop screaming, I will not tolerate disrespectful behavior towards me! You want to send your fucking pathetic band of horse thieves and witches against my family? We fucking run this city. We have more soldiers and thugs than there are fleas on all of your dirty horses. Now shut up like the good bitch you are, apologize and we can go our separate ways. If you push any further, I will kill you and crucify your fucking corpse so you can''t be buried you dirty gypsy whore!¡± In hindsight, I can admit that I was being a bit unfair to Jasmine and that the largest amount of fault was definitely on my side for this morning''s incident. But I truly didn¡¯t like people shouting at me and there''s a reason why I always avoided morning-after conversations. They never ended well.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°You want me to apologize?" At least she didn¡¯t scream this time, so I guess my reasoning was working. Though it looked like she was more stunned because of the audacity and absurdity of my request. She got dressed without saying another word and then faced me again ¡°I won¡¯t apologize¡± she repeated and the bite of anger was getting back in her voice, at least she wasn¡¯t screaming, ¡°I swear on my mother''s soul that I will have my grandmother lay the heaviest curse upon you, and that by the end of this day you will no longer be in this world, and that your spirit will never know rest!¡± she did at least one thing right in her threat, she said it calmly. Threats always sound better when say them calmly, when you don¡¯t need to infuse your voice with useless emotions when the content of the threat is severe enough and phrased eloquently you don¡¯t need to add anything else to make it stick. Too bad for her the content of her threats was bullshit. I never believed in stupid gypsy curses, every fucking member of their homeless, flea-ridden, inbred, horse fucking clans was some kind of a witch or sorcerer according to their tales. So, I just laughed, punched her in the eye, and told her to piss off before leaving, before passing through the doors I turned around and said, ¡°If I ever see you again, I will gut you like fish, bye Jasmine¡±. As I was heading towards the stairs at the end of the hallway, I thought I heard her saying that ¡°soon you will never see anyone again¡± but that might have just been my imagination. They say that hindsight is always 20/20 and if I could have known how that day would end, I would definitely have stayed for breakfast and maybe even got flowers. I mean how could I have known that fucking gypsy curses apparently worked. Actually, they worked quite fast, because while I was having lunch at a local caffe a fucking delivery truck crashed the wall into the caf¨¦ where I was eating and slammed right into me, before I even had the pleasure of fully experiencing the pain that comes with having most your body crushed, the last thought I had before I lost consciousness and died was that ¡°I would never fuck with a gypsy again¡± chapter 2 As my consciousness slowly started to return to my body, I started to regain my senses, I heard the sounds of birds, and I heard the rustling of the wind in the leaves. I couldn''t smell the signature smell of shit and smoke that I was so accustomed to in the streets where I grew up, instead, I could smell the fresh and calm smell of the forest. The grass under my back was soft and wet, and I had no idea how long I laid there. When I opened my eyes all I could see around me were trees bushes and some more trees. I could barely see the sky the thick canopy above, there were no buildings around. I found that very fucking strange because according to my last memories there were only two things I could see If I regained consciousness and wasn¡¯t dead. It should either have been a pile of rubble and a fucking truck that crushed me or the hospital room where the miracles of modern medicine managed to save my life. Seeing that I was clearly in the middle of a fucking forest meant that some kind of really weird fuckery had taken place. Maybe I was just dreaming, if so, this was a creepily realistic dream, a bit too realistic to be honest. I tried to stand and for the first time noticed that I was naked and weirdly, the fact that I was lying naked in the middle of a fucking forest after getting my head caved in by a truck in the middle of London, wasn¡¯t the strangest thing. No, it was the fact that my skin, which used to be lightly olive, now was very pale almost like snow, and had a slightly blue tint to it, my gorgeous silky black hair became white with the ends, which apparently grew another half a meter while I was unconscious, turning lightly purple. My muscles seemed more toned than I remembered and overall, my body no longer felt like my own. If this wasn¡¯t a dream, then it meant the damn Buddhist monks were right cause this place or situation absolutely didn¡¯t