Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4) by Jez Cajiao (beach books .txt) 📗

the equivalent of curing male-pattern baldness as part of healing him, but he was still only an average-sized example of his species as near as I could tell.

If I could use this to work out how to make him into the ideal, literally heal him to the point that he was all that he could be physically, he’d have a huge advantage over others of his race, and the thought of doing that for the entirety of the Tower?

Hell, I might even be able to heal my own scars away, so I didn’t look so much like Freddy Kruger was my masseur.

I nodded to myself and shared a smile with Oracle as we dismissed the last of the prompts and strolled across the deck, towards the hatches.

I clambered down the steep ladder leading to the inner decks and looked around, checking the rooms, as I walked down the corridor, until I found Soween and two of her crew carrying out a canvas bucket filled with mulch.

“We’re working on this room; it’s the second largest and least contaminated, plus it has a solid seal around the porthole, so it’s better than most of the others,” she said abruptly, wiping her cheek and leaving a smear of grime behind. “Give us another ten, fifteen minutes, and we’ll have it ready. By the way, I heard what happened to your bodyguard, Bane; is he alright?”

“Pretty much. He was captured by an asshole noble; the nephew of Hannimish if you’ve seen him about?” I asked, and she nodded thoughtfully. “What do you know about him?”

“He’s honest enough, for a noble…” she said, stepping to the side and letting the other two move past. “We’ve had some contact with him, as members of the Smuggler’s Guild, I mean. He paid his bills and didn’t try to cheat us, so there’s that. You’d be surprised how many nobles think that you should be thankful that they were willing to take things from you, never mind actually paying for them. He never tried that, and never ordered anything dodgy as near as I saw; mostly just gemstones, always uncut, and artifacts from the Empire; where we could get them and they still ran, anyway.”

“Well, his nephew was totally different, then,” I replied. “Little shit of a man. Got me with a dodgy dagger that would have killed me if I hadn’t cut my arm off,” I said, waving my stump at her. “Seemed to be working with someone else, from what he said, but I have no idea who, or what, the story was with the dagger and the journal. Something else to look into when I have time,” I said, shrugging.

“Okay… anyway, here.” She pulled a bag out of the large one on her pouch. “This is all the alchemy ingredients I’d bought for us. I know Mal said he’d give them all to you, but I was planning on trading them for some potions myself, so if you have any spare later? I’d appreciate a couple, at least…”

“Depending on what there is, I’ll make you some,” I reassured her and she smiled.

“That’d be appreciated, sir. Anyway, we found a table in the room two down, and we’ll move that into this room as soon as its clear. Is there anything else you’ll need?”

“A chair would be good, but as this was a gnome ship, I’m betting the table is tiny?” I asked, and she nodded. “Ah, well. I can sit on the floor then; guess I should be thankful they didn’t go in for low ceilings and be thankful for it, eh? Thanks, anyway.”

Oracle and I waited in a side room while I meditated again, getting the practice in while I could, as Soween and her crew sorted the room out. I heard occasional grumbling coming from further down the corridor as others worked on another, larger room. When Soween came to me, telling me they’d done all they could, and the room was as clean as they could make it with the equipment they had, I thanked her and her team, and stepped inside, inspecting the spaces where the filth had been scrubbed away wherever they could reach.

I took a deep breath and asked Oracle to manage the fire, as I summoned a fountain of pure, clean water, and started to guide it around the room.

Oracle held her hands out and let the water flow into the Firebolt she conjured between them, turning the icy cold water into a jet of water hot enough that it could scald if you weren’t careful.

We quickly moved round the room, essentially using a high-pressure jet wash to sluice the room down one last time. The water that ran out between the boards in the floor, down the walls, and off the ceiling was filthy, seeping into the lower decks, but I ignored it, concerned only with clearing the room as best I could.

It took a few more minutes before I was almost out of mana, but at least the room looked clean, and it even had the frame for a bed in it still. I glanced at it, then at Oracle, and we shared a naughty grin, before I shook my head and closed the door behind me.

“We haven’t got time to play,” Oracle said to me, despite the smile she was giving me. “You know as well as I do, if we start, we’ll not get anything else done, and as much as I’d love to, we actually need the potions!”

“I know; I’m just thinking that the bed is actually a better height for the kit to go onto than the table, as I can kneel at it, and it’s both wider and longer than the table…”

“Go on…” she said confused, as she could feel my horniness, but couldn’t see where this was going.

“So, I was thinking it would be best if no one were to walk in and catch us naked, right? Better if we work on getting the potions done now, and play later?”

“Yeah…”