Chapter 34: The high council
By the time I was scheduled to leave and meet up with Sofy, I was eager to reunite with her. My tethering effect had done its job and made me feel a sense of wrongness from her absence. The feeling only increased in intensity as time passed. I didn’t really notice it for the first two hours because I was absorbed with what I was doing, but I couldn’t help being slightly distracted from my books occasionally by the feeling during my last couple hours in the library before lunch. It’s more of a nagging sensation like you get when you’ve forgotten something, not a feeling that causes me to feel that I must return to her. The insomnia debuff from being separated from her at night would probably affect me long before tethering could cause me problems. Though I don’t know if increasing the distance could change the results. It still felt better without that feeling once I met up with Sofy.
The rest of the day, following my first morning on the job, was quite ordinary. Though, I did get an interesting idea when I met up with the girls for lunch. Sofy was in a tissy because the guys had taken immediate advantage of my absence and I was trying to think of something to cheer her up. My idea came in the form of static shock when I was trying to help Tiff tie up her hair in a design she had picked out. It occurred to me that shocks don’t always have to be painful. Sometimes they are just surprising and others can actually be pleasant. Later that evening I would ask Sofy to help me explore this in more detail.
We experimented with the static discharge function a bit and found out a little more about how it worked. The static discharge basically makes my whole body like an electric source and any other body a receiver. There is a safety option that prevents the master from being shocked that can be turned off. While giving her a deep tissue massage, I had Sofy set the intensity to the level of localized muscle contractions and to have it pulse at regular intervals. The resulting massage caused her to moan in pleasure and left her completely limp on the massage table.
“I’m sorry you had a bad morning, Mistress. I’d like to make you feel good tonight to help you forget those annoyances and compensate you for my lackluster performance the other night.”~me
“Perhaps I owe you an apology as well. I knew you were exhausted and I still made you satisfy me. You didn’t do anything wrong that night and managed to keep going by pushing yourself due to my selfishness. I’m sorry, Lily.”~Sofy
“I’ll forgive you if you…OW!”~me
“Hmm, if I what? Trying to take advantage of me when we were making up so well. Talk about a mood killer. You’ve already got me immobilized from that massage. Go ahead and do what you want. You earned it, I suppose.”~Sofy
“Yay! Earlier, you said there is a synced option for the ‘core executor’. Turn that on please.”~me
“Done, now wha…AAH!”~Sofy
Incidentally, that slime residue alchemy material is actually a conductive material. The synced mode in this situation causes a small shock every time I thrust into her and oscillates at its max, non-pain inducing level, every time we climax. This results in making our orgasms last much longer and be many folds more intense. A rule for not kissing deeply or play-biting with the feature enabled had to be established after we ended up biting our tongues and each other a few times during our engagement. Otherwise, our make-up sex was positively heaven-defying.
We woke up the next morning once again still connected and confused why we were not getting shocked. When looking through the settings, we found that the master safety had turned itself back on at some point, probably when she had gone to sleep. That’s good to know. Sofy turned the discharge function off so I wouldn’t end up shocking other people and got ready. We were told to eat quickly and that Sofy would be coming with us as well. She had apparently arranged my promotion after I had left yesterday, but a council member got word and insisted that we be brought before them. I hate politics.
This time when arriving in the administration area we entered the main palace. Nana informed someone of who we were and the purpose of our visit and we sat down to wait. Not too long later, we were told to enter one of the side chambers. We entered to find all three high council members present and already seated, one female and two male elves. One of the men actually looked old. He wears an amicable smile on his face, but his cunning aura and eyes betray his sly nature. Man-elf number two has a stoic expression and his aura is calculative. The female has a motherly aura and keeps glancing at my ears. Though, I’m used to such attention by now. Sofy and nana made a formal curtsy and took seats across from them while I curtsied and stood behind Sofy. I was immediately pissed-off when I had entered the room and it showed. As soon as we had entered, I felt multiple skills start to scrutinize both Sofy and myself. All of which I could track back to the two men. I definitely just hissed at them and was currently oozing with killing intent. They realized they’d been caught and retracted their skills not even bothering to feign embarrassment.
“Well, we certainly could have started things off with a better first impression. Please allow me to offer an apology on the council’s behalf for their rude behaviour. She can sit down here, next to me. It isn’t necessary that she stand.”~female councilwoman
I look to Sofy and she gives the councilwoman an understanding look while nodding to indicate her permission, probably to both of us. For me to sit and for her…something else. I walked over to the councilwoman, who had been sitting by herself and sat right next to her leaving no room at all between us. This elicited a genuine smile from her and she started looking repeatedly from my ears to Sofy.
