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The Windsar Adventures

Part 10: Gathering Forces

By Gideon Kalve Jarvis

“So many letters to send,” Yvette quipped to herself as she busily drew greasepaint lines along Tia’s naked body as the tan-skinned redhead lay back on one of the firm cots of Yvette’s workroom, doing her best to ignore the way her skin tingled where the golden-haired gnome touched her, her cherry red nipples rigid and erect in the light chill of the room. “All this work, just to get everyone in touch through the crystal network. One to that temperamental Nord amazon. Another to that delightful Sister of Radiance, Sister Laurel. And then I need to get in touch with that brilliant mousegirl, Dame Quillis Patterson.”

“Wait, Dame Patterson?” Harrin chimed in from the side, where she was sitting, fully-clothed, acting as chaperone for her two friends as Yvette prepared them for the application of her magic. “When did that happen?”

“Just last year, actually,” Yvette responded brightly as she drew a few scrolls out of one of her drawers and started to review their contents, ensuring she’d gotten the ritual painting just right. “Everyone laughed when that little mercenary mouseling offered the services of her halfling outriders to the Council of Wands. Well, almost everyone. The ones who didn’t gave her a trial run for a few months, since they were woefully short-handed – with the dearth of boy babies being born to the so-called civilized races for the last twenty or so years, they really didn’t have much choice; after all, beastfolk don’t seem to have been troubled by the dearth any more than the savage races, goblinoids and orcs and such. As it turned out, Quillis brought her troops in line right before those terrible hobgoblin raids last winter that nearly made it to Nemminus itself. Dame Patterson’s the reason they didn’t make it, and why we’re all not under hobgoblin tyranny right now.”

“Huh,” said Harrin, her eyebrows rising, obviously impressed. “Knew that mousie was pretty tough for her size, and had lots of book learning. Didn’t know she’d be able to use it that practically, though. I’d heard about the winter campaign from the bards, just didn’t know Quillis was the one in charge of it.”

“I’m not surprised,” Yvette replied, her eyes staying on her work as she started to draw similar lines of greasepaint over Ballia’s smooth elven body, starting with the green-haired elf’s taut, flat tummy, her pale skin a marked contrast to Tia’s deep tan as she lay on the cot next to her redheaded friend. “Even in these enlightened times, it’s a shame how little credit beastfolk get for anything they do, as much of a shame as how men have always held the traditional roles of warriors and leaders in our civilized societies – barring the elves and the gnomes, of course. It’s not right, especially when they can be such an asset to us all, if only we’d given them a fair chance.”

A matter of weeks ago, Tia, Ballia, and Harrin might have shared the general opinion on beastfolk as brutish savages, which was that they were worse than animals because of their savage and often uncontrollable instincts coupled with a dim, low cunning that approached rational intelligence. Most of the civilized races considered beastfolk to be a scourge in the wilderness, raiders and bandits at worst, a troubling nuisance to business enterprises and expanding settlement at best. Stray beastfolk of all types were well-known fixtures in every city on the world of Therafim, their presence mostly ignored by the powers that be, except when there was a need to round up a set of the usual suspects by the local constabulary, or call for some mercenaries for the local brute squads.

Quillis Patterson had been what the three adventurers considered an exception to the rule. Unlike the stereotype of her small kind, she was forthright and brave, a paladin empowered by the forces of Good. Fitting the stereotype of her kind, however, she was agile of both mind and body, though perhaps more than the typical mouseling. Though the brief time they’d spent with the clever little mouseling had seen Tia as the party leader, Tia had quickly learned to rely on Quillis for advice on sound, practical, and astonishingly effective strategic decisions. Despite the positive impression the young mouseling had made on the three, however, they’d always considered her just an exception that proved the rule. Now, though, after their time spent with Flintclaw, Tornan, and Harvas, their opinion of beastfolk in general was starting to change in ways that their association with Quillis hadn’t managed.

“That’s that, then,” said Yvette suddenly, turning to wash her hands, wiping them on the front of the long white apron she was wearing. “Farski, please bring me the orbs.”

At Yvette’s words, a tall, horned figure stepped from the side of the room where she’d been quietly standing, staying out of the line of direct attention as much as possible. Wearing a nurse’s clean white dress and apron and hat, much like Yvette’s own outfit, the brown-furred she-minotaur named Farski nevertheless looked very out of place in that medical setting, her powerful warrior’s physique obvious even through her civilized clothes and fairly youthful appearance. In her hands, Farski bore a stainless steel tray with two clear crystal orbs resting on small pedestals to ensure they didn’t roll around, each orb about the size of one of Yvette’s tiny fists. These the she-minotaur offered to Yvette, who took them and gently rested the smooth crystals into the slight indentations of Tia’s and Ballia’s navels. As soon as she touched the orbs, their clear depths suddenly grew cloudy with swirling mist, and when they touched the smooth skin of the two nude patients on the beds, images of children yet unborn could be seen in the depths of these mists, vague and uncertain, but present all the same.

“It looks as though your children will be healthy,” Yvette said with a pleased smile. “I’m afraid I can’t tell if Ballia’s will be half-wolf or half-wolfen, though.” Then she shrugged. “It probably doesn’t matter, since the other half will be elf, Ballia specifically. As long as the little one is treated properly, and I make sure to infuse the child with enough of Ballia’s memories, I think the baby will turn out just fine.”

“Boys or girls?” asked Tia with a wry smirk, obviously trying to challenge Yvette’s abilities. Yvette, however, took Tia’s question quite seriously, and frowned in concentration as she focused some of her magical abilities on the two women on the cots.

“Girls,” the gold-haired gnome said after a while with a firm nod. “Both of them. They’re both going to have a lot of their mother in them, though Tia’s is going to have green skin and some adorable little tusks, while Ballia’s is going to have cute wolf ears and a fluffy tail. Otherwise, they look like two healthy, perfectly normal baby girls.”

“Can we just get on with it?” Tia groused, her expression sour. “I’ve got a war to catch.”

“Just hold on a little,” Yvette answered, bowing her head as she closed her eyes, her hands raising. “And please, don’t make a sound.”

As the little gnome’s whole body started to glow with a soft golden light, Farski stepped back with the typical astonishing silence of her savage race, quietly getting out of the way, avoiding causing a distraction for her mistress. Harrin just sat and watched quietly with the longsuffering air of one who has previously endured what was to come. The lines Yvette had drawn on Tia’s and Ballia’s bodies soon began to glow with the same golden light suffusing Yvette’s body, as did the crystal orbs, and before too long the painted lines faded from sight, the glow sinking into the bellies and breasts of the two women, and then growing dim once more. Not long afterward, the orbs grew dim as well, the swirling mists within their depths settling and then disappearing, leaving each orb as clear and smooth as before.

“Phew,” sighed Yvette as she wiped her brow, then gently picked up the orbs, setting them on the tray Farski proffered as the soft-eyed she-minotaur quietly slipped up behind Yvette to offer her aid once more. “That always takes a lot out of me. It’s done, though. How many times have I had to do this for you, Tia? Three, four? The first time for Ballia, though.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Tia said with a scowl as she slipped off the cot and started to tug on her clothes, and was soon joined by Ballia. “I just want this baby born and handled.”

“You’re all heart, Tia,” Yvette chuckled, openly admiring the muscular, rounded bottom of the warrior woman, and the only slightly more petite tush of the elven babe as the pair dressed. “Just like usual, that spell should bring you both a painless, uncomplicated delivery in about eight hours…well, eight for Tia. I think it’s more like ten to twelve hours for elves, depending on the father’s species.”

“We’ll know when the baby is coming?” asked Ballia nervously, her slender hands resting on her stomach, her eyes widening slightly as she thought she felt her belly swell slightly under her touch.

“Yeah, we’ll know,” replied Tia before Yvette could answer, heaving a long sigh as she rolled her shoulders. “Guess we’d better work on that letter to our friend Keena.”

“That Skycrafter woman is such a bother,” said Yvette with a pout. “I’m sure she doesn’t like me.”

“Probably ‘cause of your reputation, Yvette,” said Tia with a wry smirk at the little gnome, before her expression softened slightly. “Thanks for helping us out like this. And for getting Min to agree to come over so fast.”

Yvette fairly beamed at Tia’s gratitude. Even a casual observer could tell that she really liked Tia, and seemed to desperately want the other girl’s approval. A closer analysis might have even led an observer to believe that Yvette was a victim of unrequited love, and this description of her affliction with Tia was not at all inaccurate.

“Are you sure you don’t want to wait a while and maybe spend some time with your daughter?” Yvette asked, then immediately regretted doing so, wincing slightly at the change in Tia’s expression.

“I think it’s best that she live her life, and I live mine,” Tia responded, the softening of her expression vanishing in an instant as she gave Yvette a look of complete neutrality. “Thanks for keeping me up to date on what Min’s been doing, though; I appreciate it.”

“Sure, no problem,” Yvette answered lamely as she watched Tia and her two companions file out of the room, then heaved a long, sad sigh. “It’s just not fair, Farski. I didn’t mean to have things turn out like this. I thought I was just helping us stay alive.”

The brown-furred heifer’s large, gentle hands rested on Yvette’s shoulders, rubbing them soothingly. The gold gnome looked up at the young she-minotaur with a smile, which Farski returned.

“She does keep coming back, ma’am,” the bestially beautiful female said in a voice that was surprisingly sweet in tone, not at all the gravely notes expected of her monstrous race. A small smile graced Yvette’s face as she considered her servant and friend’s words.

“Yes,” she said finally with a slight nod, her smile widening just a little. “She does, doesn’t she?”