resemble any of the vivid depictions of hell I have ever read in any of the holy books, and if I was ever certain of anything in my life it was that I would never go to heaven I believed in that even stronger than the absolute fact that gypsy curses didn¡¯t work. Then again look where that belief got me... Trying to take better stock of my surroundings I noticed a faint sound of moving water. Well if this was a dream, it was the craziest dream I ever had so I might as well go and look around. If this wasn¡¯t a dream then I should go towards the water, I wasn¡¯t that good when it came to surviving in the wild since I never considered becoming a fucking forest hermit, but even I knew that secure source of water was a good idea. I also needed some kind of shelter and fire or I would freeze off my new tits that already had a blue tint and didn¡¯t need any more of it because of the cold. After looking around a bit I found a dead branch on the ground that could serve as a club of profoundly low quality and started making my way towards the sound of flowing water. At least the forest seemed quite ordinary in this a bit too realistic dream. Trees of various sizes, bushes scattered here and there, and some small patches of flowers. I guess most of the brain needed to generate this dream went into changing my body. As I continued towards what I assumed to be a river or a stream I could sometimes notice small critters rustling in the grass or hiding in bushes, but never really got a good look at them. After what felt like an hour or so of walking, though that estimation could have been entirely wrong. The sound of flowing water intensified significantly and after a few more short minutes I noticed the sources of the sound peeking behind the trunks of large old trees that were surrounding me. My skin was quite sturdy because even though I had to get through annoying branches, and bushes and also just walk barefoot and bareass for what felt like more than an hour in a forest I had no cuts or scrapes on my skin and my feet didn¡¯t hurt. After forcing my way through the last line of thin bushes that were growing on the riverbank, I reached my destination.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. The river looked quite ordinary at first glance about 4 meters wide with quite a vigorous current. On the other side, a bit further down the river, I spotted a family of completely ordinary deer with beautiful antlers. The afternoon sun reflected stunningly from the golden surface of the antlers and shimmered on the surfaces of the river. Okay, maybe the deer weren''t that ordinary I was pretty sure their antlers weren''t supposed to be made of gold. I started feeling a tinge of greed in my heart, now that was a familiar feeling, I always liked beautiful things especially if they were made of gold. Sadly, I had no way to catch or kill the aforementioned deer and I had no tools to take their pretty golden ornaments off. Also getting golden trinkets was probably somewhere lower on the list of things that I currently needed. I got startled out of my musings when the greed enticing animals on the other shore noticed me and bolted back into the forest faster than a lightning bolt and only a little quieter. Huh, that was also most likely not normal. I was feeling thirsty, so I went in for a drink and started cupping water into my mouth it was surprisingly tasty and very cold. Feeling refreshed and no longer thirsty I started to look around for some kind of next goal. With nothing attracting my attention in the immediate vicinity I decided to keep heading down the river. The river created a bit of clearing in the thick canopy of the forest and allowed me to get my first good look at the sky. For some reason it felt greater, larger than the one I was familiar with, there were also two suns. That was definitely not ordinary. Well, I was certainly not dreaming about forests on earth, that¡¯s for sure. The more time passed the more I was getting confused, I kept going down the river and I kept noticing more and more peculiarities there were most certainly not normal, fish that would jump out of the river and hover in the air for a few seconds before jumping back into the water after changing their direction, the patches of thick bright red stalks that grew from the shore and stretched towards the middle of the river just above the water. Sometimes a streak of a rainbow would flow down the river for a minute and disappear further ahead. As time went on, I started to feel less and less like I was in a dream also no methods that were supposed to confirm you are dreaming worked my fingers couldn¡¯t go through my palms, I could pinch my nose, I felt pain, I felt the heat, cold and wetness from the water, the only indicator of this being a dream was the fact that I had no idea how I got here. With the night approaching and no ending to this dream that looked