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Hexes and Heroes

Chapter 4: Through a Stranger's Eyes

Sometimes, I hate my job. Don't worry, you can always trust me to do it. It's just I don't always LIKE it. ... This wasn't one of those times. Matter of fact, I had a blast with this one, despite my rather close brush with death.

I had gone to the Adventurer's Guild Branch Office in Devil's Anvil to ask some questions. Before I get a single word out, the squirrel behind the counter is all over me. "Are you an adventurer? We need help! Top secret X-rank mission! Blarg!" ...okay, he didn't actually say "blarg", but you could tell he was in a real tight spot, and needed help, and his panic was almost kinda funny. He told me about a rather nice-sounding reward and a possible automatic rank upgrade. I presented him with identification papers, and he damned near jumped out of his own skin with joy. "Alright, Relena! I just need you to wait here! There's an X-rank on his way now, and you'll be traveling with him!" Didn't even ask me if I wanted to...but I guess that's the nature of the beast, huh?

So there I was, having made myself as comfortable as I could in the corner of the office's foyer, when this blue cat-boy and this real young ferret-girl burst in through the door, and slammed it shut behind them. The boy shouted to the girl, "Hide!" and they both dove behind a chair. I could've sworn I heard the little girl giggling.

Not even thirty seconds later, as the squirrel is getting ready to lay into these kids about how this isn't their private playground, the door nearly gets knocked in as this pissed-off-looking gold-furred vixen walks in. When I say she looked pissed off, I mean she was seething. Temperature in the room jumped fifteen degrees. She looks around, and says in this real strained-sounding voice, "WHEREâ€"AREâ€"THEY???" This girl looks right around the same age as the boy who just ran in, too.

Poor squirrel was beside himself. "Okay! All three of you, if you're not adventurers looking for a job, GET OUT!!!"

Vixen-girl spots cat-boy, grabs him by the tail and jerks him out. He starts screaming, and I can't tell if it's from pain or panic or both. By now, I'm wishing I had popcorn, 'cuz this is one helluva scene. Then the vixen starts laying into him about how he cost her 2,000 GP, and he'd better pay up, or else, and he starts stammering back that he doesn't have that kind of money, and how it was an accident. The squirrel is trying to get a word in edgewise, and they're both ignoring him like he doesn't exist. Apparently, the ferret-girl decides to throw her two cents' in: "My fur's all sticky!" I saw cat-boy nearly choke at that, but everyone else was ignoring her, too.

By now, there were two others in the door, some cheetah-girl and a rather nicely-built wolf. I immediately recognize the cheetah as some kind of mage, and the wolf is making no pretenses that he likes weapons. They stood in the doorway and just watched the scene, looking almost as amused as me, and suddenly, the cheetah bleats.

Yes. Bleats. "Ba-a-a-a." Like a goat.

Everyone in the room stops and looks at her like she's out of her mind. She just grins at the vixen, and does it again. I still haven't figured out if it was some kind of code, or an inside joke, or just being silly to get the dumb goldfur to calm down. Whatever it was, though, it worked. Vixen rubs her forehead, sighs, and looks at the cat. "Alright, it was an accident. Apology accepted." She sounded about as happy as a kid who was being forced to share her favorite toy.

The squirrel finally gets a word in edgewise. "Yes, that's wonderful. Now unless you children are adventurers looking for a job--"

"We are," The vixen and cat said simultaneously. They looked at each other, then looked back at the squirrel again. "We're not together. STOP THAT!" Then they were both at each others' throats, growling, and the entire scene almost played out again, but the wolf stepped between them, forcing them apart. "I don't know about these two," he tells the squirrel, indicating the cat and the ferret, "But we were in line for an easy two grand, and we have just found ourselves not getting it. So yeah, we kinda need a job."

"Er, uh... May I see ID's?" They all produced their papers, and he looked them over, and nodded, practically beside himself with nervous excitement. "Well, it just so happens that I do have a job for you all! I'm afraid it's, er, a bit, uhm..."

"Dangerous?" The blue cat tilted his head.