*

Urla looked around warily as she made her way through the Hill Country to the east of the lands governed by the Council of Wands and north of the Sorrowmarsh. By her side, the alpha worg stalked with equal wariness, ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice. After the loss of her older brother and the ogre mage Ralist to the assault by the mageling Sheru Windsar and her companions, Malik Malleus recognized a rather significant need for a new army to replace the one that should have been waiting for him upon his arrival. It was Urla’s mission to locate the most powerful of the orcish tribes in the region that had not come immediately to the call of Warchief Gorewolf, but had instead held back or otherwise been delayed, only to give up the attempt to join completely when the Horde had been destroyed prematurely, along with its leaders. After all, without a Warchief, there could be no Horde, and all orcs knew it.

Only a matter of days before, Urla had met in conference with the chiefs of the Underdark orcs dwelling beneath the Granite Mountains. These orcs were suspicious sorts, isolated and unwilling to deal much with outsiders. They were powerful fighters, though, and when they served under a leader with sufficient power and personal magnetism, they could be formed into a truly terrifying force. Unfortunately for Urla, her efforts to unite the Underdark tribes hadn’t gone as well as she’d wanted. Even with her new power and authority as the Warchief of the Overlord, Malik Malleus, the Underdark orcs had made it quite clear that they wanted to see the results of the Overlord’s leadership before they would commit to anything. They’d already gotten word about the results of Warchief Gorewolf’s and Ralist’s leadership efforts on Malik’s behalf, and didn’t relish the thought of failing to properly enjoy more than the most basic spoils of war before their deaths, like the last Horde. The chiefs were clear in their stance: bring us news of victory and spoils worthy of our loyalty, and you will be our Warchief, and Malik Malleus will be our Overlord.

The trip into the Underdark wasn’t a total waste of time, however: while she’d failed to gather the orcish tribes of the Granite Mountain Underdark to her master’s banner, Urla had impressed several large tribes of goblins, helped in no small part by the clever speaking of the worg alpha (who actively scorned the use of names as a two-legger weakness), for not only did goblins respect anyone who had the respect of worgs, longtime allies of goblins across Therafim, Malik Malleus was both well-known and well-liked by all the goblins of the world, having several times freed goblins from enslavement or extinction by other, more powerful races, and regularly keeping goblins as his personal minions, tending to the many minor duties that kept his household running smoothly back in Darkland. All Urla had to do to earn the loyalty of hundreds of goblins was to make her relationship to Malik known, and soon a troop of goblins was making their way toward Malik’s camp along the southern coast, ready and eager to serve the master they trusted would bring them power over the races that thought of them as weak, good for nothing but enslavement and cannon fodder. Truthfully, Urla didn’t understand her master’s fondness for goblins, something he’d explained briefly as his “respect for the underdogs,” but so long as it meant she was successful in her efforts to rally forces for Malik’s armies, the rest wasn’t important.

All of which brought Urla to her present time and location, wending her way through the forested hills in search of her next assignment. Malik and his various other allies had all spread out in order to cover the most possible ground and gather the most possible allies in the conflicts to come, and Urla was simply reaching out to those groups that would likely respect her most. In this case, that meant the savage, degenerate races that lived in the hill country.

Stopping suddenly as the worg alpha’s hackles bristled, Urla scowled as she lifted her face, her slightly flattened nose scenting the air. Though her sense of smell wasn’t as keen as that of her worg companion, Urla could pick up the taint of their quarry in the air all the same, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

“Filthy things,” she growled, a growl shared by her dark lupine companion. “Let’s get this over with. And no killing…unless I say it’s okay.”

The worg looked sullen about this command, but finally rolled his broad, powerful shoulders in the wolfish equivalent of a shrug. Once Urla had the big male’s assurance that he’d do as she said, she pressed forward once more, no longer trying to conceal her presence, but approaching openly. She noted the many crude fetishes of bone and poorly-preserved bits of entrails dangling from the surrounding trees, and grimaced in annoyance at having to meet such degraded orc-kin. Her annoyance only grew as she stepped out into the small valley between two of the larger hills, through which a fast-moving stream ran. Urla’s first sight upon entering this valley was a massive, rotund creature, heavily porcine in appearance, with dark tan skin, wearing only an ill-fitting breastplate and a loincloth over his broad-bellied body. Looking down, Urla noticed that the male beast’s feet were more like the trotters of a pig than the plantigrade feet of true orcs, and shook her head, sighing heavily. The pig-orc didn’t notice Urla’s expression; actually, he didn’t notice anything at all: he was sound asleep.

“No discipline,” Urla muttered to her worg companion, who simply nodded as he took up position next to her. “No motivation, either. Typical pig-orcs. I only hope Malik knows what he’s doing.”

If she were honest with herself, actually, Urla had to admit that Malik probably did know what he was doing. Pig-orcs, also called warboars, were a degraded breed of orc that had interbred heavily with the porque, or pigfolk, that often lived on the outskirts of civilized lands, as well as with the ogres that stalked the Hillcountry. They tended to be vastly more lazy than the typical orc, and given to a very muscular sort of obesity, much like the slumbering specimen lying on supposed guard duty before Urla. Their slothful and gluttonous habits, however, belied the true power of warboars: while slow to action, once they were in motion, warboars were nearly unstoppable. Adding this to their generally limited intellects, even less than that of orcs, and warboars could make fantastic shock troops if they were properly motivated. Fortunately for Urla, she knew exactly how to provide that motivation.

Leaving the sleeping sentry where he lay, Urla crossed the stream, entering the camp proper. The entire place was a single vast clearing, the ground stomped flat by the constant tread of many heavy trotters. Buildings, where they were present at all, were composed of simple ramshackle wooden structures, places that would have been considered temporary dwellings by just about any other race, but to a race as hardy and lazy as pig-orcs, that was all they needed or wanted – enough to keep out the very worst effects of weather, and little else. All around, Urla saw squealing pig-orc brats running and brawling, and big-bellied and larger-breasted pig-women making their ways about the various chores of camp, their beaten-down expressions and total lack of clothing making it pretty clear that these females were regarded as little more than slaves and breeding stock. Pausing in this outer region of the camp, Urla looked closely at the females and children, and noted with more than a little satisfaction that, even though there were more females here than she could easily count, and the vast majority of them were bloat-bellied with litters of still more orc-brats, there were no humans anywhere among their number.

Pressing onward, toward the inner regions of the camp, Urla promptly knew that she’d entered the realm of the males when she heard the squealing of a sow pig-orc. A few steps, more, and Urla could see the sow in question, a younger female, tears streaking her lighter pink cheeks as she was held down on all-fours by a hulking, brutish-looking boar, his face screwed up in pleasure as the slaps of his hips striking the young sow’s curly-tailed bottom filled the air, his grunts almost as loud as her squeals as he made her four breasts bounce at a brutal pace. Gathered around, their demeanor somewhere between boredom and lust, were several other males, all of them quite naked, their rotundly muscular bodies and almost grotesquely oversized cocks on full display as they waited their turns with the doomed sow-slave.

One of the males near the scene of rape glanced up, then blinked his small, piggish eyes as he caught sight of Urla. Immediately, his mouth dropped open, and he started to drool, then grunted something in the debased patois of the pig-orcs, something Urla was able to decypher after a few moments of thought. Roughly translated, the eager pig-orc had called her “green meat.” Curling her upper lip in scorn, thrusting out the tusks that protruded from her lower jaw, Urla was aware of other pig-orc boars coming out of the tents and lean-tos and other shanties where they’d been resting off their prior debaucheries, but paid them little heed for the time being. Right now, her focus was on the hulking male approaching her now, standing head, shoulders, and chest taller than Urla, his musculature impressive despite his protruding belly – if anything, his belly made him appear even bigger and more intimidating. This was a critical moment, and if Urla made any mistakes in handling herself, she would end up right alongside all the other breeding sows, gang-raped until she was nothing but a broken, bloat-bellied slave.

Stepping forward eagerly, the big boar reached for Urla, his mouth slightly parted below his snout, baring his tusks, his tongue extended to lick his lower lips, his penis swollen and leaking heavily in his eagerness. Looking up into the eyes of the approaching male, feeling the other males of the camp starting to close in as well, eager for a taste of the new female in their midst, Urla waited only a moment longer…and then acted. The big boar’s expression turned from lustful anticipation to total and absolute shock as Urla stepped forward, right between his outstretched arms, and smoothly, neatly sliced off his heavy genitals with a single stroke of her magic long knife.

Squealing like, well, a stuck pig, the big boar went down, his hands immediately going to the gore-spurting injury he’d sustained. Urla, who had slid back out of his reach as easily as she’d slid within it, watched coldly as the male curled up on himself, his expression one of total shock, before she ended his squealing with another stroke of her blade, this one across his throat.

“Do I have your attention now?” she asked, her voice calm and commanding, no louder than it needed to be to be heard by the pig-orcs assembled around her. “I hope I do. My name is Urla Gorewolf. I am here as an emissary of the Overlord, Malik Malleus. I want to speak to your chief.”

Besides the boar-orc still brutally pounding the young sow, who seemed not to have noticed anything that had transpired, or perhaps simply didn’t care, the other pig-orcs grunted among themselves, and finally parted, forming a sort of corridor leading to the only halfway decent wooden structure in the entire camp, a sort of palisade with a rounded thatch roof on top. Ignoring the pig-orcs around her, all of whom kept a respectful distance now, Urla made her way through their parted ranks, and jerked aside the rough cloth curtain that served as the building’s door.

Taking a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dim light within the roofed palisade, the only light coming from the afternoon sun streaming through the many chinks in the walls, Urla smirked as she saw the chief of this squalor. As huge as an ogre, the hefty male was just barely starting to sag, his girth finally exceeding even his immense strength’s ability to hold it all up. Presently the hulking boar was slumped back on a wide straw pallet, his expression meditative as he chewed contemplatively on an apple.

