Two armies gathered on what was a wheat field, neither side had really wanted to fight here, but flanks needed to be covered. On one side, a mercenary company, humans. On the other, skirmisher’s from the claimant’s army. On one side, a company standard flew in the wind: crimson, yellow, and an azure sword. On the other, the heraldry of the Royal Family of Ch’Tern’K.

This particular kingdom was a kingdom of people infused with elemental spirits. The element they are infused with is a rite of passage among their culture, being done when becoming a true adult. This infusion often caused many physical changes in the person.

None of this mattered as the two sides cautiously approached each other, trying to corral each other into a worse position, but nowhere in the field was better than the other. The tall wheat was chest high to one man: Hisydran. His short brown beard peaked out from under his sallet as he gripped his partisan. A frustrated sergeant shouted something and his formation moved forward. The other side also moved forward. Hisydran’s formation stopped moving just in time for the lines to meet.

Y’Sor held onto her sword tightly. It was a relic that had been in her family for a few generations. She didn’t want to use it, but here she was. She gripped it as she swung against the spears, the blade humming as it cleft cleanly through the wooden hafts of the enemy’s weapons. There were confused yelps and gasps from the mercenaries as Y’Sor’s allies moved in behind her, spears piercing through the first line. When spears pushed back through, Y’Sor stopped to use her meager healing abilities to triage her allies as the rest of the formation advanced.

The two formations pushed against each other from the morning to when the sun was highest, the mercenaries making slightly more gains as they were a more disciplined fighting force. Eventually, Hisydran found himself looking down a cut spear as Y’Sor stepped toward him. Suddenly, the ground trembled. Hisydran ducked, and ducked, and was suddenly looking up at his opponent. Y’Sor swung her sword at the man in front of her, downward to just knock him out. Her sword swung down, and down, and down, until she was looking down, but straight forward at the man.

A great chasm had opened beneath the fighting, swallowing most of the field and everyone in it. Only the outermost flanks were spared, and they quickly fled back to their camps. The farmer was especially upset. Chunks of rock and stone and dirt fell far down, some still had fights on them, interspersed with people in freefall.

Fortunately, for some, this cavern had a lake at the bottom. Unfortunately, Hisydran didn’t know how to swim. Weapons, rocks and people plunged into the lake. Hisydran splashed in panic as the weight of his armor counteracted any attempt to swim. A hand grabbed him and pulled him onto a rock with surprising strength. It was Y’Sor. In a blind panic, Hisydran pulled out his seax, the blade almost as long as his forearm, and pointed it at Y’Sor. Y’Sor spit out another mouthful of mud and grabbed her sword from behind her, spinning in one motion and slapping the knife out of his hand and into the water, trimming the bottom of his beard in the process. She held the sword up before Hisydran kicked her in the gut, she threw the pommel into his chest. He groaned and tried to sweep her leg, taking the opportunity to draw his boot knife. She hopped over it, punched his arm which made him drop his knife, and grabbed the rim of his helmet. In one swift motion, with a surprising amount of strength, she plunged him into the water. Only for a moment as a burst of bubbles came up around his head.

“STOP” Y’Sor cried, “FIGHTING” she pulled his head up when she spoke and dunked it between words. It seemed to be enough, and Hisydran stopped flailing, and tapped her hand several times. She pulled him up and hurled him onto his back, sputtering water from his mouth. Immediately, Y’Sor was upon him, her sword gently slicing through his beard without touching his neck. Hisydran’s purple eyes shot through his visor in fear at Y’Sor’s yellow eyes.

“SURRENDER.” Y’Sor said, her voice’s echo lost in the chamber.

“I submit!” Hisydran said. There was a moment of silence, punctuated by the splashing of rocks.

“Good. I hate fighting.” Y’Sor said.

“Strange talk for a soldier.” Hisydran replied.

“I’m not a soldier, you are.” Y’Sor said

“I– I hate fighting too.” Hisydran confessed

“Strange talk for a mercenary.” Y’sor shot back. Hisydran said nothing in return, his eyes tracing the pooling water that ran off him. Hisydran sat up against the rock.

“Thanks for saving me… I can’t swim.” Hisydran said. Eyes cast down at the choppy water. The cavern had gone silent for the most part now. Looking up, he could barely make out anything above him, the opening letting in enough light to fully illuminate the rubble island they were on and blinding him from seeing out in the noon sun. Y’Sor didn’t say anything for a escort beşiktaş while, then got up and left. Hisydran closed his eyes.

“Looks like you’re stuck here.” Y’Sor spoke, returning to where he lay

“I’m stuck?” Hisydran asked, jolting awake. His hands instinctively grabbed for his boot knife, which was gone now.

“Yea, this is all rubble from above. Can’t get very far without hitting water twice taller than you are.” Y’Sor sat across from him.

“And you came back to tell me?” Hisydran asked, taking in Y’Sor. She was taller than him, and she was beautiful. He found himself enamored by her citrine eyes and stout legs. Though the rest of her was just as captivating.

“I saved your life, remember, so for now, you owe me.” Y’Sor said, “So try not to stare too much. And, I can’t see a way up from here. Wanted to let you know before I swam to shore.” Y’Sor replied, leaping into the water and deftly swimming away.

“Wait!” Hisydran said, too late for Y’Sor to hear him. He scowled at the water before standing and wandering around the island. He sighed, “I’ve done it this time. I couldn’t stand to be an apprentice back home. Had to go into the city to become a tutor, try to be a scientist. Then you go and get drunk after trying to get some dates, and what? You get picked up and sign a contract with some mercenary company fighting a war. Now, you’re here.” He kicked a rock, scuffing the sabaton over his boot, a tinge of anxiety ran through him from the two months of express training he went through. “Stuck on this rock,” He took both sabatons off, “Stuck in this cavern” he threw them as hard as he could. They landed with two plunks and sank quickly. “And going to die slowly and painfully on these rocks.” He walked a little further over the rough terrain and found himself back where he began. He stared at the water again. So many of his friends could swim, but not him. “And that woman has condemned me to death here.” Y’Sor was right, he had spoken strangely for a mercenary. He sat down and wept for some time, unsure what to do or what to try to do.

“Good, you’re still here. Do you know how to cook?” Y’Sor surged up suddenly from the water, again startling Hisydran.

“You came back?” Hisydran said, face now red.

“Well, I can’t get out, and I didn’t like the idea of abandoning you here while you owe me.” Y’Sor said, plopping down a few fish and some wood. She waved her hand and made some gestures, and the water that had soaked into it while she swam seemed to all sweat out of it. Hisydran looked at the fish and the wood.

“I can cook.” he said, “Can you start a fire?”

“No,” Y’Sor replied, standing up over him. “But, I found this pack on one of your friends.” Y’Sor dropped a pack from her shoulder.

“A survival pack.” Hisydran said, “I had left mine at camp, didn’t think I’d need it.” Hisydran said as he fished out a tinder box. ” I, uh, need to use a knife to make some kindling.”

“No, I’ll make it.” Y’Sor said, picking up her sword. It hummed lightly as she shed off strips of wood for kindling. Hisydran noticed she seemed to be more focused on making shallow cuts than pushing the blade through the wood. He took the kindling and quickly made a fire. “What’s your name?”

“Uh, Hisydran. But just ‘Dran” will do, if you want. We also need to clean these fish, I can do it if you’ll let me use a knife.” Hisydran said.

“Well, Hisedrin,” Y’Sor tried to pronounce his name, “Hysdran. Hisidrin. Dran. Well Dran, I don’t know how to clean a fish, so go ahead.” Y’Sor pulled a small knife from a pouch on her belt and handed it to him. “Removed it before you even saw the bag.”

“I see,” Dran said, starting to clean the fish, “Well, seeing as you’re now my master, what should I call you?”

“Y’Sor is fine.”

“Y’Sor is a fine name… It’s Ch’Tekdan, isn’t it?”

“It is, how did you know?”

“I used to study many things, before I was a mercenary; are you part of the ones that get infused with magic when you become adults?”

“You know an awful lot, yes.”

“I found it fascinating. Magic is very rare in my land, so having it so mundane as to have all adults be infused? I wanted to learn all I could, which led me to learning and studying all sorts of things.” Dran elaborated as he skewered fish and started roasting them. “What type of magic are you infused with?”

“Well,” Y’Sor said, “It’s not just ‘magic’ we are infused with elemental forces, though I am part of a group that have been trying to refine this so we can go beyond just the classical elements.” Y’Sor happily explained, “For instance, to answer your question, I am infused with a spirit of Life.” Dran raised his eyebrows

“My favorite part of being a scholar is that there is always more to learn.” He said, “Or, at least, when I was a scholar.” He rolled the roasting fish, making sure it was evenly cooked

“Maybe you can be one again someday.” Y’Sor said. Looking at him thoughtfully.

“If escort nişantaşı I ever get out of here.” Dran replied, handing her the skewer he had been cooking, and then started cooking on one for himself. He chuckled a little and shook his head.

“I think getting off this cluster of rock will be the hard part, looked like a lot of tunnels and caves all over this cavern.” Y’Sor paused, “And some looked even artificial.” Y’Sor continued, almost as if goading him into wanting to leave.

“Yes, but I can’t swim, so unless you carry me to shore, I’m stuck here.” Dran looked over at the lake for a moment.

“I could carry you.” Y’Sor said, part of my Life infusion is that I can temporarily change things about bodies, or heal them.” Y’Sor said, flexing her arms before making a series of gestures with her hands. Suddenly, the muscles of her arms grew to thrice their size, before gradually returning to their previous size. Dran was speechless. “During the battle, I was using my powers to triage the wounded. Mostly closing wounds, as I didn’t have the time or ability there to stop internal wounds or mend bones.”

“You’re truly a wonder, Y’Sor.” Dran said, starting to eat his own food after removing his helmet and gorget. He looked back over at the discarded heads of the fish. “You notice something about these fish?”

“What? They’re fish?” Y’Sor replied, looking at them.

“They have eyes.” Dran said, “Which means they come from somewhere there is light, as cave fish have no eyes.”

“So, there must be a way for them to traverse to the surface!” Y’Sor replied excitedly

“Exactly! So we could possibly follow their path, assuming it’s big enough.”

“I think given the size of this cavern, and the lake, that there must be at least one waterway large enough. Though I think the bigger problem would be getting you through the water.” Y’Sor chewed a bite of fish, “Since you can’t swim”

“Well, maybe you can use your magic to drag me along behind you.” Dran suggested.

“Perhaps.” Y’Sor replied, finishing her fish. “You get a cute look on your face when you’re postulating like that.”

“Heh, it might not be right to… flirt with your prisoner.” Dran said, his face flushing red slightly. “Though, you get a similarly cute look when you talk about your infusion.”

“I suppose I can allow you to flirt with me.” Y’Sor blushed slightly, “Though I don’t think it’ll get you better treatment.” Y’Sor winked. Dran blushed a little more.

“I believe I’m already getting the best treatment I can.” Dran replied, setting aside his empty skewer. “But, what after we get out?”

“I suppose, if my side won the battle, you shall remain my prisoner.” Y’Sor said, standing and looking over the span from the island to the shore. “And if your side won, I can be your prisoner.”

“An interesting thought.” Dran said, “But I think your side won. No way my company would stay after the field collapsed.”

“Then it’s settled, you’ll remain my prisoner. Let’s get moving.” Y’Sor grinned and held out her hand as her body flexed with new muscles. Dran put his helmet back on and took her hand. She handily slung him onto her beck and leapt into the water. Dran guessed she might have skipped half the swim, and within a few strokes they were on the opposite shore. She walked up on the shore and Dran dropped off her back as she returned to her normal size.

“That wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. Thought you would be struggling to hold me up. Though, I doubt you’ll be able to carry me like that out of here.” Dran chuckled.

“I think your skepticism is not based on any evidence.” Y’Sor replied

“Now you’re just trying to flirt with me.” Dran averted his gaze and rang water out of his beard.

“More baseless accusations.” Y’Sor smirked, out of his view. She looked around where they stood. “None of these caves look promising.”

“That’s because there isn’t water flowing out of any of them.” Dran remarked scanning the far side of the cavern. He spied a short, wide opening with shallow water flowing out of it. “That is our exit, probably.” Dran started walking, then stopped and looked back at Y’Sor, who quickly strode ahead of him. He resumed walking along behind her. She stopped, and then Dran stopped.

“Shouldn’t you be ahead? I do have to keep an eye on you as my prisoner.” Y’Sor said, waving her head to gesture Dran ahead of her.

“Of course.” he replied, doing as instructed. The two reached the cave opening, Dran went right inside, his hamlet only rarely scraping the ceiling. Y’Sor had to stoop to enter the short space. “It seems being smaller has finally come in handy for once.” Dran commented as they splashed along in the swift but shallow water. The hobnails on Drans boots made gaining traction a bit difficult, he found himself struggling to make forward progress.

“Those boots doing you any favors?” Y’Sor called to him. She had ditched her shoes and had escort etiler modified her feet to better grip the smooth, wet stone and was stood right behind Dran.

“Can’t say they are, but I don’t know if my feet would do any better.” Dran said, narrowly preventing himself from falling. Y’Sor grabbed his arm to steady him. “I am making progress on my own.”

“Barely.” Y’Sor replied, “Just let me help you a little so this doesn’t take forever.” Dran consented and the two made quicker progress along the tunnel.

After several hours of slogging along, the two came to an opening along the river.

“Can we take a rest? This has been exhausting.” Dran asked

“Yes, let’s take a break.” Y’Sor agreed. The two slumped down on the hard dry stone and caught their breath. Dran stripped his boots and socks off.

“We still have the fire making supplies?” Dran asked, eager to dry off and warm up. Y’Sor nodded, handing him the pack. He shredded off some kindling and got a small fire going. It wasn’t much, but was enough to ensure the two of them were able to get mostly dry. At least dry enough. Dran sat against the wall while Y’Sor laid next to the fire, he held his arms crossed over his chest, staring at the rushing water, his mind running at the same pace about what might happen once they escape the cave. Y’Sor seemed nice, she hadn’t beaten him more than necessary, and she had flirted with him. He shook his head, glancing over at her, a silhouette against the dim embers of the fire. He wondered why she had done all she had for him. “What do you want?” he said to himself under his breath.

“I just want to go home, from this war, from all this killing.” Y’Sor said, rolling over, her silhouette highlighted by the glow of the embers, “To go back to my friends, my life before this, to the calm.” she continued, “Do you want peace? Or are you taking advantage of my peace to return to killing?”

“No.” Hisydran replied, curled up against the wall, he was still afraid of Y’Sor on a level. “No, I… I want peace. I want to go back to my studies, I want to return to- I don’t want to return to my old home, I want to go somewhere I can call home. I don’t want to fight, but I couldn’t control where I was going.” Hisydran said, looking down from Y’Sor’s eyes, arms tight around his knees.

“If we get out of this cave, I can help you have that life you want.” Y’Sor said, drawing close to him, “We can return to my home, after that, you can study or leave for a new home, or even stay with me, if you so desire.” Y’Sor’s words trailed off slowly as she spoke, almost a whisper by the end.

“Do you want me to stay with you?” Hisydran looked up to her eyes, at least, their glint in the darkness. His teeth clenched and his arm tensed.

“Yes.” Y’Sor replied, “There is a certain honesty to what you say, and a desperate tension when you speak of returning.” she elaborated. “Even now, I want to comfort you, to let you know that I am earnest in my desire to see you freed of your life of violence.”

“I… would like to be comforted.” Hisydran said, relaxing from his tension.

“Then join me by the remains of the fire, we can both be warm, if just for a little while.” Y’Sor said, sitting back and rubbing her hand on the smooth ground next to her. Hisydran slowly crawled over, still apprehensive about the situation. He sat next to her and she put her arm around him. It was immediately comforting, he felt another wave of tension ease out of his body, one he hadn’t been aware of before. “Feeling comforted yet?” Y’Sor asked. Hisydran nodded, leaning into her. Y’Sor turned her chest slightly to allow his head to lay on her, and gently touched his hair. She pulled her hand away for a moment.

“It’s fine, please.” Hisydran said softly, and Y’Sor’s fingers intertwined with his hair, gently massaging his scalp. Hisydran let out a low, content moan and fully relaxed into her embrace, smiling to himself. He felt the elation of her touch throughout his body. “Are you doing something to me, with your Life magic?” Hisydran asked

“No, if you feel something, it is just from my touch. Are you enjoying it?” Y’Sor replied with a smirk. She reached across herself and placed her other hand on Hisydran’s chest.

“I am enjoying it, very much.” Hisydran leaned in closer to Y’Sor’s face. Y’Sor leaned closer to him. Both closed their eyes and shared a kiss. They pulled away for a moment, then kissed again. Hisydran put his arms around Y’Sor, pulling her close. Their breathes were deep and desperate and their mouths remained in contact. Their hands trace all over each other. Hisydran pulled away. “I want you, here, now.” he said.

“I want you too, let’s do it.” Y’Sor replied quickly. The dark only made removing clothes slightly harder. Hisydran had barely gotten his pants to ankles when Y’Sor pulled him back to her with a yelp. They resumed kissing for only a moment.

“I want to fuck you.” Hisydran moaned into her ear

“I want you to fuck me.” Y’Sor replied, her strong hands moved down to Hisydran’s erect cock and guided him into her. Once inside her, they resumed making out while he moved his hips back and forth slowly, then faster. He his face and nestled against her neck, gently nibbling between thrusts. As they went on, Hisydran slowed down slightly and Y’Sor suddenly spoke up.

Nissi

Wendy lay on the examination table–more of a padded slab, really–while I prepped my equipment. I wrapped a piece of surgical tubing around her upper arm and she opened and closed her hand without being asked. We’d been doing this same procedure about every other day. When I picked up the blood draw kit, a needle with tubing for attaching collection vials, she closed her eyes tightly, just like always. Wendy hated needles.

I filled up three vials with her blood and set them aside, then prepped her gene therapy injection. For months, I had been slowly and methodically altering the DNA throughout her body. The protocol that I had developed with my collaborators on the darknet was designed to give her body a chance to adapt to incremental changes in protein synthesis, metabolism, and cell growth. Our initial therapies had removed the developmental blocks that kept her at pre-adolescence, allowing a hormone cascade to begin changing her from a child into an adult, a process that we accelerated as much as we could safely manage, while introducing her gene therapy regimens in stages.

Wendy’s body had responded beautifully. Her Standard Upgrade fertility mods kept her from ovulating and menstruating, but she was growing and developing rapidly. Her actual age was over forty, but her biological age had already increased from about ten to around fourteen in just eight months. We would complete the gene therapy treatments before the year was up, and by then she should be an adult in every way. I was looking forward to announcing our success on the darknet and making it available for ex-patriate Peter and Wendy mods in the overseas clinics we would open soon.

“All done,” I said, as I retracted the needle from her vein and pressed a piece of cotton over it to stop the bleeding. I didn’t bother with taping it. There was no blood flowing after just a minute.

“Good, I’m starving,” she said, and hopped down from the table.

Eight months ago, it had been nearly a two-foot drop for her. Now it was only half that distance. She had a ravenous appetite, mostly due to her accelerated growth. Fortunately, with the greenhouse fully restored and our revenue from the Agora marketplace, keeping everyone fed hadn’t been a concern for some time.

Wendy stopped on her way toward the passageway to the house. She slowly turned to face me. “We talked about this once before,” she said. “I’d like to work with you here in the lab. I was planning to wait until my body’s done cooking, but I think I’m ready now.”

Before the Ban, Wendy had been a chemical engineer, working for a major pharmaceutical company. She had a deep understanding of drug and hormonal pathways, which could be a tremendous help as we developed new medical treatments.

“Alright,” I said. “If you’re ready.”

Wendy chuckled. “It’s just that I’m bored. I’ve been helping Stansy with the wedding plans, but we’ve basically got it all wrapped up now.”

The wedding was just fifteen days away. Stansy had found a minister in the Agency who was willing to perform the ceremony to marry Tilly, Norm, and me into a three-way union. The marriage wouldn’t be legal, strictly speaking, but we didn’t care. What we all wanted was the commitment, our mutual promise to remain together, no matter what. A ceremony, in front of our community, our family, was what we needed.

“Well, if you want to jump in, I’d say let’s start tomorrow morning.”

She nodded. “Perfect. I’ll catch you later, then.”

She hurried off to get breakfast, the thick security door clanging shut on her way out.

I began testing Wendy’s blood, looking for indications of problems in her hormone levels or indicators of poor liver function. As usual, all signs pointed to her being a healthy, growing teenage girl.