"Mandatory," the clerk grinned nervously. "You're being tasked to an X-rank. It's just...he isn't here, yet, so I have to ask you all to wait."

"She's not getting involved," the cat said, jutting his thumb at the much younger ferret...who turned around and screamed, "YES I AM!!!" "She can't be involved. She's only an E-rank," blue-boy said, at which she turned to the squirrel, "IT DOESN'T MATTER! HE SAID I HAD TO!!!"

The squirrel looked a little squeamish about sending a little kid on this kind of mission, but he shrugged helplessly at the cat. "We needâ€"everyone we can get for this mission. Ifâ€"if she's capable--" "I AM!" "--then I'm afraid I don't have the luxury of sending her away."

I think about every jaw in the room dropped, my own included. I mean, think about it. The guy just admitted that he was desperate enough to require the assistance of a little kid. I started to wonder what the hell I was getting myself into.

After a real long pause, the cheetah spoke first. "So when is this big-shot X-rank getting here?"

The clerk frowned a bit. "Any minute, now. Why, uh... Why don't you all, er, get yourselves acquainted? It's probably going to be a bit of a journey for you. Oh, that's right! Miss Relena Black in the corner there will be joining you, too!" He gestured to me.

Everyone looked a little surprised as I stood. Guess they didn't notice me staying quiet in the corner, there. Not surprising; with my dark colorations, I could've very easily gone the route of being a rogue. I smirked at them, and bowed. "Relena Black, sorceress, at your service. I'm not much of a fan of direct combat, but I've struggled my way up to an SS-rank, anyway."

The girl spoke up before anyone else. "My name's Airin, and I'm E-rank! But my Mama said I'll be a Double S someday! ...or was that Double-D...?" She stopped, scratching her head, having just confused herself.

The cat spoke up quickly before anyone else could react to that rather bizarre comment. "I'm Alex. Alex Highwind. I'm a master of Chi. I'm only B-rank, but that's just 'cuz I haven't been given enough jobs, yet. I'll be X before long."

The vixen rolled her eyes. "Well, SOMEbody's full of themselves. My name's Téana Hikari. S-rank Spellsword, and one fine baker to boot." She stuck her tongue out at Alex, who snorted right back. If looks could've killed, Téa would've put him six feet under, right there in the lobby.

Then Alex snapped his fingers. "Hey, wait! Hikari? I know you! You're the 'Hexplorer'!" He snickered. Téa seethed quietly for a moment, then lunged at him with a screamâ€"but the cheetah grabbed her tail, stopping her short.

The cheetah in question smiled and nodded her head to nobody in general, still keeping a screaming fox-girl by the tail. "I'm Saria Meian," she said, talking over Téa's shouts. "I'm a Magus, SS-rank. I'm not going on this mission for the rank upgrade... I'm just here to have fun with my friend Téa." She smiled to me, then. "We'll have to compare grimoires, sometime."

The wolf nodded. "My turn, huh? I'm an A-rank Weapon Master. Name's Kel. Really, Kellian, but just call me Kel. I'm here 'cuz she--" he waved at Téa, who was finally starting to calm down, "--got me out of a real tight spot, so I'm just working off my debt to her."

"Seiran Il Saillune," came a voice from the doorway, as a RATHER attractive rabbit steps in. Green tunic. Blue hair past his shoulders. Head held high like he owns the place. I felt myself squeezing my legs together at the thought of what was under that tunic, but forced myself to pay attention to what he was saying. "Swordsmaster. X-rank." Téa's jaw hit the floor, and he nodded coolly at her and Saria. "Hello again. Seems our paths were destined to cross aga--"

"SEI!!!" The vixen suddenly pounced on him, nearly knocking him back out of the door. He looked a bit disconcerted, and I grinned inwardly. A look like that meant I probably still had a chance at him. He extricated himself from the overexcited vixen, and brushed himself off, only to immediately be accosted by the squirrel. "Master Il Saillune! I can't tell you how glad I am that you made it!" He turned to address the room. "Everyone, please follow me. Our, er... Our current guildmaster wishes to speak to you all about this mission."