“I heard the squealing,” the warboar chief said, his words perfectly-formed Wildlander, the language of the orcs and other savage folk, rather than the degraded patois of the rest of his people. “Even if I didn’t know better than to trifle with a minion of the Overlord, I’d know you for a warwoman instantly.” He gestured toward a table next to his pallet, on which rested a bowl of fruit and a decanter of wine, along with two clay mugs, looking strangely incongruent next to the delicate-seeming crystal of the decanter. “Help yourself, and tell me what brings the minions of the Overlord to my humble domain. I am Bruk, boar-chief of all the warboars of the Hillcountry.”

“I couldn’t help but notice your lack of booty, boar-chief,” Urla began, resting her hand on the head of the worg by her side, both her and the worg sporting mocking smirks. “Where is the gold? Where are the fine-wrought weapons? Where is the high-quality food made by the soft folk of the low places to the east? Where are the beautiful women? For I know your people lust after the soft folk’s females as much as my own people do.”

The boar-chief looked at Urla, his mild expression darkening swiftly at these taunting words. Slowly, ponderously, he rose to his feet, spreading wide his brutal hands, each looking strong enough to throttle a young bullock.

“You dare to question me in my home, under my own roof?” the boar-chief demanded. “You dare to taunt me with what you do not see, with what you think we lack?”

“No, boar-chief,” responded Urla, shaking her head. “I question only to remind you of what you lack, because I have come to give you the opportunity to get it.” The green-skinned woman reached into the pouch on her hip, and pulled out a thickly-packed packet of scrolls, sealed with the wax impression of the Overlord’s own mark. “Here, take and look for yourself.”

Half-expecting the boar-chief to need her to read it for him, Urla was mildly surprised when the boar-chief broke the seal (proving his right to do so, for only one able to command the warboars would have been able to break the magic seal without dying horribly) and began to studiously scrutinize the documents within.

“Maps of an invasion plan?” the boar-chief said in wonderment. “Rosters of expected resistance? And a contract waiting my mark, promising me a share of the spoils?” Bruk looked up at Urla, grinning, showing his many small, sharp teeth. “The Overlord is generous with spoils he hasn’t yet taken.”

“The Overlord does not make promises he cannot keep,” Urla countered, folding her arms before her. “If he ever does, he will cease to be Overlord. You know that.”

“Yes,” admitted the boar-chief with a slight nod of his weighty, boarish head. “Yes, I do know that. My only concern is that I should be on the losing side when the Overlord loses his position."

Urla glanced over her shoulder, then looked squarely back at the boar-chief.

“You can hardly do worse,” she said flatly, her tone and expression daring the boar-chief to deny the truth of her words. “Your numbers are swollen with at least twice as many males as females, probably much more, and your warriors are bored and restless and filled with a lust that they cannot quite sate. The people of the Council of Wands have grown weak and soft, their armed forces have been much reduced from former times, and the numbers of their women, the beautiful women of the soft low country, have grown great enough to satisfy all your strong warriors many times over.” Urla motioned a hand toward the rear of the palisade. “Picture your own harem of nubile human slaves. Picture the cries of the women you give to your warriors when their scant protectors are all defeated. Remember the pleasures that only a tight human twat can provide.”

“I do remember,” admitted the boar-chief finally, his snout curling in defeat. “You’ve proven your point, minion of the Overlord.”

“My name is Urla Gorewolf,” said Urla proudly. “I am the Overlord’s Warchief.”

“Then you are my Warchief as well,” said Bruk, rising to his feet and walking out of the palisade. Urla followed behind, standing next to the towering boar as he raised his arms and bellowed words in the patois of the warboars to his assembled warriors. At first they appeared indifferent. Soon, however, Bruk’s words roused them, invigorated them, energized them, and very soon after they were howling and bellowing and squealing along with his words, many of them sporting weighty erections or even drooling in their enthusiasm.

Urla smiled, and knew the worg was smiling along with her. She had succeeded once again in bringing glory to her master…and her love. Now only a final task remained, a final group that needed convincing to join the cause of the Overlord. Tonight Urla would celebrate with the warboars, cementing their determination to serve the needs of the Overlord. Tomorrow, she would seek out the leader of the gnoll tribes, and gather them as well.

*

Within the extensive stables of the Brightstar estate, Sam wiped his brow as he finished unloading the last of the sacks of oats he’d hauled there for delivery. Being an equitra, or horsefolk, himself, Sam had always felt that it was somehow wrong to make use of horses for labor or riding, even if the relation between him and them was even more distant than the relation between humans and apes. Even without the aid of animals pulling his cart, however, Sam was immensely strong, and had made excellent time for his deliveries, not only to the Brightstar estate, but to many of the surrounding hamlets. This had taken him several days, though Yvette had been kind enough to allow Sam to stay at her mansion, letting Sam save on money for inns, or comfort if he’d chosen to spend the nights under the stars instead.

Over the course of the last few days, Sam hadn’t seen much of what was going on within Brightstar mansion. He’d certainly never had opportunity for a repeat of the pleasure he’d enjoyed the first day and night of his stay there. Yvette, unfortunately, was far too busy with a multitude of tasks to have time for Sam, and Sheru seemed to be actively avoiding the big blonde horseman. She wasn’t unfriendly, just…distant, as though she wasn’t really sure what to make of their night together. They’d been especially busy tending to the needs of Tia and Ballia, the hot redhead and her equally hot elffriend. Sam wasn’t kept in the loop about all the details, but after only two days as Yvette’s guests, Tia and her party, with the big purple-furred boarman Arag in tow, packed up and headed off toward points south. Apparently they intended to rally the peasants down there to defend their homes from whatever forces this Overlord fellow was planning to amass.

All in all, this suited Sam just fine. He’d been busy himself the last few days, finishing the deliveries he should have completed sooner, if not for his inclusion in Yvette’s and Sheru’s plans for forming an adventuring party. During the course of those grain deliveries, Sam had also dropped a multitude of letters off at the gnome-run post office. Unlike human-run post offices, those run by gnomes were well-known for their extensive use of magic to ensure swift deliveries and swifter replies. Among the many letters Sam had taken from and to the Brightstar estate, he’d delivered some that were very strange indeed. Since envelopes weren’t typically used for most such deliveries, Sam had been free to look the letters over while he was hauling his haycart up the hill to Yvette’s mansion.

One of the letters was on the back of a brightly-colored circus flier, written in an elegant, flowing script that was obviously that of a woman. The woman’s name, actually, was Anastasia Serovan, and she most happily agreed to Yvette’s request for adventurers. Apparently she was bored with fleecing the rubes who came to watch her perform, while her friends seemed ready to move onto more exciting – and heroic – propositions than simple performance in a circus. Based on what Sam was able to figure from this lady’s writing, she wasn’t much of a lady, actually. As he mulled over what she had to say in her letter, Sam gradually got the idea that this circus performer with the highfalutin noble sounding name was a con artist of the highest order. The way she described her friends (“tediously determined to seek out the most quixotic of ventures that you have been known to share with humble seekers after fame and fortune such as ourselves, all in the hopes of making a mark on the world for some nebulous greater good”), though, Sam was pretty sure he’d get along fine with them. Actually, Sam figured working in a circus would make perfect sense for adventurers when they weren’t trudging through some dungeon somewhere: adventurers tended to pick up a lot of skills that could look pretty neat in front of an audience, so when you were between quests and needed some money, it sounded like a decent way to earn an (almost) honest living.

That wasn’t the only letter Sam delivered, of course. He also carried a letter on official-looking stationary from the Temple of Mercy in Nemminus, the seat of the worship of the goddess Nimbus, the Mistress of the Gentle Rains. This one, Sam didn’t read: he had way too much respect for Nimbus and her followers to go prying into their church business. After all, it was Nimbus that was supposed to cause rain to fall, by coaxing the savage Thunderbird, Chekari, into lessening the force of the storms he was constantly threatening to blast upon the world, and calming the raging inferno of Lord Phoenix, master of the sun’s heat. She was said to do so by acting as lover to all the gods of nature, as well as their go-between, calming their passions with her soothing, healing love, turning their passions into the peace needed to allow the rains to come and crops to grow. For a farmer like Sam, that was enough. If he wasn’t already spoken for, actually, he’d surely have preferred the worship of Nimbus over the goddess who presently laid claim to his soul.

The last letters Sam delivered were the most interesting, one on rough parchment, the sort of paper you’d expect from a warrior in the field, the other made from runic script burned into a leather scroll. The second of the two was actually stained with spots of what Sam guessed was dried blood. These he looked over with great interest, since he wasn’t the sort to leave that kind of thing to chance. It was fortunate that he was able to understand Nord, since that was what the one who burned runes into leather used.

Dame Quillis Patterson had written the note on parchment. Her handwriting was neat, tidy, economical, the sort of writing you’d expect from a clerk or a cleric, someone who spent a great deal of time in places requiring speed as well as quantity and quality in writing. Her response to whatever Yvette had sent was short and to the point, a simple agreement with whatever had been shared before. Keena Skycrafter, on the other hand, had answered her letter with a flowery, poetic style that seemed out of place on a simple missive accepting Yvette’s offer to join a battle. Whoever this Skycrafter woman was, Sam got the very clear impression that she was pretty full of herself. Dame Patterson, though, seemed like the quiet, modest sort, a case of still waters running very deep indeed.

When it came to reading people, Sam Dray was quite skilled in the matter. He’d had years of practice at it long ago, in another life. Not that he spent too much time thinking about those days, when he’d almost been the Overlord himself. He was far too busy tending his farm to get caught up in nonsense like what had occupied his first life. Still, what he had now amounted to a strong knack for very swiftly identifying what sort of person he was dealing with, even through a few simple words in a letter, and he felt he could rely on his character judgments pretty completely. Morrigna, the goddess of conflict, the goddess that governed his fate, wouldn’t let him escape the forces of conflict, though. Sam wasn’t destined to spend the rest of his second life peacefully on a farm somewhere in the middle of nowhere. No, the paths of his life’s tread would be painted with blood, whether he wanted it or not.