I spent the rest of the morning reviewing the research notes of my colleagues on the darknet. Since curing Nona of Alzheimer’s, we had found three additional subjects to test the same protocol. Two had responded well, their cells rejuvenating to a younger biological age, lost function returning as their brains healed. The third, an elderly man in Chile, had regenerated some of his lost brain tissue, but hadn’t fully recovered, suggesting that something about his condition was different from the others. My research team was working with the team in Chile to pinpoint the problem.

Nock had sent me several updates. He had negotiated a deal to open our first clinic in Bangkok in the fall, pending the outcome of the trials I had just been going over. Thailand was not a signatory of the Berlin Accords, so genetic engineering was nominally legal. It wasn’t that the little country was some hotbed of genetic research but more about them thumbing their noses at the rules that the US and Germany tried to impose on the rest of the world.

Still, it was a dangerous game we were all playing. Once word got out that there was a clinic that could cure Alzheimer’s, I could see international pressure coming escort şişli down on the Thailand government for experiments in genetic manipulation. The gamble was that the country would see an explosion of medical tourism that would bring both wealth and goodwill into the region. It was hopefully a start towards loosening the grip that the US-German alliance had on most of the rest of the world.

The next big update was something we’ve been waiting weeks for. We had finally gotten the information that Tilly’s mother had promised us. She had done exactly as she had planned, dead-dropping a storage device for an Agency person to find. They had sent us the full contents over the darknet, and my colleagues were already digging into it and discussing the implications of what they saw, which were many.

Increasing intelligence isn’t easy. There’s a reason that it took decades for biotech companies to really start to move beyond what a small percentage of humans were already capable of. It isn’t just about adding greater processing power, increasing the number of neurons and possible synaptic connections, although that helps. Tilly’s genome incorporated crow DNA, resulting in smaller, more tightly packed neurons in her cerebral cortex. This both increased her brain’s computing power and slightly sped up processing speed.

However, intelligence also depends on the brain’s efficiency and connectedness, how different regions of the brain can be made to work together to solve a problem. The lesions that Gena’s brain had sustained in the reversion process were largely aimed at disrupting these neural networks, reducing her ability to integrate data across her cerebral cortex. One of the consequences of that had been a long convalescence as her brain learned how to operate with its new, less efficient architecture, adapting other areas of her brain to take over functions that had been disrupted.

The other type of damage the reversion had done had been aimed at particular regions of her brain, parts of her cognition that were optimized towards specific tasks. I already knew that we could repair the damage to her brain’s connectivity with stem cells, but these specialized regions had to be carefully reconstructed. That’s where I hoped that the data from Tilly’s mother could help us.

I opened the file and scanned through it. It was comprehensive, describing every feature of the G model and the various human genes that had been inserted, deleted, or modified to get the result that the engineers were after. This information alone was a treasure trove, as it could potentially allow us to create new Gs. They were rare, as the model had only been available for a short time before human gene editing had been outlawed. They were also expensive. And while there would be a delay to await their growth and development, Gs were universally known for being prodigies, able to operate at a high cognitive level from a young age.

Looking at my notes from my foreign colleagues actually dampened my optimism. Embryonic development of these brain structures was one thing. Promoting and directing their growth in vivo, in a living human adult, was something else entirely. There was no technology that currently existed that could do what we needed it to, forcing brain cells to grow into the unique structures described in the data dump.

When Gena arrived, I gave her the good news, but tempered it with my concerns.

“Okay,” she said, “how long do you think it might take to develop new therapies for this?”

I didn’t have an answer to that, but I did my best. “Years, possibly. My team is already working through the problems, but this is a lot more complicated than repairing the damage of Alzheimer’s. The G model brain is a work of art, and we have to try to fix what has been very deliberately broken in yours.”

“I understand,” she said, a little glumly. “Please do your best. I need my mind back, Nissi. Not just for myself. I could help all of us.”

Gena’s ongoing treatments were not dissimilar from Wendy’s. I had recently begun gene therapy to give her the enhancements of a Standard Upgrade. The drug pathway that triggered ovulation on demand had already been restored, but she’d confided in me that she and Nock wanted to wait before starting a family. Now we were moving on now to metabolic enhancements.

Unlike Wendy, who got anxious and went silent around needles, Gena chatted all through the procedures, telling me about her work on the mesh network, her excitement over the wedding, even current events on the outside that, since I’d been living on the farm, often seemed like they described some other world.

It was past noon when I finished and she went back to work at the west house. Norm hadn’t come to see me yet, I noted with a frown. Normally he made it a point to come down to the lab and bother me on his lunch break. I went up to the kitchen to make some food, then headed outside to find him.

On escort mecidiyeköy exiting the back of the house, I saw immediately what had kept him away. Someone had been operating one of the excavators, driving it downslope into the massive pit where the new living quarters were being built, but it had somehow overturned. It now lay sprawled out, like a half-squashed bug, the cab on the downhill side. Steve had brought their other excavator in, and they had attached chains to the fallen one to try to lever it back onto its treads. They had it balanced up on the edge of one tread, but judging by the sound of the yelling coming from the pit, things weren’t going well. Fortunately, it looked like no one had been hurt, and the equipment didn’t appear to be damaged except for one cracked window in the cab.

I could see what the problem was with their plan. With the excavator turned over and the cab on the downhill side, they couldn’t get the leverage they would need to pull it up upright using the other excavator from the uphill side. Instead, the overturned earth mover’s treads were just digging into the slope, causing the working excavator to pitch up each time it tried to back up.

“Looks like you guys could use some help,” I called, setting our sandwiches down on the little table that the crew used for breaks.

“Oh, good,” Norm yelled. “Maybe you and Stansy can lift it if you work together.”

“Smart ass,” I called back. “Does it still run?”

Stansy went around to the cab and climbed awkwardly in. The engine hesitated, but then started with a blast of black smoke.

“Stay there,” I called. “I’ll be right back.”

I came back a few minutes later with the pickup truck and bounced down the slope, coming to a stop on one side of the fallen digger, facing downhill.

“Alright, what’s your plan?” Norm asked, all business now as I jumped out and came over to them, getting a closer look at the minor disaster as I went.

I pointed to the truck. “We’ll hook up to the frame and connect to the front end of the excavator. Steve will lift it back up to get the cab off the ground and I’ll pull slowly downhill. Stansy will slowly, slowly move the track forward. With Steve holding it up and me pulling on the front, it should turn downhill. We’ll need you to coordinate our movements. I’ll move in a semicircle so we can turn it parallel to the slope, and then you should be able to pull it back upright.”

Steve, the only human on the team, spoke up. “You, uh, you know this thing weighs about thirty tons, right?”

I nodded. “I didn’t, but what’s important is the leverage. I’ll also be moving downhill, so gravity will help. I’ll need you to balance that thing up on one track as much as you can. It should take less force to get it turned downhill than it takes to tip it upright.”

Norm looked at Tia, Steve, and Stansy in turn, who each nodded their agreement or shrugged their indifference. “Alright, we’ll try it.”

We hooked up the chains and I got back in, putting out of my mind the thought that Tilly would kill me if I damaged her truck. Norm called out directions, first getting Steve to lift the excavator as far as it would go, which perched it on the edge of the tracks. Once it was in place, he ordered me to begin moving forward.

The engine revved as I slowly lowered the pedal. Just when it was close to red-lining and I thought I would have to let off and try something else, the vehicle surged forward. I cursed and let off the gas, but Norm yelled at me to keep going while signalling me to turn the wheel. I did as he instructed and the truck edged forward once more into a turn, moving in a more controlled manner as the excavator’s treads came unstuck from the dirt. Steve did an admirable job, turning with the fallen excavator while keeping it supported. It took us twenty minutes of starting, stopping, and re-evaluating, but once the thing was pointed downhill, Steve was able to pull it slowly the rest of its way up onto its treads.

Norm and Tia were looking the excavator over for damage when I approached. “It’ll need to be checked over by our mechanic,” Tia said, shaking her head ruefully. “I’ll give him a call.”

“No big deal,” Norm said. “It only sets us back a day or so.” He turned to me. “Thank you, love. That was good thinking.”

I sidled over and gave him a quick kiss. “Why not take a break, join me for lunch?”

I drove us back out of the pit and we sat together at the break table, enjoying our hummus sandwiches. Norm talked about his progress on what we’d started calling the bunker, the underground habitat that would be home to dozens of people once it was finished. It was slow going, though. With only five people on the job, it had taken months just to dig out the pit. They were working on the foundation now, but again, that would take months of work.

“It’s a paradox,” Norm said. “We need a lot more workers to get this job done quickly, escort taksim but we don’t have the space to house them, or the food to support them. We’ll need to break for winter–you can’t pour concrete in the cold–but even working all the rest of next year, I don’t see how we’ll finish before December next year. That’s two whole years, Nissi. And that’s assuming that Steve and Tia decide to stay on for that long. They might want to leave after the summer.”

“Well, Tilly’s aquaculture farm should be finished soon. If you want more workers, that should solve your food problem.”

Norm conceded that with a nod. “And I guess we could buy a bunch of tents or something.”

“Storms would be an issue,” I said. “Why not just put them in the barn? Or use the greenhouse. We could set up bunks in the central corridor. It might not be super comfortable, but it’ll keep the rain off.”

He looked at me askance. “You really think we should do this?”

“Why not? Like you said, at the rate you’re going, it’ll be another two years before you finish. If we get another dozen, maybe two dozen people helping, you train them up and maybe finish in months instead. And that gives us a bigger labor pool for other projects. We could build another greenhouse, maybe plant more grain and raise more livestock. That would generate more income, allow us to support more people and we could expand our operations even more.”

He stared into the distance for a moment, chewing his bite of food. “I don’t know if we want to get too big. We need to stay self-sufficient. No need to truck supplies in all the time. But even with that, the bigger we get, the greater the risk that the outside world finds us.”

I understood his reluctance. Stansy’s stunt last month had put us all on edge. Portland wasn’t that far away, and we didn’t know what kind of resources these hostile genemods possessed. As the weeks had gone by, we gradually relaxed. We had been lucky once more. Or maybe that was all SamIAm, still looking out for us. The enigmatic hacker hadn’t spoken to anyone since Norm had demanded answers from him, but he might still be protecting us, for all we knew.

“What’s our endgame here, Norm? What are we trying to accomplish? If the whole point was to stay hidden and safe, we should have stopped with the greenhouse. It was enough to support us indefinitely. So why didn’t we stop there?”

He shrugged. “I’ve never been content to sit idly and watch the world burn. That’s why I got involved with helping genemods. Especially after what they did to my sister.”

His tone had an edge of bitterness. I reached over and touched his hand. “I’m glad you two came to an understanding. She looks up to you, you know. But let’s get back to the question. Why are we always expanding? To what purpose?”

He thought for only a moment. “Because there’s a chance that we can make things better. Tilly, Ed, Stanley, and Dawn are working on a cure for Rot. You’re working on new medical cures. Stan, Gena, and Stanford are working on their communications network.”

“And you are working on the facilities to house the people who can help us push forward on those projects. And don’t forget all the people around the world that we’re leveraging to help us. The more we have here, the more we can convince others to join in. Also, we’re a symbol. Think of all those people trapped in safe houses, just waiting for the day that the FBI breaks down their door and drags them off to be… to be made into slaves like Stansy’s son. We’re like rock stars to those people. They look at what we’ve accomplished and it gives them hope, a reason to keep going.”

I could see from his thoughtful expression that I had shifted his perspective. Spending all your time staring down at the dirt could make you forget the big picture.

“Alright,” he said at last. “Tilly’s new farm is almost done, but it’ll take time for the plants to grow and the fish to mature. Months yet, if I recall correctly. But maybe we can speed things up. If we take on, say, twenty new people, pull them out of Agency safe houses and bring them here, then maybe we can get the Agency to divert additional food shipments as well, at least until we can stand on our own. Gena has her heart set on bringing in everyone who was caught because of her actions in California. I suppose we should start with them. We’ll just have to ensure that they understand they’ll be put to work.”

“I think that’s an excellent plan,” I said. “Maybe bring them in a few at a time so we can adjust. We might want to scale back our calorie rations for a while, try to build a bigger surplus.”

“I’ll get Nock on it. We’ve got the wedding coming up, but this is too important to wait. Our new facilities are going to be fantastic. Tilly plans to move all her work to the new lab, which will free up all of the old one for you to use. A few of our current residents are already talking about moving into the bunker. I would love it if we could get it finished this year.”

We quickly finished eating, and I gave him a hug and a kiss before I let him return to work. I decided not to head down to the lab just yet, swinging by Tilly’s work site to see how things were going. I hadn’t come for a close look in some time, and things had changed considerably. Tilly offered to show me around.

Game Night – Chapter 1

Copyright 2024 by Otto26

“4th Edition was the best version of the game.”

“Then why are we playing 5th?”

“Because Kent bought the books and never admits he’s wrong.”

“That’s a really weak argument and you know it. “

“It’s not and you know it. 4th Edition’s granularity allowed for an unparalleled playing experience. It was the pinnacle of the game’s development. Which is why Kent has homebrewed the hell out of 5e.”

“4e was just a rip-off of Pathfinder!”

“Pathfinder is the rip-off!”

Isla threw open the door to her room and tromped down the hallway to the living room.

“I am going to murder both of you in your sleep if you don’t stop shouting,” she announced.

Neil and Akash stopped glaring at each other from across the second-hand dining room table and turned to look at her with expressions of extremely mild guilt.

The doorbell rang and the door opened a moment later as Cooper stepped inside. His arms were full so he closed the door with his foot.

“Hey, guys,” he said cheerfully. “Oh, hey, Isla. I didn’t know you were going to be here tonight.”

“I wasn’t,” she explained. “I was going to meet my study group at the library but they canceled because Laura has Covid.”

“They canceled the whole group?” Neil asked with a puzzled look on his face.

Isla sighed. “Turns out Laura was seeing David *and* Patrick.”

“Seeing?” Akash asked.

“Fucking,” Neil explained to Akash. “At the same time?” he asked Isla.

“Oh, so she might have exposed them,” Akash reasoned aloud.

“No. I mean, yes. But they didn’t know she was seeing both of them and when they found out…”

“So she wasn’t ‘seeing’ them at the same time.” Neil nodded sadly.

“Yes, she was, but, ew! Gross, Neil!”

The short bearded man shrugged. “A guy can dream,” he unrepentantly stated.

“So you’ll need a new study group?” Cooper asked from the kitchen where he was pulling sodas, chips, and a fruit tray from paper bags.

“Probably. I was just going to study here but the nerds started arguing. Is the whole evening going to be this loud?”

The three men exchanged looks for a moment.

“Probably.”

“Yeah.”

“Definitely.”

Isla sighed. “It’s just a board game, guys. Can you keep it down?”

“Nope,” Neil said dismissively.

“Probably not,” Akash confessed.

“Why don’t you play?” Cooper asked.

The other two looked back at him. With frowns on their face, Isla noticed.

“What? You don’t want me to play?”

“It’s not that,” Akash began hurriedly.

“Kent will have kittens,” Neil stated, jumping directly to the end of Akash’s explanation.

“Why can’t she sit in for a night?” Cooper reasoned with them. “She doesn’t have study group tonight so she can sit in on the game and see what all the fun is about and have a ton of new things to mock you guys about for the next month.”

Isla laughed and wondered if Cooper had an ulterior motive. He had seemed genuinely happy to see her when he’d entered the house. She hadn’t encountered anyone interesting with an ulterior motive in a couple of months and Cooper was interesting. ‘All work and no play,’ she thought.

“You’ve just got the hots for Isla,” Neil said. “Drag her back to your old room and get it out of your system.”

Akash slapped Neil’s arm as Isla and Cooper were about to yell at him. “Remember when you asked me to tell you when you were being socially inappropriate?”

“No.”

“Because that’s how socially inappropriate you are. And you are being socially inappropriate,” the Indian man scolded him.

“It was just a joke,” Neil protested. “And he does have the hots for her so it’s accurate.”

Isla felt a blush building on her skin and her fury at Neil grew.

“What do you do when you’ve been socially inappropriate?” Akash demanded.

Neil sighed. “Akash says I’m sorry and regret my inappropriate comments. Please forgive me and let me know how I can make amends,” he recited.

Akash hit his arm again.

“Okay, now I want to try playing the game,” Isla stated.

“What sold you?” Cooper asked.

“New material to mock Neil with,” she replied. “What do I need?”

“You in, Akash?” Cooper asked.

“Yeah, I like the idea of Neil being mocked. I’ll support this, but you have to tell Kent.”

Cooper grimaced slightly.

“That bad?” Isla asked.

Cooper opened his mouth to reply and the doorbell rang. He held up a finger and trotted over to open it.

“That bad,” Neil confirmed. “And you don’t need anything but your sexy brain,” he finished as Akash drew back his arm. “I said brain. I was always going to say brain. You can sit next to me,” he told Isla and gestured to a chair.

Isla sat down across the table from Neil as Cooper came into the room with a box which he set on the table. He was followed by a medium height man with unkempt brown hair. He was rotund but not obese and his beard was, at least, better bostancı escort than the patch work fuzz which tried to cover Neil’s face. He caught sight of Isla sitting at the table and frowned.

“Kent, this is Isla. She’s Neil and Akash’s roommate. She’s normally at her study group on game night but tonight she’s going to sit in on the game so she can experience the fun and mock Neil,” Cooper explained.

“No. I have to approve all new players and I don’t,” Kent stated.

“Oh, c’mon,” Akash said.

“Yeah, just for a night,” Neil said.

“She can be a rando we meet in the woods,” Cooper reasoned.

Isla nearly gaped. ‘Are those supposed to be cogent arguments?’

“She can’t be a rando in the woods for a good reason I’m not going to share,” Kent countered.

“Kent, if she doesn’t sit at the table she’s just going to sit in her room and listen to us all night anyway. Or walk through the hall to the bathroom or come to the kitchen to get a drink. Right when you’re setting the scene with dramatic flair,” Cooper pointed out.

Kent paused, weighing alternatives. “Okay. For one night. But I’m not introducing new characters to the story. So she’ll have to play Nimfeach.”

“Nimfeach?” Neil asked. “Oh, you mean…” his voice trailed off.

“Guys, can I talk to you for a minute?” Cooper said in the sort of level voice that screamed ‘We need to talk right now’ without actually screaming that phrase. He, Neil, and Akash retreated to the hallway and whispered.

“What are they whispering about?” Isla asked Kent. “Who’s Nimfeach?”

The man was busy pulling books and smaller boxes out the larger box. He had a look of intense concentration plastered on his face which changed to annoyance when she interrupted him.

“Nimfeach is an NPC,” he saw her blank expression and rolled his eyes. “A non-player character. NPC. She’s their local guide to the forest they are currently adventuring in.” When he’d finished with his minimal explanation he returned to his setting up, dismissing her.

“It all makes sense, now,” Isla muttered. “Thanks, Kent.”

The other three came out of the hallway with the expressions of men who had reached an agreement and took their seats at the table. Cooper sat next to her. Kent was at the head of the table. Akash was across from Cooper and Neil was across from Isla. They pulled out folders stuffed, to varying degrees, with paper and put dice on the table in front of them. Cooper set his on the table between them and said “You can share my set,” to Isla.

She picked up one of the dice and counted the twelve sides. The other dice had a varying number of sides ranging from four to twenty. They were a dark green with gold paint picking out numbers instead of dots. They had a floral feeling to them. Neil dumped a Crown Royal bag onto the table, disgorging a vast assortment of mismatched dice of varying sizes. His hands corralled them into a small herd in front of him. Akash had two boxes which opened to reveal two matched sets of gleaming metallic dice in silver and gold. There was a faint scent of sandalwood in the air and he had a felt-lined, flat, wooden box that Isla quickly worked out was for rolling the dice in.

Kent had set up a free-standing barrier at the end of the table and was arranging things behind it. The barrier was dark wood, almost black, and covered in carvings that were difficult to see. Isla had the impression of naked bodies, not all of them strictly human, and saw Cooper grimacing as he saw her trying to get a better look at it.

The little man walked around the house, lighting a couple of incense sticks and lowering the lights. When he sat back down at the table he pushed a few buttons on the little laptop behind the screen and the room was filled with the sounds of a gentle breeze playing through trees and the calls of birds. She could smell the incense now, a light scent of pine and earth and the sort of ozone smell you got after fresh rain on a summer day; she was mildly impressed.

“Your character,” Kent announced, handing her a small stack of papers.

She looked down at the numbers and letters that covered the page and her eye was drawn to a picture in the upper right corner which showed an extremely feminine woman with brilliant green hair, green fingernails and toenails and floral tattoos on her arms and legs. It was easy to tell she was female because she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing.

“We left our heroes deep in the Foraoise gan Teorainn where they were searching for a cause for the attacks that have plagued the inhabitants of the baile of Dun Finiuin.”

