The Lustful Villain: Every Milfs and Gilfs are Mine!

Breakfast in the common room of Drevash’s inn was bread and aged cheese and a thick vegetable stew, which had obviously been simmering since before dawn, and it was just the sort of food a day of physical exertion made truly satisfying instead of merely adequate.

They gathered in ones and twos, and when Rex came down, with Nerith a few steps behind him, most of the group was already seated.

Elizabeth had a map unfolded over one end of the table, weighed down at the corners with cups and a small lantern. She ate her bread one-handed and traced a route with the other finger in a manner that suggested she’d been here for some time already.

Rex sat down across from Apollo, and Apollo looked up and gave him the simple smile he offered to people he trusted with no reservations.

"Ready to start the last day of our expedition?" he asked.

"Ask me after I’ve eaten my breakfast," said Rex.

"Hahaha!"

That got a laugh from Talyra, who was sitting two seats down with the particular alertness of someone who had slept well and was in a cheerful mood and had no immediate problems to address, which Rex understood was a condition that was unlikely to persist much longer into the day.

Apollo refilled his cup from the pot at the center of the table and leaned back in his chair with the particular ease of someone who woke up believing things would go well and had not yet been given reason to revise that opinion.

"Durvan’s stew is better than the one at the inn in Thornwall," he said to no one in particular. "That one smelled like something had been sad in the pot for a long time."

"Everything in Thornwall smells like that," said Mireya, and Talyra laughed again.

’Is this some kind of a group joke...?’ Rex thought. ’I don’t know what village that is...’

Across the table, Alexander was watching Elizabeth work the map. He had the focused attention of someone reviewing a situation he’d been thinking about since before breakfast, and he said, without looking up, "The ceiling supports in the second constructed section."

"How current is Durvan’s assessment?"

"Sixty years," Elizabeth said.

Alexander considered this and said nothing, which was an answer of its own kind.

Elizabeth waited until everyone had breakfast and about half their attention before she began. There was no preamble of assurance before what she was about to say, and Rex had learned that her directness was her natural style. She was beginning to explain.

"The route down the main corridor is out," she said. "Durvan confirmed last night that it’s been closed for about three months."

"We don’t know who collapsed it or exactly when, but it doesn’t change our objective." She rotated the map a little more so that more of the table could read it. "Durvan’s family has farmed the ridge terrace above Drevash for generations."

"His grandfather helped survey the original canyon approach sixty years ago, and some of that survey data was never incorporated into the official Academy records because the secondary routes were considered non-essential." She pointed to a line on the map that had been added in a different hand from the original, which was thicker and less precise.

"This is the gorge tributary path, which descends from the runoff channel in the upper ridge into the canyon system from the northwest, on the opposite side of our original approach."

"How stable is it?" asked Alexander.

"According to Durvan, this route is more stable than the main corridor."

The passage is a natural formation rather than a man-made structure, as indicated by the solid stone walls instead of cut faces, and the tributary that dried up about forty years ago has resulted in a floor composed of packed sediment over bedrock." She traced her finger along the route. "The disadvantage is the angle of approach."

"We come in from the northwest, which means we come in at the second level, not down through the first, but we completely bypass the first-level passages."

"So we go in deeper, faster than the usual route, eh?" said Iris from the far end of the table.

"Indeed... someone is watching us and trying to stop us from going there, which is why we’re running out of time," Elizabeth agreed. "Anyway, moving on."

"The second level has recorded terrain from the original survey... it’s a connected series of chambers, mostly natural, with two constructed sections that were added during the mineral survey period."

"The first constructed section has ceiling supports that Durvan says might need assessing before we put full weight through them, and the second leads into the upper reaches of the third level."

"Might need assessing," said Alexander. "That’s doing a lot of work in that sentence."

"We assess them," said Elizabeth. "If they hold, we proceed."

"If they don’t, we find another way." She expressed it as she typically did, treating the uncertainty like a logistical challenge rather than an emotional issue.

The table reacted to her words with varying degrees of comprehension. Rex ate his bread while listening to some of the useful information.

Apollo, for his part, looked thoughtful rather than concerned. "The second-level chambers, the constructed sections... were they surveyed when they were built, or only the original passages?"

"Both actually," Elizabeth said. "The construction records are in the Academy archive."

"The construction records show solid work for the period, but the concern is that there has been sixty years of inactivity and water movement in the surrounding rock."

"So it’s probably going to be just fine," said Apollo.

"Probably," Elizabeth agreed, and there was just enough dryness in it to suggest she was aware of how that sounded.

She paused and looked around the table. "At the third level, the acoustic distortions begin, and there, the natural channels behave differently."

Nerith glanced up from her cup. "How differently?"

"The signal goes deeper, and it connects to root systems so ancient that the structure of the communication is less like conversation and more like reading residual impressions."

"You will not be able to navigate by standard contact communication the way you would on the surface." She looked at Nerith with a directness that was professional and not unkind. "You’ll get used to it, and it’ll take some time."

"Just wanted you to know ahead of time."

Nerith nodded, slowly. The leaves stirred.

Mireya said, quietly, "Is there danger in the distortions themselves? For her specifically?"

"No," Nerith said, before Elizabeth could answer. "It was different, not dangerous."

"I can manage it." She said it with the flat certainty of someone who had decided something before breakfast and intended to maintain that decision for the rest of the day.

Rex observed the situation. The desire level remained steady, which he had learned over the past day indicated a stability that hadn’t been present twelve hours earlier.

He didn’t question why he found this observation important. He finished his bread.

"So... about the Key," Rex said, and several people at the table turned to look at him because he’d been fairly quiet so far. "Durvan’s intel placed it in the lower third-level chambers."

"How does that leave us for time from the northwest entry point?"

"Durvan estimated four hours to the lower chambers from the gorge tributary entrance," Elizabeth said. "Add the six-hour overland walk to the mouth of the tributary and we’re looking at a full day’s work."

"We leave immediately after breakfast, we move at pace, and we don’t stop unless we have a substantive reason." She folded the map with the practiced efficiency of someone who’d given this kind of briefing before and knew that the information had landed where it needed to land.

"Any questions?"

"Food," said Talyra. "Do we eat on the move or stop?"

"On the move," said Elizabeth. "Durvan’s wife has put provisions together."

"They’ll be loaded before we’re out the door." She looked at Talyra in a way that suggested she had anticipated this question and was unbothered by it.

"Asking for important reasons," Talyra said.

"I know," said Elizabeth.

Mireya held up her hand. "What of Aurelia and the others?"

"Durvan’s information places the missing subgroup in the second level, linking chambers," Elizabeth said. "That means we find them on the way in, not the objective."

"We’ll extract them back to the tributary entry point, where they’ll wait for us while we proceed to the lower chambers for the key." She glanced at Iris when she mentioned this last part, an observation that Rex noted.

Iris said nothing. She set down her cup and looked at the map, just to continue eating her bread.

The table was quiet for a moment, the particular quiet of people who had processed a plan and were deciding whether they had objections worth voicing.

"Veylor’s group," Iris said. "How many of them are still alive?"

"Durvan’s last count before contact was lost: four. Veylor, Aurelia, and two Nightwing field scouts."

Iris nodded once. She picked her cup back up.

Rex watched her and noted the angle of her shoulders, which were carrying something she was choosing not to put into her voice, and he understood why she ate fast.

’I’m so close to seeing her boyfriend... and I’ll find a fucking way to take her from him, even if it means being a little forceful.’

’Yes... break her...’

’Not just her... all the fucking Nightwings.’