Sighing in resignation, the gorgeous young stallion turned and walked from the barn, figuring that he’d best go inside the mansion and see if he could make himself useful somehow. As he stepped back into the bright sunlight of late afternoon, he noticed a cloud of dust in the distance. Squinting and covering his crystal blue eyes with a large, strong hand, Sam could see what appeared to be a small caravan approaching the Brightstar estate, with five brightly-colored wagons trundling their way up the winding road that led up the hill to the front gates of the estate itself.

“Huh,” said Sam after a moment’s contemplation. “Looks like the circus came early.”

*

Sheru focused on the crystal ball resting in Yvette’s personal chambers, her hands just barely not touching its smooth-polished surface. Letters had been sent, of course, but among those letters was a request for a direct contact, listing a date and time that Sheru felt would work best. Now was that appointed time, when she would have a chance to speak directly with the ones she wished most in the whole wide world to see.

Life around the mansion and its estate had been insanely hectic for the last week. Besides working to contact the many friends and allies she had built up over the years, coordinating the nearly superhuman efforts needed to form a substantial fighting force in a ridiculously short period of time, Yvette had also found herself quite busy helping to raise the two daughters left behind by Tia and Ballia, who matured at an absolutely phenomenal rate. Sheru did her best to help out as well, but most of the work of raising the growing pair was done by Farski, Yvette’s minotaur maidservant. This, Sheru supposed, was probably just as well: Sheru didn’t have any experience with raising children, even fast-developing ones like Pania and Draugi – the names left for them by Tia and Ballia, respectively – since she’d been raised right alongside her adoptive sisters, most of whom were about the same age as herself.

It was those same adoptive sisters, the Windsar Circle, whom Sheru was attempting to contact at that moment. Focusing her mind, centering herself with some slow, steady breathing exercises, Sheru looked into the swirling mists forming in the crystal ball, and let her mind drift into the images contained within.

“Sheru?” came a familiar voice, sweet and motherly. “Sheru, is that you?”

“Nona!” Sheru cried out in delight, reaching out to embrace the tall, purple-haired girl before her, only to come up short – while the crystal ball created a perfect illusion of being able to speak face-to-face with whoever was on the other end of the line, it didn’t allow the speakers to actually touch. “I…it’s good to see you,” Sheru continued, more subdued.

“Very good indeed,” came a quiet, somewhat unemotional voice from nearby, causing Sheru to turn to see the skinny, bespectacled girl sitting nearby on one of the benches in their master’s crystal viewing chamber, the bangs of her short blue hair actually obscuring her eyes slightly from view. “If you’d failed in your quest, Sheru, we’d all be finished.”

“Tabitha,” Sheru said with a bright smile, though it was somewhat more subdued than her greeting for Nona – while Sheru felt deep affection for the skinny blue-haired girl, the divination specialist of the girls personally trained by Charles Windsar, Tabitha wasn’t the sort of girl to show her emotions, or to appreciate strong emotions being shown toward her. She said emotions clouded one’s view of the future, and Sheru supposed Tabitha would be the one to know such things.

“It’s all right around here so far,” Nona picked up, not leaving an awkward silence, which is what would surely have developed if Tabitha had been left in charge of the conversation. “That red-haired girl you sent the letter about, Tia Fairbank I believe her name is, arrived two days ago. She was almost exhausted from a forced march, and said she’d changed horses twice on the trip down, but after just a day’s rest here, she’s already started gathering the peasants from all the surrounding hamlets, building them into what looks like what might turn out to be an impressive army, given some time for training. She’s been working nonstop with Dani to build up the defenses around the tower as well as whip those peasants into fighting shape – apparently her father is some sort of country noble for part of the area, which is why she’s able to command respect from the people around here. I had to admit, I was worried they wouldn’t be willing to help out at all, but Miss Fairbank certainly showed me otherwise.”

Sheru couldn’t hold back her strong feelings of affection for Nona. The oldest of the Windsar Circle’s girls, Nona had been the replacement mother for Sheru and her sisters, the one who’d taught them all she knew about how to be a woman. That wasn’t nearly as much as Sheru would have liked, as she was rapidly discovering, but all the same, Nona was her mother figure, the one who’d actually spent as much time raising her as Charles Windsar himself. She could also picture Dani – her full name was Danilana Romarae – the ash-blonde wood elf, working diligently on building fortifications and setting up who knows what sorts of traps, as close to gleeful as the serious-minded young elven woman ever was at the prospect of putting her immense skills to use at last. Dani had served for fifty years as Charles Windsar’s groundskeeper, ever since she’d been a little girl, when her parents had delivered her to him to repay a debt they owed him for saving their people from some great catastrophe – what exactly Sheru didn’t know, because Dani didn’t talk about it. She was stern, serious, and had done all she could to ensure the Windsar girls never left the grounds around the tower. Dani said it was on Charles Windsar’s orders, to keep them safe, but Sheru had never been so sure about that: Dani had always seemed to Sheru like the sort who’d enjoy causing trouble for others, if given the chance. Perhaps only at the mischief level, since Dani didn’t have a truly mean heart, but all the same…

“Have any of the others Yvette said would be coming shown up yet?” asked Sheru eagerly. “She said she’d have at least one good-sized army coming your way.”

“Well,” Nona replied, her grin a little sheepish, “actually, it looks as though we’ve got four armies on their way. There’s the elven priestess, the one in charge of the Great Green elves…”

“Eärlindë,” exclaimed Sheru in delight. “She really did come through for us!”

“Yes, that’s the name,” Nona agreed with a nod. “She certainly has. There’s already a good many elves setting up their camps in the woods near the tower – how many I can never tell, with how stealthy those elves can be when they’re trying – and from what Tabitha and Kysti tell me, there’s more showing up all the time.”

Kysti Wheelspanner was one of the Windsar girls who’d kept her family name, rather than adopting Charles’ last name, out of respect for her gnomish mother. She was an absolutely adorable little white-haired darling, spritely and happy in a way that was infectious, and also insatiably curious. Since she was the illusion specialist of the Windsar girls, she made good use of her powers while growing up to get into places where she probably really shouldn’t on a fairly regular basis. Charles Windsar hadn’t seemed to mind, though, since he regarded keeping Kysti out of his various experiments as an exercise of sorts, one in which he’d recruited Nona, the abjuration specialist of the Windsar girls, or the one who was most adept at using defensive magic. If anyone of the Windsar Circle would have immediately gone up to make friends when elves showed up, it would be Kysti, since she made it a regular habit to bypass Dani’s efforts to keep her strictly on the estate grounds.

“On the heels of that Fairbank girl and Eärlindë – I’ll really need to find out her family name, so I know who to thank properly; elves are so particular about things like that – we’ve also received Sister Laurel, and are putting her up in the tower’s chapel, along with her little company.”

Sheru remembered Sister Laurel. Sister Laurel had been a regular visitor to Windsar Tower while Sheru was growing up, an active member of the Sisters of Mercy, nuns devoted to the service of the gods of good, especially Nimbus. While a great many of these nuns were capable of defending themselves, at least as many Sisters of Mercy were pacifists, depending on the power of the gods to keep them safe. Under most circumstances, this reliance on the gods tended to work. Right now, Sheru wasn’t as sure, knowing that the Overlord of Evil was behind the threat to the world. After all, the Overlord was trying to become a god himself. Sister Laurel wasn’t one of those pacifists, however, but was instead a wandering holy woman. Despite being slightly younger than Nona, Sister Laurel was amazingly mature for her age, seeming to bear the weight of the whole world on her shoulders, and bear it cheerfully. What Sheru remembered most about the young nun, though, was her eyes: they changed color, depending on her mood and state of being, but mostly they reflected the deep wisdom of one who has communed with the gods, and come back enlightened.

“We can certainly use a team of healers in the fight that’s likely to come,” Nona continued. “Sister Laurel says we’ll have several more teams like hers within a matter of a few more days. And then there’s the…others,” Nona added with a slight look of distaste.

“Others?” asked Sheru curiously. “Oh, you mean Dame Patterson and Keena Skycrafter.”

“That’s them,” Nona agreed. “You haven’t met either of them, have you?”

“I don’t really know anything about them,” Sheru admitted. “Tia seemed to know them, but I didn’t get a chance to ask before she left, and Yvette’s been much too busy around here to spare me much time. I had to work hard to get this time on the crystal ball.”

“The Skycrafter woman is the leader of some amazons,” Nona explained. “Warrior women. They’re known all over the world for being as militant and aggressive as any tribe of Nord-blooded raiders, and for their hatred of men.”

“But surely Yvette and Tia wouldn’t have called someone who wasn’t going to help us,” Sheru protested, her expression pained at the very thought of a possible betrayal.

“Well,” Nona’s expression softened, “I suppose this Skycrafter woman might be all right. Miss Fairbank’s told me that she has a good reputation as a monster slayer and giant killer, and she even fought a dragon to a standstill, driving it from the lands it was terrorizing. Fairbank also mentioned that Skycrafter was supposedly half-Valkyrie, one of the mythic choosers of the slain among the Nord people. She’s attracted quite a following, too, of women who want to emulate her – tall, powerful, proud warrior women. If we’re going to be fighting the forces of the Overlord, then having someone like that on our side can’t be a bad thing. But all the same,” Nona’s expression soured once more, “I’m not at all sure about allowing this Patterson…person to come here.”

“What’s wrong with Dame Patterson?” Sheru asked, the question innocent enough.

“She’s a beastfolk,” Nona answered, as though that explained everything.