As he led us all back into the back area, Alex fumed, looking at Airin, who was hopping her way into the back, instead of walking. Saria smiled to Sei. "Good to see you're alright... Oh, my!" She giggled. "You're limping! Is that an old wound, or a new one?"

"Neither," Sei frowned. "It's just easier to walk when I don't have two legs growing out of one of my own. Téa, would you please let go of my leg?"

"Awww..." The vixen girl pouted, and let go of his leg...but still very definitely invaded his personal space as he walked down the hall, now limp-free.

The squirrel knocked on the door at the end of the hall, and poked his head inside. He spoke in hushed tones with a person on the other side, then turned back to us. "Guildmaster Leon will see you now."

We all filed in, and Guildmaster Leonâ€"yep, you guessed it, a lion, gold fur and mane and everythingâ€"gestured for all of us to have a seat. There weren't enough chairs for all of us, so I stood, leaning against the back wall. Sei opted to stand as well, and Airin hopped in Alex's lap, seeming to cause him a great deal of discomfort. I was really starting to wonder about him.

"I'm glad you all could make it. I'm afraid that what I am about to tell you cannotâ€"absolutely can NOTâ€"leave this room." He looked at each of us in turn, and each of us nodded or quietly murmured a promise to keep his secret. I watched as Alex glanced around the room nervously, holding Airin protectively. Saria was sitting on the edge of her seat, incredibly curious. Everyone else seemed indifferent, bored, or irritated. ...alright, so only Téa seemed irritated, and I couldn't tell if it was still with Alex, or if she just wanted this guy to hurry up and get on with it.

Leon sighed heavily. "As you probably know, the city of Sunveil was the third largest city in Sandrune, and quite possibly the most beautiful, second only to Oasis City. Built around the largest oasis in the desertâ€"err, well, the largest one before Oasis City's oasis was discoveredâ€"it was almost made the capital. It did a lot of trade, until about two weeks ago..."

There was silence in the room which grew noticeably more apprehensive as Leon spoke. Alex finally coughed. "So what happened two weeks ago? It got knocked down to fourth?"

Yeah, Alex, I thought. You're pretty fast on the uptake, aint'cha? A new, bigger city sprouted up and took its place.

"It doesn't exist anymore," Leon stated, flatly.

I'd been expecting him to say it, but actually hearing the words still kinda took my breath away. I reminded myself that I shouldn't be upset by such things, though looking around the room, everyone else looked kinda shocked, too. Except Airin, who seemed to more or less completely fail to grasp the gravity of the situation. She was, instead, grasping her own tail, twisting it into spiral shapes.

"What do you mean, 'doesn't exist anymore'?" Kel finally asked.

Leon sighed. "I mean, about two weeks ago, it was destroyed overnight. What's worse, some of our highest-ranking guild leaders were there, in a meeting with the leaders from Sunveil's chapter the night it was destroyed. Here in Devil's Anvil, we witnessed what looked like the light of daybreak coming from the direction of Sunveil. Three days later, a merchant caravan arrived... They'd witnessed the light. Those in the caravan who'd been unfortunate enough to be looking in that direction were blinded by the light. Those who weren't blinded reported massive destruction. We sent out a team of our finest warriors and adventurers to find what destroyed the city, and dispose of it. Only one returned, in extremely bad shape. He died right outside this town's gates, ranting about not sending anyone else out there."

"So you're sending more adventurers out there, natch," Kel smirked.

Leon shook his head. "You don't understand. This is no longer a seek-out-and-destroy mission. This is a recon mission. Figure out what did this, and use your abilities to avoid combat instead of engaging in it. Under no circumstances should you engage any enemies while you're in there. If whatever did this can destroy a city of that size and stature in a single blast...then this could be something that very well could threaten the entire world."

Sei looked like he might be offended. "That's all? Our goal is information retrieval?"

Leon nodded. "With the proper information, we can set up an appropriate reaction, and deal with the problem better than if we just sent more adventurers out to die in some situation they're not equipped to handle."

