"Still, you know more than all of us. Plus, you've got soul reading to your advantage," said Li. "Just try and talk to them. If things go well, great, if not, we can work from there."

"Aight, guess I'll try," said Azhar with a deferential nod. 

"Good." Li then said to everyone else, "It's good that you all left your weapons out, but the armor might still be a little intimidating. I'm not going to ask you to remove it, but just keep a friendly posture."

After receiving agreeing nods from everyone, Li said, "Here goes," while waving his hands, healing the beastwomen from their sleep status.

The beastwomen roused from their slumber bit by bit. The Feli took her furred and clawed hand, curling it into a paw like shape as she rubbed her eyes. The Serpi was slower to move, her forked tongue flitting out lazily as her body started to warm her cold blood for action. 

But when their senses came to them, the women immediately scrambled backwards until their backs. .h.i.t the farthest wall of the cottage with strong thuds. They were obviously panicked, their claws and fangs bared, but as they scanned their surroundings, seeing so many people around them, they did not lunge out aggressively. 

When their eyes met each other, they s.h.i.+fted away, evidently not liking the other as well.

"Work your magic," said Li as he lightly slapped Azhar's back, edging him forwards.

Azhar raised his hands in a non-threatening gesture as he inched forwards. He made sure to keep his eyes wide and focused on the beastwomen's eyes. As his eyes met the Feli's, a flash of recognition came between them, and he noticed this. 

He spoke to her. "Yer from the plains tribe, ain't ya? Can tell from yer golden mane. It's real full, too. Musta' gone through a lotta' fights." 

Li noted that the Feli's golden hair, though not a mane in the strictest sense, grew so wildly and thickly from her head that when it gathered around her neck, it did almost seem like a mane. 

"Plainsman," said the Feli as she eyed Azhar's dark skin in recognition. "What you do here, with all the pink men?"

Unlike when she had lashed out at Li, the Feli was attempting to talk in the common human tongue, though it was evident she did not have the greatest grasp over the language. A good sign. It meant that she considered Azhar worth the effort to try and communicate with.

"Helpin' you," said Azhar. He waved to everyone in the room. "They're all good people. Like the caravan traders that come with gifts and food, y'know? We wanna' help you like that."

"Don't trust trader." The Feli narrowed her eyes suspiciously as she crossed her arms, covering herself up. "Trader offer food. Trader takes me."

"A trader kidnapped you?" Azhar c.o.c.ked his head. "That ain't a mane grown outta' doin' nothin'. You've killed plenty to grow it out like that. Ain't a regular ol' trader gonna' do anythin' to ya."

"No regular." The Feli waved her hands and wriggled her fingers, imitating casting magic. "Pink men use strange magic. Like her kind."

The Feli jutted a claw out to the Serpi who glared at the Feli in response. But aside from that, the Serpi did not say anything, instead flitting her eyes from side to side, eyeing the situation before her. Her ghostly pale face held a concentrated expression upon it, quite similar to the kind that Sylvie made when she was planning.

"Well, there ain't no strange magic here," said Azhar. "Just us and our honest words, swear on my heart."

"On your heart? You swear?" 

Azhar put a fist to his chest and nodded. "Yeah, on my heart. Ya can feel free to tear it out and gobble it up as a snack if my words ain't true."

"I can trust plainsman oath." Feli glanced over at everyone else, her narrowed eyes oozing suspicion. "But pink men always break oath. Word means nothing to them. Cannot trust them, do not know why you are with them."

"I'm with em' cause' they're gonna' help you. Might be hard to believe, but ya can still trust me, yeah?" said Azhar. 

"Plainsmen never break word," agreed the Feli. It was evident that the beastwoman highly valued the worth of an oath, and Li figured that it was a common trait across her whole culture and species.

"Then I guarantee so long as yer with me, there ain't nothin' that's gonna' happen to ya," said Azhar. "We're way outta' the hinterlands, right in a city, so it's gonna' be real hard for ya to run yer way out. Stay with me, listen to my words, and I'll have ya back home, okay?"

"Run? No." The Feli hissed, offended at the suggestion. "Trader take sister also. I find her. Kill traders. Then go home."

"Trust me, all of us are gonna' help ya with that," said Azhar. "I swear it."

"You make oaths very quick."

"Not cause' I don't take em' seriously, but cause' I'm absolutely confident that everyone here is gonna' help you." Azhar pointed to Jeanne and Sylvie. "Them there are my own family. My sisters." He motioned to Launcelot and his posse. "Don't like the way he look, but he's fought together with me before." He s.h.i.+fted his finger to Li, Old Thane, and Tia. "And thems the ones that found ya in the first place."

"Hm. I will listen. But you swear already on heart. To make me believe, you must swear more."

"I ain't got much more to offer."

The Feli pointed her claw to Sylvie and Jeanne. "You say sisters? Then swear on their heart too."