In all honesty, Nona’s words would have explained everything for Sheru before she’d started her quest, before she’d had personal interactions with beastfolk and gotten to know them. All of the civilized races – humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings – were raised from birth with the knowledge that beastfolk were dangerous pests, either opportunistic children or cruel savages, depending on where you met them. Sheru’s personal experiences, however, had quickly opened up her mind, and begun to clear away her prejudices. Flintclaw was a savage brute, certainly, but he wasn’t some mindless animal, and he had a certain primitive code of honor that guided his actions, as well as a strange animal magnetism. Sam, on the other hand, well, Sheru couldn’t even think of the buffed-gold equitra stallion without flushing deeply.

“I know it might be hard, Nona,” Sheru started to try and soothe her dear older sister’s concerns away, “but I trust in Tia and Yvette’s judgment. If they think that we’ll need Dame Patterson…”

“We will,” said Tabitha flatly, the grey eyes behind her thick-paned half-moon glasses piercing, hard as bright flint stones. “If we don’t work with Dame Patterson, we’ll be crushed by the weight of the Overlord’s forces. We won’t stand a chance. With her guiding us, however, we have a chance.”

Struck speechless by Tabitha’s pronouncement, Nona just stared at the blue-haired girl for several long moments, then turned back to Sheru.

“I guess I’ll try to be hospitable, then,” she said finally. There was no point in arguing with Tabitha, after all – not only was she brilliant on her own, with a keen and highly logical mind well-tuned with deductive reasoning, she also had the power of divination backing her. When Tabitha made a prediction, she was almost always right.

“How is everyone?” Sheru asked, changing the subject, turning it to lighter matters. “Pristis, Fyra, Hijari, and Xia Lin?”

Nona, of course, noticed that Sheru had left out Callista Ravenlock and Coral Valkyre from her inquiry, but that was hardly unusual: nobody was terribly close to the spoiled rich girl, Coral, and as for Callista…well, it was generally best not to know what the necromancy specialist of the Windsar Circle was up to at any given moment, even if Sheru was actually rather fond of the slender, raven-haired girl.

Coral was quite unlike all the other members of the Windsar Circle in one respect: her parents were both still alive and well. She was actually the youngest daughter of Emperor Valkyre, present ruler of the Iron Empire, one of the three great human kingdoms of Therafim (the other two being Mankata and the Cho-Lin Empire). From an early age, Coral showed a remarkable aptitude for enchantment magic, the magic of manipulating others into doing what you wanted, and as a result had quickly become quite thoroughly spoiled. In desperation, the Emperor had sought out Charles Windsar, and requested that he take Coral into his care. Charles Windsar had apparently recognized sufficient talent in Coral that he’d accepted this request, and so Coral had come to live with the other Windsar girls. She wasn’t the youngest of them (Kysti had that honor), but she had been at Windsar Tower for the least amount of time, and the other nine members of the Windsar Circle still hadn’t grown to accept her as one of their own. It didn’t help that she was the only one of the Windsar Circle that had a personal servant who saw to her whims. Mistarra Trisalia, the servant in question, at least was likable, a sweet, charming girl who never seemed to tire of helping others out, including the other Windsar girls, happily doing their chores for them unless they got them done with haste.

“Pristis is acting like nothing is the matter,” Nona answered the question, “still hard at work cataloguing all of Master Charles’ books and other materials, just like she was when you left. Fyra and Hijari, though, have taken to the chance to get ready for a fight with all the enthusiasm you’d expect from them.” The purple-haired young woman rolled her eyes. “You’d think they’d already won the battle to listen to them talk, and they’ve already begun spending time around Miss Fairbanks and her little band, soaking up all the stories of prior adventures that they can. As for Xia Lin, she’s quite happy right now – her older sister has come to visit, and the two have had a lot to catch up on.”

Sheru smiled, not surprised in the least to hear this report. Pristis looked like everyone’s stereotype of a librarian: her clothes were painfully modest on her slim body, her collar up to her neck, her skirts down to the floor; her blonde hair was always bound in a tightly-wound bun, and she wore pince-nez glasses pinched firmly onto the bridge of her nose at all times. Transmutation magic, Pristis’ specialty, was one of the most extensive and complex branches of magic, and Pristis took to its demands most readily, spending far more time in deep study than any of her sisters in the Circle. Only Tabitha was really close to Pristis, both girls sharing a similar love for books, contemplation, and solitude.

Hijari was almost the exact opposite of Pristis, in personality as well as dress. Originally from one of the many islands off the coast of Hydra, the dark-skinned, dreadlocked Hijari’s past was almost a total mystery, as she’d had to raise herself from a very young age after being stranded on that island by a shipwreck. Somehow, her natural talent for conjuration magic had surfaced, and she’d managed to summon all the help she’d needed to keep herself alive until Charles Windsar, scouring the world for the very finest girls with magical ability, had located her through powerful divination magic, and rescued her, bringing her to live in civilization. Utterly unselfconscious, Hijari tended to wear a loincloth and halter top, and nothing else, much as she’d done when she was on her island. Given her preference, she’d do without clothes entirely, her only covering splashes of brightly-colored body paint, which she’d intuitively learned to harness as her source of spell power, much like the other members of the Windsar circle used either spellbooks or their staves. Having spent several of her early years without anyone to talk to except summoned creatures, Hijari had immediately become an extreme extrovert, boisterous and enthusiastic whenever she was around people, eager to learn all she could about everyone, and desperately lonely whenever she wasn’t able to enjoy the company of others.

Fyra Starborn was similar to Hijari in temperament, her personality bright and extroverted. Where Hijari was almost exclusively friendly, however, Fyra was somewhat tempestuous, her moods shifting significantly. Fortunately, she was more-or-less friendly, and had a kindly disposition that tempered her periods of anger, which she worked very hard to suppress and keep constantly under control. That anger had to go somewhere, though, and everyone else in the Windsar Circle supposed that was why she was such a powerful evocation specialist. Her skin like smooth copper, her hair a burnished, metallic red, her eyes like gleaming emeralds, Fyra was perhaps the most striking of the Windsar Circle in appearance, though Callista with her milk-white skin and obsidian-black eyes was a close second.

That left Xia Lin. Xia Lin was of Cho-Lini descent, and like many of the other members of the Circle, she had forsaken her family name and taken Windsar’s surname as its replacement. Unlike the other members of the Circle, Xia Lin followed a strange tradition of spirit magic, one that none of the other girls really understood completely, which required her to perform a number of odd practices, such as never cutting her very, very long, thick, black hair, and ritually bathing herself, ensuring that her smooth, pale skin and immaculate white robes stayed perfectly clean and spotless at all times. When asked, she would refer to the magic she wielded as both a blessing and a curse, and would sometimes refer to the strangely intelligent arctic fox that constantly followed her around as her mother. Charles Windsar had recruited her not only so that he could train her in the ways of magic – for more traditional practices of spellcasting seemed to work when training Xia Lin to control her own powers – but also so that he could protect her from the dangers that were inherent to her strange tradition, and study it himself, gaining a greater understanding of its extent and potential. Unfortunately, he’d never passed on any of what he might have learned about Xia Lin’s magic before his untimely demise. Pristis, while cataloging Master Charles’ materials, might have found something, but if so she hadn’t shared it yet either.

“I wish I could be there with you,” Sheru said, looking down, her shame at being absent obvious in her expression. “I just…I thought that the quest you’d given me, to find our master’s murderer, that seemed like what I needed to do, like what I should focus on instead of…”

“It’s all right, Sheru,” Nona soothed, reaching to the blonde girl, her touch stopping short despite all her desires. “You’re doing the right thing. Honestly, with all the help arriving, we couldn’t be safer.”

“You need to follow your present path, Sheru,” said Tabita, looking into Sheru’s green eyes with her own flint-grey gaze. “It is vitally important that you find our master’s killer. Not for the sake of vengeance, however: for the sake of the entire world.” Suddenly, Tabitha’s eyes lost their sharp edge, going completely out of focus, her voice, when it came, sounding as though she were speaking from down a well. “The world is thrown into imbalance by the wickedness of one who seeks godhood. All is dark in the future – a perfect world ruled by women and guarded by the one, almighty goddess. The beastfolk and other savage races are suppressed, almost extinct. None want for food or shelter or comfort. All is bright, all seems happy. Underneath the crust of this apparent perfection, however, lies a rotten core. When pressure finally is applied to this dark new world, all will come crashing down in a terrible maelstrom. The blasphemous desires of this great evil must be stopped, must be destroyed, not out of revenge, and not even for the sake of justice, but instead to save our world.” Tabitha’s eyes suddenly came back into focus, and she fixed them firmly on Sheru. “I have shared the future with you, Sheru – what you are doing is what has to be done. We’ll take care of the Overlord’s armies – we must, however we can, or else all is lost. While his attention is focused on us, you will have that most precious of commodities: time. Time to find our master’s killer, time to save the world from certain doom.”

“We love you, Sheru,” said Nona with a sweet smile, brushing her long purple hair out of her face. “Don’t ever forget that. We’ll see you again, too, once this is all over.”

“This,” Tabitha said with a nod, a faint smile creasing her normally expressionless lips, “is true. All our hopes ride with you, Sheru.”

“And all our prayers,” added Nona.

“I love you all too,” said Sheru, then gasped softly as she broke the connection, returning to herself, and the dim chamber where the crystal lay.

“They’re right,” Sheru finally said to herself with a nod, then rose to her feet. “I’ve got to keep going, whatever else might happen. And I won’t fail. Besides,” and a confident smile spread on her face, “with so much help from so many people, how could they possibly be in any real danger?”

*

Almost as soon as Urla stepped into the lands claimed by the local gnollish tribe, she could sense the difference. There was a tension in the air, a sense of waiting, of hidden menace, of being watched from the shadows. The muscular orcwoman occasionally caught glimpses of gleaming green-yellow eyes in the dense forests of the hillcountry on the far western border of the Council of Wands territory, but nothing challenged her, nothing impeded her progress.