Sei nodded slowly, conceding wordlessly that the plan made sense. That, or he was thinking to himself that this lion was completely nuts.

Leon continued. "Because of the danger of this mission, we're offering the highest rewards our guild is capable of offering. They will be two-fold... One million GP to be split amongst you, and the potential for an automatic rank upgrade, regardless of how close you are to achieving the next rank on your own. This only applies if the threat is as great as we fear it may be, but the monetary reward is set."

You could practically see Téa's eyes turn into GP symbols. "SOLD!"

Kel smirked. "Not the most eloquent way of saying it, but maybe sometimes, eloquence is overrated...so what she said."

Saria grinned. "If she's in, I'm in."

Alex looked like someone had ripped the rug out from under him. A cool mil, even spread seven ways, was real good money for a job.

"I have a question!" Airin spoke up, raising and waving her hand.

Leon blinked. "Yes?"

"You said we shouldn't engage monsters. Have you had people go off and marry monsters before?" She giggled at his dumbfounded expression, and Alex just smacked his forehead.

Sei spoke up. "I have a serious question. What kind of bad shape was the adventurer in when he got back to town?"

Leon frowned. "Pretty bad. Looked like he'd been put through the ringer. Bruises all over his body. You could see 'em all over 'cuz a lot of his fur looked like it'd been singed off. Looked like his teeth had almost all been kicked in. Pretty nasty burns in places."

Everyone in the room started processing that information, and started looking at each other. My first thought was, "dragon". Saria muttered something about sounding like some kind of demon or other.

Sei stood, before speculation got out of hand. "Right, then. Let's get going."

So we thanked Leon, and started filing out of his office. On our way out, Airin started giggling. "My foot tastes like cupcake!"

Téa twitched. For a moment, she looked ready to strangle the girl, but Saria muttered to her, "Téa! Million!" The GP symbols returned to Téa's eyes, and she grinned. "Ooohhh, yeeeaaaahhh..." Then she started giggling wickedly.

It was a pretty nice wicked giggle, too, if I do say so myself.

******

The desert has this fantastic smell to it. I dunno if it's the heat coming off the sand, the smell of distant oases, or whatever else it may be, but it has this warm smell to it that just makes you wanna relax.

That's about all it has going for it. Hot sun on black fur does nothing for me. At least, nothing nice. And that's just the heat! That's not even mentioning the sand that gets EVERYWHERE... Every time there was a gust of windâ€"and there were plenty of those, but they did precious little to break up the heatâ€"you'd get sand in your eyes and clothes. We had to wear these cloths over our faces half the time, just to keep from inhaling it...which meant wearing another layer over my black fur, holding that heat in even more.

This mink was not having a good time of things, but we had to keep moving, so I'd stripped down to what was VERY strictly considered "decent"; basically, a strap of cloth across my chest, and another one around my crotch, for modesty's sake...but with as often as I had to stop to get sand out of there, it was tempting to just forget about clothes altogether. Besides, I figured, then maybe Sei might notice me...

But I was a trooper! I kept on those shreds of clothes, despite how much of a pain in the butt it was. I at least caught Kel's attention. I noticed his eyes darting glances over at me. Can't say I blame him; sometimes, when I look in the mirror, sometimes I wish I had a twin, just so I could sleep with myself!

Anywho, so we're trekking across the desert, and we spot an outcropping in the distance. Sei announces it might be a good place to stop and have a bit of a rest, and he got no complaints. Big rock outcropping might mean some shade from the sun.

So we head over there, and we see there's a few plants growing around it, and there's a cave! Talk about your lucky break, right?

Wrong.

We're all running for the cave, some of us are laughing from reliefâ€"three days in this ungodly heat is enough to drive anyone madâ€"and we hear this sound coming from inside. Lots of screeching, and this sudden uproar of noise.

"Bats," Alex muttered, and we all got ready to shield our faces from the bats as they flew out.

