Mantle of the Gods

I couldn’t carry nearly as much fruit as I wanted.

I would have lugged a bag ten times the size of my sling bag if I would have had room. Considering the tree was on the dungeon wall, that ensured that it’d be easy to find again. The downside was logistics. My sling bag could carry about a dozen pieces of fruit. Considering that each of us could eat two to three pieces of fruit per meal, that meant we’d need almost seventeen pieces of fruit for just one meal. I sat down on the ground and stared at the open bag in front of me. We could try to carry fruit in our arms, but the moment we got attacked, we were all going to have to drop it. I didn’t know how far we were from our camp, but I couldn’t imagine that we’d be able to get back without another fight.

Also, we’d only defeated fourteen monsters. We still had five hours of light left and we could beat at least fifteen more monsters. We could defeat the monsters faster than we were, the main limiting factor was finding them.

“Take off your jumpsuit.”

I looked up to see who was talking and saw Aelin looking at me.

“Huh?”

“I said, take off your jumpsuit.” She repeated.

I looked over at Justia for help, but my Priestess seemed content to let me handle this one.

“Why?”

“Because that bag isn’t going to hold enough and we need to carry more.” Aelin pointed at me, “We can tie the arms and legs to make a bag to put more fruit in.”

“Why me?” I was starting to feel self-conscious about being singled out.

“Because you’re a guy.” The blonde stated, “You’ve got shorts on under that.” Her eyes sparkled with a mischievous dare, “Or do you think one of us girls needs to strip down?”

The implication got my eyes to move down to her breasts and quickly moved to look anywhere else.

“I will.”

Aelin and I turned as Ether began taking off her jumpsuit.

I hadn’t realized just how beautiful our red-eyed tank was. She had been wearing a factory jumpsuit when I had first met her, then most of the rest of the time she’d been in the same blue jumpsuit that we were all wearing. Even last night, when she had been half-naked on my lap, it had been too dark to see anything.

As she finished shedding the jumpsuit to stand proudly in nothing but a sports bra and boy shorts, I couldn’t help but feel awed by her.

“Wow.”

Everyone looked at me and I realized I had used my outside voice for that.

“I mean, you look incredible.”

Ether blushed, but kept her arm outstretched, “Here.”

“I-, Uh…” Aelin stammered as she took the jumpsuit, “Still need yours.” She looked at the other two women, “Unless one of you wants to volunteer to flirt with Sir Creepyeyes.”

“Why?” I asked, “Who is going to carry the other one?”

“They can three-man it.” She pointed at herself, then to me, “You’ll carry one and I’ll carry the other.”

She had a point, so I started shucking my jumpsuit.

Ether whistled.

“Me-ow!” Aelin laughed, “Who brought the dollar bills?”

I tried to ignore the heat in my cheeks and the fire on my ears as I pulled off the rest of the jumpsuit. I turned around and held it out.

“Whoa.” Aelin said as she took the clothes from me, “Somebody works out.”

Four years of carrying, squatting with, and tossing heavy bags full of crystals had strengthened my body and given me a little definition. The mantle had enhanced what I already had, giving me well-defined chiseled abs.

“Let’s get this over with.” I muttered as I met eyes with Justia. There was no pleasure on her face, just annoyance.