The wife gives a friendly smile back, before moving to restock some of the shelves. She wears an apron over her uniform that squeezes her body tightly, and Mori has a mental image of the woman wearing nothing but it. "Yes, we speak English." The van driver husband snatches away Mori's attention. "How can I help you?"
"I'd like that." She nods. On his way back, as he enters one of the southern Sicilian towns, he catches sight of a man following him, a grin on his face, but when Luke tries to catch a better sighting, the man has disappeared. The safehouse isn't exactly as cozy as the last one, more of just a Meditteranean shack, but it suffices. Luke's able to get a good night's sleep.
(Night!) Miriam awakens late the next morning, to the sound of Taia entering the room, some grocery bags on her arm. "You're finally up." She chuckles.
Natasha can't decide what to to think about what she feels right now. Her new powers were usefull but she didn't wonder on source of them. What if that come of Anai? She shake her head to not thinking about this. " Well, we could try to check palace in this city, if somehow we managed to leave this temple. We could also look for priests here, Max and I already meet some of them." She said it to forget about fear and the fact being naked.
"Ah, good. See, my team and I were wondering if you did deliveries?" Mori nods, smiling at the deiver as if he wasn't just oogling the man's wife earlier. "But that's also what I want to know, see the person that was incharge of securing our supplies messed up. So I want to know how frequently you can deliver, or how much we'll need for certain amounts of time." He chuckled, hoping the man would use his deliveries on the mercenary camp as an example.
Luke took the opportunity to send the picture of the map in the ruins to his superiors and send an update on his mission progress. He made sure to mention the Minotaur in the ruins, the mercenaries and the Isis priestess who he had run into. This might be a lot bigger than they had anticipated.
@Regin34 "It's in the center of the city. Legends say that it's locked, and that three orbs can be used as keys to get down to Anai herself." Max hefts a blue stone in his hand. "I think this is one." He shudders at the mention of the priests. "We could search for them, if you promise to protect me, Nat. They seemed really eager for me to join them, and I'm pretty sure I'd have to give up my wife if I did."
The man shakes his head apologetically. "I'm sorry. We do deliveries, but currently we're supplying a single client. They're buying most of our stock, so I'm not sure how much there'd be left to sell to you."
It isn't long before Luke's phone flashes, and he sees a video call incoming from Louisa. "Luke, I just read your report. It was troubling." She sighs. "Tell me about this priestess you encountered. I didn't see any mention of you eliminating her."
@Omega98 "I already told you that we as the soldiers we gona protect you both. I will do my best to keep you safe but there is one problem." She said and show her bare hands. "Right now I have absolutely nothing. No weapons, modern or ancient, so if we didn't find anything, it will be only our naked bodies to protect you." She said and look at themselves. "Well, we are three naked, Kelly have something to cover her private parts and you Max are only one dressed in normal clothes. From outside we look like your harem." She said deeply embrassed, not sure why she told that.
"E-Eh heh..." Max scratches his head, embarrassed as she says that they look like a harem. "Actually, I think we should find somewhere safe to leave your companions for the time being. They seem really out of it." He points to Sonya and the prisoner, who both seem dazed.
"Oh, that's kind of bad news for me." Mori scratches the back of his head, "But, uhm, for reference, can I ask how frequently you deliver to them? And what sort of supplies they get? Like do they buy fresh meat, or preserved ones?" He asked with a forced smile, as if he was doing someone else's work.
"Oh, uh, once every day." He says, sounding like he's not sure how much he should be saying. "Meat, water, batteries, that sort of thing. They're doing some sort of dig out in the desert, and there's a good number of them, so I think they go through food and drink quickly."
'Greetings, Mother,' Luke said, 'Yes, I didn't do that. I'm not sure how she did it, but she transported me to some kind of dimension she controlled. She said something about sending me back in time to gain magic powers to fight Anai. I think she wanted to recruit me to her Isis cult, but I declined. There was no way for me to defeat her in her own realm and even if I could have, I have no idea what would've happened to me. 'She let me go. I suppose she was at least content that we were both against Anai, even if she failed to recruit me to her side.' 'I also...' Luke sighed, before he confessed, 'I didn't mention it in the report, but... I have to confess my sins. I fornicated with her, I was too weak to resist her.'
Kelly gripped Max's arm and snuggled into him at the notion of him leaving her. "Never!" she thought to herself. "I'll never let him go!" "When I arrived I saw three large structures. It's just a wild guess, but maybe the other two orbs are in those buildings? If so then we should leave the temple and head to one of them. Or is there still anything of interest here?" "I also arrived armed companions but some fell ill as we made our way to the temple. If we can regroup with them, they might have weapons we can use." She added
Natasha nod for that. "I would like to do that, but I don't know if we managed to find them if we leave them somewhere. Before entering to this city I had full squad trained soldiers and now it's just us three. You are scholars and scientists, maybe you could find something in ancient ways to cure them?" She asked and agree with Kelly, to leave this place.
"Ohh, I see, I see. So it'll depend on how many people you have, hmm." Mori nods, "I take it you deliver early in the morning, or late at night? Which do you think is better?"
"I suppose you had no choice. It happens." Louisa's voice is soft and gentle as he explains, but she gasps at his revelation. "Luke! I... I don't know what to say..." Her tone is shocked, but not unkind. "This is my fault, all my fault. Don't feel ashamed, Luke, the blame is on for letting you go out in the field without solving your, ahem, problem." There's an awkward silence for a few moments, before she continues. "Did you...like it?"
"Fair." Max nods. The group manages to find their way to the entrance. "So, there's the palace and the bazaar left. Which first?"