Only when they fly out, we realize they're not bats. It takes me a second to figure it out, but I realized they were Dream Drakes... I dunno how worldly you are, but these suckers are practically no threat on their own, but in a swarm, they can really make a mess. On an individual basis, they're about a foot long from nose to buttâ€"three more feet for their tail, which is finned out like a fish's tailâ€"and they've got a four-foot wingspan. Their main bodies are a brilliantly vibrant color, be it red, blue, yellow, green, what have you, and their wings and tailfins are another very brilliant color that offsets the color of their main bodies. They secrete a sedative when they fly, which, if you find one by itself, won't do much to you, but when it's an entire swarm, they could potentially knock out an elephant. And when I say "knock out", I don't mean unconsciousâ€"nah, this sedative doesn't work like that. It just makes you really drowsy, and just kinda really relaxed. That, and the color display they put on as they fly around each other, will leave a personâ€"or group of peopleâ€"pretty much hypnotized, with nobody in control. Unlike other hypnotic states, when you wake up from it, you'll actually remember most of what happened to you, but it'll seem fuzzy and distant, like you were dreaming the whole time.

Fortunately, with my mental training because of my magic, I'm immune to that kind of thing...but that sedative must've had at least a little bit of an impact, 'cuz it took me a few moments to realize that everyone else wouldn't necessarily share in my immunity.

"Hey! Don't look atâ€"oh." I frowned, glancing around at the stupefied expressions on my teammates' faces. At first, I thought Sei might not have been affectedâ€"he was still wearing that same impassive stare he almost always seemed to have...but as I waved my hand in front of his face, after he didn't respond, I realized it must've just been because he ALWAYS looked that way. My mama always said that if you kept your face in the same expression enough, it'd freeze that way; maybe she was right.

I sighed, and started to use my magic to break them out of the trance, when I hear thudding footsteps coming from the cave, and coming fast. So I think fast, and look up at the drakes, and pretend to be zombified, just like the others. Best to see your opponents and get the drop on 'em before they know what's happening, right?

A boggart comes out of the cave, and starts shooing the drakes off. Ever seen a boggart? Butt-ugly. They've got this really wrinkly face, like they oughtta be real pudgy, and they have snouts like a wild boar's, but they have no fur, and HUGE mouths. Like, I could fit my head in one without it having to open real far. Their bodies are just as fur-less, but they're very heavily muscled, instead of being fat like their heads might suggest...so heavily muscled that their bodies are constantly stooped over from the weight of their muscles. They wear these smelly, half-rotten loincloths, and are one of those creatures that're "gifted" with supernatural strength.

These guys are true monsters, not just animals or wandering creatures. They're not really known to be booksmart, but they are EXTREMELY cunning creatures, as seen by the fact that they'd used both the cave and the Dream Drakes to lure in and trap unsuspecting victims like us.

The worst thing about them is the fact that they're driven by their hunger, both for meat and for sex...and the only meat they like is of the younger and sentient variety. And I'm in a group full of kids.

At first, I'm thinking, there's only one... I can have him dispatched in no time, and wake the others up before they even realize anything's happened. Then another one steps out of the cave. And another one. Followed by several more. Followed by this steady trickle of sneering, snorting, hunchbacked, fugly brutes. Prolly about thirty of them, all pushing and shoving and muscling to get in closer to get a good look at us. I have had the "pleasure" of learning monster-speak, so I had the "honor" of hearing everything they said about us.

"~I call the ferret.~" "~You would. You like 'em small, don't'cha?~" "~Heh, too right!~" "~What're we doing with the black one?~" "~Snap 'er neck and give 'er to Charlie. She's too old for me.~" I had to fight hard to keep my face placid at that, and made note of the one who'd said that. I swore to myself I'd get my revenge for that comment. Then I hear the one thing I didn't wanna hear more than anything else they could've said...

"~Hey! Why don't we have a li'l fun with 'em before we eats 'em?~" And the general raucous of the crowd agreeing with that statement that followed. Everyone starts reaching for loincloths, and I had to fight hard to continue just staring ahead...

One of them comes towards us. Since there was no established controller, my comrades' minds were open to anyone's suggestions. The monster grunts out, "All you. Clothes off. Now."