“Why is my character naked?” Isla demanded of Cooper in a whisper.

He looked over at her character sheet and paled.

“Uhm,” he began, shooting Kent a dark look.

Isla looked over at Kent, trying to lift the sheet up and interrupt his measured, rhythmic introduction. But her arms felt leaden and her eyelids were closing; she couldn’t lift her head. She saw the figures beykoz escort on Kent’s screen slowly turning their faces to look at her and then blackness washed over her.

***

“Fuck!” a deep voice screamed.

“Don’t dance around like a little girl! Hit it!” an Indian accented voice ordered.

“What do you think I’m trying to do?” the deep voice demanded.

“Dance like a little girl?” the accented, and masculine, voice asked.

“Coming, Neil! Circle right so I can hit it from behind,” a third voice, also masculine, called out.

“Other right!” the masculine and accented voices said at the same time.

“Fuck!” the deep voice boomed.

“There’s more of them!” the accented voice yelled in warning.

Isla felt better than she had ever felt in her life. The bed she was laying in was incredibly comfortable and the sunshine warming parts of her skin made her feel like she was glowing. The air smelled clean and the world was wonderful. Except for… There was something wrong. Like a black fly buzzing in a distant corner of a room it niggled at the edge of her awareness. She opened her eyes to see what it was just as a five foot long centipede walked over her.

Isla screamed and tried to curl into a fetal position and flail at the insect with her arms simultaneously and managed to achieve neither goal. It scurried over and past her and she scooted backward, legs and arms moving her away from it until her back encountered a tree.

“Ow, shit!” the masculine voice said.

“I’ve got it, Cooper!” the deep voice declared. “Yeah! Eat my ax!”

Isla caught sight of two more of the giant bugs headed towards her and pushed backward, propelling herself into the tree. The sense of comfort and well being filled her again. She felt the heartbeat of the tree, glacially slow, pumping the lifeblood of sap through its veins. The sun on her leaves felt like she was being caressed with bubbles that were absorbed into her. She giggled and fell out the back of the tree.

“They’re fleeing,” the accented voice announced with a trace of puzzlement.

“Not this one,” the masculine voice said.

Isla reached her hand out to the tree. The bark was solid and her hand patted it. There was a sense of welcome, almost invitation, from the plant. She remembered where she was and looked around the tree to confirm the bugs were gone.

She spotted a short man wearing metal armor, a conical, horned helmet, and with a face that was mostly beard. He was levering a double-bladed ax as tall as he was out of the corpse of one of the insects. A man with a mahogany complexion dressed in black silk and leather was slowly turning to scan the forest with a blade held in each hand. A third man in browns and greens was wiping ick off a long blade and sliding it into a scabbard at his waist.

“What the hell?” she demanded.

They turned to look at her and froze.

“What the hell?” she repeated, standing and walking towards them. “How is this possible? I didn’t put on any VR glasses. What kind of game is this?”

“Thank you, Jesus or Kent,” the short man muttered.

“This isn’t what the game is usually like,” the man in black protested. “I’ve never experienced this.”

“I think we’re actually in the game,” the green man muttered. “Neil, you’re Magnus Skalleknuser.”

The short man looked at his hands and arms. “I am?” He reached up to his face with both hands and stroked the lush beard that covered the lower half. “Cool. And you’re Gareth Truesword and you’re Chako.”

“Chaakoo,” the dark man corrected him. “Get it right.”

“Actually, I think I’m poisoned,” the green man said and fell to his knees and then on his face.

“Shit! Cooper!” Neil yelled and rushed forward to take a knee next to his fallen friend.

“Roll him over,” Akash ordered. They manhandled him onto his back and the bloody wound on his upper thigh was plain to see.

“We need to get a healing potion into him,” Akash stated.

“That won’t fix the poison,” Neil protested.

“No, but it will keep him alive until we can get him a restoration,” Akash rejoined, rummaging in a pouch at his belt and producing a small glass vial.

“We’re a day away from the baile,” Neil protested as Akash pressed the vial to Cooper’s blue lips. He looked up at Isla, who was looking down at the scene in horror, and stood up and took her hands in his. “Hey, Isla. Pretty freaky start to the game, right? Except we’re sort of actually in the game and Cooper’s been poisoned and there are only two ways to keep him from dying. One of them is a day away at the edge of the forest and we won’t make it and Cooper will die. The other is for you to give him a blowjob and suck the poison out.”

“What?!” she snapped.

“Not a lot of time here, Isla. Your character is Nympho the healslut. You’re a nymph that Cooper enslaved and you have the magic power to heal and the way you deal with poison is by sucking it out of our dicks. You’ve done it for all of kurtköy escort us more than once and I need you to get started on Cooper before he dies because I don’t know what happens to him if he does that while we’re in the game,” he blurted.

Isla stared at him.

“Sorry,” he apologized and reached up to grab her by her green hair and pull her down and forward. She stumbled to her knees and he pulled her head down to the recumbent Cooper’s crotch. She saw Akash’s hands pulling down a pair of off-white, linen underwear to reveal a thatch of blond pubic hair and a comically large, but still flaccid, penis.

“Hey!” she protested, trying to reach Neil’s hand but having to use both hands to avoid falling face first into Cooper’s crotch.

“We are our characters, Isla,” Akash said in his comically exaggerated accent. “We have their skills. Neil knew how to use his ax, I knew how to throw my knives. You know how to do this. Just… get out the way of your character. Let your mind go fuzzy.”

“Fuck you, Akash! You suck the poison out of him. I’m not playing your pervy game anymore! I want to leave the table!” she screamed.

Neil pushed her face down until it made contact with Cooper’s penis and she flinched at the smell. Smell? No, it was something else. When she pushed back against Neil’s hand she saw black lines on Cooper’s body. Except… It was as though she was looking through his clothing. The lines were radiating out from his thigh, like weak tendrils of plant roots. One of them, a really big line, seemed to go directly to his chest. To his heart. As she had that thought she saw/sensed the panicked pulsing of his heart spreading the poison through more of his body. And it was already starting to weaken. She saw it all and while her brain marveled at the sight, her body acted.

Isla took Cooper’s soft flesh entirely into her mouth and her hand reached forward to cradle his heavy balls. She could feel her breasts hanging beneath her chest as she moved her tongue on him and then her mouth. He was starting to harden, but slowly, too slowly. Her hand slid between his legs, fingertip searching for, then finding his anus. She pressed inside, finger burying in him and then curling back to stroke his prostate. Neil had released his hold on her hair and Cooper’s cock nearly sprang erect under her manipulations and she couldn’t take all of him into her mouth. She used her free hand and her knees to readjust her position and then relaxed and lowered her face until her nose hit his pubis, buried in the pale thatch of pubic hair and the top of his cock in her throat. She bobbed back up, and then down, establishing a quick rhythm and continuously moving her finger tip inside him. She sucked on him and the poison seemed to flow towards his cock. Again she sucked, and again, and the poison became a dark blot between his legs, in his balls, and she bobbed down quickly and painfully knocked her nose against his flesh and swallowed.

The poison flowed out of him with the cum, squirting down her throat and into her mouth as she moved on him, sucking hard because it seemed to pull the poison from him. When she saw no more of the darkness within him she pulled her mouth away and kneeled upright, gasping for air.

“I wish I’d been poisoned,” Neil whispered to, he thought, himself.

Isla raised a hand to her mouth, wiping the cum away from her lips and chin and then her breasts. Her naked breasts. She looked down

“Why am I naked?” she yelled. Then she bent over and threw up, emptying the contents of her stomach onto the ground between Cooper’s legs.

“Yeah, you shouldn’t swallow poison,” Akash pointed out, gathering her hair in a hand and holding it above the splash of the vomit.

“Nympho?” Cooper muttered, struggling into a semi-upright position and looking at the top of her head.

“Isla,” she corrected him and then a foul burp erupted from within her. “But tell me more about ‘Nympho’,” she ordered.

“Shit,” Cooper swore and lay back to just breathe.

“I’ll tell you,” Neil volunteered.

“Good. But give me some clothing, first. Give me your cloak, Akash,” she ordered.

The man released her hair and stood up. “Not going to work,” he told her as he swept the cloak off his shoulder and onto her shoulders. “Don’t throw it in the vomit,” he added.

Isla wrapped the black silk around her and stood up, backing away from the vomit, and Cooper’s spread legs, and his flaccid but still intriguingly large cock.

“Go,” she ordered Neil.

“Thinking about it, I already kind of,” he began.

“Do. It. Again,” Isla ground out.

“Right. Kind of stressful the first time. A little rushed. Okay, so my character is Magnus Skalleknuser, skullcrusher, and I’m a dwarf fighter.” He gestured to himself, trying to get her to take in the clothing, the armor, and the physical differences. “Your character is named Nimfeach and I think it literally means nymph.”

“It does,” Cooper groaned.

“Cooper here enslaved you with some cunning magic and you are the healslut for our party of adventurers. All your magic is sex-based. Which is why we call you Nympho. That and it’s easier to pronounce than that Irish stuff.”

“Gaelic,” Akash corrected him.

“Whatever,” Neil brushed the correction aside.

“Irish Gaelic,” Kent groaned. No one paid him any attention.

Cody was eating breakfast while listening to the news on the T.V when his doorbell rang, “Who could that be?” Cody asked out loud.

“Maybe it’s Eveline?” Carly said.

Sarah said from the security screen, “It’s Beatrice.”

“Let her up,” Cody told Sarah as he turned off the T.V, he listened to the elevator come back up.

“Hello, Sorry to intrude so early but I need to check something with the girls, is that okay?” Beatrice said as she walked in.

“Everything okay?” Cody asked.

“Yes, Eveline’s test came back intriguing so now I want to see if all the girls will end up with it,” Beatrice said from the kitchen with her bag open but nothing taken out yet.

“What did you find?” Sarah asked curiously.

“Well, it would seem that Eveline and possibly you two might have become blooded dragons,which is surprising but also not so surprising,” Beatrice explained to Sarah.

“What do you mean blooded dragons?” Carly asked from the couch.

“Well in most cases blooded dragons are in the main family line, all your siblings and Amell are ‘blooded’, their partners gain traits are but still in ‘essence’ Demi human. Eveline and I’m guessing you two are blooded rather than essence dragons due to him being of such purity,” Beatrice explained.

“What’s the difference, doesn’t sound like there is one really,” Cody asked.

“There aren’t many differences, the only differences are simply how Demis react to them, essence dragons make Demis starstruck similar to blooded dragons, where blooded dragons can change Demis into essence dragons. Eveline has started Garnet’s process to become a dragon,” Beatrice said as she pulled out the same tools she used at Garnets.

“Wait, so the girls can now change Demis? So…does that mean my dragon blood is an STD?” Cody asked humorously.

Beatrice’s mouth opened in shock as Carly burst out laughing while Sarah chuckled, “Technically…yes, it’s not a disease if anything it’s a gift,” Beatrice said, shaking her head with her mouth open in shock before saying, “Secondly it’s only you who does it, no one else can and I’m going to test the girls later on to see if they can make blooded dragons.”

“So does that mean we need to be careful with who we do now? Make sure they know what will happen and so on?” Sarah asked, looking slightly concerned.

“Yes, very much so, becoming a dragon in essence while having negligible physical effects will still cause Demis to actively focus on them whether consciously or subconsciously. I don’t know how Garnet will react now to you tho Cody, with her becoming an essence dragon you shouldn’t have to worry about her body moving on it’s own like Sarahs or Evelines the first time,” Beatrice answered before saying to Cody.

“If we can do what you say then that should greatly help with recruitment right Cody?” Sarah said with a predatory and lustful smile.

“I guess, and that is good, I’d rather not have to have Sarah hold them down after one round for a few hours like we did with Pascal,” Cody said, nodding his head in agreement.

“May I?” Beatrice asked, holding the engraved dagger.

“Yes,” Sarah said, holding out her arm.

Beatrice collected some blood and placed it in a container before cleaning the blade and moving towards Carly who looked slightly nervous but still held her arm up, Beatrice frowned and moved behind Carly saying, “Sorry I’m not going to cut anywhere near your membranes, I don’t want to risk damaging them.”

“Okay where will you collect from then,” Carly asked leaning forward and using her large thumb to hold her hair out of the way.

Beatrice ran her hand over her back for a few seconds before saying, “Here is a good spot.” Carly felt the blade press between her shoulder blades.

Beatrice walked over to the wooden tablet and put both blood samples on the tablet which activated and kept them separate, Beatrice studied the blood for a few moments before nodding and saying, “So your both blooded dragons, Sarah being the furthest along and Carly your about the same as Eveline, the only thing is that congrats are in order,” Beatrice looked at her stomach with a smile.

Carly smiled widely along with Cody, “Can you keep that a secret from everyone?” Cody asked Beatrice.

“Of course, also don’t worry about getting killed by Mina, I won’t tell her what you’re going to do to her favorite dancer,” Beatrice said with a sly grin.

Cody sighed heavily, “I had no idea they meant Garnet when they talked about the other girls.”

“Why do you talk like your mom is going to hurt you?” Carly asked Cody, Beatrice smirked and stayed silent.

“Mom can get…focused on things, that thing then becomes one of her biggest passions, before she enjoyed Garnet’s dancing she had a hobby of collecting antique porcelain dolls, theirs is a room somewhere in the house with over five thousand dolls. Before that hobby and before she met dad mom was something of a extremist, if there was a protest she’d join so long as the reason was a kadıköy escort decent one, there’s a few pictures of her in her younger years in some well known protests, just never bring them up to her because it makes her embarrassed,” Cody explained.

“So she gets hyper focused on things and will defend those focuses?” Sarah asked, looking interested.

“Oh ya, mom can be terrifying, have you ever seen those people who smile so innocently but everyone is terrified of them? Mom mastered that smile, I’ve seen it three times in my whole life. I’m expecting it again once she finds out,” Cody answered with Beatrice nodding.

“There was a time when I watched Mina stand up to some of the oldest members of the council in the nest, it got to the point where a dragon had to manifest to stop the argument,” Beatrice explained after she finished packing everything away.

Cody looked shocked and asked, “Over what?”

“Your sister Ava, After her incident with her boyfriend and she awakened with tail and wings your mother asked the family to forgo tradition and let her stay at the house since she met all the requirement already, the council tried to their best to argue but your mother heard nothing of it, the dragon that manifested gave three conditions, of which two you and your siblings agreed to. The third no one but Mina knows and she won’t tell anyone,” Beatrice further explained.

“I remember when mom and dad called us all to the house and asked about Ava, they asked us if Ava can stay at the house, and if she could take over the family, their main argument being that she was the youngest and most successful in her ventures then everyone. By family law we all knew she met them already, I at the time didn’t know about Demi, but I’m guessing my siblings who did also knew she knew as well,” Cody explained to the girls but gave Beatrice a questioning look.

“They did, Ava unlike the rest of you had a unique gift for information holding, she learned faster than everyone and by the time she was sixteen when they asked she already had a large and very successful business made without Amells help but Mina was the face of it,” Beatrice said more so to Cody.

“I knew she was smart, now with Suzy’s help she’s even more formidable,” Cody said with a hint of pride.

“You have no idea just how scary those two can be,” Beatrice said looking slightly nervous, “If what I heard is true after a few days of hanging out they ended up expanding their business to twice the size and used that momentum to start a second, Ava’s business smarts paired with Suzy’s number and organization skills are insane, even Amell is nervous about them taking over the family not because they would ruin it but because they would probably take over the world.”

Cody looked nervous when responding, “You can’t be serious, I know Suzy is a wizard with numbers, managing was another strong point but not to that degree.”

“She’s only grown since going there, she’s learned a lot and fast, please remember Cody you got her not only a college level education but also a university level education before she was eighteen,” Beatrice said looking at Cody pointedly.

“No I didn’t, I helped her with college that’s it, if she did a university course she did it without my knowing,” Cody said surprised.

After a few moments of silence Cody looked at Beatrice and said, “I think you should tell my dad when you get home that something big is coming, there is no way in hell that Ava and Suzy seem to work together so well ONLY after I find out the truth. Too many coincidences to not be planned.”

Beatrice looked unsettled as she replied, “You’re right, Suzy and Ava have always been good friends but now? Unless they planned all this you have a point, I’m going to head home now, you girls stay safe.”

Cody watched Beatrice hurriedly ready herself before leaving. “Are you okay Cody? You seem nervous,” Sarah said, sliding beside him.

“I am, I always thought it was weird how when Ava visited she treated Suzy like a sister, knowing what I know now I’m not that surprised but what really shocks me is that Suzy got a whole nother level of education without telling me, then when she moves in with Ava they not only do so well in business that it makes dad nervous but at the same time I get you pregnant, find out I’m a pure blood dragon and not only a pure blood but that I’m an exceptionally rare one with all breath types that only the highest of dragons can have, I sometimes dream about other royal Demis, oh let’s not forget because of Minerva I’ve made my first contract with a demon. Too many coincidences to not be something big, I now feel like somethings going to happen today that’s going to start something but I have no clue what,” Cody said exasperated.

Sarah looked at Carly who looked nervous, “Your right, you also forgot that Pascals grandmother can’t see you properly with her visions, and Pascal is a one in a ten thousand who can dream walk and ümraniye escort you’ve learned to defend against it, and you’ve gotten on the Hunters radar due to buying out that property,” Sarah said quietly.

Cody looked at her with wide eyes, “Fuck me your right,” Cody grumbled loudly as he sagged further into the couch, “I don’t want some destiny or fate bullshit, I just want to live a simple life with my partners have kids and take care of snakes, is that to much to ask for?” Cody said to no one in particular.

Cody felt Carly sit in his lap then her body resting against him, “No matter what happens you know we will be there for you right? Ready to follow you, a lot of people are ready, whether you have some world changing fate or not people will be with you,” Carly said trying to reassure him.

“You’re right,” Cody said, hugging Carly, Sarah sat beside him and leaned into him.

“Rather than run from whatever is coming, why not try to prepare for it?” Sarah asked Cody.

Cody didn’t answer, instead he hugged both girls closer. After a quiet few minutes Cody picked Carly up and sat her in Sarah’s lap, “I have to go get ready and go check their progress, I also need to go meet with Izzi, I should have yesterday but I was unable to leave.”

“Get ready and go, I’ll have dinner ready for you when you’re back,” Sarah said happily.

“I’ll wait for Eveline to come home, I think we have a lot to talk about,” Carly said, slightly nervous.

“Got it, I’ll head out then, see you girls in a bit,” Cody said as he readied himself before entering the elevator.

Cody walked into the garage and got into his truck, he turned on his phone and sent a text to Pascal, “Hey, will you come over today? Also I need to ask you something, Can Doris look at specific things or does her vision just come to her?”

As Cody drove to the Diner he got a response from Pascal, Cody used text to speech to listen to the response so he could focus on the road, “Yes and no, if she searches it’ll show her but mostly it comes to her randomly also she already told me that she can’t see the future you’re asking about. All she can see when searching is that you stand in front of a massive crowd of people, the scene flicks between you burning them alive to having them stand with you, I was planning on visiting tonight, in person.”

“Great, that’s helpful, argh, I need to focus,” Cody said to himself as he used speech to text to respond, “Thank you I think? Also I can’t wait to see you tonight.”

Cody pulled into the diner’s parking lot as Pascal responded with, “I’m excited in more ways than one to see you.”

Cody laughed as he responded quickly while Izzi greeted him from behind the counter, “Hello Cody, one moment I’ll go get my business plan.”

Cody watched her all but run to the kitchen, “Want some breakfast?” Agatha asked.

“I just ate but I’d take a coffee and maybe a snack while we talk business,” Cody responded.

“Sounds good,” Agatha said, returning to the kitchen.

Izzi exploded from the Kitchen with great enthusiasm, she started talking before sitting down, “Hi, so my plan is quite simple really I’m going,” Cody held up his hands.

“Wow calm down, I know you’re excited but this is why I asked for a business plan, I’ll listen to you after I read it so you don’t forget anything in your excitement,” Cody said trying to calm her down.

“Sorry,” Izzi said blushing slightly.

Cody took the plans and sat down reading them over humming and hawing over them with the occasional ‘huh’, “Impressive, who taught you write out plans?” Cody asked.

“No one, mom and dad gave me some pointers but most of it is my own doing,” Izzi answered quickly.

“I’m impressed by this, you get to the point with no fluff or extra wording and save it all for the end as a finisher, your numbers are spot on and your predictions are solid, overall great plan, how much do you have saved to start this?” Cody asked.

“About eighty thousand, I’ve always dreamed of my own bakery, it took me a few days to learn about animal treats, I will take out some loans if I need to,” Izzi explained.

“Will you need to? Eighty thousand sounds like it’s enough?” Cody asked, surprised.

