Adventure 2 - A Son For Yhrbold

Awakening suddenly with a snort, Valon followed up that sound with a long, low groan as he turned over slowly. He opened one bleary eye, which saw daylight streaming through the wooden slats covering the shuttered windows. The fog of sleep slowly cleared from his mind, the stiffness and soreness of his body reasserting itself into his conscious mind. He closed his eye again to relax and reflect a few moments more. Yesterday had been so busy, and the intervening sleep so sound, that only the testimony of his various aches hinted that at least some of what he remembered was true.

The shadow of Olgate's bulging knot in his strained ass left him wincing when he shifted his legs. Once the knot had deflated and Olgate had been able to pull out, Valon remembered him dressing hurriedly, scowling at Valon the entire time. Whether Olgate had lived up to his end of the bargain - for the moment, that meant having spoken with the blacksmith - or not was one of the things he'd have to find out once he got out of bed. A faint smile crept across his lips: it had probably worked, or he would have an angry, hairy friend banging down his door at this instant.

Sure that he had dealt with the father to his satisfaction for now, Valon turned his attention to the son. His arms and back, not used to lifting heavy objects, throbbed, and he could feel a few splinters of wood working themselves out of his fingers. He remembered dressing himself once Olgate was gone, creeping once again through the inn's rear entrance while his own was still raw, twitching and vacant.

Oulders had been anxiously awaiting his return, and even if he had spent longer away than he might have done, he had returned with two bits of good news for his new familiar: his family had been told not to worry if he didn't come home tonight, and he would be able to go home himself the next day. After trialling a simpler version of the glamour on Olgate, Valon was up to the challenge of a more complex kind. Using the familiar's collar as a focal point for the glamour, Valon had concentrated for some time, feeling Oulders's form shimmering as a false human appearance stretched around his bovine body. The first draft had been the hardest; after that, he had been guided by Oulders's nods and head-shakes to fix the errant details. Afterwards, he had been drained, but buoyed as Oulders examined himself, overjoyed at being able to pass as a human and walk. Allowing him to communicate was something else he would need to work on soon.

However, to do that required Valon to have access to his personal library and equipment for experimentation, so the two of them had set to work clearing the remaining garbage from the ground floor of the tower and moving Valon's belongings from the college stores into their temporary homes. Oulders's bull strength had been invaluable, especially as Valon didn't want to strain his remaining power and had to move things by hand.

Valon had left Oulders in his tower; he would take Valon's bed for the night, just in case the glamour failed, while he returned to the inn. He hoped Oulders would remember the instructions he left last night: lock up his office and the tower when he left, unlock them when Oulders woke up, and track down and clean the magical stimulator he had inserted into Oulders's hole. He remembered Oulders had blushed at that, nodding goodnight to Valon before he departed.

Rolling over, Valon contemplated his next moves: all in all, his first day in Ganic's stand had been a success, but it was now time to start work on the second. "I probably should introduce myself to the blacksmith today, though I suppose I can do that if I escort Oulders home. I'll need him to show me that list of requests he mentioned yesterday too. I should meet with the mayor, definitely, and tell him he is down one assistant but up one wizard, assuming I can get to him before he gets too drunk. I also need to deal with Yhrbold's lack of a son." The last two seemed the most important, and which he'd deal with first required more thought.

Writhing out the last bits of lethargy, Valon finally slipped out of bed. He dressed slowly, pulling on his clothing with the grace of a grog-drenched sailor on land for the first time after months at sea. "I suppose all that exercise was good for me," he supposed, patting his plump, rumbling stomach. "If things keep up like this, I'll lose all my 'wizard weight'." Wondering what he'd look like with muscles like Oulders or Olgate had Valon chuckling one moment, fantasizing about them the next. Doing his best to hide the stirring and bulging of his package, Valon headed downstairs, his stomach rumbling furiously.

Warm light flooded into the tavern area at the bottom of the stairs; from the sounds coming from outside, Valon estimated it was fairly late in the morning, if it was still morning. As soon as he set foot into view of the inn's bar, he was assaulted almost immediately by Yhrbold's booming, enthusiastic voice. "Fine morning to you, sir wizard! I trust you slept well?"

"I must have, given how late in the morning it is." Valon stumbled over towards the table he'd sat at last night with the four guards. "Yesterday was a very interesting introduction to the village, and fortunately I think I'm in a good position to start settling in." Remembering that both Oulders and Olgate weren't keen on making all parts of their interaction with Valon public knowledge, and wanting to be able to use Yhrbold's fascination with pairing him up with one of his daughters to his advantage, he gave an abridged telling of what he had been up to.

"No wonder you slept well, then!" Yhrbold exclaimed. "Hopefully you've got some energy left to help me! Oh, pardon my manners, sir! Would you like to have something to eat?"

"Yes, please!" Valon answered enthusiastically. "I was so busy last night, I completely forgot about dinner! I'm completely famished!"

Yhrbold continued to chat as he headed to the bar; Valon was grateful the man knew how to read his customers wants well, as he was thirsty too. "Artar will be grateful his son's no longer crippled, and I think you did right in taking him on as an assistant. Oulders is a good lad; he doesn't go bothering me girls like some of the young 'uns do. Not like his brother. I wouldn't wish anything bad on Oulders, but I have to say I'm glad the other boy's the one stuck in the forge with Artar most of the day, if you take my meaning."

Valon nodded, his eyes growing as Yhrbold - and, more importantly, the mug of ale - drew closer. "It avoids all that unpleasant awkwardness when the prodigal son returns home, too."

"You sound like a man who knows from experience." Yhrbold's eyes squinted shrewdly.