So we all start stripping. The last thing I wanted to do was give them a free peep show, but I didn't have much choice. My options were to wake the kids up and open myself to attack from the monsters, or go for some of the monsters, get swarmed by the others, and risk one of them telling my new buddies to gang up on me, too. Logistics declared I had to bide my time for now...but I kept an eye on the one who'd said I was "too old", while I removed what clothing I was still wearing.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see something a li'l surprising... Téa's sporting an extra package between her legs. A hermaphrodite! I was so surprised, I almost forgot to keep up the charade of being hypnotized. I recovered from my shock, and notice that they seem pretty confused by that as well...but then their attention turned to Alex. Several of them got this wicked grin on their faces, and I suddenly felt bad for the kid. Boggart custom is to humiliate the smallest male in the pack, however they could. And the ones with the wickedest grins were the smallest boggarts there. I could see in their eyes, they were ready to pass on some of what had most likely been done to them, and they were gonna enjoy every moment of it.

But I also see I have company, too... One of the boggarts walks up to me, sneering. "You. Down."

I decide, if I have to play as being hypnotized, I can not only play the part, but I can be a bitch while I'm at it. "A direction."

That threw him off for a second. He scratched his head, looking at me with this priceless look on his face. If I could paint at all, I'd make a portrait of that one moment in time, frame it, and hang it on my wall to look at whenever I needed a laugh. Then he gets pissy. "You. GET. Down. Hands and knees. Now."

Take all the fun out of it, I thought as I got on all fours. Then I saw his cock, and another fun fact of boggarts came back to me... Their anatomy is a bit different from other creatures'. They don't have sacs; instead, their testicles are located in their shafts, and their testicles are pretty huge. What's more, there's four of 'em, meaning that the cock in front of me had four thick bulges down its length. Suddenly, my entire outlook changed... I mean, that sucker was about a foot long, and about an inch and a half thick BETWEEN the bulges! I let my mouth hang open so the drool that started coming out would look more natural, and he grins. Apparently, he'd wanted my mouth open, 'cuz he reaches down and holds my head as he starts working that huge thing into my mouth, and down my throat...

For a while, his crotch was all I could see, but I could still hear the sounds of the other pigs getting around the kids, and making ready to have their way with them. Then I feel one of them behind me, lifting my hips and forcing my legs apart. The cock in my throat made it hard to breathe, but feeling each of those lumps slide in and out of my mouth had my loins aching, and I was ready for it.

I got what I wanted. A lumpy, thick shaft making its way down into my depths, stretching me, pushing against my inner walls in a way that had me almost forgetting about not being able to breathe. I started involuntarily pleasuring the one in my mouth, working my tongue and lips around those bulges, squeezing, suckling, and rubbing him in all the best ways... Must've been a while for him, 'cuz the sucker suddenly shoved himself as deep down my throat as he could, and started gushing his seed down into my belly. Then he shivers, and jerks his hips back so hard, I couldn't help but cough. I was afraid, for a moment, he was gonna jerk my throat out, but when that didn't happen, and that wonderful shaft up my snatch reminded me of its existence, I soon forgot my fear, and just rode that creature behind me...

Now that Piggy Number One is gone, I can get a better view of what's going on around me... Alex was having the worst time of it. They'd taken various clothing pieces from the group, and used them to hogtie and gag the boy, and the smallest of the beasts (which were all still a fair size larger than any of us) were surrounding him, either stroking themselves off to cover him in cum, or were plunging themselves into his tailhole one at a time. Due to his hypnotic state, though, he didn't seem to mind too badly... Judging from the look of things between his legs, he was probably actually enjoying it. Every time one of the cretins sprayed more cum into his fur, his nine-incher would throb just a bit more. I had to admit, for his age, he looked pretty nicely hung.

Saria was propped up between two of the piggies, her head rocked back, her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth, groaning lewdly as one of those bulbous cocks forced its way into her folds, the other squeezing in and out of her tailhole. Two more boggarts stood nearby, stroking themselves off and grinning, waiting their turns to take the cheetah. She seemed to be enjoying herself well enough.