Izzi blinked in confusion before saying, “That’s a minimum for a small one person bakery, I could need up to three hundred thousand dollars for all the equipment and furniture, that’s including having two floors.”

Cody looked shocked as he responded, “I knew it could be costly but I wasn’t expecting that much, I admit I skimmed some parts, one moment.”

Cody read in details of the machine price variables along with furniture while he was reading Agatha came out with some small toasted pastries and a coffee, “Okay, I knew ovens could cost a few thousand, I was not expecting them to go up to thirty thousand with taxes, holyshit. If you need a loan go to this address and ask for Mister Fisher, hand him this,” Cody said handing ataşehir escort over his business card with his signature and current date on the back, “That will help you get a loan, also hand him this business plan to.”

Izzi stood up and hugged Cody tightly. He looked shocked as this tiny girl managed to squeeze the air out of his lungs and cause his back to pop in a few places, “Ow,ow,ow,ow you’re strong for your size,” Cody said with some minor pain.

Izzi blushed deeply and pulled back, “I’m sorry, I’m just so excited to have my own place, and you can thank my mom and dad for my strength.”

“So you can come with me to the location and show them your plans or you could have the floor plans from that copied and I can bring it to them,” Cody said while stretching his back.

“I’m still working technically, I’ll go make a copy for you, thank you again,” Izzi said, all but skipping towards the kitchen.

Agatha came out afterwards and sat down at the table with Cody, “Thank you for giving her this opportunity, Minos and I greatly appreciate this.”

Cody sipped the coffee to help with the pastry he was chewing then replied, “I was looking for something and I always prefer local places over chains, she’ll do wonderfully and seeing how well she can put together a plan, I highly doubt she’ll fail.”

“I’m sure she’ll do great, working with you and the other two will help her greatly. Also Minos wanted me to ask you for a small favor,” Agatha said, shaking her head lightly, “‘Please refrain from adding her to your bed.”

Cody coughed lightly as choked slightly on the food, after swallowing it he replied, “Tell Mino there’s no worries their, she’s a business partner now, I don’t mix business and pleasure I’m sure he could argue about Carly but she wasn’t a business partner but a friend that helped with reptiles I couldn’t take, just like she called me for snakes she couldn’t house,” Cody said in between sips of coffee.

“That’s good to hear, oh her she comes,” Agatha said leaning back as Izzi came out of the kitchen with a few pieces of paper.

“I’ve copied all the things the contracts should need, thank you again,” Izzi said happily.

“Don’t worry, that’s on the house, you’ve already paid for it,” Agatha said, taking the empty plate and cup.

“When did I pay?” Cody asked, looking puzzled.

Agatha smiled and gave Izzi a pointed look, “A parents greatest joy.”

Cody nodded as he stood up, “I’ll take this to the guys now, have a good day, I hope you visit him within the month, make sure to buy the supplies needed so it’s installed when time comes to build.”

“I will, I’ll go see him today after my shift ends at two,” Izzi said, bouncing in place.

“If that’s the case make sure you dress up business smart, you’ll get turned away if you don’t,” Cody warned her as she walked out.

Izzi turned to her mom and smiled widely, “It’s happening mom,” Izzi hugged Agatha tightly and lifted her off the ground.

Agatha wheezed as she was put down, “Hun you need to work on your self control again, you might have killed someone with that hug.”

Izzi looked down, “Sorry.”

Cody pulled out of the parking lot and drove towards the old factory, after a short drive Cody pulled into the lot and smiled seeing a large group of workers on the roofs redoing them all, two cherry pickers where working on the walls fixing the old siding with new siding, Cody hoped out of his truck as Manny walked up to him, “Hey boss, how are you?”

“Good, did anything new happen?” Cody asked.

“Yes, the Hunters are fucking persistant, we’ve scared off three groups so far, they can’t see anything but they keep trying last night someone tried to sneak over the wall but was met with two guards throwing him back over,” Minos answered.

“Really? Stubbornness really is stupidity,” Cody said, shaking his head.

“One thing that’s really interesting happened two days ago. They’ve been working on it since they found it,” Manny said walking towards the building with Cody.

Cody saw Kelsie and Chuck walk towards him, “Where’s Aaron?” Cody asked them when they drew closer.

“He’s going around to some of the other contractors and helping them finish their projects to try and get this one in focus,” Kelsie explained.

“We’ve got some interesting news by the way, I found the fuse box finally,” Chuck said looking annoyed.

“Oh where?” Cody asked.

“Follow us, you’re not going to believe this,” Chuck said while Kelsie nodded in agreement.

“After we cleared out all the asbestos we gutted the walls, surprisingly the bones of this place are pretty strong where just reinforcing them as needed at this point,” Kelsie said, pointing out the guys in the office area working on the frames.

“While the walls are down I started to trace the wires, and found most of them grouped here,” Chuck said pointing to a bundle of wires going into the ground, “Turns out there’s a basement here that wasn’t on any of the plans.” Chuck said looking serious.

“One of my guys who did concrete work for twenty years found it first, when he chiselled away some of it to reveal the edge of a staircase we set to work immediately, here’s the progress,” Kelsie said walking Cody to the top of the stairs where two men with jackhammers worked on the bottom layer.

Chapter Twelve

The trip back to the planet was completely uninterrupted, something Sketch was convinced boded ill fortune for their dealing with the Harbormaster. There weren’t any signs of Y’bari cruisers or Starless Dominion battleships, and the automated docking system recognized them as a returning vessel, so they didn’t even have to go through the standard negotiations and just passed through an automated scan, one that all of Sketch’s systems were able to easily defeat without so much as batting an eyelash.

When The Praeteritus landed, Jez and Lara both asked if he wanted them to come with him, but he figured the faster he moved, the better chance they would have of getting off the planet before the Harbormaster tweaked onto what he was doing.

Theoretically, they hadn’t done anything against local laws, but the Exovites frowned on people leaving their ranks, and they hadn’t had a chance to talk to Pertixi before she left, which he imagined was going to sit poorly with them, whether they had any right to complain or not. They couldn’t ban people from coming and going, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t do everything possible to strongly discourage people from leaving. And Sketch was convinced they were going to give him shit about her leaving without them having a chance to ‘change her mind.’

Sketch needed to make sure he wasn’t drawing attention, so he rented another of the stevrids, and started riding for Serena and Aliara’s location. Halfway there, he opened radio comms and called out to them. “Hey, ladies, I’m back on the planet,” Sketch said. “How’re we looking?”

“It’s been quiet and lonely,” Aliara said. “We’ve been moving around here and there but nobody’s come to talk to us so far. How’d the delivery go?”

“Getting the baby out was far easier than getting it where it was going,” Sketch laughed. “Our departure plans have changed slightly. Are you being watched right now?”

“Not as far as we can tell, why?”

“I need you to be absolutely certain,” he told them. “Things are going to get a little dicier than we’d originally planned for.”

“How fucked are we?” Serena asked him over the comms.

“Not that fucked, unless you’ve picked up some local bodyguards or something.”

“We’ve had a couple of Exovites following us on and off, but I haven’t seen them in the last several hours, so I’m thinking we lost them.”

“Any inclination of what they wanted?”

“We’re outsiders,” Serena said. “I think they were hoping to either rob or rape us, and that because we aren’t Exovites, and that means the authorities will be lenient on them.”

“You still look like her?”

“Oh,” she said. “Maybe that’s keeping them away. Me looking like Pertixi.”

“I’m heading towards you on the map,” he said. “Looks like you’re part way up the mountain?”

“We’re heading down now,” she replied. “How do you want to handle it?”

“We’ll figure it out when we meet up.”

“Got it.” And the comms flicked off.

As strange as it was, Sketch had to admit there was something calming and soothing about riding one of the stevrids. It was relaxing and allowed him to just sort of take in the scenery without paying too much attention to the path itself, the creature more than happy to wander around or over anything that got in its way.

Ten minutes later, however, his radio clicked back to life, and the voice on the other end of the line didn’t sound happy. “Hey, uh, boss?” Aliara’s voice said to him. “I think we may have a problem on our end.”

“You’re being followed?”

“Worse,” she said. “I think someone’s trying to overtake us.”

“Are you worried?”

“Can we call it concerned?” she said. “I could probably take three or four of them in a fight, but it’s looking like closer to ten.”

“Any idea what they want?”

“Seem like robbers, but could just be friends of Pertixi, I guess?”

“I don’t think they’re friendlies, boss,” Serena said.

“Then start evading, pick up speed and head for me top pace.”

“These stevrids don’t exactly have a fifth gear, boss,” Aliara said. “I’m thinking it may turn into a battle sooner rather than later.”

“Well, try and make it as later as you can, so it’ll be three versus them, instead of two.”

“I think I see your stevrid just down the hill a bit, so we’re racing.”

“Good gods,” Sketch muttered, “it looks like you’ve got half a dozen following you.”

“Get ready then, boss, because I don’t think they like the look of you.”

Sketch brought the stevrid to a halt, hopping off it, tying it to a tree before grabbing his rifle. He moved to get behind a rock and used the top as a tripod, getting a bead on the groups of pursuers his people had behind them. Sure enough, they looked up to no good. The looks of people changed a lot from planet to planet, but raiders had a sort of universal look to them that could be spotted a light year away, and these men were definitely raiders.

As much as he would love to start picking them off, he felt kartal escort obligated to fire a warning shot, so he aimed his rifle just to the left of what looked like the lead raider and blasted a shot that clipped part of a tree off right next to him. The man let out a sharp whistle and his people came to a halt.

“Who’s blocking my hunt?” the man shouted down at him.

“Name’s Sketch, and those’re my people you’re hunting, so I’ll ask you kindly to back away.”

There was a giant wave of laughter from the men up the mountain above them. A couple of shots in his general direction followed before the lead raider gave another whistle. “No can do, Sketch,” the leader said jovially. “See, you’ve got two women down there, one of whom’s an Exovite, which means she ain’t part of your crew. Now the other one, the P’Nox, well, normally I’d say we could arrange some sort of deal where you take her and leave the Exovite, but you done take a shot at me already, and the boys here, well, they ain’t never had P’Nox pussy before, so they’re itching to give’er a try. But, hell, I’m feelin’ generous. You hop on your stevrid and high tail it outta here and don’t look back, and I swear me an’ the boys here won’t shoot you in the back on your way out.” That evoked another round of laughter from the raiders.

“I got a counter proposal for ya,” Sketch said, getting his rifle lined up quick and precise. They were at quite the distance, and the stevrids’ constant motion made their riders a little harder to line up. Thankfully, Sketch had never been one to slack on his target practice. His first shot took the lead raider’s head clean off at the neck, leaving a vaporized stump atop the man’s shoulders. That made the lot of them scatter, and they began taking shots at Sketch’s position, as well as the two women and their stevrids, who were doing their best to remain within some level of cover, although the bandits elevated position and the mostly grassy mountainside made that difficult.

Serena’s stevrid took a blaster shot in the hindquarters, clipping the right back leg of the creature off, as it slumped down to the ground. Aliara jumped from the back of hers and leaped over Serena, grabbing her by the hand before flying over her and landing not too far from where Sketch had taken up hiding. Serena’s form was still covered in the illusion, and so everyone, himself included, saw her as Pertixi. “Looks like the diplomatic approach is out, huh, boss?” Aliara teased.

“Can’t leave you two alone for even a few days without you picking up trouble, can I?” he joked back, taking another shot, clipping the head of a raider’s stevrid, sending the beast and its rider tumbling down the mountain. “I wasn’t aware the Exovites had a raider problem.”

“We’re far enough from the colony itself that you’re within the lawless boundaries,” Serena said, running from Aliara’s rock over to Sketch’s, taking a couple of potshots along the way. “They don’t give much a damn who you are out here, if they can rob, kill or fuck you, sometimes in that order.” She leaned in and kissed him for just a moment. “Thanks for saving our asses.”

“Not saved yet,” Sketch grumbled. He tried to gauge where to best put his next shot, and plonked it right into the flank of a stevrid who was trying to cross in front of some of his pals, thinking he could get to a better vantage point. Instead, he caused three stevrids to trip over their bodies, the tangle of them dwindling their numbers down by half. “Though we’re getting there.”

“Hey man, what if we just pack it in and let you three leave?” one of the raiders said from a position of cover. “You’re clearly more of a pain in the ass than you’re worth, so why don’t you just go and we’ll leave once you have.”

“Except, again, you’re just gonna shoot us in the back when we go, so, let’s not and say we didn’t,” Sketch said, picking off another bandit who’d been trying to flank them from the side, putting a rifle shot right through the man’s eye, the blast not having enough range to expand and take off his entire head. “Nothing stopping you and your men from trodding back up that hill and around to the other side, though.”

“You’re just gonna plunk some more rounds in us as we go,” the raider in cover replied. “That ain’t gonna work for me either.”

“I give you my word, you and your boys start heading up that hill, I won’t shoot any of you,” Sketch said, seeing Aliara finally having gotten her pistol out, searching for targets, while Serena had pulled a pair of optics from her bag and was scanning, trying to count them all up.

“See, now what about them ladies, though?” the raider yelled back. “I think they ain’t gonna be so kind, so maybe we’re just gonna wait it out until either we sneak away or we get the drop on you. Figure we’re pretty committed at this point, so we can’t come back empty handed, ‘specially since you clipped the squad leader.”

“Y’know, he was speaking ill of my people, and I can’t imagine you’d have maltepe escort taken the same kind of behavior lightly.”

“That sounds about right. Can’t say I hold much contempt for ya over killing the squad leader, though,” the raider laughed. “He was a right dick.”

“See, now you got me feelin’ all bad that I can’t convince you to just turn tail and leave safely.”

“I just don’t know how I’m supposed to trust you, fella, considering you done already killed like half my patrol.”

“More like a third, don’t be so modest.”

“Sounds to me like you done this before.”

“More than a few times.”

“How’s it usually end?”

“Never to one party’s satisfaction.”

“Got any ideas on how to avoid that?” the raider shouted down to him.

Sketch sighed, nodding slightly to himself. A few months ago, he’d have just had to shoot this all out, leaving nothing but bodies in his wake, but now that he had an Ashaka on him again, there was another option, one he had to consider. In the old days, the distance and the numbers would’ve provided no challenge or difficulty, but he hadn’t been able to practice with the new Ashaka, and his confidence that he would be able to pull off such a feat was more than somewhat shaken. But the only way to regain that confidence was by doing.

You’re not going to be able to do this.

‘You can go to hell in a handbasket,’ Sketch thought at the voice coming from the Ashaka. ‘I’m doing it anyway.’

“You see them start walking up the hill,” he said to Aliara and Serena, “you let them walk.”

“Boss?” Aliara asked questioningly.

“Just do it.”

He started revving up the engine inside of the Ashaka, spinning the Path of The Calm. He could feel about seven or eight minds scattered around the hill above them, and he started to shove each of them full of as much Calm and tranquility as he could. They were all in a heightened state of fight or flight, which made it a bit more difficult, but this sort of thing used to be the kind of thing he could do in his sleep. He admitted to himself that he needed to get back into practice with his abilities and start doing routine drills like he had when he’d first joined the Order. But for now, he would simply have to brute force this one, even if it made his head hurt.

There was a scaling difference between tapping into a single mind and tapping into multiple minds, and for an accomplished Storm, handling dozens, hundreds, even thousands of minds at once, for a simple degree of a path, presented no real challenge. But the giant expanse of time he’d been without an Ashaka had left those finally honed skills in disarray. So each time he added one more mind to the chain of people he was pushing down the Calm, he could feel the pressure inside of his skull double up.

Still, one by one, the bandits began to turn and walk back up the hill, most in a leisurely fashion, but a few hiking quickly, or taking their stevrids. Those on stevrid stopped to pick up their colleagues, and within just a few minutes, they were back at the top of the mountain and headed down the other side of it.

Which was good, because right about there was the point Sketch passed out.

* * * * * *

When he awoke, he was the back of one of the two stevrids, tied to the front of Aliara, held up as she rode one of the two beasts and Serena rode the other. “Ah, looks like you’re up, boss,” she said to him. “You blacked out for about half an hour, and we decided to ride back to the house, and figured you could tell us what the new plan is while we’re on our way. I was a little bit nervous that you were going to be unconscious for longer.”

“Oof,” Sketch said, reaching up to rub his aching head. Clearly it had taken more than he’d anticipated to drive the soldiers off. “Inside of my skull feels like it’s got flensker rats tap dancing on the inside of it. How far are we?”

“Nearly there,” she said. “I can see the house just on the ridge.”

“Great,” he said. “Get us there and get us inside.”

A few minutes later, the stevrids reached the house, and Sketch unhooked himself from Aliara then hopped down, as did the two women, all three of them heading inside of Pertixi’s house using the key that she’d given Sketch.

Once inside, Serena dropped the projected illusion and ran over to throw her arms around his neck, pressing her lips, and in fact her entire body, against his firmly, trying to mold herself onto him before she finally pulled back from the kiss. “I don’t like you being gone from me for so long,” she told him with an impish smile.

“Sorry,” he said as he blushed a little bit. Her hands had both settled on his ass, and when he tried to pull away from her, she prevented him from moving away.

“Don’t do it again unless you have to,” she said, and there was a little bit of an edge to her voice that almost made Sketch worry a little bit. “I don’t like being away from you that long.”

Sketch worried that maybe pendik escort her exposure to such a raw blast of the Warmth had left her a little skewed towards needing him regularly. He’d seen signs of it during their time together, but the way she was clinging to him felt slightly awkward, her fingertips digging into the fabric clinging to his skin.

“So, better lay the story on us, boss,” Aliara said to him. “Where’s Pertixi?”

“It turns out that she never had any intention of being split up from her baby,” Sketch told them. “Her sister, on the other hand, wanted to have a baby of her own without going through the labor pains. She was going to have her sister sent back, and when it became clear that mother and child weren’t going to get separated, she was quite willing to have both me and Pertixi knocked off. You can imagine that didn’t work for me, so I put down the goons and told the sister that if I checked in and didn’t find both Pertixi and the newborn boy alive and happy, I’d come back and burn her world to the ground.”

“How’d the sister take it?”

“Like a woman without options.”

“So who owns this house now?” Serena asked him.

“Nobody?” Sketch said with a little laugh. “Or, I suppose we do, since we have the key. Not that there’s all that much here.” He looked around at the interior of the log cabin, mostly just seeing sparse wooden furniture. In fact, if he’d been inside earlier, he’d have known that she had no plans to return, as all personal identifiers – pictures, mementos, art – all of it had been taken within Pertixi’s bag or destroyed.

The place had been turned back into just a house, by removing everything that had made it once a home.

“We should break it in then,” Serena said, running her fingertips along the back of his neck. “Properly christen it and shit.”

Sketch shook his head. “I want to get us the fuck off this rock before–“

A triple bang against the door rattled the building, as Nikolai’s voice shouted at them. “Pertixi, open up! I saw you ride back in with the outsiders, and I’m here to make sure you’re doing alright!”

“Bollocks,” Sketch grumbled beneath his breath. “Before that.”

“What the hell are we going to do, Sketch?” Serena asked him as he started to head to the door.

“Something I hate,” he said. “Tell the truth.” He paused and unlocked the door then opened it. “Hey there, Harbormaster. What can I do for you?”

“Where’s Pertixi?” Nikolai said, peering into the house. He was a shorter man than Sketch had imagined him being, the holoprojection somehow added size and scale that was apparently unearned to the squat, muscular fellow. “I saw her riding up with you and your P’Nox on the way in.”

“Hate to tell you this, harbormaster, but she’s offworld,” he said to him. “You know that fella she was with? The one she was engaged to be wed to? Well, apparently just before he died, not long before their wedding, they shared an intimate moment. And when he died, well, she was with child. She knew that if she stayed here and gave birth to that child, she’d be exiled, but as it turned out, without her man here, there wasn’t nothing left to keep her here anyway, so she decided to keep the child and bail on your world. Still, she was afraid your people wouldn’t let her leave, or that they’d attack her when she headed out. So she contracted me to get her off-world. Now the original deal was that she was going to have the baby, give it to her sister and then we would bring her back here, and none of y’all would’ve been any the wiser that she’d given birth. As it turned out, though, that deal had been reached with the sister’s desires in mind, and not Pertixi’s herself, which was why I left my people here in the first place. Pertixi’s decided she and her child aren’t going to be separated, nor will they be returning here. Now you know it ain’t illegal for your people to come and go, and you certainly know how your folks can be in treating deserters, so you can understand why she wanted privacy and secrecy. I ain’t any happier about having to come back here than you are to having me back here, but other than covering her departure when I left last time, nothing been done that’s a big deal.”