"Unfortunately." Valon sighed. "I've still got some work to do on Oulders before he's fully cured: he's not quite his normal self just yet, but he seems content with just being able to walk around for now. Speaking of villagers with health issues, I believed you're in need of some assistance?"

Yhrbold's face lit up. "Aye, that I do! What do you need of us?"

"First, breakfast; then, if the mayor hasn't turned up here, could you send one of your daughters to call on him and ask him to come and meet with me when he can? I'd rather he hear from me why he's short-handed, and I don't want any trouble for Oulders, or myself. I'll also need you and your wife to come over to the town hall; from there we can travel to my tower, and even though I'm not fully moved in yet, I'll have access to any resources I have that I might need."

Yhrbold seemed less pleased about this prospect. "Can you not send Oulders to talk to the mayor for you?"

"I would, but the treatment's temporarily taken away his ability to talk."

"I'm not sure I want to let my girls wander around in the village alone, if you catch my meanin'. I don't like the idea of leaving them here to fend for themselves, either..."

Valon hunted for a solution; he always hated when people wanted his help, but weren't willing to accommodate what he needed to provide that help. "Well, you seem to like Oulders well enough, and there's nothing wrong with his ears or brain or body. How about this: I send him over here, and if you think he can do a good job of keeping your daughters safe while you're gone, you can come over then, or just send him back and we'll make do with what I can do there."

"Oh aye?" Yhrbold answered, scratching at the growing thick bristles on his chin. "And Ed'll turn up, no doubt; then one of me girls can tell him your message and they'll still be safe."

"Exactly!"

"Great! When do we start?"

Valon gave him a side-eye. "After breakfast?"

Yhrbold laughed, retreating to the kitchen. Valon finished off his ale, letting out a short, satisfied belch. The meal that eventually emerged certainly wasn't anywhere close to quality, Valon thought, but the scrambled eggs and local sausages were edible, filling and in abundance, which compensated for any deficiencies. After finishing it off with another drink, Valon excused himself and left the inn to walk to the town hall. The aches and pains he'd had from last night were almost gone, and he entertained himself with a small bit of sleight-of-hand as he headed through the open town hall and then the portal.

His bed was messed up, but unoccupied; as was the rest of the ground floor of the tower. "Oulders? You about?" Valon walked outside, scanning the nearby lands until he spotted a bare-chested Oulders walking around, carrying large rocks and debris effortlessly from the surrounding buildings, creating a pile at the property line. Valon sighed; the glamour effectively reproduced the gleam of sweat and the shifting of large muscles under Oulders's hairy body. They might not have been real, but they were certainly stimulating. "Oulders! When you're done, can you come here? I've got another chore for you to do, hopefully easier than this one."

As Oulders loped over, Valon noticed the heavy cloud of bull musk floating around Oulders. He frowned, also seeing a grass-green tinge in Oulders's mouth. "I'm going to send you to the Two-Headed Pig. Yhrbold and his wife are coming over here for help, and they don't want their daughters left alone. We also need to see if you can pass for human, and this seems like a good opportunity. However, right now you stink like a bull, and you've got grass stains on your teeth and tongue, and we need to fix that first. So, take off your clothes - except your collar, of course - and we'll quickly bathe you."

Oulders did as instructed, quickly disrobing. Moving away from the trousers and boots, Valon summoned a small, continuous rain from a nearby cloud. Oulders scrubbed his body quickly, and sloshed water around his mouth. Valon tried to control himself, but he could feel his cock stirring regardless. Giving the air another sniff, he quickly turned off the water; blasting Oulders with a quick, cool wind to dry him off.

"Alright," Valon said once he was satisfied that Oulders didn't look too bad. "Get dressed and head over to the inn. Stay there, and obey their instructions and keep them safe. When they return, come back here; I'm going to need to turn off the glamour for a while, or we're going to drain the stores, and I should have a look to see how much humanity you've recovered. Tonight, I'll turn it back on and go home with you, since there's a few things I need to talk about with your family."

Oulders nodded, quickly loping away. Valon also returned to the tower, but slower, allowing him to think about what he would need to do to prepare. He made the bed, and examined the remaining container of familiar seed he had collected. It was a lot lower than he had hoped; keeping two glamours running was expensive. "If I'm going to be using magic like this," he thought, "I'm going to need to find a few more sources. Hopefully ones that I don't need to keep hidden with glamours..."

Yhrbold and his wife arrived while Valon was deep in a book on magical husbandry. Snapping the leather-bound tome shut, he quickly walked through the portal, greeting them. "It's quite harmless, I can assure you," he explained about the portal, "it'll smell slightly strange, and you'll feel like you've been rolling around in warm sheets for a bit, but that passes quickly." He stepped through, waiting.

Yhrbold followed. "It's safe, Yanna!" he called through. "Come through, girl!" The plain, plump woman stepped through, squealing until she felt that she was safe.

"Why don't you two take a seat," Valon suggested, pouring on some practised, polite charm that probably would have surprised his colleagues. Valon, however, had never wanted to get them and their wives to disrobe for them. "I'll need to inspect both of your bodies, so if you could remove your clothes for me, please."

"Do we need to?" Yanna asked; if she had been a local girl, Valon thought, she had spent so much time with Yhrbold that she had picked up a few features of his accent. "I don't want a strange man poking and prodding me!"

Valon waited calmly, silently facing Yhrbold with an expression that read plainly: it was this, or no help. "Aye, we do, girl! I'll make sure he doesn't do anything inappropriate, don't you worry." Yhrbold moved first, taking off his shirt. Valon quickly moved, making a mechanical sweep of the innkeeper's body as his clothing was slowly removed and put back on. The clinical approach seemed to calm Yanna, who slowly obliged with the same process.

"Hmm." Valon pondered the results of his examination.