Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Last night remained no secret to nobody. Everyone knew what had gone on between their leader and the witch. They expected Raven to side with her more, but to their surprise, it was Linkle who had something to say and not him.

"I'm sorry," hearing her utter those words, a look of shock took over everyone. Nobody ever thought the witch could be remorseful, not after all the things that she'd tried to pull recently. But the sombre look in her eyes was no facade, and realizing that, everyone decided to give her a chance. "I'm sorry for, well…using you all as a means to an end, I suppose?"

Shaking her head, she sighed. Looking around at everyone yet again, she glanced past Amedith and the rest who'd just arrived from the nameless city. To everyone else, she paid greater respect. Bowing to them, she kept her head lowered until everyone silently accepted her apology.

An agreeing hum was all it took to set things right, and with that done, the attention turned back to Raven. Stepping forward, he leaned onto the table and first decided to talk something over with his party. Amedith of course, kept the rebellion by Felix and Astra a secret, but everything that he'd done back in the nameless city was made apparent. Erika conveyed her progress as well.

Apart from her, both the elves talked about leaving everything in the hands of Hilma and Mercedes to some effect. Being a merchant, whatever the people would need to recover in the runic circles, she had to provide one way or the other. And if she fails, the warrior woman was told to cut her head off–a rash tactic, but a necessary one for now.

Once everyone was done reporting their side of things, Raven turned his attention to Jenna. Staring out of the meeting hall's windows, she was smiling at the lush sight of the Athenian's garden. The warmth of sunlight, it had been so long since she'd felt it that it felt completely foreign. But unlike Shamisha and Lana's first time, she was handling the rich weather quite well.

'Staying in Athenia would probably help her sanity.' Thought Raven before turning his head in the centaurians' direction. Nodding at them, he gestured for the duo to take Jenna away from the meeting hall. Getting out of their chairs without question, both Amelia and Ophelia did just as they were asked, leaving the rest of the party to finally start discussing the possible war.

Taking a seat at the head of the table, Raven decided to address Helga first. He'd heard about her getting a weapon from the heavens and yet he hadn't seen it on her at all.

"So what's this spear I heard about?" He asked, and Helga quickly turned in her chair to face him.

Humming to herself for a moment, she turned her eyes to the front and reached with her hand to take the weapon out of thin air. As she brought it into the real world, the spear was wrapped in a cloth making its appearance still a mystery. To Raven's surprise, however, Helga began unwrapping it without the need to ask.

Revealed before him was a spear with a fading wide jewel at its tip. Its long handle was a polished reddish brown and holding the tip was the only section made of metal and depicted in it were the many battles of the holy wars.

"What's the story behind this thing?" Raven asked, but grabbed the spear off the table, Helga responded with a question.

"Even when the time is right, it doesn't feel right to use this. So why don't we leave that a surprise? One that we possibly won't need to find out ever," although his curiosity had only grown with her words, Raven kept it reeled and decided to move on to the next subject.

The first order of business was to infiltrate the hells disguised as imps. The Mistress had apparently arranged everything in that aspect and her army of about half a million succubi were ready to flood into Tariyan's realm in case reinforcement was required. Ideally, Raven and his original party would've had enough to assassinate Tariyaan if they managed it well, but with so many more people tagging along they had to move more defensively.

"Amedith will man the front and in case we are attacked his shield should give us at least some time to run," taking off his bracelet, Raven placed it on top of the table. "If needed, I'll summon Arche, Mino and Maine. They'll travel with us from in there as well."

Reminded of the monster girls, Choux and Moxy popped up in Raven's head. And while Moxy wouldn't be much help in battle, both Choux and her drake would've been fantastic against the devils for many reasons. First was their affinity for ice that directly countered fire, and the other was that rifle that could cut through hordes without a problem. Find more to read at My Virtual Library Empire

'Can't risk her getting killed, that thing that's related to her and in purgatory would probably kill me if something happened to her.' Deciding not to risk it, Raven took out yet another item and placed it on the table.

"Elana's ring, we're still not sure if she's dead but in case she's not; I'll be bringing this with us," Raven suggested, assuming Elana would help fulfil wish since the last time she was called, both her and Maria were attacked before she could do anything.

"That reminds me, her sisters…" Butting into the conversation, Aria leaned forward on the table. Shooting a glance at Raven, she wore a confused expression. "What about Seraphim and Riyanzah? Where are they?"

"Hmm? Then, I…uh," not sure how to say it without making Aria seem dumb, Raven decided to say it plainly and swiftly move on. "I doubt either of them will be useful so I left them with Hilma, a djinn who relies on water and merfolk is no use in deep hell–and since she's the stronger one of the two, I don't think it's a good idea to bring either."

Turning to Maria he stretched a hand towards her.

"I feel the same for you, but your soul…"

"I know, but if it's there and we're also in the same place, why not look?" Responded the ex-queen, seeming more vibrant than ever for some reason.

'She's excited? I didn't expect that.' To have a very real possibility of getting her soul back, of course, excited her, but given the rest of the debacle no wonder everyone else couldn't see where she was coming from.

"Well," slowly turning back to the front to address everyone at once, Raven took a deep breath and continued. "We just have to wait for the Mistress and Shamisha now, after that, it's time for our trip to hell–"

The sound of iron steps echoing from the corridor cut Raven's words short. Slowly turning to look at who it was, he was shocked to find Shamisha walking alongside a near-identical clone of Avarice.

'What in the world?' Thought Raven, but that wasn't even the end of the surprise the bunny girl had brought…