“Dominion Weeping, Sketch, this is more than not paying an export tax…”

“What I figure is this,” Sketch said to the exasperated man. “I give you the keys to this cottage, and then you can make up whatever story you want about Pertixi’s death that saves you the most face. You can say she hung herself in depression over her lost fiancé. You can say she was attacked by bandits and died beyond the outpost outskirts.”

“We don’t have bandits on Jeratine, Sketch.”

“Oh good,” Sketch laughed. “Then I’ll go back and tell those fellas who were attempting to rob and rape my crewmembers that they’re just figments of my imagination, shall I? Or should I drop a dime to the Dominion, let them know you can’t keep a tight grip on your planet and that bandits are harassing the visitors?”

“Fucking hells, Sketch…”

“You ask me, this works out best for you, Nikolai, because you get another home without having to do a lick of work, and you get a heads up that you have a bandit problem without it springing up on anybody’s radar, so you can gather the forces you need to and go deal with it before it escalates too much.”

Despite Being a Clumsy, Weak, Masochistic Futanari, For Some Reason, I’m the Hero of a Weirdly Kind World.

Chapter 5: Farewell, My Beautiful First Love…

It takes a while for the shock to fully settle in, and by the time it does, I find myself sitting in a small, hidden glade, sharing a waterskin with Zen while Arryl pointedly sits with her back to me.

Zen pokes at the ground with a stick he picked up, his gaze focused on the trees around us, the shrubs, the sky, anywhere but my still-naked form. “I wouldn’t mind it if I were you. I mean, who knows what monsters are thinking, right? From what I know, Yorgs highly value strength; he probably saw that you’re stronger than him and thought something along the lines of, ‘I need to improve myself to be worthy of this wonderful woman.'”

“You think so…?” I murmur, hugging my knees to my chest. Suddenly losing the first creature I’d built a connection with in this world without even getting a proper goodbye… Or, wait, I guess he did give me a goodbye in his own way? Whatever the case, it stings. My sweet orc hubby…

“…” Zen scrapes the stick along the dirt, drawing swirling runes that glow briefly, sometimes letting off harmless little sparks, sometimes blowing glistening bubbles. “I’m sure you’ll see him again. If he’s capable of wandering into this forest, far away from normal Yorg stomping grounds, he’s plenty strong enough to make it wherever he’s going next.”

I sigh, rocking back, staring up at the drifting clouds. “I guess I’m being selfish… If I think back, all I really did with him was…❤︎ Ngh, never mind.”

A blush rises in my cheeks, and I giggle to try and cover it up. “You’re right. He’ll be back eventually. I’m sure that’s what he was trying to tell me, right before he left.”

Zen smiles gently, though he’s still not looking at me. “That’s the spirit. Honestly, I’m impressed, though. You really managed to build a loving relationship with a Yorg, huh. How long did that take? Those guys are never friendly to humans.”

“Eh? Really? But I…” I think back to our first night; we were going at it like animals within… fifteen minutes? “Um, truth is, I only met him like three days ago…”

“Seriously?!” Zen’s eyes finally focus on my face. “That’s crazy… You a monster tamer or something…?” His gaze drops lower. “… I can see why they’d love you, though.”

“H-hey!” I curl my legs tighter, glaring at him. “Pervert.”

“Haaah?!” Arryl whirls around, grabbing her hammer menacingly. “Zen, you better not be–“

“Woah, woah!! Stay!! Stay!!!” Zen flails and nearly falls over trying to get away from Arryl. “Listen, I can’t help it! She’s a very pretty naked lady! Look, if we had clothes to give her, I would have handed them over without a second thought!”

“Why don’t you strip instead, then?” Arryl growls. “Talking like you have no choice in the matter… Typical Zen…”

“That’s…” Zen shudders. “I mean, I don’t want to walk into town in nothing but my underwear, either, you know…”

“Grrr!!” Arryl glares harder, and he wilts under her firm gaze.

“… Sorry, I’m being a dumb idiot. Of course Sofia should get the clothes in that situation.” Undoing the straps of his armor, he starts to strip under Arryl’s watchful gaze, a sheepish look on his face. Soon, he’s left in just his boxers, handing me his clothes with a blush.

“T-thanks. Sorry about this…” I reach out to take the garments gratefully… at which point I remember I’ve got dried, sticky spunk splattered all over my skin, the creamy release from both myself and the orc. “… Or, rather, I should wash up before wearing these, shouldn’t I?”

Zen and Arryl both blink, sharing a look that says, “why didn’t we think of that?” Arryl immediately darts to her feet, sniffing the air.

“There’s a brook a hundred or so meters that way,” she says, gesturing at the forest.

“Sounds good,” Zen says, rising to his feet as well, holding out his hand for me to take. He’s back to very purposefully not looking at me, his ears slightly red as he stands awkwardly in his boxers, hand outstretched.

Giggling, I take his hand, letting him pull me up. “Thanks, Zen,” I say.

“No problem.” He starts walking, getting maybe two meters before Arryl smacks him across the back of the head. “Ow! What was that for?”

“You had a dirty face,” is all Arryl says as she starts guiding us to the brook.

Once we get there, I’m greeted by a clear, babbling stream, the water maybe waist-deep at its deepest. Arryl sends Zen away to stand guard while she leans against a nearby tree, keeping an eye on me, though she’s still having a hard time looking directly at me.

“Phew…” I dip my toes into the water, shivering at the cool touch, wading deeper until I’m half submerged. Crouching down, I plunge my body underwater, feeling the rushing waves stripping away the layers of my perversion, almost like they’re purifying me. I’m being cleaned esenler escort of the last remnants of the orc’s touch, his thick cock, his merciless pistoning…❤︎

Mm, this level of purification might be ineffective against my slutty mind.❤︎

When I re-emerge, sweeping my hair from my face, Arryl glances at me, apparently okay with seeing my upper half now that I’m clean. “… That sword. Where’d you find it?” she asks suddenly.

“Eh? Oh, that? I, uh… It was always with me.” I answer honestly; what else am I gonna say?

“Always with you… so like, a family heirloom?”

“Uhh, I guess?” I still don’t know whether I should tell these two I’m the Hero. Something tells me that’s not the kind of fact I should spread around willy-nilly.

“It’s a very good blade. Being able to stop my hammer so cleanly… You must have trained for a long, long time with it.”

“Ahahaha…” I really can’t tell her now. About how hopelessly weak I am. So weak that I was a slime’s milking toy for hours and hours just a few days ago…❤︎

“You and Zen seem close,” I blurt out, trying to change the subject and saying the first thing that came to mind. “Have you been adventuring together long?”

“Weh-?!” Arryl jolts, her ears perking up as her tail poofs out. “We’re not close! It’s just… a circumstantial relationship. I was looking for a mage party member, and he’s a mage. That’s all.”

Oh, that’s clearly not all; the look on her face as she glances at the spot Zen’s standing tells me all I need to know. I wonder if I should tease her about it; but if that hammer comes swinging my way, I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull out that miraculous counter this time around.

“He’s a good guy,” I say. “A bit weird and perverted, but I can tell he’s the sort of laidback type that’s easy to get along with.”

“Pfff! Nah, he’s just dumb.” Arryl giggles, her tail swishing back and forth. “And he’s a stupid womanizer, too. He’ll try to hook up with anyone.”

“Oh…?”

“He really doesn’t hold back. Humans, elves, dwarves, goblins, beastwomen, demons, as long as they look female, he’ll try to make moves on them. He doesn’t even care if they’re a fu…” She trails off, blushing as she appears to recall something. “A f-futa…”

“Ah…” I say quietly, my hand drifting down to the outline of my cock in the water. “Should I be on guard?”

“Oh, no, he’s not dangerous or anything!” Arryl quickly waves her hands in front of her body. “When I say he’s a womanizer, it’s… uh, how should I say this… Sure, he has a pervy stare and makes it clear that he’s only trying to get in their pants, but… He’s a nice guy, he doesn’t overstep his bounds and knows when to lay off a girl, and he’s really good with his hands… Ack, n-not that I’d know or anything!”

She blushes again, squirming as she covers her face, ears flattening against her hair. I can’t help but laugh, shooting her a quizzical look. “Good with his hands, huh?”

“Forget I said that!” She glares at me, red to the tips of her ears. “Actually, I take it back! Be very, very careful around him! He’s a beast! A perverted, dumb, stupid idiot beast!”

Huffing, she crosses her arms, trying to compose herself. Chuckling at the sight, I rinse out my hair, finishing up my bath. Seeing that I’m stepping out of the water, she turns around to politely avoid catching a glimpse of my cock. Given that I have no towel, I use the linen shirt to wipe myself down, pulling on Zen’s clothes; he’s just a tiny bit taller than I am, so everything fits almost perfectly. Almost.

“Um, Arryl…?” I say, and she turns around, glancing up and down my body. The linen is stretched tight over my chest, the top three buttons all undone because I can’t get them to close over my cleavage. The pants aren’t faring much better, stretched so taut over my plump ass that the well-worn fabric is becoming almost see-through, the significant bulge of my flaccid cock clearly visible in front. I’ve managed to slide the leather armor on over everything, but all the straps are about as loose as they can get to fit around my curves.

“… Can’t be helped, I guess,” she mutters, and just for a brief moment I feel like I see her glance down at her own modest chest. “Better than being naked, right?”

“Right…” I blush; somehow, this feels more embarrassing for me, though.

“Come on, let’s go.” Arryl chuckles, walking ahead of me as we join up with Zen, who gives me a very long once-over with his startlingly pink eyes.

“Very nice. Ten out of ten. Eleven out of ten, even,” he says with a smile, only for Arryl to whack him across the back of the head again. “Ow!!”

“Stupid perv,” she growls, shoving him away from me. “Gods, I’m tired… Let’s head home already. We’ll be late for the limited lunch sale at the grocer’s.”

“You’re still going on about that?! And wait, Arryl, if we walk like this, it makes me look like your prisoner of bayrampaşa escort war or something… Yow!!”

Arryl smacks him again. “Then shut up like a prisoner should and walk, dummy.”

“Owowow… So cruel…” Zen grumbles, though a smile is playing around his lips. We start walking while Zen and Arryl continue quibbling, but a beat later, he perks up like he’s just remembered something, turning to me. “Also, I meant to ask earlier but I kind of forgot; Sofia, have you cast contraceptive magic on yourself?”

“Eh?” His words bring me to a grinding halt. “C-contraceptive…?”

“… Looks like the answer is no. Can Yorgs and humans even have babies…?”

“Zen…” Arryl sighs, exasperated, though her expression quickly turns thoughtful. “… No, wait, you have a point.”

“Yes, this is important, Arryl! If she’s going to be a monster mommy, that child will obviously need a father figure, so– GYOWCH!!!”

“Ugh, sorry about him…” Arryl says, her fist steaming where she struck Zen directly on top of his head. “But he’s right. There’s a basic contraceptive spell everyone can learn, but it’s only effective within 24 hours of… you know… so, if you didn’t use it…”

Gosh, what is this cute creature? Arryl’s blushing, fidgety appearance makes me want to pet her head, even more so when her tail keeps flicking up and down like it can’t decide whether to tuck between her legs or not. She looks like she’s trying very hard not to imagine all the brutal creampie sex I had with the orc’s massive schlong, and she’s clearly failing. Well, I say that, but honestly, I’m not much better off, blushing furiously as the memories come rushing back. In a very small voice, I whimper, “It’s, uh… a bit late for that…”

Arryl’s face turns nuclear red, and she ducks her head, unable to meet my eyes.

“I figured that would be the case; but fear not! I know all sorts of contraceptive magic for any purpose you can imagine. If you want, I can cast a quick and easy Baby-Be-Gone!” Zen grins, giving me a double thumbs-up.

“B-baby-be-gone…?” I shake my head incredulously. “Seriously…?”

Arryl slaps Zen’s shoulder weakly. “What he means to say is, there’s cases of women being ra… er, taken by monsters, and there’s spells designed to prevent unwanted births from that. He… happens to be an expert…” She lets out a long, tired sigh.

“Just so. But, ultimately, the decision is yours, Sofia. If you do choose to have that Yorg’s child… It’ll be difficult, but don’t worry. I may just be a low-rank no-name adventurer, but I’ll do everything in my power to support you.” Zen meets my gaze firmly, his joking smile shifting into something more genuine, his eyes softening to warm pools. If only he wasn’t half-naked, he’d have almost looked dependable.

“Like a penniless loser like you could do anything,” Arryl murmurs.

“Ssshhhh~ I’ll figure it out,” Zen says with a grin.

I chuckle with him, resting a hand on my tummy. A child… Yeah, the decision comes to me easily.

“I… I don’t think I’m anywhere near ready or qualified to be a mother.” I glance up at him. I may have loved having sex with the orc, but actually birthing his child had never been in the cards, even more so now that he’d up and abandoned me. “This spell… how does it work? Does it hurt?”

“Nope! Just a bibbity bobbity boo, and you’ll be baby-free~”

“Zen!” Arryl slaps him upside the head again. “Could you be any less tactful?!”

“Ouchy… I mean, am I wrong?!”

“Ahahaha, it’s okay, Arryl,” I say, pulling my hand away from my stomach. Taking a deep breath, I turn to face Zen. “Alright. Do it.”

Zen blinks. “Really? You’re ready? I can give you more time to prepare, if you want…”

“No, I’m okay.” I smile at him. “Baby-Be-Gone me.”

“Pff–!” He nudges Arryl. “See, she gets me. Right, then. A bibbity-bobbity-boo~!!”

I stare, incredulous, as he flourishes his hands comically; but, magic settles around me, and I can feel heat penetrating deep into my womb, gently, kindly separating my egg from the hundreds of thousands of swimmers still eagerly sloshing around inside me. I take a deep breath, feeling strangely cleansed, as Zen claps his hands together.

“Alright! That’s that done. Now then, shall we hurry back? I believe there’s only a half hour left in that lunch sale.” He pulls a pocket watch from… his underwear? He had pockets in that thing?

“Twenty minutes, actually,” Arryl says. “We’re gonna have to rush.”

————

Several thousand kilometers away, in a castle floating atop a raging volcano, two figures meet in the expansive throne room. Jets of magma spray up from below, dousing the magically reinforced windows, casting shimmering, haunting lights into the grand hall.

“So… The Hero’s finally awakened?” The first figure, a tall, muscular woman, reclines on her throne. With skin the color of burnished bronze, hair like a golden arnavutköy escort waterfall, and features carved straight from goddesses of legend, she resembles a finely crafted sculpture poised atop a deity’s pedestal. Her eyes are colored a piercing, midnight black, dotted with bright white highlights like stars, the vastness of space contained in her irises. In one hand, she holds a glass of dark red liquid, swirling it pompously as she gazes down at her retainer.

Or tries to; though the other woman is standing two steps down on the dais, she still towers over the bronze lady, her gargantuan size accentuated by her even more gargantuan curves. Like a fertility goddess from ancient days, she stands with the most ridiculous proportions anyone has borne witness to: breasts that swell and threaten to spill out of her top, each one twice the size of her head; a waist that cinches in, flaring out to wide, childbearing hips; and an ass that could drown a man in its plumpness, yet lacks any kind of sag, showing off its firmness and bounciness as she shifts her weight. It is as if she exists in direct contrast to the muscled woman, exceedingly soft where her queen is firm and tight, with smooth, blue skin to stand against that rich bronze color, jet-black hair that spills over her shoulders in inky streams, and eyes that glow with a calm, muted purple light.

“Yes, milady,” the blue-skinned retainer murmurs. “I have confirmed the location where the Hero has unleashed her power. I have also confirmed that she has bigger tits than you do.”

“BWWFFFFGHGHH–!!” The queen spews out her drink, coughing loudly. “T-that was unnecessary, Pon!”

Wiping her mouth indignantly, the queen cups her modest chest, grumbling quietly. She’s not small; it’s just that she’s always compared to the ridiculous meatbags attached to the massive woman next to her. The queen takes pride in her body; it’s a work of art, honed through rigorous training and battle. That doesn’t mean she lacks femininity, not in the slightest. Not in the slightest.

Pon bows her head demurely. “Rest assured, she appears to have a smaller cock than you.”

“I didn’t need to know that, either!” Setting down her glass with a huff, the queen glares at her retainer, wondering for the millionth time why her most trusted aide just had to be a woman with this personality and body. “So she’s a futanari, like us?”

“Indeed. She’s very cute. Such pretty, glittering white hair, amber eyes that look adorable when they’re full of blissed-out tears, a nice, nine-inch girlcock that looks just sooooo deliciously suckable…❤︎ Slurp…❤︎”

“You’re drooling, Pon.”

“My apologies. In any case, she is top-tier wife material.”

“Take this seriously, would you?!” The queen slams her armrest with a fist. “This is the Hero! The Hero!! My fated enemy! My one true rival!”

“You’re talking about that dusty old tradition again. We’ve been at peace for hundreds of years; why do you insist on setting up burning rivalries and epic final battles? You even stopped me from visiting her and introducing myself. I am quite angry about that, you know? I wanted to give her lots of hugs and kisses and bring her here to live in luxury. She’s going to a no-name town in a border county in some bumfuck kingdom, you know? Don’t you feel bad for her?”

“Graaah, shut up!! I’ve been waiting for this moment for well over a hundred years; no way I’m passing up this chance! What’s the point of a Hero without a hero’s journey?!”

“What’s the point of a hero’s journey if it’s all staged by you for your own satisfaction…?”

“Ngaaah, shut up shut up shut up!! Aren’t you my closest aide? Support me, dammit!”

“I am supporting you. By not heading over there right now and helping her squeeze all that juicy cum from her balls with these fat tits of mine. Even though I really, really, really want to, I’m holding back just for you.”

“Ngh… T-thanks, I guess… No, wait, you’re just trying to force your selfishness on her too, aren’t you?!”

“Oops, busted. At least my selfishness does not involve entire legions of monsters and a world-spanning quest.”

“Gah, I can’t help it! I just had so much time on my hands and my plans got a little over-the-top…”

Pon shakes her head with a sigh. “Whatever the case, my Queen, your word is my command. Shall I send in the introductory scouts? Cause a little chaos? Kickstart her hero’s journey?”

“… You know, because you keep ragging on me, I’m starting to lose confidence in my ideas now… Maybe you’re right. I’m just going to be bothering her by trying to push her along this quest… I tried my best to make it really fun, though…”

Pon rolls her eyes, snapping her fingers. “I have sent the scouts. Don’t go getting cold feet now, my Queen.”

“Fueh?! You sent them?! Agh, geez, fine! Whatever! It’s starting for real now!”

Rising from her throne, the Queen sweeps out her robe, her drink tumbling to the ground and shattering, glass and bloodred liquid spraying over the tile.

“Fuahahahaha, soon you shall know my name and tremble in fear, Hero… For I am the Demon Queen, Arraikah!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”

“Please clean up after your messes, my Queen.”

“Gyaaah, stop ruining the moment, damn you~~~~!!!!!”

Cecil and the Bull and Mare Inn

Little is more satisfying for an adventurer after a long journey than to pull into an inn with a cozy fire, hot food, cold ale, comfortable beds, and a rousing wench or three. Perhaps no inn is more sought after than The Bull and Mare.

Patrons of all walks, all races, and all trades line the bar, crowd the tables, and even patiently wait outside on occasion. A passerby is as likely to see an elf warrior as a human mage, or a dwarf miner as an orc trader.

With such a crowd, one might expect all the aforementioned comforts of an inn are well supplied, and at a location most desirable. However, at The Bull and Mare, you will find none of those things. The ale is usually flat and warm, the food is poorly cooked if cooked at all, the beds are lumpy and hard, and the fire often roars on hot days and burns low on frigid nights.

Certainly the only thing that might warrant the throng traveling additional miles just to wait outside The Bull and Mare would be a wench of uncommon skill. Many a traveler, whether male or female, grizzled and experienced or young and bright-eyed, would happily bask in the company of a quality wench. Images come to mind of a tall woman with flowing hair, a pleasant face, and well-appointed bosom, whisking around the inn and attending to the guests’ every want and need.

And yet, if the comforts of The Bull and Mare are a disappointment, then Cecil the Wench is no less than a travesty of inability, as equally likely to spill ale on a guest as to forget their presence entirely. And still, the crowd is boisterous and full of laughter. The reason why is rooted squarely in Cecil–all who come to the inn dream and pray to the gods that they might join in one of her many adventures, which began the day she arrived at the inn some years ago.

*****

Although it was a pleasant spring day, a cloud hung over Cecil. She trudged along a quiet path beside a stream, a pack slung over her shoulder, ignoring the singing birds which flitted over rolling hills and ducked between tranquil forests.