more and more like reality, I started to feel an emotion that I haven''t experienced in a long time. Fear absolute dread was starting to creep into my mind and slowly started consuming everything, I had no idea where I was, I had no shelter, no clothes, no food, and no idea what to do next it was getting dark fast and the beautiful sights that I admired during the day started morphing into terrifying shadows. I no longer felt like a dream at all. In the best case a nightmare that I had no idea how to wake up the worst case I was in some kind of strange forest that I had no idea how to get out of. As the third moon crested the sky, I was truly terrified. I was undoubtedly no longer on earth, I was in some strange new world, just like that stupid girl Alice I read about in a book not so long ago, only instead of chasing a pair of rabbit ears down the hole, I chased a pair of gypsy tits and for my effort got delivered a curse on a truck. Capter 3 The night settled around me and I could barely see anything. I wasn¡¯t feeling tired, most likely because the fear I felt at the realization that this most likely wasn''t a dream turned most of the blood in my veins into pure adrenaline. My heart was hammering like crazy, sweat was starting to collect on my back even though I was quite cold since I was still bare ass naked next to a fucking river in the middle of the night in some kind of new world! I needed to calm down, panic never produces beneficial outcomes, on the contrary, it seems fuck things up 9 out of 10 times. What wouldn¡¯t I give for the comforting weight of my S&W Model 27, heck I would at least like to have my razor. Sadly, all I have is a fucking stick that would most likely fall apart on the first hit. Taking deep, slow breaths I managed to quell the rising panic and allowed it to settle into a slowly simmering background fear that I could manage. Without any real options before I decided to keep on going down the river. There was no way I was heading deeper into the forest, and I was sure as hell not going to fall asleep. After what felt like an eternity of creeping along the river in the darkness, I noticed something in the distance. It was light that flickered a little almost like a fire would, that at once got my absolute undivided attention. Crouching closer to the ground I started creeping closer to the light source without making a single noise. After I got close enough, I could see two people. One was lying next to the fire, the other was sitting with his back to the river staring into the forest. Now, this was a situation I knew how to handle. Kill them both, and take their stuff, that would be a step in the right direction. I settled into a low crouch just out of their camp where light couldn¡¯t reach and started to wait in ambush for my prey to make the last mistake of their life. After a while the guy keeping watch stirred and slowly got up, after looking around he started heading towards the edge of his camp into the forest. He stood next to a tree and started unbuckling his pants then crouched down. At his point he was as good as dead for me, slowly without making a single sound I started approaching my victim. When I stood right behind him, I placed my right hand below his mouth and left on the back of his neck and with all the strength I had in my body I twisted, the satisfying crack that came from his vertebrae snapping, the comforting weight of a dead body in my arms started to soothe my fears. From the moment I stood behind until I held his corpse in my arms it only took a little more than a second. I must admit that my new body was really strong I''m not sure if I could have twisted someone''s neck this easily before. I laid the corpse on the ground and took a small hunting knife from his belt. Silently I crept to the still sleeping person next to the fire. From up close I could see that it was a woman. Without making a sound, I slowly placed the blade of the knife right below her ear applied pressure and quickly sliced across her entire neck until I reached the other ear. Blood started gushing out from the wound and her eyes shot open giving me one last look of terror before the light of life faded from them.