Immediately, Urla was on her guard. Gnolls, by nature, were a lazy species, doing no more work than was absolutely necessary. They were also known for their cowardice, and preferred not to go up against an obviously stronger opponent unless they outnumbered that opponent by at least three to one. Most importantly, though, gnolls were very much like hyenas in several ways, the most important for those entering their territory being: there were always more gnolls. Like hyenas, gnolls hung around in small groups of two or more, dealing with the daily chores of living. At any given moment, however, there would be at least a hundred or more gnolls in their territory, all of them grouped into similarly-sized little bands, and all of them ready to band together at the first sound of the terrible, psychotic giggling for which gnolls were most famous.

Despite her concerns, however, Urla heard no giggling, saw no actual gnolls beyond the occasional glimpse of gleaming eyes or shaggy bodies in the underbrush. This struck Urla as strange, for gnolls seldom, if ever, showed such discipline, especially not when they were facing only a single intruder and her worg companion. She’d expected a brutal fight, and had been almost certain that she’d have had to kill at least a dozen gnolls before she could cow the others into submission sufficiently to speak with their leaders. This silence, though…this wasn’t what she’d expected at all.

Suddenly, more suddenly than she’d thought possible, the trees and underbrush fell away, and instantly Urla was standing on the edge of a clearing. Skull-bedecked wooden stakes marked the edge of the main gnollish camp, and as she looked ahead, into the midst of the scattering of crude wooden structures that made up the central gathering point of the gnolls, Urla noticed a certain organization to it all, something she’d never seen among gnolls in all her days. Gnolls were never organized; in fact, they went out of their ways to destroy order wherever they found it, reveling in the chaos of nature unchained.

Around the fire at the center of the camp, Urla saw several powerful-looking individuals crouched around a long, low table. Walking closer, knowing that she courted danger and death in doing so, Urla saw that, bound to the table, spread-eagled on her back and struggling, whimpering piteously through the leather thongs that bound her muzzle shut, was a young female gnoll. Most of the hyenafolk around the table were males – very well-endowed males, Urla noted with a blush – and they were laughing and growling to each other in deep amusement as they stroked their large, strong hands over the doomed pubescent female’s body, groping her breasts, teasing thick fingers between her quivering thighs, and laughing even more loudly at the squeals their attentions elicited from their wriggling captive, especially when their fingers came away wet.

Getting closer still, Urla could see that the doomed female – and she was certainly doomed, for gnolls didn’t do such things as this to their own unless they intended to rape and then eat the chosen captive – lacked the faux-phallus typical of most she-gnolls. Such a lack made sense, of course: gnolls decided their hierarchy based on penis size as much as on fighting ability, and most females tended to be better-endowed than their males, and better fighters as well. If one of their females turned out not to have a penis, like the females of most other species, she was regarded with contempt, considered weak and generally relegated to the role of menial slave…unless the pack decided they wanted some fresh meat.

Finally standing almost at the shoulder of the gnoll at the head of the table, Urla had another surprise: at the head of the table, whispering snarling seductive words in gnoll-accented Wildlander into the helpless, smaller female’s ears, was another female, this one tightly-muscled, her breasts large and full and only barely-contained by the leather halter she wore. What was truly surprising, however, was that the hyenababe didn’t bother to wear any other clothing, leaving her spotty rump on full display as she bent over the squirming young victim on the table…and also made quite apparent her perfect, penis-less pussy. Right behind this gnollish woman, obviously some sort of leader considering where she was, Urla couldn’t resist admiring the other woman’s beautifully-toned bottom, especially her obviously achingly snug cunny and tailhole, both with fur trimmed close, leaving the dark skin around each tense hole clearly visible.

Finally, now that Urla was close enough to reach out and touch the hyenababe’s hot buns, the savage, furry female turned, grinning up at the green-skinned orcish female, and rose to her feet. Urla tensed as the heavily-muscled fur-woman spread her arms wide, expecting some sort of attack. What she didn’t expect was when the hyena hottie wrapped her arms fully around Urla, hugging her close, their breasts squishing against each other in ways that were highly embarrassing to Urla, especially considering their obvious difference in bosom sizes.

“It’s so good to see you!” exclaimed the hyenababe, and Urla finally began to realize why a female without a penis, as well as so many well-hung males, would be in the central position of the village, the place of the leaders of the gnollish tribes in the area. “We’ve been hoping the Overlord would send someone to bring us into the alliance we’d heard was brewing.” Then the spotty-furred female pulled back slightly, hands still on Urla’s shoulders, and looked the green-skinned woman up and down in a way that was decidedly lascivious, her mouth parting, tongue lolling out as she began to drool. “Mmm, but I didn’t think he’d send someone so gorgeous!”

Cheeks flushing deeply, Urta squirmed slightly, trying to work her way free of the hyenababe’s grip without being rude about it. The other woman’s grip was firm, however, and Urla quickly realized a subtle escape was going to be impossible.

“You know why I’m here, then?” Urla asked, her blush deepening as the hyenababe shifted her grip from Urla’s shoulders to her breasts, handling them with unnerving skill through her leather top. “That I’ve come to call your people to…to…stop that!”

“Oh!” the spotty-furred female started in surprise, releasing Urla’s dark green nipples, which she’d been rolling between her fingers through the leather covering them until Urla had felt her legs starting to wobble, her quim starting to moisten. “I’m sorry – I thought a beautiful female like yourself would appreciate being worshiped.” She smiled shyly, her ears turning down, her sandy-colored longer headfur falling down over one eye like bangs, and Urla blinked as she found the hyenababe actually looked…cute when she did that. “I didn’t mean to do anything wrong – you’re the Overlord’s representative, after all: we’ll do anything to make your stay as pleasant as possible.” Then she winked. “Anything.”

Urla actually felt a little sorry for telling the other female to stop. Her nipples ached in ways that they hadn’t in…well…ever, really. The orcish woman had never encountered anyone, not even Malik, who really knew how to handle a woman’s breasts like this spotty-furred female had in just a matter of moments. And she looked so eager-to-please, so determined to make Urla happy in any way possible, it seemed a shame to stifle her efforts by being a killjoy.

“Just ask first next time,” Urla finally said, only a little surly, before she nodded toward the squirming hyenagirl stretched out on the table, pleading loudly for mercy through her gag, her voice rising in pitch every so often as her hips arched into the air, an orgasm forced upon her lithesome body by the maws suckling on her broad brown nipples, or the hands grinding mercilessly between her supple thighs. “That the dinner in my honor?”

“Oh yes,” agreed the hyenababe eagerly, her tail wagging. “A young, tender, juicy little virgin, just barely into her breeding years. Actually, she’s the daughter of the last chieftain, before I took over. She’s been a good footstool until this point, but I thought we should give you something special for the banquet. We were going to give you the honor of popping this adorable little slavegirl’s cherry before we started the pre-dinner orgy, then roasted the precious dear on the spit.” Her ears turned down again, this time with an expression of deep apology. “We’d have prepared a halfling or a gnome for you instead – they’re both so indescribably delicious! – but we haven’t dared to cross the Dragon Rivers in force since the Council of Wands drove our kind into the forests of the Hillcountry two generations ago.” She shook her head at the sad memory, her whole body seeming to droop. “The slaughter then was terrible, and we gnolls weren’t even the ones to suffer the worst losses, either.” She looked up hopefully. “I assume that’s why the Overlord sent you, of course: to lead us across the rivers once more, to plunder the lands of the smoothskins now that they’ve grown soft and weak.”

“How did you know I was coming?” Urla asked, frowning in suspicion. “And, more importantly, why I was coming?”

“The boudas saw you coming,” said the hyenababe conspiratorially, leaning in a little too close for Urla’s comfort. “They’re witches, you know, and they know all sorts of dark secrets. For instance, they know that many of us will die in the invasion, but that’s hardly a loss – our numbers have swelled more than ever before, and losing even two-thirds of that number would only leave that much more for the rest of us. They know that for the last twenty years, there has been a huge rise of births among the humans, but male births have dropped to just barely enough to keep their race going as a whole. The other smoothskin races have suffered reductions in male births as well, while at the same time their numbers have all increased – even among the dwarves! Just think of it: vast stretches of unsuspecting, peaceful farmland, populated almost entirely by thousands upon thousands of luscious, nubile human hotties. And all of them just begging to be conquered, dominated, and stuffed full of thick, juicy hyenacock! We’ll have enough slaves to serve our every whim for the rest of our lives!”

“Speaking of cocks,” Urla changed the subject, sensing that she didn’t need to try and sell this gorgeous, half-naked female on her master’s plans, and wanting to scratch the itch of her curiosity as soon as possible, “where’s yours?”

“Do you like it?” asked the hyenababe happily, reaching out to take Urla’s hand in her own, and then press it between her muscular thighs. This time, Urla didn’t resist, though her green-skinned cheeks darkened very deeply as she felt the other female’s moist cunny lips parting before her skilled touch. “Mmm, that’s nice…you’re very good with your hands – a real female needs a cunny, I think, someplace snug and tight to keep the boys drooling. It’s such a pity that my lesser cousins have such prejudices over pussy: they’re so much fun! But surely you know what I am? I’m no gnoll, and neither are my comrades.”

“You’re flinds,” Urla stated with a smirk, making the other female moan loudly, her hands going to Urla’s shoulders as Urla easily found the hyenababe’s slightly rough pleasure point with an inward-arched fingerstroke.

Now it all made sense! Gnollish females were obsessed with finding the perfect male mate: powerful, dominant, and large-cocked enough to satisfy even the most gaping of gnollish pussies. In turn, gnollish males were ever-eager for a female who wasn’t better endowed than them, but at the same time was strong enough and charismatic enough for them to follow and obey. Flinds were the epitome of gnollish desires, their ultimate sexual fantasies given a form of flesh and blood. Of course the males gathered around the table were leaders of the normally matriarchal gnolls. Of course the female standing before Urla, moaning loudly in her ear as the orc warrior woman fingered her to a quick series of orgasms, was the leader of them all despite lacking a hyena’s faux-penis. All gnolls instinctively obeyed flinds without question, a reaction bred deep into their blood and culture. They were seen as living gifts from the gods.