“Damn the witches!” she said. “I can’t even enjoy this beautiful day. Rules this, procedures that, all I wanted was a little fun. Why be blessed as they are if you never have any fun? I’m in my early twenties, I’m supposed to have fun! I just wanted to enjoy the gift they gave me. And kicking me out, how extreme. At least I fled before they could unenchant me. I swear, you damnable witches, I will have my revenge!”

Cecil paused, fist in the air, on seeing an inn ahead.

“That looks as appealing as a pile of hog’s shit. What idiot would build an inn out here, in the middle of nowhere?”

The inn might have once been cozy, but was now dilapidated. There were gaps in the roof thatching, chipped clay cladding on the walls, and cracked glass in windows giving it a less than inviting appearance.

“Well, maybe this could be just the opportunity I need…”

Cecil strode through the door, which nearly fell off its hinge as she pushed it open. A middle aged man, a touch on the portly side but was clearly handsome in his youth, scrubbed the bar mindlessly.

“Come in, come in!” said the innkeeper enthusiastically, all but shocked at the arrival of a guest. The edges of the innkeeper’s thick but well-trimmed mustache curled up as he smiled with a nervous sincerity in his eyes. “Welcome to The Bull and Mare! Richard, at your service. The sack of potatoes sitting over there is my son Georg. What can we, eh, what can I do for you?”

Cecil paused to look at her surroundings. The interior was in no better condition than the outside, with wobbly chairs, dingy lighting and the floor in desperate need of a scrub. The inn was empty aside from Richard and Georg, who sat idly in the corner. The young man, appearing in his twenties, had looks which far outpaced his father’s, with a strong jaw and surprisingly well clipped hair above his deep-set eyes.

“The young loaf is far overdue to find himself a wife, a husband, a job, anything, really. All he does is laze about here, with the full support of his mother. Anyway, what can we do you for?”

“You need a wench,” Cecil said, her voice bright and ever so slightly mischievous.

Richard was taken aback, but took a closer look at Cecil. Instead of seeing what he desired in a wench – a tall, curvy, blonde with pale skin and a huge rack – Richard saw a very different figure. güngören escort Cecil was short and slim, with light olive skin and pert but modest breasts. Her face was attractive, though it might be described more as pretty than beautiful, with freckled cheeks set high beneath her green eyes and curly brown hair framing her face. A soft and narrow jaw with a pointed chin matched her slender nose. Even her outfit was drab, a simple tan dress over a white shirt which covered her cleavage, and dusty leather boots.

“What are you getting at?” He asked, hesitant to take her bait.

“I’m currently available,” Cecil cheerily replied. “Look around! You need a wench. Every inn needs a proper wench.”

“Well, you’re not quite what I’d expect for a wench,” said the innkeeper.

“Oh come now, give me a try,” she dipped her chin and raised a shoulder, looking as innocent and attractive as she was able.

“Your coy look is not a demonstration of what you can do!”

“Then let me demonstrate,” Cecil said with a grin.

“Why not let her have a try, father,” said Georg.

“That’s a good boy,” chirped Cecil, causing the innkeeper’s son to blush brightly. “Let me have a try. It seems to be a bit quiet at the moment, why not a test?”

Cecil didn’t admit she had no idea what being a wench entailed, other than the stories she had read in books about dashing women attracting customers with their charm – and the trysts that often followed.

“Fine then. First up is counting coins. How are your maths?” Richard said sternly, picking up a small pouch of nuts. “We’ll pretend these are coins, you charge three pence for an ale, five for a bowl of stew, one for a crust of bread, eight for a night in the group rooms, fifteen for a private room. Ready?”

Cecil scurred behind the bar. “Of course!” she said with a wink.

Richard puffed up his chest then showered Cecil with nuts. “Oy, we have four ales up, here’s coin, change split to two! I have four going to the group room and one to private, here’s the coin, any leftovers are for the one in the private room! Two stews, one with bread! Did they shortchange us? Keep the counts clean!”

Nuts rolled off the bar and scattered over the floor. Cecil leaned over, squeezing her chest between her arms with her elbows on the bar.

“What are you doing! You missed every single nut!”

Cecil air-kissed at Richard, then grinned with pouty lips. “Oh, I’m so sorry, how could I be so careless. Maybe we could slow things down a bit, take a closer look together, side by side.”

Richard’s face burned. “You… you can’t slow down! There will be too many patrons!”

Cecil looked at the innkeeper out of the corner of her eye. “How many stayed here last night? This week even?”

“There… there will be more!” Richard fumed. “It’s the off-season. Nearby villages are growing, bandits are being cleared out, wait! Why am I justifying myself to you! You fail at counting! Can you at least pour ale?”

The innkeeper marched over to a stack of casks, one already tapped and ready to pour.

“I don’t expect you to tap these yourselves, but patrons expect a clean pour, nice head, not too much froth, no dribbles down the mugs. Let’s see it!”

Cecil grabbed a pewter mug and twirled it about her finger, shaking her hips as she walked. The mug flipped off, crashing to the ground. Instead of worrying over the dropped mug, she grabbed a new one and sauntered over to the cask. She squat low beneath the tap, spreading her legs suggestively beneath her dress. When she turned the spigot, ale sprayed out and soaked her shirt. Her nipples hardened and pressed against the thin, damp fabric.

“Oh dear, I’ve made a bit of a mess,” Cecil said as she set the mug on the bar in front of Richard.

Richard slapped his cheeks in frustration. “The floor is soaked, you’re soaked, and all that made it into the mug is froth! You wasted three mugs’ worth! Can you at least clean?”

Richard pointed to the bucket and mop in the corner behind the bar. Cecil waltzed over. She slid the bucket beside the spilled ale. Taking hold of the mop with both hands, she turned her back to the innkeeper. Cecil moaned as she bent over, shaking her ass and sliding the mop over the floor. Ale splashed against the walls, the bar, and scattered further over the floor as Cecil flung the mop about, more focused on wiggling her rear than cleaning.

“What merter escort the hell is this all about!?” Richard fumed. “You can’t count, you can’t pour ale, you can’t clean, what could you possibly offer as a wench!? Why are you wasting my time!?”

A smirk appeared on Cecil’s face. “What I can offer is, simply, this!”

Cecil stepped out from behind the bar. Turning away from the flustered innkeeper and his son, Cecil reached down and grabbed the hem of her dress. She bent over a table and pulled the hem up over her waist with her legs spread wide, revealing a sight unhindered by undergarments.

“I was enchanted by the Witches of Clendol, my orifices will always be clean, wet and perfectly sized for whomever enters. Oh and child-free to boot. Come, try for yourself! Surely with me as a wench your inn will be bustling and full in no time.”

Georg leapt to his feet. “Every orifice? Aren’t your nostrils and ears orifices?”

Cecil sighed. “Let’s keep it to the holes designed for sex, I don’t want to see what happens when a cock cums inside my ear. Anway! Care for a sample of what could be the finest attraction at The Bull and Mare?”

Richard and Georg stared as Cecil’s body glistened tensed with anticipation, her trim shaven pussy pulsing. She quickly found herself wondering about their delay, in part due to her boredom as she stared at a decaying wall yet also yearning for a cock as it had been far too long since she had lain with a man.

Tiring of the wait, Cecil turned around and marched to the innkeeper. She yanked down his trousers to reveal a semi-hard member. She thought it looked a fair enough cock, though felt a tad offended at it being half-mast despite seeing her in full.

She licked her lips and took the whole member in her mouth, pursing her lips down at the base. She swirled her tongue around the tip as she slowly pulled back, the cock fully erect as she flicked her tongue across the tip. She massaged his balls and licked from the tip to the base and back again before plunging the cock deep into her mouth and sucked with frenzy.

The quiet son knelt behind Cecil and pulled down her dress, pert breasts bouncing as they were freed from the garment. Georg’s hands were unexpectedly soft as they massaged and squeezed. Cecil’s pink nipples hardened at the caress. Appreciating his enthusiastic grope, she made to reward his attention.

Cecil slipped Richard’s cock from her mouth, continuing to stroke it with her hand as she turned to the son. She grabbed Georg by his crotch and urged him to stand, yanking down his pants. His penis bounced out and throbbed. Cecil marveled at the sight, thinking he must be twice his father’s size. She was transfixed on the trail of precum, wondering if it would taste as sweet as it looked.

Georg’s cock proved a challenge for Cecil, but one she enthusiastically tackled. She sucked on his balls and lapped at the underside of the penis, the young man’s entire body trembling at the tease. Cecil hungrily wrapped her lips around the tip when the cock began to convulse. Leaning away, she gripped her hand tight around the base of the son’s member.

“Not just yet my eager stallion,” Cecil said with a smirk. She released her grip on the cocks and took a step back, her face now flush with arousal. Cecil kicked off her boots, one crashing through a window and the other knocking over a chair. She slipped her dress over her hips, now fully nude. She sat on a barstool with her firm ass hanging off and bent over her knees. She grabbed her ass and spread her labia, enticing the men to enter. “Come now and see why the Witches of Clendol are so famed for their enchantments!”

Georg took no further invitation and rushed in front of his father. Hands on Cecil’s hips, the young man lined the tip of his penis with her slit. With one giant thrust, he slammed his cock to its depths. Cecil gasped in delight and felt an orgasm rush through her body, face burning and legs convulsing in pleasure at the first cock she had in months.

The energetic son gave her little pause and began frantically thrusting, her wetness dripping down his thighs as her pussy performed as advertised, a perfectly sized hole of pleasure that massaged his every inch. Cecil groaned and squeaked with every vigorous thrust, the stool threatening to collapse. Richard positioned himself in front of Cecil and pinned zeytinburnu escort her arms to her side. He pressed in until she took his entire length into her throat. The two matched in frantic pace, thrusting in one end as the other withdrew, sending waves of pleasure through Cecil.

The son’s enthusiasm and inexperience soon overtook him. Georg tried to pull out to stave off an orgasm but a tidal wave of hot cum painted Cecil’s back. The poor boy stammered and apologized for his early release. Richard pulled out from her mouth and Cecil was ready to give Georg some affirmation, but the innkeeper gave no pause for discussion.

“Move, boy, time to show you how it’s done!”

Despite his feverish words, Richard began at a slower pace. He slid the tip of his cock up and down across Cecil’s labia until they shone. He entered slowly, gliding Cecil’s labia. As Richard pumped in and out, he varied angles and speed as Cecil’s pussy embraced his cock at every turn.

Wanting to test Cecil’s claims, Richard slid out until only the tip was still inside. He lined a finger up with his cock and slid them in together. Cecil moaned at the unexpected pressure and sensation of his finger, grinding herself back onto him. Richard’s eyes bulged as her body adapted, her pussy clinging tightly to his cock and finger yet he was still able to thrust in and out with ease.

Cecil looked at Georg, the virile young man was leaning against the bar and stroking his cock, nearly hard again. She beckoned him over and took him in her mouth, savoring the taste of his cum mixed with her own sweetness. Richard meanwhile continued his exploration, taking his finger from her pussy and pressing it against Cecil’s asshole. She wriggled back until Richard’s finger breached the entrance and slid deep inside. Cecil moaned, the innkeeper proving surprisingly deft with his digit as he used the finger in her ass to massage his cock inside her pussy.

Georg, now fully erect and pumping deep into Cecil’s mouth, returned to her breasts, pulling firmly at her nipples. The innkeeper increased his pace and rubbed Cecil’s clit in circles, pushing her over the edge as she orgasmed again. Cecil saw stars, feet curling as she orgasmed, waves of pleasure cascading through her body.

Cecil’s trembling lips were too much for Georg, and his second load of cum poured into Cecil’s mouth which she greedily swallowed. The innkeeper didn’t last much longer, and he roared as his hot cum filled her pussy.

Goergo stumbled away and collapsed into a chair. Richard flopped over Cecil, his warm chest cozy against her back.

“And what did you think of your sampling of one Cecil, blessed by the Witches of Clendol?” Cecil gloated after catching her breath.

Richard leaned back and squeezed her ass as his penis slipped out sending hot cum dripping to the floor. “I think you said something about being the perfect wench for The Bull and Mare? I think we have an opening for your openings.”

Cecil turned to face Richard and grinned mischievously. “Well, before I accept, I do have some demands of my own.”

“Demands?”

Cecil slipped a finger beneath his cock and slowly traced around his incredibly sensitive head. “Yes, demands.”

“What… what are they?” he stammered.

“Hm,” she said lazily, rubbing more intensely. “First, I get a room of my own, with a lock, and I get the only key.”

Richard shriveled at the attention to his cock. “Yes, we have a room you can have for yourself!”

“Second,” she said, grasping his balls with her other hand, “I choose who to sleep with. I have the freedom to decline anyone, including you. Use of my body is at my invitation. I’m a wench, employed by you, not your property.”

“Of course!” the innkeeper squealed as Cecil increased her pace.

“Third, and last condition. For as long as I wish, I will be your only wench. I might come and go, have the occasional days away as I wish, but you are not to replace me until I tell you I am leaving for good.”

Cecil tugged at Richard’s semi-hard cock with both hands and spewed out. “Yes, yes…” he groaned.

Cecil pushed and Richard fell back into a nearby chair. She winked at Georg, whose cock was already starting to harden. The three looked amongst each other with rosy faces, and Richard gave a satisfied chuckle. Their calm was short lived, however, when the door to the inn swung open.

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?” roared a woman’s voice, as ferocious as a dragon guarding its treasure.

“My wife!” screeched Richard.

How the trio avoided total calamity is another story entirely, but suffice it to say that after her performance, Cecil found herself employed as the wench of the Bull and Mare Inn.

Knight Elayne – Ch 3 – Secret of the Tavern

After wandering through densely forested terrain, Elayne finally found a tavern in a small clearing. Earlier she had traveled past an empty village, which looked like there hadn’t been anyone living there for many years and there weren’t any suitable buildings in which to spend the night. Near the village was a small graveyard, which looked like it had been long abandoned. There was a big tombstone in the middle of some bushes but the names had worn off a long time ago and the forest had started to take the land back. There were some tracks in the village and also in the graveyard, but nothing that could be demonic. The footprints looked to be human, maybe hunters who had passed by.

Elayne was happy to find this old, quite remote tavern because she really wanted a bath. She didn’t have too much money to spend, but a bath was something she really wanted right now. She couldn’t even remember when she had a good long bath last and by the gods, she would have one now. Elayne walked towards the tavern building and noticed a few horses in the stable. They looked too expensive for peasants to own and Elayne was curious. There was an old man in the stable who was taking care of the animals. She said hello to him, but the old man just muttered something back. This place was so remote, that maybe these old folk weren’t used to visitors anymore. Elayne had only one thing on her mind, a bath, so she didn’t waste any more time with the man or the horses and walked towards the door.

She entered a small tavern room, it was quiet. The fireplace had a fire lit in it, giving the place a cozy feel. It was a taf bit on the shabby side like remote taverns usually are. An older woman sat behind the counter, smoking her pipe while watching Elayne as she walked in. She got up slowly and asked Elayne what she wanted.

Elayne asked to have a room and a bath. The old lady nodded and said that she could give her a room, but this isn’t one of those fancy taverns like the central regions have, so no baths in the rooms. If she wants to have a bath, she has to use a room downstairs that has a bathtub in it. Elayne didn’t want to start to argue and if she could just get her bath, everything would be ok. So she agreed to the old woman’s offer. She got the key and paid the price. Her purse got really light, it didn’t happen often, but at least tonight she would treat herself well.

The old woman said that her room was up on the second floor on the left. She would inform her when the bath is ready. Elayne nodded and went towards the stairs, while the old lady went to the door and yelled to her son to start warming the bathwater. Elayne walked slowly up the stairs as she wanted to see the “son”. The same old muttering man from the barn walked in with clumsy steps. There must have been something wrong on his legs, or in his head, she didn’t want to ask. The old woman yelled at him and tried to get him to move faster by hitting him with a broom. The old man didn’t even notice and went on about his job. The whole time he was muttering something under his breath.

Elayne went upstairs and found her room. It was small, the window was nailed shut, the bed was creaking and floorboards were worn out. Elayne smiled to herself, but at least she could sleep indoors for a change. She heard someone talking in the room next door. She couldn’t hear well enough to understand anything, but then someone left that room. Elayne peeked into the corridor and saw a cloaked person disappearing down the stairs. Soon she heard voices outside as this person took a horse and climbed on it. Moments after, there wasn’t any sign that this person had even been here. Elayne didn’t care about it, she was just so tired from all that walking. But Elayne couldny help thinking, a horse would be nice to have.

Elayne checked her backpack and made sure that her sword stayed with her. Even here in a tavern room on the second floor, one needed to keep one’s head on a swivel. It was a bit odd that someone would leave the Tavern as the sun was setting and night was coming. Elayne put her backpack under her bed and went down stairs as the old lady was calling her guests to come down. As she stepped into the corridor, she saw a young brunette haired female leaving from the next room, where she had heard talking moments ago. She wore a cloak that looked like one that mage’s guilds used and Elayne started to wonder what kind of business a young novice mage could have here. Both of them went down and the old lady had made stew with bread for her guests. It wasn’t anything fancy, basic stew from ordinary ingredients but that’s the best that they could offer there. The old lady said that the rabbit in the stew was caught yesterday by her son and it was tender.

Elayne watched as this novice mage took her meal, thanked the old woman and went to find a place to sit for herself. She seemed to be cautious about the food and the other people around her. Elayne took her plate and thanked topkapı escort the old lady too but she just muttered something and that made Elayne smile a bit. I guess that’s the local way to talk, just mutter something. The novice mage was more interested to know what the stew contained, as she mainly poked it with her wooden spoon. For Elayne it was the best meal that she had gotten in the whole time that she had spent in that remote location. The sky was getting darker as finally the old boy came to his mother and again, muttered something odd and went back out. The old woman nodded to Elayne and told her that her bath was ready. Towels should be there waiting for her. It’s more than perfect timing for her, as she had just finished her food and got up from her table. The novice wasn’t so hungry after all and casually studied the stew like trying to figure out what’s in it, while checking the window from time to time. Was she waiting for something or someone.

Elayne didn’t bother to ask and she walked towards the room where the tub was readied. She found the bathtub, full of warm water and she just couldn’t stop smiling. She undressed herself quickly and slid into the water. It was heavenly for her and Elayne could finally rest for a short while, while washing all that dirt from her skin that she got while roaming around the countryside. A Horse would be a good help for her, but she didn’t have one yet and that novice mage might not want to sell her horse to Elayne. Also there was one little tiny thing, Elayne didn’t have that much money left anyway.

Elayne lay in the bath tub and felt how the warm water took away all that tiredness, making her legs feel better again. She could wash her hair at last and sometimes she really missed the time when she had plans to be married to some noble man. That was just a dream now to her and there aren’t any noble men who would marry her at the moment. If anyone knew that she had been seduced by demons and allowed them to abuse her, she would be in deep trouble. It wouldn’t matter if she had been under the spell of demons or not, she was touched by fiends and the Church had only one judgement for that and, it is Death.

Warm water caressed her body nicely and Elayne could put all her worries aside for the moment to relax and take that moment just for herself. The whole room started to be more or less full of steam that had risen from the warm water. The water didn’t feel like it was getting cold at all and the bottom of the quite large tub was still hot. Elayne thought that the water was being heated under that tub, one level down from that room. That just felt even better for Elayne as usually the bath water went cold after a while and she had to get up eventually. Now the water stayed nice and warm, so she could enjoy her stay as long as she wanted or someone told her to get out. At least she paid for the bath and bath is what she is going to get.

The novice mage had eaten as much as she wanted to eat of that stew and it tasted good, while it looked so odd to her eyes. She was getting bored, as here in the middle of nowhere nothing really happened and her friend hadn’t returned yet. Maybe he wasn’t coming back at all so she could return to her room. He should be back here for the morning and should carry more information about the lantern that they had dug up in the old graveyard.

The novice got up and returned to her upstairs room, while wondering why anyone would like to have that old lantern. It had some old runes on it, but that’s it. No other markings about what it does and what its purpose is. It’s just an old crude lantern with rune markings. She stared at it long enough, like it would just pop up and tell its secrets to her willingly. The novice mage took it in her hands, tossed and turned it, while searching for clues, but found nothing.

As it seemed to be the only way to figure out what it does and why someone sent them to get it, she lit it up. It started vibrating softly and it seemed to change its colours slowly. As the flame inside of it warmed it up, those smooth colours started to darken and the vibrating stopped. The novice mage just stared at it for a while and was curious as to why it didn’t do anything. She didn’t notice that the air had started to change within her room and it was thickening fast. When she finally noticed something, it was too late and a strong mystic force made her submit to its will.

