Hyacinth hugs her so close.

"Okay," she says. "What all did you learn?"

"Well," she starts. "She's an SAI named May, though I get the feeling that's not supposed to be spread around. She can observe most things that happen in the game — and has seen a lot of sex as a result, though I get the impression that she doesn't mean to watch people so much as just catches it incidentally while keeping track of how people are doing. She explicitly said she prefers when people have kinky deaths they enjoy over traumatic deaths in war, too."

"That's, um. Good. Good to hear." 

Hyacinth ducks her head and snuggles into Sable a little more. 

"It sounds like we should head for the city then..."

She grins and nods. "Yep. Things are coming together for our little plan."

"Yeah, they really are..."

Hyacinth snuggles back against Sable and smiles.

"So I'm thinking we stay overnight and head off in the morning?"

"I think so, yeah," Sable agrees with a smile. "The one question I have is whether you and Hailey want to try things tonight, or focus on being careful on the hike tomorrow and the next day until we get to Cordova."

"Let's focus on being careful. Cordova is only two days away, and we have warding stakes. I don't want to have to explain blood."

Sable nods. "Makes sense. I figure we could consider rentals in Cordova if there are month-to-month options, and otherwise head closer to the capital with bigger cities still."

"Ideally," Hibiscus says, "We get some specialized sheets, or lock a cleaning charm of some kind. A cleaning charm's probably worth the point just in general."

"Hmm. There should definitely be a way to build it. At a guess it would be... a node for a material-filtered effect, one for vanishing the target, and maybe a filterable radial burst node? Or something like that? Would be in your trees, for sure. I don't have the radial options at all."

"I am fairly sure I do not want to make an effect that vanishes all the blood in a burst. That seems like it would be inimical to the continuation of life."

Sable laughs and shakes her head. "No indeed. Good point. Probably environmental conditions like whether it's exposed outside the body need a separate node, yeah."

"I think a touch targeting node might solve the problem. Cleaning sheets by running my hand over the bloodstains wouldn't be too bad, and might save me a lot of annoying filtering."

She hums thoughtfully, then nods. "Yeah, I think that would work. Probably see how many other assorted varieties of contaminants you can cram into the material filter while you're at it, but that should do."

"In the long term, that material filtering node could be pretty generally useful. Selecting your target is just a good ability."

Hibiscus rolls over and kisses Sable softly.

"Hmmmmm." She tilts her head. 

She kind of wants her, and she kind of doesn't. It's been three days in a row, Hya probably wants to take a break... But she's never had a chance to come out to play before... But she's completely short of tools here...

"I wonder if I want to mess around with you."

A wry smile stretches across Sable's face as she returns the kiss. "You certainly could. We had been talking about playing around with the hypnotic effects of your meditation assist ritual, too."

"Ooh. Seems fun. Let's try it."

Sable quickly unequips her armor, boots, and sword, leaving her in just her trousers and blouse. "Sure," she replies with a playful grin. "How do we start this?

"Let me see..." 

Hibiscus consults her inner ritual sense a little, de-equips her own armor, and pulls a heaping handful of dried rosemary out of her inventory. 

"I have an instinctive sense of how to do this, but I don't know how much it'll mesh with this world's rules of magic. We'll learn as we go along."

She looks at the bed. "Probably we want to do this on the floor, I'll be scattering rosemary and I expect it'll end up everywhere."

She nods and scoots off the bed, sitting down cross-legged on the floor. "I trust you to figure it out."

"Alright."

She gets off the bed and stands over Sable, the rosemary still in her hands. She activates the Ritual node, and a little of her mana flows into the rosemary in her hands. 

"Rosemary, rosemary, clarion bright,

bring my lover guile tonight, 

brighten her mind, renew her soul

make her memory swift and whole."

So chanting, Hibiscus scatters the small herbs in a loose circle around Sable, then returns with one last piece of rosemary. She gently presses open Sable's mouth and lays the last fragment on Sable's tongue, then sits cross-legged before her in the circle and takes her hands. 

"Rosemary wind, rosemary weave, 

bind her bright, make her believe

her knit of spells is light and bright;

Rosemary, give her guile tonight." 

She leans in, and very gently kisses her girlfriend. 

She returns the kiss tenderly, lingeringly, the rosemary imparting an tingly feeling that's somehow both in her tongue and in the flavor of her thoughts, then absently swallows the sprig of rosemary. Her lips feel so much more sensitive.

The world falls away a bit around her, and the ability builder opens up.

She can feel how to guide her, more with unspoken thoughts than words...

Here. See it. This node here, this node there...

(Her tongue is tangling with Sable's somewhere far away.) 

Working together, Sable and Hibiscus swiftly assemble an assistive parry passive. It feels elegant to assemble it, almost like dancing, each piece slotting gracefully into place and suggesting the next.

At the same time, the kiss continues, filling Sable with warmth and tender excitement.

It feels intricate and right, like a puzzle piece slotting into place. 

When the ability is done, Hibiscus pulls back and breathes slowly. Her whole body feels warm and flushed. She gives Sable a deeply amorous look.