An hour later, Dana was intimately familiar with the benefits of sharing a shower, and they were finally clean and ready to go back to the camp.
Dana had found her new nightgown sitting in a pile under the window, hastily discarded and thrown across the room. She picked it up and blushed as she realized that it would need an intense cleaning before it could be worn again. However, when she thought about wearing it again, it bonded with her, vanishing into her mental space as clean as the moment it was made and ready for its next use.
She would have to thank the spider for putting in so much work to make gifts that could be safely reused, no matter how much they were mistreated. The silk was nearly indestructible, and if you were bonded to it, it would always come back clean.
Dirt and stains were not brought into the mental space with a bonded item, though it wouldn’t repair any damages they managed to do to the thin silk.
“Rae left your present by the hammock.” Karl reminded her as a gentle smile came over Dana’s face.
Dana leaned over to pick up the present and rolled her eyes when she felt Karl’s hand on her backside. She had thought that the novelty would have worn off by now, but no. Karl was fairly certain that he would never get enough of that view.
[The present goes over armour.] Rae reminded them, bringing Karl’s thoughts back on course and away from activities that would lead to needing another shower.
“Rae says it’s fitted to go over your armour, the set you got from the traitors.” Karl relayed.
Dana put on the armour, then took out the large box with a pink ribbon on it. It was beautiful, and the box had been stiffened with stronger spider silk to give it the semi-rigid texture of cardboard.
Rae had really improved her versatility with the silk once she had advanced to Royal Rank.
Inside the box was a black combat outfit, loose pants that tucked into calf high boots, with a waist scarf, a tunic style shirt and a long grey coat that split up the back with ties to attach the lower section to your legs for mobility. It also had a hood with a detachable face mask that would only leave the eyes and forehead visible.
The style was halfway between the Spellblades and the Assassin Clans that the Rogue Class teachers belonged to, and the more that Dana stared at it, the more that she loved it. She would be able to fight easily with a sword, reach any reagents or potions she needed for magical combat, and it was all Royal Rank silk, so most blades wouldn’t easily cut through it.
The outfit bonded once she took it from the box, and Dana equipped it with the hood and mask up.
“Rae, it’s beautiful.” Dana gasped as she examined herself.
Karl untied the wide black sash at her waist and retied it over the coat so that everything was held close to her body and all the storage pockets were accessible without shifting her clothing.
“There we go. That’s how Rae meant for it to look.” He explained before stealing one more kiss.
“Now I really look like an Assassin.” She noted, impressed with the improvement in functionality with the outfit rearranged.
[Tell her to put mana in the coat.]
“The coat should be enchanted, or magical somehow.” Karl explained.
Dana tried it, and found that it began to blend into her surroundings. Rae had managed to keep a little bit of her upgraded stealth ability on the silk after it was woven, so it blended with the colour of the fort’s silk. It wasn’t as good as when Rae was doing it herself, but when she was attacking in limited visibility, Dana would be extremely hard to track.
“Alright, we should head back. Breakfast will be ready soon, and then they will want us to go through the dungeon again before we take the rest of the day off.” Karl sighed.
“I will race you back.”
[And I will call Hawk here to burn the remains of the fort. That place is a biohazard.]
[Thanks, Rae.]
[Ooh, that was sarcasm, right Sister Rae?]
Karl ignored the ongoing banter between Rae and Remi as he brought up [Eternal Lightning] over both of them, both for the energy refreshing and the healing effects. Both effects were much stronger than when it was [Refreshing Lightning], and by the time that they were back in camp, their limited sleep last night didn’t matter, and they were in peak shape, ready for the big bosses of the three departments to come call them for a dungeon run.
If Karl had to guess, the healing rate of the [Eternal Lightning] skill didn’t match up to what Lotus’ area healing had accomplished at Ascended Rank, but it might have been a match for a constant stream of Awakened Rank healing. When it was combined with Remi’s new healing totems, they should be more than the area healing had done at Ascended. That was enough that the two beasts would actually be considered a proper healer in most groups, as the effect was on everyone and not just one target.
“Oh yes, I forgot one thing.” Karl informed her as they walked into the fort for breakfast.
“What’s that?” “Happy Birthday.”
His announcement got everyone’s attention, and they all turned to see Dana enter the tent in her new outfit.
“Is that what you made her? I like it. Full coverage for anonymity, functional, flexible, and durable.” Ruth complimented Rae’s handiwork.
Dana took her hood down and everyone noticed that her ponytail was tied with the pink silk ribbon from the parcel, giving her new look a bit of a girlish softness, even though it was blended in neutral tones that matched the ground and furniture in the tent.
Tessa and Morgana jumped up out of their chairs to grab her and turn her side to side, admiring the new outfit that Dana had gotten for her birthday. “That is incredible. I think that half of the Rogues in the Academy would kill for that, and that’s before you consider that it’s a Royal Rank stab proof outfit.” Ruth noted from her chair at the back of the room.
Tessa examined Dana’s legs and nodded in satisfaction. “It’s got Commander Rank leather as soles on the boots, and a wide heel. If you’re riding in a saddle, like I do on Thor, it would make for a much more stable position than a flat sole.”
She gestured to her own boots, which had a similar heel, and Rae clicked her mandibles together happily.
Everyone was praising her design features, and nobody had found a flaw in it yet. That had to mean that she had made a nearly perfect outfit. She was slowly becoming the greatest Bloodbath Spider in history. If she kept it up, maybe they would rename the species after her. The Rae Spider had a very nice ring to it, and it would remind people that she could do so much more than turn them into a bloodstain.
Not that she didn’t enjoy turning things into bloodstains, but it was far too limiting for a creature as majestic as she was.