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. This turned out to be a pretty easy hunt. When the woman was dead, I dragged the corpse of her partner back to the fire and started going through their stuff. They had 3 knives, two small hunting knives and one larger one, almost like a cleaver. From the dulled edge I guess they used it as a hatchet. Next, I managed to assemble myself somewhat of an outfit, pants, and shirt from the man because the woman was much shorter than me, and also her clothes were soaked in blood, cutting someone''s throat tends to have that effect, still, I took her underwear cause the man had shit smeared in his and I preferred blood to shit. Other useful items in their camp were a couple of bundles of pelts some food and a couple of bows as well as 2 pouches that held some coins. They probably were hunters trying to earn some money in the fur trade. I wasn¡¯t good with a bow I never needed to learn how to use it was a weapon that only savages with no culture still used and it also was extremely impractical in the streets of London. So I decided to leave the bows with their owners. I hope they were too poor to afford good firearms and this wasn¡¯t some land of savages that could only use bows and sticks. Both of my victims lay naked in the dim light of the fire. After closer inspection, I noticed small glimmering rocks set near their eyes I thought they were piercings but when I tried to take them off, I discovered that they were fused with the skin. Closer inspection revealed similar stones running down from their shoulders toward their hands, these were also completely fused with the skin. Interesting, I had no clue what they were, some weird tattoo or strange jewelry. I guess it wasn¡¯t much stranger than having blueish skin. I decided that it would be best to collect my loot and keep moving. I wasn¡¯t too keen on trying to sleep next to bloody corpses and hope that no predators would come out of the forest for a late-night snack. After a short rest, I started walking again, I must admit that the bloodlust got the better of me I should have kept the woman alive and tried to get some information from her. Though I doubt that would have been easy since I doubt that people here will speak English. Well, no use fretting over spilled milk, or in this case blood, what''s done is done. The rest of the night continued without any incidents as I continued my journey down the river, I planned to find some kind of passage across it be it a bridge or a shallow spot that connected two paths. If I managed to find a place like that it could lead me to a bigger road, and roads led to towns and cities. Even if I was in a completely different world with different people and different laws and rules, I was 100 percent certain that banditry, stealing, and killing existed in those towns and cities that was a fundamental law of the universe, and I had no doubts in my mind that I could make a decent living according to this law. And as the dawn of the two suns brought the morning light, in the distance I finally noticed a contour of a bridge. Chapter 4 Alya loved the life of a merchant, well, loved most of it, she certainly wasn¡¯t a fan of the literal pain in the ass that came with riding on a stiff wagon bench for hours along the, often poorly kept, backroads she liked to use because they allowed her to reach her destinations ahead of time, time was money after all and Alya loved only one thing in life more than money, it was selling things and only because it made a lot of money. The afternoon sun was beating down on her as she rolled down the road towards the Windbrook river. Her wagon was being pulled by her beloved pair of horses, whose leg enhancement implants shimmered beautifully in the afternoon sun. Next to her rode her business partner Veyer and his wife Jullie. They were a funny couple since Veyer was half a meter taller than his wife standing at 2.2 meters, broad shoulders and heavyset muscular frame, made ridiculous contrast against his lithe wife who didn¡¯t even reach his shoulder in height, her slim yet toned body was almost the complete yin to her husband''s yang. Alya enjoyed these shorter trips between Krato mines and the city of Clia. She always managed to get some great gems from the industrious miners, and you could often find alchemists and gem crafters who chose to practice their trade there. After all, the success rate when creating the coveted enchantment implants was rather low even among more experienced craftsmen so it was always a good idea to have an almost inexhaustible source of rare gems at hand. More often than not you could find some of the more common implants for a premium price there. Another benefit to this route was that despite the abundance of potholes along the way the roads were well patrolled and there was no need to hire extra muscle for protection. The imposing frame of Veyer was often more than enough to scare away any idiot that decided to start their career as bandits on these roads. Those unlucky enough to be born with the same amount of brain as wild beasts, that sometimes came out of the forest and were tempted by the plump frame of her workhorses, received the same fate as the aforementioned beasts, a quick death by Jullia¡¯s arrows. It was shaping up to be a very profitable trip, they managed to get 7 crates of great quality gems from the mines and 4 crates of some basic implants that were always in high demand. ¡°You know, Alya, we have been talking about putting our wagon to rest and opening a store for a while now. It''s not like we lack the funds for it¡± Veyer said while looking ahead with a more serious tone than they usually had when they talked about this topic. ¡°Why so serious all of a sudden old friend?