Téa was having an interesting time of things... One of the monsters had forced her into a curled position, so she was sucking herself off. I gotta admit, if she was flexible enough to even be forced into that position, she had to be hellaciously dexterous. The brute who'd forced her into that position was pushing his fat shaft deep into her folds, and with her position, she got a clear view of the whole show right between her legs... I felt a li'l jealous of the whole thing, being that flexible in the first place, and of getting to watch each of those bulbs squeeze in and out of her much smaller femslit... Apparently, she was enjoying it, too, because as I watched, she shuddered a bit, as her cheeks suddenly bulged, and a RATHER appreciable amount of cum dribbled out of her muzzle and down the sides of her face...

Airin almost looked like she might be asleep, having a very good dream, by the look on her face...except for the fact that she was lifted in the air, her shoulders being held by Sei, her hips held up by Kel, both of them working their comparatively huge shafts into her from opposite ends. Sei was every bit as big as I imagined him to be, more than a foot long, I'd say, judging by how far he was pulling out before slamming back into her throat... Every once in a while, he'd buck his hips into the ferret-girl and start groaning in bliss, but I couldn't see any signs that he was actually cumming. Kel was pretty nicely hung, too, easily as long as the monsters that stood around them, stroking themselves off, either to wait their turn or to start coating the spitted ferret-girl... Airin, herself, was having the time of her life, and by the time the first spatters of boggart-cum began soaking their way into her fur, she looked like she was going through the first of her orgasms.

I shuddered, and went through one of my own, my muscles tensing as I let out a feral cry, clenching around the monster-cock inside me. That seemed to set him off, and he howled. As he bucked into me wildly, lengthening my climax and causing me to soak his crotch with my juices, I felt the bulges along his length pulse and swell spasmodically as he unloaded what felt like a gallon of hot cum into me. As he shuddered and pulled out, it started pouring down my legs, soaking into my black furâ€"until a second tip lined up against my opening, and four more bulges were slammed into me, trapping the boggart-spooge deep inside me. I let out another cry of joy, tilting my hips to try to drive this one deeper into me...

By the time I could open my eyes and pay attention to the others again, Alex looked like he had passed out. His fur was almost white from all the boggart-cream he was coated in. Every time the boggart in his tailhole slid a bulb through his tailhole, in or out, his shaft would twitch, and spray a blast of kitty-cream over his belly, which mixed into the boggart-cum and disappeared. This amounted to a lot of rapid-fire spurts from his cock as the beastâ€"probably the fourth or fifth one who'd been in him, nowâ€"neared his own climax...

Téa's face and chest were now coated in cum, both her own and from the several boggarts who'd used her as their own cum receptacle. When there wasn't at least one bulb shoved into her, she leaked a constant stream of spunk from between her legs, down over her shaft, and either into her mouth or over her face...but those streams seemed to last as long as the one from my own cunny didâ€"just long enough for one boggart to pull out, and another to grab her hips and shove in...

The second boggart in me finished far faster than the first had, and I shuddered, feeling the hot spooge forcing its way up into my womb. At least, the creature inside me was so big, that was how far I imagined it must be getting shot inside me... Just like before, he pulled out, and I felt the fluids gush from inside me, starting to create a creamy white puddle between my legs, soaking into the sand more slowly than it was coming out of me, before another cock corked me, keeping as much of the fluid trapped inside me as the third boggart could muster.

Saria had gone horizantal, laying on one boggart's belly as he shoved up into her femslit, another boggart shoving up just under her tail, and a third in her mouth, now. I felt myself involuntarily clenching around the beast inside me as another orgasm overtook me, a little stronger than before, just from imagining how that must have felt, all that hot, pulsing meat being inside me, all that cum dribbling from every place it could possible come from, soaking into my fur, filling my insides... The cheetah seemed to climax in time with me, shuddering as she visibly tensed and clenched, working her hips harder over the two cocks entering her from behind. I imagined my legs must look about like hers, nowâ€"fur matted and caked with cum.