Back at the bath tub room, Elayne had been thinking that she could stay in here for a few days more, take a closer look at the village and graveyard, but the only thing that she really wanted was this bathtub. One of those few things that she missed from her old life. She hadn’t even noticed that she had been in there for over an hour and she thought that the old lady would come knocking on the door when her bath time was over. She relaxed a little too much there and fell into a light sleep. It’s more like a cat nap than a deep sleep, but still she completely bağcılar escort gave up to her tiredness and her eyes were shut a little too long.

As Elayne was falling to sleep, upstairs that odd mist had already moved into the whole level and was moving downstairs, capturing everyone who was within its reach. The old lady and her son were subdued fast and the mist sank through those old floorboards easily. It felt that something was hidden under there, something that it wanted to reveal.

In the novice mage’s room, that same mist started whispering to her soft words and making sure that she’ll be under its control. The novice couldn’t do anything to prevent it anymore and the lantern just got stronger moment by moment. Voices whispered in her ears things that made her feel hot and aroused. The novice started to rock her body slowly as if dancing, at the same time she began removing her blue cloak. Undressing herself under the control of the strange old lantern and dropping her cloak on the floor. She continued dancing and her hands moved on her own body, like someone else would have been in there touching her lovely figured body. Her hands removed the rest of what she wore under her cloak and, soon she danced in her room fully naked. Her hands moved on her body wildly, keeping her aroused and driving her into the next phase. She moaned softly while dancing and those voices, that whispered words into her ears, had changed to become more intense, more hornier and a nastier type.

She feels how something directs her to the bed, and suddenly tosses her forcefully onto it on her back. She pants softly, as though waiting for her lover to come and take her right now, right here, and as roughly as her lover wanted. She lay on her bed, legs fully open towards the door and her fingers were rubbing her clit manically. She was trembling and moaning from the pleasure, as if some controlling thing had woken up from the depths of the earth. That odd enchanted mist had woken up something from the past and brought it back into the present day. Something had awoken and moved upstairs, then followed that pulsating mist and mage’s cries of pleasure. It felt her through that door and knew that she was ready for it. The novice mage saw how something opened the lock and the door was pushed open. A dark figure entered her room and she felt like she had been waiting for him all along.

Our knight in the bathtub woke up when she heard a soft thump from somewhere nearby. It didn’t come from outside or from below. It sounded more like it came from the tavern side and Elayne feels like her hands and legs are so heavy. Almost too heavy to move and she figures it must be a result of her falling asleep in the tub. It is a bad place to sleep and now she struggles to get out of the tub. Elayne hears another thump and now an ominous dragging sound. Like something heavy was being pulled along those worn out floorboards. The air within the tavern feels so odd and dense, as if something is forcing them to lie down and submit to its unholy will. Elayne felt dizzy but she managed to get herself on the floor beside the tub and now she reaches towards her belt where she keeps certain herbs that counteract lethargy, these sharpen her senses as well as keep her awake.

The sound of small soft thumps stop behind the door of the room and she drags herself towards her belt. Something pushes the door in and breaks the latch that had locked the door to pieces. Two dark skinned creatures move into the steamy room and Elayne see’s the demonic ghouls entering the room. Her belt is so close, but the spell slows her so much that she can’t reach it. These ghouls, more undead creatures than demonic in nature, see this fully naked young female on the floor and move towards their prey. Elayne feels now how the air had gotten even denser, it’s like a soupy mist that hits her hard. Elayne makes her final try and manages to grab the belt, just as these ghouls drag her away. Elayne uses all the strength she had left to remove the herbs from her purse. Her hands are shaking badly but she gets the herbs into her mouth and eats them. The Ghouls drag her into the tavern side where Elayne sees the old woman and her son, both are already slain and laying dead on the floor. Elayne is dragged towards the table and these ghouls just lift her up on it. A third ghoul who was waiting for them in here, comes over and puts its dark skinned hand on Elayne’s body. It seems to be interested in this young female and as the old woman wasn’t of any use to them, Elayne was a much, much better fit for what they had planned.

Her tits are played with as dark dirty fingers touch her hard nipples and someone’s hands move upon her inner thighs. The air is so dense in there and acting like a spell that keeps all living things deeply calm and allows no resistance. Elayne feels how her body is inspected roughly and she moans softly when someone’s fingers find their way inside her pussy. That moan was just spontaneous halkalı escort from her, she can’t even control her own body at that moment. She is like a rag doll on that table for these ghouls.

Elayne can’t know that these ghouls are from the Taverns’ past. Within this building, many guests were raped and murdered by former owners of this tavern. The angry Villagers had enough and one night, they attacked the Tavern and killed the whole murdering gang. All traces were removed and bodies were buried deep on the Taverns ground. Something had awakened them and now they are continuing their evil deeds. The old woman might have known what lay deep under the tavern and maybe her son also, but they weren’t offering any pleasures to this reawakened evil, only death. First one of these ghouls moved between Elayne’s legs and its evil face smirked as it contemplated what would happen next, while making its unholy member go into this lovely young woman’s body. It seems to really enjoy its first woman for years and it leans over her, so it could lick Elayne’s lovely firm tits with its forked tongue. It’s like a lizard’s tongue and maybe that guy wanted to

look different and cut his tongue.

Elayne feels how the first hard member slides into her and how disgusting that feels. She knows it won’t get any better, as this creature leans towards her, just so that it could lick and suck Elayne’s firm tits. It begins to remember how the deed is done and it’s smirking at Elayne, while ramming its cock deep into her pussy. It remembers all those women, who were raped by him so long ago and after that he had slashed their throats open. The bodies were then dragged outside into the middle of forest where wolves and other animals made sure the evidence against them vanished.

Elayne couldn’t help herself at all and she started to moan and pant while the ghoul rams its unholy tool into her time after time. Elayne feels how her tits are played the whole time. At first the ghouls from the past recalled their murderous past, but now they remember more bits and pieces from their past. How they tortured innocent women who rented the room at the Tavern, with the recollections the ghouls become far hornier than murderous. Elayne’s lovely legs are kept fully open for this first ghoul who is about to plant his cursed seeds into this young female. An occult mist around them keeps Elayne in an aroused state and her body is kept on the table in that position as long as they want it.

Elayne pants and moans from pleasure, as the first ghoul unloads its unholy seed into her waiting womb. It grunts a few times and feels that its deed is done. Its foul seeds are deep within this unlucky woman’s body and it presses a final kiss on Elayne’s lips. After that it moves away and a second ghoul moves between her legs, but the third one wants to have some fun too, so they turn her on her belly on that table, and in that position the poor woman is spit roasted between two foul smelling ghouls. Elayne feels herself moved into whatever positions these ghouls like, like a ragdoll in the wind. She cries out loud as a second ghouls thrusts his member into her and leans over her while keeping its strong hands on her hips, forcing it’s hard member as deep as it will go into this lovely lady, as the other ghoul is forcing it’s foul tasting cock into Elayne’s mouth.

While two ghouls are taking their turns with her, Elayne feels those herbs finally start to work and she starts to regain control over her own body. It starts with tiny things, but the effect is building up fast. The creatures haven’t noticed any change in her yet and they just are reliving their cursed memories from the past. How they robbed travellers on the road, in the forest and in the tavern. They killed their victims if they felt like it, and had fun with numerous females who just disappeared afterwards. After this band of cutthroats had got their hands on one too many girls from the village, the locals had had enough. Now it was their turn to repay the villagers for their actions long ago. The Ghouls don’t know that the village is now abandoned and their current unlucky victim isn’t so helpless as they think she is.

Elayne feels ghoul behind her start to pick up his pace and a few moments later, it shoots its sticky load into Elayne with a loud groan. The third ghoul is looking at its mate and maybe planned to take its place when the second ghoul pulls away, but Elayne has had enough of that. She had noticed a large bladed knife on the belt of this third ghoul and grabbed it, pulling it free from its scabbard. She rolled away from the table and with one fierce jump, she toppled one of the ghouls and slashed its throat open. Elayne continues her attack and the second ghouls loses its head and the last one takes that blade into its chest. It groans something like a curse on her before falling on its rotten knees and then fully on the floor. All three ghouls lay on the floor, once again in a dead state. Elayne makes sure of it and beheaded the other two ghouls. Three ghoul heads are lifted onto the counter and then Elayne remembers the novice mage. She might be in trouble and Elayne runs to get her sword from the bath tub room. It’s laying on the floor, just where it was left when the ghouls dragged her out of there.

“Y-you sure…?”

“This is what sex slaves do.”

“…Yeah… yeah it is… Alright!”

Alex’s mind stirred to this exchange, then jolted awake when he felt the touch of tongues on his hard cock. Opening his eyes, he was met with the wondrous sight of Tess and Sofia giving him proper service.

“”Morning, Mashtahr,”” they slurred in licking unison.

“Hmmm, you taste even better this morning,” Tess mumbled, after licking off the first drop of precum.

“Delicious… so sweet,” Sofia agreed, getting her first taste of his manhood a moment later.

‘Must be all the berries I’ve been eating,’ Alex theorized and just let the service continue.

Around him, the rest of the gathered survivors gradually stirred from their own sleep. Yahui and Charlotte left the scene largely uncommented on. Valeria, the last to wake up, raised an eyebrow but only said. “I’ll ask later.”

The three athletes then went through their individual morning routines. It involved a good amount of stretching and, in Charlotte’s case, deliberately wiggling assets in the direction of Alex. Getting a service like this first thing in the morning, with that sight involved, did not make for optimal conditions for endurance.

Tess was reluctant to taste him, because of her first taste the day before. Sofia had no such inhibitions and kept her lips wrapped nicely wrapped around the head of his cock. Spurt after spurt, he came into her mouth. Appreciative moans echoed from the fencer’s throat as she gulped it all down.

“Good girl!” Alex praised her enthusiastically.

“I-it tasted good, so…” Sofia mumbled, turning a bit red.

“Ya kidding me?” Charlotte sashayed over and, without anything in the ways of a warning, licked a stray drop of cum from the fencer’s lower lip. The French swimmer was slightly taken aback. “You aren’t kidding me! This stuff is great. Should have tried it yesterday!”

“Is it?” Tess mumbled, regret and apology on her face. She would give it a second taste another time.

“Yes, you should have,” Alex stated. He had a deep interest in making swallowing his cum the norm. He hadn’t received any compliments regarding his taste in the past. He considered that it could have been the recent, fructose-rich diet, but for all he knew he always could have been on the tastier side.

“Any nice dreams?” the French tomboy asked. “Because I dreamed I would be bent over and I think that might have been a nightmare, considering I’ll have to wait even longer on that front.”

Although Alex’s libido had grown recently, he did not remain hard right after a morning blowjob. His body craved water and food, the former much more than the latter. “I don’t really dream,” the pilot confessed with a yawn. “Haven’t for years. I do need to drink though.”

“There’s water down that way,” Valeria said.

Alex’s attention now shifted to the fifth survivor properly. Now that she wasn’t writhing on the ground, the dark-skinned woman was the image of self-control. Cooly, she met his gaze with her green eyes.

“Enough to wash and drink,” she continued. “It’s why I camped up here.”

“…You stayed out here for both days?”

“Once I had water, I was reluctant to leave. I was lucky enough to find some fruits atop nearby trees. I can get some if you’d like.” She rolled her shoulders. “I’m a climber, if you don’t know.”

Alex did not and that was useful knowledge. “If that’s going to be possible, I’d be much obliged.”

“Will be easy. They’re right outside the cave. Just let me wash this dried stuff off me first.”

Said dried stuff were the flaky remains of cum and pussy juice clinging to the inside of her thigh. Alex couldn’t keep his curiosity to himself any longer. “Are you… fine with what happened last night?”

“Beats masturbating myself to death,” she responded flatly. “You tried the alternatives, so thanks for that courtesy. Might not have been how I imagined I’d stop by my virgin streak, but it was hot. Counter question, is this some kind of fuck party?”

They had arrived by the shallow pond now. It was only around a corner into the cave, which didn’t go much deeper beyond that. The water was clear and tasted harder than Alex preferred, but clean was all they needed. Opposite of the pond was a depression in the stone that reminded him of a gothic arch in its rough shape. Aside from its outline, it was clearly natural in origin. There was nothing beyond it anyway.

‘Nature sure is odd sometimes,’ Alex thought and had a handful of water before telling Valeria of what had happened the past two days. The direct woman seemed minorly amused on the topic of sex slaves.

“Alright. If I get horny, I’ll ask you to fuck me again,” she stated at the end.

“Really? You’re fine with that?”

“Beats having my brain stir in unfulfilled urges. I spent like three quarters of my day horny and the other quarter taking care of it. Not like I have my toys with me to take care of it. Tess knows what I’m talking about.”

The gym manager rolled her eyes. “You etiler escort get caught wearing a vibrator during workout one time…”

“You forgot to mention the butt plug.”

“Is there like an epidemic of nymphomania among athletes?” Alex asked.

“Dude, did you never hear about the Olympic village?” Charlotte gave him a counter question. “I became an athlete halfway because I want buff men to run a train on me.”

Alex shot her a warning glance, then reigned himself in. What exactly was she to him now that he could make a demand of her that she would not do that in the future? For one reason or another, Charlotte averted her gaze guiltily and focused on cleaning herself.

“Spilling a bit of the secret of women’s locker rooms,” Tess picked up. “I can tell you, Master, that fit women are horny. Very horny… although me and Valeria were two of a few caught with sex toys in their lockers. I’ll keep the rest to myself. Privacy and all that.”

Alex nodded, he got a feeling he would find out in due time anyway. Anyone among the nubile tomboys that had crashed with them that had similar nymphomaniac tendencies would likely come to him for ‘help’ in one shape or another. “More surprising you were both virgins,” he confessed. “Every man would salivate at the chance of fucking you.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” Tess groaned. “You have any idea how annoying it is to be approached any time you stop somewhere?”

“That’s her problem. I just didn’t stop to look for a man.” Valeria threw her opinion in the ring. “What’s your excuse, quiet girl?”

“Uhm… well, dad raised me to marry me off eventually, so I was told very sternly to guard my virginity with my life.” Sofia smirked at Alex. “That arrangement was broken off though. The fencing career made me a bit too important to just give away as a token of friendship between oligarchs.”

“A fortunate escape for some of us,” Yahui agreed.

During the talk, they all splashed themselves with water and gave themselves as good a rub down as possible. “So, how did you end up in that situation?” Alex asked Valeria. “Because I doubt that was just you being a horny woman at work.”

“I stumbled into some fog some time before you found me. I only realized what it was doing by the time it was too late. That I managed to make it back to my safe spot was an actual miracle.” Valeria rolled her shoulders. “Sounds like the same fog you ran into.”

“Right, on that matter,” Charlotte raised her voice again. “I now officially agree that there’s something weird going on with this island.”

Alex raised an eyebrow and looked at the French swimmer. She had been pretty staunch in her opposition yesterday. “How come?”

Charlotte ran a hand through her hair, then over her arm, and finally over her mons. Naked skin glistened from the faint light that made it from the entrance to the alcove to where they currently sat. “It’s been two whole days and, I’ll just say it like it is, I was blessed with little hair but I wasn’t blessed with no hair.” She raised an arm and splashed some water on the clean shave of her armpit. “I should have some stubble by now, but nothing.”

At the mention, all the other women gave themselves a once-over as well. Alex, similarly, felt his chin. The shave he had gotten the night before the crash was still as present as before. Running a hand through his short hair also made him realize how entirely unaffected it seemed to have been by the events of the past few days.

Day one them still looking like the products of modern skincare routines was ignorable, day two it became a bit questionable, but by day three some signs should have been surfacing. Instead, all of them still looked their best selves.

“I should have had some snowballs by now,” Tess admitted, combing through her hair with her fingers.

“When we get off this island, we should tell scientists to look at everything,” Alex joked. “Between the intense aphrodisiac and whatever is keeping us this good looking, a whole new line of beauty products can be made.”

“Any chance we can claim this island and take in the profits?” Tess asked. “The way things are going, I’d like to build a house here and live with Master off the dividends.”

“That sounds lovely,” Sofia swooned.

“I don’t think international law would recognize that,” Yahui chimed in.

“Probably not – especially if we haven’t explored it all,” Alex agreed. “Let’s get breakfast and then set out again.” He got up to help Valeria with fetching the fruits. “I’m good at the Tarzan stuff,” he assured her.

She was sufficiently impressed when he proved that was true.

Past the retrieving and devouring of the fruits was the choice of where to go next. Their group had reached a respectable size, big enough that it was starting to be cumbersome to move as one. At some point, it would be wisest to make a permanent camp somewhere and then split into various teams so they could stock up on food and water. After that, they could tackle some bigger taksim escort projects.

Before that, however, Alex wanted to learn more about the lay of the land. “Let’s go east,” he said.

East was the easiest direction to follow this early in the day. The sun was the point of orientation. They just had to follow its radiance where they found it between the trees. Dense as the jungle was, this wasn’t always easy, but with enough care and with a climber now among them, they had a decent degree of success.

After an eternity of scaling tree roots, navigating hazards, and just generally overcoming the obstacles of the jungle, they almost suddenly surfaced on another green, flat area. The shore was distantly visible so they kept on walking.

When they reached it, they found soggy soil slanting off into the surf, not a sandy beach. “Wonder if the original shore was washed away by a storm or something?” Alex theorized. The grass seemed to do well right next to and inside the saltwater. That was far from common as far as he knew.

“Is that another shore?” Sofia asked.

Alex followed where her finger was pointing. Straining his eyes, he did see something that could have been more sand in the distance. It was a respectable distance of water away, too much to cross casually. He was somewhat certain he could make the swim, provided the water was as warm across the entire journey as it was near the shore, but it would take him several hours.

Looking north, the lay of the land did not give him such nice visibility. Whether they were standing at the west end of a bay or the eastern shore of a disconnected island, he did not know yet.

“Would be interesting if we came across an archipelago,” Yahui said.

“Hey!”

The distant shout made the group turn their head. From the north-west, a pale, short figure was running their way. She was pale, petite, and her messy, black hair bounced as she sprinted.

“Oh… thank… everything…” she gasped for air when she arrived by their side.

Although thin in her own right, this pale woman was less toned than everyone else Alex had met so far. She was also too tiny to compete in most sports, standing at barely above 1,50 metres tall. Bright pink was the colour of her lips, brown of her eyes. Their almond shape clued Alex in on who this one was. There had only been one other Asian besides Yahui on board.

“Ashley, right?” he greeted her.

“Y-yeah!” she said, caught her breath and looked straight at them all.

“Whew. Man, you lot would make for a great cover of… No, nevermind. Ehem, s-sorry, just happy to… you know, see people again… even if you can see more of me than I would prefer…”

“Just don’t take too much inspiration,” Tess told the short woman. Ashley had been the reporter aboard the plane. Her documentary would drastically change in character if they managed to get off this island, Alex felt.

“Y-yeah…” Ashley gave everyone a shifty look, then got stuck on Alex’s dick. It had been two hours now and since he was standing still, blood had the opportunity to rush somewhere else now. It was really hard not to get hard, surrounded by now six nubile young woman, skin glistening from sweat and humidity. “That’s… big,” she muttered.

Alex was about to do the usual spiel of explaining the situation, but the throbbing erection was too distracting. Sighing, he gave into his inner caveman. “Tess, could you explain to her what happened so far?” he requested.

“Certainly, Master.”

“Master?!” Ashley squeaked, blushing and yet stepping forwards, her interest piqued. “What’s that about.”

“I’ll tell you,” Tess stated.

While they began to chat, the man turned to the woman that had been needy for quite a while now. “How about I bend you over now?”

“I was starting to think I’d have to go and find some other guys,” the French slut stated with a huge grin. The statement rubbed Alex the wrong way immediately and she knew it. The mischievous smile on her lips invited a forceful reaction.

“You’re playing dangerous games,” Alex warned her.

“Me?” Charlotte asked all sweet and ignorant. “Whatever am I doing? Are you going to bend me over or not? Because I’m starting to forget how that cock felt inside me.” She took a half step forwards and began to stroke his manhood. “You’re getting all these other girls, why shouldn’t I fantasize about a bunch of other guys, hm?”

Alex suddenly grabbed her by the back of the head. Short, brown hair made for a poor handle, but there was enough there force her chin up as he pulled her against his chest. There was a variety of arguments he could make. The differences between men and women, the lack of availability, the status of the relationships he found himself in, and the general situation they found themselves in. However, all of those were secondary to a central one.

“Because I am telling you not to,” he growled.

In other situations, that would have been an overly possessive threat. At this specific fatih escort time, in this specific spot, in this specific situation, to this specific woman, it came across exactly as Alex wanted it to. Charlotte’s breathing hitched for a moment, then was released as a wanton sigh.

He wasn’t done.

“You don’t get to be a slut anymore. You’re my woman now.”