Azhar paused before glancing back at the two. They nodded, giving him their approval.

"Aight, them too," said Azhar. "Only fair I wager my own blood when yer own's on the line." 

With that, the Feli finally relaxed just a little. She reached a hand out to Azhar's arm, and as the claws dug into his shoulder, Sylvie and Jeanne s.h.i.+fted their postures from seated to half-standing, fully alert. 

"Sit down, you two," said Azhar as the claws broke his skin, drawing out blood. "Just sealin' my words in blood. A regular ol' Feli thing."

The Feli withdrew her bloodstained claws. She put one of them in her mouth, licking it clean. "Honest taste. Good."

The blood on her fingers then flitted upwards, swirling into a tiny sphere of crimson that floated in mid air. The Feli stared at it with the utmost concentration.

"I call upon the Old Panther of the Hunt to forge this oath," she said in her own language. To Li, it sounded clear and powerfully resonant, but to the others, it must have sounded like an incomprehensible and fierce growl. "Bind these words in blood, bind the blood to mine."

The sphere of blood floated over to Azhar's shoulder, splas.h.i.+ng onto it and forming into a sigil the shape of three jagged lines. Very reminiscent of a claw mark. 

Li nodded, understanding that this was a spell he recognized. [Blood Pact], as it was called. In game, all it did was it sacrificed some health to boost a user's stats, but that was because the game could not capture the complexity of the lore. In reality, it was a pact blessed by Khonsu, dark G.o.d of the hunt and one of the four that Li had interacted with in Valhul, meant to give power to one's words. 

In game, the idea was that the character swore to fight to his last breath, to fight with all he had, and bind that oath to Khonsu and thus be forced to fight to extremes lest he be killed for breaking his oath. Here, though, the pact was far more flexible, it seemed, capable of being used to make sure oaths were never broken.

Though, if Li theorized correctly, any sufficiently powerful cleansing spell could remove the pact's conditions. But considering that [Blood Pact] was a B ranked spell, it would be rather difficult for a an average denizen of this world to have a cleansing spell strong enough. 

"Alright, that's settled," said Azhar. "Now are ya finally more comfortable?"

The Feli nodded. "For now."

The cottage began to shake. The Feli hissed as she leaped to Azhar's side on all fours, her back arching. She stared at the Serpi who had begun to channel magic of her own.

"You use your divine magic to parlay with the humans? You of the Old Panther have lost your ways," said the Serpi in her language. Her hands were held to her sides and her fingers spread wide open, curls of black magical energy willowing around them. Her eyes were glossed over with a sheen of bright red light. 

"Strange magic," said the Feli. 

Everyone in the cottage immediately began to move defensively, and Tia stopped chewing on her gigantopede leg and hurried behind Li.

"But I will make no such mistake," continued the Serpi. "Undoing my mental restraints was a foolish mistake, humans. Now, the Wise Serpent will grant me power and guidance to free mine self. She shalt see through mine eyes and cast judgement upon all of thee."

Li waved everyone down as he walked over to the Serpi. Sure enough, there was strong magical energy pressuring out from her, powerful enough that none of the adventurers could easily approach the Serpi.

It was evident that the beastmen practiced magic based upon the four G.o.ds, and perhaps because it was based by faith, the magic exceeded the limitations of their levels, allowing them to cast spells beyond their means.

Li did not know what spell the Serpi was casting yet, but he had heard enough to act.

"Your G.o.ddess will see through your eyes, you say?" said Li in the Serpi's language. 

The Serpi s.h.i.+ed backwards as Li easily resisted the magical pressure, as if it was not even there to begin with. But her faith in her G.o.ddess was strong enough that she persisted in continuing the spell. An offensive one, likely, but what it was really did not matter. 

"Okay then," said Li. He knelt so that he was at eye level with the Serpi. He leaned forwards and whispered to her so that she was the only one to hear. "Zahaka, right? Then tell her to get a good look at me." 

With that, the magical energy pressuring the room faded in an instant. The red sheen covering the Serpi's eyes disappeared and the black curls of magic broke apart around her fingers. 

"W-what is the meaning of this!?" stammered the Serpi in her language as she slid back even further, pressing her back flat against the cottage wall as a panic-stricken expression formed on her face. She looked at Li with terror, her pale skin becoming even paler. "Wise Serpent, where hast thou strength gone? Why hast thou abandoned me?"

Li shook his head and smiled at the Serpi, putting a comforting hand on her bare, slender shoulder. "She hasn't abandoned you. She's just entrusted you into my care. You follow what I have to say, and you'll be safe, just as your G.o.ddess would want you to be. Got it?" 

The Serpi nodded weakly, and Li gave her shoulder one more rea.s.suring squeeze before turning to everyone else. 

"And that settles it. Looks like we're all on the same page," said Li as he ignored the awed expressions zoned in on him.