“We don’t mind if you pet her ears. Please be gentle with them, miss?”~Sofy
“Ah right, introductions. I’m Melony, the old fogey is Archer and the young brat is Norman.”~Melony
She didn’t stop her enthusiastic petting of my ears for a moment while talking which annoyed the other two.
“Who you calling an old fogey, girly?! Couldn’t you bother to take your hands away for just a moment to point to us instead of giving us arbitrary titles? Surely, you shouldn’t be that desperate to rub the child’s head. Don’t you have children of your own? What’s so special about her?”~Archer
“HANDS OFF! I’m not sharing her! My kids have already grown up and moved out. They don’t let me cuddle with them anymore. What’s wrong with my remarks anyways? Sophia was clearly able to notice who I’d meant since she looked over at each of you as mentioned. Though, I’m not certain if this one understood.”~Melony
She had promptly slapped his hand away when he tried to touch my head. Then she lifted me up and moved to the far side of her couch, away from him. Sitting down, she placed me on her lap sideways with my back to the men while still facing nana and Sofy. As thanks, I took the opportunity to lean on her shoulder and purr which pleased her greatly.
“If you were paying more attention to things other than her ears, you might have noticed that she didn’t look over at us. In fact, I’ve yet to see her eyes moved at all. She should be using a skill like second sight to see.”~Norman
After gasping, Melony turns me to her and tests out my eyesight by moving her finger around near my eyes confirming my current blind state. Thereafter, she proceeded to hug me close to her with one hand and continued petting with the other.
“Okay, now that the greetings are out of the way, let’s get down to business. We can’t have a non-elf running around knowing our secrets without a magic contract in place.”~Archer
“Always the shrewd old man aren’t you, Archy? Lilia is already contracted to my granddaughter and I see no reason to let you impose a contract on either of them since the secrets you’re talking about were originally thought up by her.”~nana
“Could you please not use my childhood name anymore. It’s been what, four hundred years since we were young? We can overlook Sophia, but Lilia shouldn’t be allowed to give such information to our potential enemies. Just a simple exchange contract. For keeping the information with just the elves, we can pay her a sum of money.”~Archer
“Um, can I say something?”~Sofy
“Of course dear. Don’t let these grumps intimidate you. Say whatever you like, it’s not like they can actually do anything to you with your grandmother present.”~Melony
“Thanks. First of all, Lilia can’t sign a magical contract. I’ve seen what happens if she tries, the contract will burn to ashes the moment she puts a quill to it. It has to do with how thoroughly she is bound to me. Anything that could be seen to possibly limit her service to me just isn’t allowed. Also, my father once tried to have me sign a contract that would give him command of her through me and the contract turned to ash at that time as well.”~Sofy
“Could you show us that? I had a basic secrecy contract already drawn up before this meeting. It only states that you won’t allow Lilia to divulge our secrets.”~Norman
“Hoping to catch her in a fib, Norman?”~nana
“Are you admitting that she’s lying?”~Norman
Sofy just holds out her hand to receive the contract Norman had pulled out. She read it over and set it on the table in front to sign. Norman provided an inkwell and quill. Poof. It turned to ash exactly as expected.
“That’s a first. I’d like to take a closer look at this servant curse, if the two of you don’t mind?”~Melony
Sofy is given a status orb by nana and Melony hands one to me. We showed our status together. I’m not hiding much anymore. Just my race, the bloodline traits that wouldn’t make sense as a catkin and a few skills I keep as trump-cards. Oh, and my status manager blessing.
“Even in bed…that sounds nice.”~Melony
“Orders and punishments seem pretty straightforward, but what does the empathic link entail?”~Archer
“That clause for reversal seems like it could be a problem, though only for a bad person.”~Norman
“Attire? What does that do?”~Melony
Sofy only started telling Melony about the attire after giving Archer and Norman vague answers about the orders, punishments and link. Just that I can be ordered to do things against my will, simple punishments such as pain can be inflicted and that the link allows me to somewhat sense her needs. Our meeting thereafter quickly devolved into a fashion show. Archer and Norman excused themselves and I spent the entire rest of the morning trying on outfits with Melony, Sofy and nana. Sofy missed her morning classes which Melony was more than happy to send over an official note to exempt her. This meeting is apparently classified as work for nana and I. Though, I’m not so sure that the last three hours should really count. We finally managed to leave at lunch time and met up with the other girls to eat.