“When was that decided?” she asked. It was less a challenge and more genuine curiosity.

“Just now,” Alex stated, then mashed his lips on hers.

Charlotte’s lips tasted sweet, even now. Her tongue fenced with his, putting up a resistance that he easily overcame. Her hands still worked his cock. Alex’s left descended on her ass with an audible smack. The kiss broke with a masochistic cry. “Oh fuck!”

Alex spun her around where they stood, then gave her a firm shove. Falling on all fours into the soft grass, the slut immediately wiggled her ass in his direction. With a body like hers, it had been no wonder she had been able to serve her desires repeatedly. The tan lines from her swimsuit cut lines over the round shape of her shapely ass. Alex could see the reddening from the smack quite clearly on the pale part.

Kneeling down behind her, he rubbed the head of his cock against her glistening slit. “Say it. Say you’ll be mine.”

“I’m yours,” Charlotte purred.

It was too easy. She was too easy. Alex gave her ass a harsh smack. Between pleasure, pain, and confusion, she threw her head back. “Don’t lie to me, slut,” he chastized her. “Say it like you mean it or don’t say it at all.”

“You’ll have to try better than that if you want to turn me into another one of your little slave ha-aa-haaaaaaaaaaar-har-emmmmmhhhhmmm!”

Her defiant exclamation was undone by the swift penetration of her tight folds. She may have been a slut, but she was also still young and his cock stretched her more than any she had before. Hard and deep, he drove into her. She was so utterly drenched that he got right into pounding her.

The slaps of flesh against flesh were only overpowered by her wanton cries. Alex bowed over her like a rutting wolf. One hand gave him stability, the other found her clit and began rubbing in tandem with the frantic pace of the fucking. Her wide hips were swinging back at him. “Oh yes, more like that! More!” she screamed at a high pitched tone. She was trembling all over.

Alex suddenly pulled out. His cock ached. The annoyance of his pleasure craving instincts was entirely superceded by his dominant instincts. Charlotte whirled around and gave him a pout. When that did not work, she gave him a glare.

“Come ooooon,” she teased him and spread her legs invitingly. “Don’t make me masturbate again, cock is so much better.”

“My cock is,” he chastized her.

“Yes, your cock is the best I ever had!” she said and she meant that. “Now stick it back in me!”

Alex brushed through her hair with gentle care. “No,” he told her.

“You don’t want to fuck me?” Charlotte asked, the disbelief plain in her voice. “You don’t want to pound this nubile slut?”

“No, I don’t,” Alex said and he meant that. “I want to fuck my Charlotte.” Something in the deep tone he said that in, the mixture of care and demand, made her blush. Green eyes dashed to the side. “I know you want to say it,” he encouraged her. “Be mine. Enough of sleeping around. Even when we get out of here, you’ll only need me.”

Deep breaths made the medium breasts of the tomboy rise and fall. She mumbled something in French. “Fine… fine… I’ll be yours…,” she caved, reluctant and yet with certainty. “I’ll be your Charlotte.”

“That’s right. You’ll be my private slut.”

“Alex’s private slut does have a ring to it,” she joked.

Then, he sunk back into her. The scream was muffled by the renewed meeting of their lips. Barely had he pushed all the way back into her that she came.

Alex used the moment of her spasms to grab her ankles. At first it was just a test of how flexible she was, then he had pinned her down under him. Her bubble butt was under his groin, her knees next to her head, her feet were against the grass, and she complained about none of it. “Oh, yes, bend your private slut!”

“I’ll do so much more than bend you,” Alex promised.

Then he began to fuck her in earnest.

He believed her when she had said she was his, but he needed to drill that fact into her brain. Nothing about her should ever be able to doubt that the night in the fog was a fluke. Charlotte had needs and he would meet those needs – he would exceed her expectations. He would make her cum over and over again, demoting any previous encounters she had from ‘sex’ to ‘kind of fun evenings’. Sex was what they had. Getting fucked is what she experienced with him.

Charlotte could only take it and scream. So total was the way he pinned her that she could barely even writhe. “Oh yes! Oh yeee-e-essss, use your private slut! I’m you-u-u-uursssss!” she exclaimed and with each repetition it became a little more true. The foxy French tomboy would be his forever, he would assure it through love and lust.

She came. Not for the second, third, or fourth time. She just came. He was fucking her with all he had to offer and it was turning her thoughts into a slurry. Green eyes rolled up among the ecstasy.

Many thanks to my advance readers and to user LaRascasse for their assistance with editing!

Content warning: death of a family member, references to sexual assault

***

Amali awoke early, feeling less sore and more rested than the day before. She called for the serving-women to attend her and was quickly readied for the day. Instead of the usual skirts she was used to, she was dressed in two shifts, one with a high split seam down the front and back, another down the sides, and over this she was laced into a heavy gown with splits in all four places.

“What is this called?” she asked the serving-woman who spoke Taurian.

“It is a koslom, for riding,” she replied, and Amali memorized the word.

Her boots and cloak were the same as before, but her hair was braided in double plaits close to her head, like the mane of a horse, before being gathered together and tied off. After this she ate a hearty breakfast, feeling better knowing that the prince wouldn’t touch her for the time being.

She had thought she’d risen early, but he was waiting for her when the serving-woman led her outside. The screens had been taken down and all around them the tents were being dismantled and packed up. She spared a moment to look about, awed at how quickly the camp was returning to barren moorland.

“Princess,” he said, turning her attention back to him. He was holding the bridle of a dappled gray mare, taller than she was used to but still dwarfed in size compared to his stallion, who stood nearby. “This is Pranitsa. I brought her from the imperial stables at Domogr for you.”

“For me?” she echoed. She had never heard of Domogr, but it must be in the Serutusian heartland, where their strong, bold Kian horses had first been bred.

“Yes, princess. She is yours.”

She glanced at him and looked away from his smile. Slowly she advanced and greeted the horse, who huffed in reply.

“Hello, Pranitsa,” she murmured, stroking the mount’s velvety nose. The mare whickered, recognizing her name. “You’re beautiful.”

“I’m glad you like her,” the prince said. “Truthfully I was unsure if you even knew how to ride.”

He must have chosen this horse for her before he left Serutus; a gentle-mannered ride that could still keep up with the prince’s larger warhorse.

“Thank you, your highness,” she said quietly.

“It is only proper for an imperial princess to have a horse of her own,” he replied, a hint of pride in his voice.

Amali ignored it and took the reins from him, mounting up easily in her split skirts. After settling in her saddle, she looked down to see the prince watching her and blushed. He only chuckled and mounted his own great stallion — Tuma, he had called him — conversing easily with Morden as they waited. Then the man left, presumably to find his own horse, and she was left alone with the prince.

“The color suits you perfectly,” he commented abruptly.

She glanced over and saw him gazing at her blue koslom beneath her cloak. She blushed again and looked away, clutching the reins more tightly, which made Pranitsa shift with worry. Amali focused on soothing her new horse, murmuring soft words and petting her. In all truthfulness, she was the one who needed calming, for her heart was beating hard already at the prospect of returning to the place her father had been killed.

Amali was grateful when they finally rode out, up the large hill. She looked back as they crested the top, seeing fully two-thirds of the camp still remained.

“They will be following in the next few days,” the prince said next to her. “It takes time to move such a large encampment.”

He didn’t add, but Amali understood, that having her in hand was worth more than half his forces. She gritted her teeth, hating being thought of as a pawn in this game of conquest.

“Yes, princess,” he continued as they rode on. “You are the key that will open the doors of Berenul for me. Surely as the heir-daughter you understand your duty towards your people now?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” she hissed softly, looking away.

“For some, their pride is more important than their life. Is that not why you considered taking your own life, in my tent yesterday?”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” she replied, more harshly than she should have dared.

“I understand perfectly,” he countered. “A princess’ virtue is her honor. To lose that is worse than death. That is why you denied my proposal outright.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me as a wife,” she said quietly, not wanting to rouse his anger, but this only seemed to irritate him all the more.

“Your people must hold a terribly low opinion of me,” he retorted, nostrils flaring.

It was true, so she made no reply. They continued in uneasy silence, not stopping even when the sun reached its zenith. Bored, Amali scrounged her saddlebags, pleased to find a wedge of cheese, some apples, and a flask of water. She ate these as the afternoon wore on, mecidiyeköy escort every now and then turning behind her to take in the view of the imperial forces stretched out in a long ribbon behind them.

The sun was shining in their faces when Lirean Castle came into view. Amali tensed, and Pranitsa came to a halt. She tried to make her walk on, but the mare wouldn’t budge, and Amali flushed with embarrassment, aware that she was holding up the entire convoy.

Suddenly the prince’s gloved hand covered hers, loosening the reins that she’d been clutching too tightly. “Pranitsa is sensitive,” he said calmly. “She will not want to go somewhere you fear to send her.”

Amali swallowed, her throat dry. Glancing behind them, the prince took her reins and led her to the side, nodding for his entourage to continue forward without him. She sat back and lowered her gaze to Pranitsa’s withers, not wanting to see what his men must think of her.

“You are right to be afraid,” he said quietly. “But you will be safe so long as you stay by my side.”

“My father died there,” she said. “They dragged me from my bed to see. And Horan laughed at my screams.”

The prince made no reply, and she continued speaking, unable to stop.

“They didn’t use me. I know you don’t believe me, but it doesn’t matter, because it feels as though they did. And if they had, at least then I wouldn’t feel guilty for wanting to follow after Father and join my mother. I wouldn’t feel so terrible for not wanting to be here any longer.”

She was crying freely now, not bothering to staunch her tears. The prince stayed silent, bringing forth a handkerchief and wiping her face gently, but this only made her cry more. He handed her the cloth and took her reins once more, leading her further out from the convoy.

Amali continued crying until she ran out of tears, her eyes aching. The handkerchief was soiled and wet now, and he mutely took it from her, bringing out his flask and putting it in her unsteady hands.

“Drink,” he said, and she did.

When she was done she handed it back to him, and he recorked it without comment. Amali felt foolish in front of his stoic frame, and she looked away, north towards Juna. How she longed to be home.

“Do you remember the word for ‘husband’?” he asked her.

She sniffled. “Garadin.”

“Garad means to look after, to protect, to care for. That is what a husband and wife should do for each other. That is what I will do for you.” He took off his glove and slowly reached out, taking her hand. “I am glad to know that you were unharmed. But even if you were, I would still have you. Even if you conceived a child because of it, I would still make you my wife. And I would burn alive any man who had dared to touch you.”

Amali hiccupped, unsure of how she was meant to respond to this declaration.

“When my mother died,” he continued, “I, too, longed to follow after her. But we are not such people as can do whatever we please. Our every action is worth a thousand of those below us.” He sighed. “But more than that, princess, I promise you the pain will fade. It will never go away, but it will become bearable, and there will be space in your heart again.”

“Space in my heart?” she murmured, glancing shyly at him.

He smiled crookedly. “A poor translation of a beautiful word, princess.”

“What word is that?”

“Sparik,” he replied. “It means… room for the heart to breathe freely.”

“Sparik,” she repeated.

“Yes, princess.” He squeezed her hand and let go, regarding her carefully.

Amali bit her lip. “I’m not always so weepy,” she said defensively.

“I didn’t think you were, princess.”

His gentleness was becoming uncomfortable, and she looked away, back toward the sun and Lirean Castle. He followed her gaze, then looked back at her, frowning.

“Stay by my side,” he said, in the gruff tone she was more accustomed to, and she nodded. “Then let us go.”

He kneed his stallion into a trot and Amali followed. Pranitsa’s gait was smooth over the grassy hills, and Amali wondered if the moors reminded her of the grasslands of Serutus. They approached the line quickly, slowing as they reached the front. Morden eyed them as they returned to their place at the head of the convoy, perhaps unhappy to have lost sight of his prince for so long. But he made no comment, and presently they were within signaling distance of Lirean Castle.

Amali forced her face to smooth over her disgust and hatred as they rode through the gate, followed by the prince’s guard and a small detachment of armsmen. She avoided the eyes of Horan’s men, keeping her gaze meekly downward. She accepted the prince’s help dismounting, allowing his hand to stay at her waist even as Horan came forward and bowed deeply.

“I hope you have been enjoying your gift, your imperial highness,” he said, smiling widely.

“I have,” the prince replied lightly. “I thank you once again nişantaşı escort for bringing her safely to me.”

Horan caught the prince’s meaning and grinned. “I could do no less for your imperial highness. Come, I have prepared the highest seat for you at my table.”

Amali clung to the prince as they swept through the corridors into the great hall, where the prince took Horan’s chair after setting her squarely at his side. Her gaze darted about the room, trying to catch sight of any familiar faces. But if her servants were present, she could not find them.

All through the meal she endured Horan’s harsh laughter and crude jokes, which the prince did nothing to dissuade. She wondered vaguely at Horan’s sister’s absence — the girl was his only remaining kin, and Amali had sat beside her for several nights of feasting, before Horan’s betrayal. She supposed Horan had locked her away for her own safety, or the precious alliance her eventual marriage would make, if nothing else. At length Amali began to droop, exhausted from a day of riding and an evening spent trying to still her nerves. The prince seemed to notice, for he whispered in her ear to hold on a little longer.

“Your hospitality impresses, Lord Riotaz,” he said after a little while. “But my gift grows weary, and I should like to retire.”

“Take my chamber, your imperial highness,” Horan said.

Amali’s eyes widened and she clutched the prince’s arm. That was where her father had died.

“That won’t be necessary,” the prince replied.

“But I insist, your imperial highness. Nowhere else could be so fitting.”

“Nowhere but the princess’ chamber,” the prince said easily. Amali blushed at the guffaws of the men, lowering her eyes to the table.

“It shall be as you say, your imperial highness,” Horan relented.

A page led the way to the room Amali had not seen since she was awoken that terrible morning. It looked much the same, with her belongings still present, though not her serving-women.

She bit her lip, looking about the chamber. Where was Gilda?

“What troubles you, princess?” the prince asked.

“My servants,” she answered. “I haven’t seen them since — Gilda!” she cried, as the woman opened the door and scurried toward her.

Gilda paused and curtsied to the prince, who looked to Amali with his brows raised in a silent question.

“She is my serving-woman,” Amali explained, and he nodded.

Gilda took Amali’s hands and clutched them tight. “I am so glad to see you, your highness! Are you” — she glanced back at the prince — “unharmed?”

“I belong to his imperial highness now,” she replied softly, knowing how Gilda would interpret her words. Her serving-woman squeezed her hands more tightly, tears in her eyes. “But I am well, Gilda,” she said. “Where are Basti and Elia?”

“Basti is dead,” the woman replied, and Amali shut her eyes for a moment to steady herself.

“And Elia?”

Gilda shook her head. “I have not seen her since that morning, when Lord Horan’s men dragged her away.”

Elia was younger than Amali, a renowned beauty who was always brushing off the attentions of men. Amali had seen the way Horan’s men watched her, and felt a heavy pain in her stomach.

She turned to the prince. “Please, we must find her.”

He nodded and called out in Oghian, and Ziler entered the room. The prince issued a short command, and the man disappeared. Presently Morden appeared at the door, bowing his head. The prince spoke to him, gesturing to Gilda and speaking Elia’s name.

“This is the captain of my guard,” the prince told Amali’s serving-woman. “Go with him and find the girl, and he will escort you to my camp, where my own women will tend to the both of you.”

Gilda hesitated, still holding on to Amali. “Trust him, Gilda,” she assured her. “His serving-women have been attending me these past few days. And you’re safe with Morden.”

Hearing his name, the man smiled encouragingly, and Gilda relented, nodding. “I will return in the morning, your highness.”

“No,” the prince said. “Better to stay away from this place. You may attend the princess tomorrow evening.”

Gilda curtsied to him. “As you command, your imperial highness.”

She gave Amali one last look, then allowed Morden to usher her out of the chamber.

Amali paced nervously, trying not to imagine what terrible things her young serving-woman had endured. Horan’s own servants came to ready her for bed, and Amali let them do so, barely aware of the prince’s presence. Once she was washed and dressed, the serving-women turned their attentions to the prince, but he dismissed them with a wave of his hand. Amali looked away as he undressed himself, chewing her thumbnail.

At long last there was a knock at the door, and the prince, dressed in a long shirt, answered it. He spoke in low tones to whoever was there, then nodded and shut the door once more.

Amali faced him, wide-eyed. “Be at şişli escort ease, princess,” he said softly. “Morden delivered both your women to my servants. They’ll be well taken care of tonight.”

She shut her eyes and let out a long breath. “Thank you, your highness.” Opening her eyes, she saw his sad smile, and her stomach lurched. “How is Elia?”

He shook his head. “Morden had to carry her. He didn’t say anything else, but… Hanya insisted that both your women be taken to see a midwife,” he finished gently, and Amali winced and looked away. “We will reach Caranog in two days, and they can be tended to properly there.”

“Thank you, your highness,” she repeated.

“Your people are now my people,” he replied simply. She nodded. He would be king of Berenul soon enough. “Now come to bed, princess.”

She bit her lip and glanced at the bed nervously. She regretted her outburst earlier, for if he believed her untouched, he might no longer wait to take her.

“Calm your fears, princess. I will not consummate our union until after our wedding.”

Amali blinked and looked over at him. She could see his dark chest hair peeking out from his shirt, which barely covered his thighs. She turned away, blushing.

“If you don’t trust me, then set a pillow between us,” he said mildly.

Amali nodded and went to the bed, pulling back the covers and placing a long pillow down the middle. She climbed in, pulling her skirt down, and lifted up the covers, facing away from him and closing her eyes tight. She felt the mattress give way as he clambered in after her, the tug of him pulling the covers over himself.

“Sleep well, garadsash,” he said.

She wondered if the word was similar to garadin. Had he called her his wife? She would ask him later, she decided, when they weren’t sharing a bed.

***

Amali dreamed she was on the moors, riding her bay gelding, racing away from Horan’s men. Then suddenly her horse fell over, and she lay crushed under his weight. She tried to get up but couldn’t move, and Horan’s men were fast approaching, so she opened her mouth and tried to scream —

She gasped and opened her eyes, breathing hard. It was just a nightmare. She stretched out her hand and felt the smooth sheets. That’s right. She was safe in bed, with a pillow between her and the prince.

Only it wasn’t there. She could feel him next to her, warm and hard, hear his easy breathing.

Amali tried to sit up, but found that she couldn’t. It was just like in her dream, only instead of being pinned under a horse, she was trapped in his arms. They encircled her, holding her by the waist. Cautiously she tried to pull away his hand, but this only made him clutch her tighter.

“Your highness,” she whispered. “Please let me go.”

But he didn’t, instead nuzzling her closer, his breath on her hair, and against her back — Amali blushed furiously. She knew that when a man was aroused, his member became long and hard, and she could feel his now, pressing against her.

“Your highness,” she said more loudly. “Garadin.”

He stirred, then mumbled in her ear. “Yes, garadsash?”

“Please let go of me.”

“Hmm,” he murmured. “Why should I?”

“Because you’re on my side of the bed,” she said, trying to keep her thoughts straight. His breath smelled musky and sweet, and his body was so warm.

“I believe you are on my side of the bed, princess.” She could hear the lazy smile in his voice.

“What?” she squeaked. She stretched out her arm, trying to find the edge of the bed, but there was only more bed, and then the pillow. How had it gotten all the way over there?

“You moved it,” she said accusingly.

“I didn’t have to,” he replied. “I can take you in my arms whenever it pleases me, garadsash.”

Amali flushed and tried to pull away from him once more, but he didn’t release her. “You said you wouldn’t — not until our wedding,” she pleaded.

“And I won’t.” His lips were skimming her ears now, brushing against her hair.

“I’m not a fool,” she said, somewhat hotly. “I can feel that you want me.”

“So what?” he murmured. “I wanted to kill Lord Horan the moment I saw him yesterday, but I did not. Anyone who only ever does what they want, when they want, is no more than a child.”

She struggled against him, but he held fast. Amali gave up and went limp, tears of shame pressing hot on her eyelids.

“What are you thinking, princess?” he asked, voice low.

“You can do whatever you want with me, and I can’t stop you,” she answered, perhaps too honestly.

To her horror, she felt his member twitch against her. “Mmm. I like the sound of that. But it seems you don’t, princess.”

Amali didn’t dare to reply.

“I do wish you would trust me, garadsash,” he said softly, a hint of longing in his rough voice.

She shut her eyes, trying to breathe around his arms holding her close. It was true that he treated her better than she could have hoped that day Horan gifted her to him. But it was all too sudden, her father being murdered, and then being given over to the prince, and now finding her servants abused at the hands of Horan’s men.

“I need more time,” she said. “To you, I’ve been your betrothed since you left Iljimon. But I haven’t even known you a week.”