¡± asked Alya. ¡°that''s the issue, Alya, I am getting old. In a couple of years, I will be 50. Jullia and I were talking about having kids, and that¡¯s just not going to be possible on the road. I know that age is less of a concern for you half-elves but I and Jullia are humans we need to plan for these things¡±. Alya had to admit that was a very reasonable argument, she wasn¡¯t against settling down as well, maybe she could even find a warm body to share her bet at night. ¡°We can look into some property when we are in town Clia is a great place for a store a lot of trading routes converge there. And who am I to stop you from trying to unleash more of your spawn on the world¡± Veyer started laughing after hearing this. ¡°I just pray to Vira, goddess of all life and mothers, that the kids get more of their likeness from me than their father or I will split in half trying to, as you so eloquently put, spawn them¡± added Julia with a mirthful tone in her voice. That brought laughter out of all of them.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Suddenly Jullia got quiet ¡°Up ahead, single woman¡±. Alya took one of her monocles that was hanging on her neck and fastened it to the gem that was implanted next to her right eye, sure enough, she could see a woman walking in their direction on the side the road. She was still quite far and didn¡¯t seem to be armed. She was wearing what could be generously called rags. ¡°Most likely a vagabond. Looking at her skin I''d guess an ascetic from the northern sects, they tend to travel in nothing but rags¡± said Alya after disengaging her monocle and letting it hang around her neck again. Jullia just shook her head ¡°I bet she''s a poacher she¡¯s carrying pelts on her back, no bow, so most likely a trapper¡±. Alya sighed no way her monocle could compete with ranger eye implants at least her multipurpose system eye enchantment had versatility and it was far more useful to her than just the ability to see far. ¡°Quite brazen if she is a poacher, walking openly with poached furs on King¡¯s roads is just asking for trouble,¡± said Veyer. Alya stayed silent she didn¡¯t know if she was a poacher or vagabond, or gods know what. It was pretty rare seeing northerners so far in the south. She was already looking behind her if they still had room in the wagon for some extra furs if she managed to haggle a good price from the alleged poacher. After all, Alya never turned out an opportunity to make some money. When the stranger got close enough Alya could truly appreciate her looks. The stranger was tall probably around 2 meters. Long, shiny, and unnaturally white hair cascaded down her back, where the slightly purple ends stopped just below her shapely ass. Despite ill-fitting clothes, Alya could clearly see that this woman was quite well endowed. The merchant looked at the alleged poacher''s face, there was unbridled confidence pouring out of her large, reddish, eyes. Her thin lips seemed to be frozen in a cocky smirk. What Alya found to be truly strange was the fact that this beautiful vagabond stranger seemed to have no implants on her, or at least ones that she could see. Not even the cheapest ports around the eyes or ears that even beggars could afford were there. And yet she looked like her face and body were painstakingly refined by the best flesh sculptors in the capital. Things were not adding up no matter how Alya look at them. Though the closer the stranger got and the longer she looked at her the more Alya was getting certain that this was no vagabond or poacher they were about to run into. In another few short moments, they were in the speaking distance and Alya stopped her wagon and offered a friendly wave of a hand to the stranger. "Hello there traveler, I hope that Ebisus, the benevolent patron of all travel and commerce, blessed you with safe roads." Alya gave the most common greeting between travelers, but the stranger only tilted her head, and then said something in a language that Alya never heard before. So someone that doesn''t speak the common tongue. The half-elf started looking through her collection of attachments that hung around her neck first she clasped the translator to her ear universal port and another right under her chin to the little gem that cost her quite a bit to be implanted there. time to try again "Hello, kind stranger, I guess you have come from far off lands if you do not speak the common tongue" the stranger seemed startled for a moment, but then she started laughing and said, "Oh, believe me when I tell you that you wouldn''t fucking believe me how far my lands are". Well, this is going to be interesting thought Alya, as the stranger was assessing each member of their party with unapologetic curiosity.