More than simply sexual fantasies realized, however, flinds were also a great deal smarter than gnolls, and much more motivated, and they could inspire even the lazy gnolls to a similar degree of motivation. It explained why Urla had been watched all the way into gnollish territory, and why the gnolls in this land seemed so very organized and battle-ready. Grinning as the flind female’s juices squirted out onto her hand, Urla grabbed the other woman’s hair firmly in her fist, making her whimper pitifully.

“Let the little hottie go,” she growled commandingly in the she-flind’s ear. “Then get a tent ready for me. As for entertainment, you’re the one I want to warm my bed, not some squirming virgin: virgins don’t know anything.”

“Y-yes, mistress,” the beautiful, spotty-furred female got out, her voice tight, her whole body trembling as she submitted meekly to Urla, letting the green-skinned babe push her to her knees. “Do…do you want any males to join us?”

“Heh,” chuckled Urla, shaking her head. “Neh. But I’d love to listen to ‘em gang-rape this cutie, all night long.”

Just as the young gnoll girl’s expression had started to turn to one of hope, and the male flinds all around her had started to look disappointed, their expressions promptly reversed, the young she-gnoll making a host of muffled pleas for mercy through the thongs around her muzzle, while the flinds began to cackle wickedly, licking their chops, their heavy brown cocks dripping copious precum. They closed in around the desperately-squirming hyenagirl, and soon Urla couldn’t see her any more, but she could hear her just fine! Her eyes played over the cute spotty butts of the flind males as they crouched around their victim, their bottle-brush tails wagging above full, weighty balls as they put their muzzles to work, the sounds of the hyenagirl’s squeals and their loud, wet slurping filling the air, making Urla’s breath come in short, fast gasps. The one of those males climbed up onto the table, and Urla got a clear view of the adorable hyenagirl’s pert pubescent booty and uplifted jacklegs, her dainty little paws kicking on either side of the mounting male’s hips. Seeing the sheer size of the brown-skinned cock being lowered toward the poor cutie’s cunny was enough to make Urla shudder, as much in sympathy as in intense arousal, the fat, dripping head soon parting the little gnoll-ling’s labia, slotting firmly into place. Then, with a loud, deep, grunt, and an even louder, high-pitched squeal, the flind let himself drop slowly down onto his little victim, filling her right up to the brim, and more, unable to sink his entire meaty shaft inside her: he was just too big. Her feet kicked even more desperately, before two more flinds grabbed her ankles, and started to suckle on her tender pawpads as the flind presently rutting her arched his hips in long, slow, steady thrusts, obviously taking his time, drawing his mating out, savoring the exquisite tightness of a squirming, helpless teenage virgin beneath him.

“Love listening to those sounds,” Urla said with a wicked chuckle, licking her lips, then helping the flindbabe to her feet. “No sounds in the world like a virgin getting shafted for the first time, especially when it’s against her will. What’s your name? I wanna know the name to scream when you make me cum.”

“Sheola, mistress,” replied the other female promptly, her breathing coming faster as she lifted her arms, letting Urla peel her halter top up and over her head, making her bounteous breasts pop free, the fat brown nipples looking absolutely mouthwatering to Urla. “And what shall I call you? Unless you prefer to be called mistress, of course,” Sheola grinned, noticing Urla’s eyes fixed on her breasts, then cupped them herself, putting on a show for the green-skinned warrior babe, stroking them slowly with her hands, then tipping one nipple upward so that she could slowly tease her tongue around its swollen aureole in a tight circle. “Mmm…not that I mind being the submissive here: it’s actually kind of fun, letting the Overlord’s representative dominate me, force me to…mmm….do whatever she wants, to serve her every little…slurp…whim.” She let the swollen teat drop, and grinned toothily at Urla, the expression sultry enough to make Urla’s heart race. “I’m glad you’re a female: males are all such perverts.”

Urla couldn’t resist arching an eyebrow at the statement. Sheola just giggled.

“I’m Urla,” Urla introduced herself, reaching forward to grip Sheola’s hip with her hand. She was aware of her worg watching, his cock hard, just enjoying the scenery for now. “You gonna get us a room or what?”

“‘What’, silly dear,” laughed the hyenababe, her hands going to Urla’s halter top, unlacing it, freeing Urla’s trim green breasts to the open air. “Not even I could tell you how many gnolls are watching right now, lusting over our beautiful bodies, wishing it was them about to gnaw on your perfect green tits until you cum. We have to do everything out here, where they can see it and spread the word: once they know you’ve dominated me, then they’ll all know to serve you, and through you, the Overlord.”

“Guess I’d better get to it, then,” said Urla with a lusty grin, before her grip on Sheola’s hair tightened once more, then slowly pushed downward, pressing the flindbabe back to her knees. “Put that hot tongue of yours to work!”

Immediately, Sheola started to comply, squeezing her muzzle up between Urla’s leather-clad thighs, her tongue arching out, pressing firmly against the green-skinned woman’s crotch. Despite thinking that her breeches would have dulled most of the sensations from such oral attentions, Urla quickly discovered she was wrong: Sheola’s tongue was strong enough, Urla could feel it even through her leathers.

Breathing hard, her legs trembling even more, Urla unbuckled her belt, then let Sheola help her slide her breeches down and over her toned, muscular green bottom, baring her below the waist. Urla had only a moment to kick her breeches away, before Sheola plunged her muzzle up between her thighs, the sounds of her greedy slurping filling the clearing almost as loudly as the wails of the freshly-deflowered hyenagirl being gang-raped on the table nearby.

Sparing a glance in that direction, Urla caught sight of the poor little cutie’s face, another powerful flind hunched over her, his tight, muscular male butt rising and falling with a steady tattoo, matched by his deep-throated grunts and bestial growls and her wails of violation as she was taken to her core by the immense black cock spreading her almost obscenely wide. The flind was happily licking the helpless little cutie’s neck and the side of her bound muzzle, ignoring her muffled pleas for mercy as he started to work his hips harder now, faster, before giving a loud chuffing cry, his teeth bared as he curled his lips back in a snarl of ecstasy. The big male was pumping so much cum into the wriggling little hyenateen, a good helping of it spurted out around the fat shaft plugging her pussy. Urla’s eyes met those of the hyenateen, and she couldn’t hold back her wicked grin as she saw the poor girl’s expression, one she’d seen in hundreds of orcish victims over the years: the total surrender of erotic despair, as an innocent victim finally, fully realized there’d be no escape, and no mercy, and finally gave herself over to the pleasure that could come from a truly bestial rutting. Then the spotty-furred cutie’s eyes squeezed shut, her cheeks growing visibly flushed as another male took the place of the first, the thrusts of his hips making her cute little breasts bounce rapidly, the movement clearly marked by her perky brown-skinned nipples.

Then Urla’s attention was forced back to her own pleasure as Sheola thrust her long, smooth tongue deep into the orcish woman’s sopping green quim. Squealing in pleasure, Urla gripped the she-flind’s head with both hands, her hips pumping almost as though she were a male raping the pretty hyenababe’s face. Sinking to her knees, Urla made sure to force Sheola onto all-fours, keeping their positions of dominance and subordinance as clear as possible to the watching gnolls. Feeling so many lusty eyes on her, Urla couldn’t hold back her grin as she looked down into Sheola’s upturned, eager-to-please amber eyes. Then a wicked thought came to her, and she glanced up, toward her ever-faithful companion, the worg alpha.

“Help yourself,” Urla invited, reaching out to pat Sheola on one firm, plump buttock. The hyenababe’s brows furrowed for a moment as she tried to figure out what Urla could possibly mean, then widened as her ears quirked backward, hearing the approach of the massive male’s pawpads on the hardpacked ground of the central camp. She almost turned, but Urla held her head firmly in place, exulting in the feeling of Sheola’s whimpers sending vibrations straight into her slick green cunny.

Those whimpers turned into a loud wail as the big worg mounted up, and, smelling the raw arousal of the shapely hyenababe, slammed his meaty red cock home without preamble. Hunching over the lovely flindish lady, the muscular alpha panted, his tongue lolling out as his hips worked, slapping loudly against her upturned bottom, forcing Sheola steadily more firmly against Urla’s green cunny, helping the flindling reach parts inside Urla that only Malik had ever touched before, and with even more enthusiasm!

Brain suddenly overloaded, Urla couldn’t hold back her scream as she tumbled onto her back, her hips arching upward, juices squirting with stunning force right into Urla’s greedy maw. The flindling’s eyes rolled back into her head at almost the same time, her cheeks flushed, her large breasts squeezed against the ground and grinding back and forth, no doubt mercilessly stimulating her large brown nipples. Feet planted against the ground, Urla watched Sheola’s face with tight-gritted teeth, feeling her entire body practically glowing from the erotic bombshell that went off in her belly, her hands clenching tightly onto the hyenababe’s ears, holding her in place until Urla was certain Sheola was going to pass out soon – nobody could hold their breath that long!

But Sheola didn’t pass out. If anything, she whimpered even more loudly as she bucked her head in time with the brutal, rapidfire thrusts of the desperately-aroused worg. Those large brown eyes, partially-obscured by her golden bangs, watched Urla’s expression, and Urla got the distinct impression that the other female was almost feeding off Urla’s own pleasure, as though every orgasm the orcbabe had only made Sheola even more aroused, more ready for further debauchery.

Before Urla could think to resist, Sheola was lifting herself slightly, then crawling forward, covering the orcwoman with her body. As the worg continued to hump his spotty-bottomed bitch, Sheola’s hands went to Urla’s rigid green nipples, and began to caress them in ways that instantly took Urla’s breath away.

“What…?” she almost got out, but the words failed her as she felt her entire body tensing up. How was this female doing that?! Just being touched on her breasts like Sheola was doing, her clawtips teasing their way around Urla’s broad green aureoles, then pinching the perked nipples, tugging on them, twisting them this way and that…Urla couldn’t keep her hips still! Her legs kicked, her toes curled, and she felt herself grabbing Sheola’s arms at the bicep, something strangled an completely inarticulate forced from her throat. How was this even possible? Never before had Urla had an orgasm just from playing with her nipples. But now, so turned-on she couldn’t keep her body still, her skin tingling like the electric tension before a storm, her toned, trim butt lifting, hips humping against the air, Urla realized that she was going to cum, and cum hard, and Sheola wasn’t even touching Urla’s quim!

Orgasm hit, and it hit hard, leaving Urla’s entire world spinning, her vision filled with spots of red and black and sparkling motes of light. Vaguely, as though through a fog, she was aware of the howl of the alpha worg as he slammed his knot home in Sheola’s depths. Somewhere off in the distance, she could catch a view of the little gnoll-ling, her muzzle now unbound, still lying on her back, quite willingly and eagerly sucking a flindish cock, while one plundered her pussy once again, crouched over her on top of the table, and still another ground his hips against the tense bullseye of her tailhole, arching up on his toes as he sodomized the wriggling little cutie. Yes, Urla had no doubt the flinds would get plenty of use out of their spotty-furred little slavegirl. Now that she’d had the vistas of sexual possibility opened up to her, she’d have almost unlimited uses for the entire tribe, not just its leaders. Especially now, when they had so few breeding females of their own kind.

In her time of post-orgasmic bliss, afterglow starting to settle over her body in a warm flush, Urla felt Sheola snuggling against her, giving adorable, puppyish whimpers as she continued to nibble on Urla’s still-perked nipples. Mmm, if she kept that up, it was only a matter of time before Urla would cum again. The alpha worg was panting heavily, grinning at the gnolls hiding in the bushes, moving his legs so that they could all clearly see his huge knot as it distended their leader’s sex to an obscene width. Unable to help herself, Urla gave into a momentary weakness, and gently, lovingly stroked the flindfemme’s back, admiring her beautiful, sleek fur. She’d always thought that gnolls were a filthy race, ugly and degenerate. Coming here to recruit them had been a task she’d actually dreaded, not because of any fear, but because of disgust. Now, however…smiling lightly, Urla bent her head, and kissed the top of Sheola’s head.

“When we get to the Overlord’s camp,” she whispered in the flindling’s ear, “I’ll share you with Malik. He’s wonderful.”

Sheola looked up at Urla’s face with shining eyes, then pressed her muzzle against the orc’s, kissing her deeply. As Urla lost herself in that kiss, letting her sexual eagerness swiftly return, she thought idly on the gnolls’ situation. Sheola had admitted they’d had more males born than females for twenty years. For gnolls, such a state was a cultural death sentence: females ruled everything in gnollish culture. If it weren’t for Sheola herself holding the gnolls together under their traditional matriarchy, they’d have torn themselves apart, losing the past as guarded by the boudas, and possibly even drifting into eternal obscurity.

Urla finally started to understand Sheola’s eagerness to serve the Warlord. Sure, it was about plunder. More importantly, though, it was about sex. If her gnollish males were satisfied, they’d forget the disparity of numbers between males and females of their own kind. And who knew: perhaps they’d even manage to repopulate their diminished female population with a bit of fresh smoothskin blood to liven the gene pool.

Giving a loud yelp, Sheola’s cunny gushed watery lupine cum as the alpha worg popped himself free with a slight tug of his hips. Grinning around the clearing, knowing that the gnolls regarded the powerful four-legged male with the same respect, if not more, that they showed to his mistress, he turned, and walked toward the table where the she-gnoll squirmed as two flinds sucked on her perky nipples. The other flinds parted before the pony-sized worg, and he hopped up, planting his forelegs on either side of the little hyenagirl. Her eyes slowly came back into focus, and she looked up into his wickedly grinning face, realization of what was about to happen only just barely dawning on her pretty face…right before he thrust forward, making her cry out loudly. Soon even her cries were muffled, as the big, supernaturally intelligent wolf forced his tongue into her mouth.

Grinning at the sight of her companion further demonstrating his virility, Urla rolled to her side, tail-to-head with Sheola, who shifted as well to lean on her own side. Admiring the way Sheola’s well-muscled cunny was visibly clenching up, desperately trying to undo at least a little of the incredible gaping the worg had given her, Urla leaned forward, her mouth parting as she pressed her lips against Sheola’s quim. The not-unfamiliar taste of salty, slightly peppery worgish cum soon mingled with the heady, musky tang of heavily-aroused flindbabe. Mmm, very tasty. Letting her eyes close, Urla moaned as she felt Sheola’s muzzle pressing against her smooth, green-skinned cunny, lashing up and down, parting Urla’s orcish folds to prepare them for the deeper penetration that was sure to come.

Silently swearing to herself that she’d do what she could to help Sheola’s people grow strong once more, Urla gave herself over to the passion of the moment. There would be plenty of time for duty later.

Bonus Content

The Pathfinder statistics for the orb of the vigorous womb and information on the Crystal Network.

Orb of the Vigorous Womb

Aura: Major Transmutation. Caster Level: 13. Slot: None. Price: 68,250 gp

Description: A potent object of great power, the orb of the vigorous womb is a tiny, smooth glass orb filled with soothing, swirling mist, in which can be seen glimpses of the children it will help to be born when it is held close to a pregnant female, allowing a Heal check at DC 20 to determine the health, sex, and other general characteristics of the unborn children. When stroked over the belly of a pregnant creature, it fills that creature’s womb with positive energy, and can be used in this fashion up to 50 times when first crafted before its powers are exhausted.

Using a single charge hastens the speed of a creature's birth, reducing each month required for the development of an unborn child to a single hour instead (so nine months for a normal human female would become nine hours instead, while the two years needed for an elephant's birth would take twenty-four hours). An additional charge can be used from the orb to also hasten the maturation of the child, reducing each month of development to a single hour, just as it was within the womb (so, for example, it would take 192 hours, or roughly 8 days, for a child so enhanced in this way to reach the equivalent age of 16). All children whose development is so enhanced have all the basic working knowledge of the world that their parents had, but very little practical experience, statistically becoming typical members of their species as expected at late puberty.

After giving birth, the mother is immediately restored to the state of health (as well as tightness and breast size) which she had before she was pregnant.

Requirements: Craft Wondrous Item feat, Hasten Term spell. Cost: 34,125 gp

The Crystal Network

The crystal network is an extensive communication network formed by crystal balls. All standard crystal balls are automatically connected via the crystal network, though any crystal ball user can voluntarily not connect to the network, and must be scryed through normal methods if this route is chosen.

Additionally, there are lesser crystal balls available that allow more casual crystal ball users to connect to the crystal network for a vastly reduced price. The most basic of these crystal balls are called “slave crystals,” and simply allow the remote viewing of selected locations by the owner of a normal crystal ball tied to any slave crystals connected to it (at no additional cost to the crystal ball used in this fashion). Slave crystals are commonly used like television on more technological worlds, often used to show a variety of sporting and theatrical events, and are not an uncommon sight in more upscale taverns and restaurants across Therafim. In such cases, it is normal for the owner of the master ball to charge a nominal annual fee (100 gp per year is a common charge, though the exact amount varies by locale), in addition to the initial installation price for the slave crystal, plus the price of a single ticket for each of the various forms of entertainment being broadcast, if any.

Since broadcasts through the crystal network are generally of poorer quality than live performances, there is still a higher demand for traditional performance mediums than broadcasts. However, using the crystal network is considered a wonderful draw for customers looking for an opportunity to see shows as part of their nightly ritual of drinking and dining.

Crystal network communication is also considered a simple and effective way for various groups to stay in contact with each other. A single crystal ball user can connect to any number of different slave crystal holders, allowing for extensive networks to be established. Naturally, such crystal networks see ample use by diplomats, spies, business enterprises (both legal and illegal), and adventurers. Since all slave crystals can only communicate with the owner of a normal crystal ball, and not with each other, this creates a dependency upon these masters of the network to maintain contact with all the members of each crystal network, which can be a very lucrative (and often very dangerous) position to hold.

Slave Crystal

Aura: Minor Illusion Caster Level: Slot: None. Price: 3,500 gp

Description: A fist-sized smooth crystal, often spherical, but sometimes taking a wide variety of interesting shapes. From out of this crystal, a variety of images are projected above the crystal in an image that can be as large as Medium-size, per the desires of the slave crystal’s owner. These images will be just as they are seen through a standard crystal ball that has been connected to the slave crystal, at the command of the owner of the master crystal ball controlling the slave crystal, without any need for any rolls or checks. The owner of the crystal ball controlling a slave crystal decides how many senses from the original crystal ball will be used (such as sight, sound, see invisibility, telepathy, and so forth). Additionally, slave crystals can be used as a form of communication between the owners of a slave crystal, and the owner of a standard crystal ball. Slave crystals, however, cannot be used to contact other slave crystal owners directly. The ranges of slave crystals are as is standard for crystal balls.

It is a full-round action for a crystal ball to take control of a slave crystal. If the user of another crystal ball user wishes to take control of a slave crystal from the original crystal ball user, the two crystal ball users must engage in an opposed concentration check to determine the one who controls broadcasting over the slave crystal. This check may be reattempted each round. A crystal ball user can only attempt to take control of a slave crystal that can be actively seen through the crystal ball to be used to control the slave crystal.

Note: Only works when connected to a normal Crystal Ball.

Requirements: Craft Wondrous Item feat, Ghost Sound and Silent Image spells. Cost: 1,750 gp