Airin was now trapped to Kel's crotch, his knot having swelled inside her, binding her to him. The wolf-cum that occasionally leaked from her heavily-stretched cunny was extremely thick, and from this distance, almost looked like glue. Sei sat to one side, looking exhausted, while four or five boggarts had forced the wolf onto his back, so they could rub their bulbed cocks all over the young girl. At this point, I could hardly recognize she was really there; she looked more like a gob of cum attached to the wolf's crotch, which, between that fact and the fact that the piggies were all eager to thrust at it, I knew it was really her...

All too soon, the fun with those bulging cocks was over. The boggart in me deposited his load and pulled out, leaving me to drain. I wanted to whine, or to reach between my legs and cork myself, but I knew anything I did might give me away as not being quite as entranced as I'd led them to believe. All around me, the boggarts were backing off from the rest of the party, too, leaving everyone to drain. Then they used their limited linguistics skills and their brute strength to cajole us all into a circle, with them surrounding us, and licking their lips. At first, I thought the fun was over and the main course was on its way, but instead, the largest boggart in the group grinned at us, and commanded us, "Now all you sex each other."

There was a moment of hesitation on my part, then I took the initiative to jump on Sei. Being the most well-hung, I had to have him, and as I felt his massive bunny-hood push up into my snatch, I let out a feral groan. He was bigger than the boggarts, even with their bulges, and longer, to boot. I was a little over halfway down his shaft, when I realized I had jumped on him before Téa could... Even stupefied, she'd wanted her bunny, but I'd beaten her to it. Apparently, she was okay with that. If she couldn't have him the way she'd originally wanted, she was willing to share. She mounted me, and started squeezing her shaft up between my legs, letting out a groan as her shaft was squeezed against her idol's inside me.

I couldn't hold back at that. The fox- and bunny-cocks both pulsing inside me was too much, and I shoved myself down on both of their lengths, crying out as I rode them hard and fast. They, in turn, gasped and squeezed me from both sides, shoving themselves in as hard as they could, drawing out my climax longer and longer. I almost felt like my head would explode at that.

Alex was still hog-tied, and Airin had finally gotten free of Kel's knot. Even though his arms and legs were tied pretty tightly, the tiny, extremely messy girl managed to wriggle herself into the extremely messy boy's hold, murring and giggling as he was hugging her with both arms and legs. Even zombified, they still smiled at each other, and cuddled there, enjoying the messiness and the closeness of each other, before the ferret worked herself down over Alex's shaft, causing them both to groan out happily. I had to admit, even as distracted as I was with Téa and Sei inside me, they were extremely cute together, cum-coating and all.

Kel was the next to act, moving towards me and my two mates... He lifted the vixen's tail, who squeaked in response and spread her legs, glancing over her shoulder at him as he shoved into her. I felt Téa's pleasure as much as I heard it in her excited squealâ€"her shaft swelled notably inside me, squeezing harder against Sei's, as the two continued pounding me nice and slow. Kel panted, a grin crossing his muzzle as he drooled over the fox-girl, who was spasming as she tried to thrust back against Kel, and forward into me...

Saria pouted for a moment, looking around and not finding one free cock. Her hands were clamped between her legs, keeping that fantastic cream inside her... Damn, I thought. I guess this kind of hypnotization allowed for a tiny bit of free thought... She finally settled on going to the two younger, messier kids, and grinned pleasantly, laying down and grinding her hips against their faces. They got the idea, and started licking at and into her folds, each lick causing more of the thick boggart-spunk to leak onto their already-soaked forms...

All around us, the ring of boggarts tightened. They stood around us, shoulder-to-shoulder, everyone's hands on the cocks of their partners on either side of them. They were going to give us one last cum-bath before we were done, and by the way they were all gyrating their hips, it wasn't going to take long. The one I figured was probably their chief grunts, hunching his hips with the hands on his member, and calls out, "All youâ€"cum! Now!"

Saria doesn't even wait for the "now". She howls out so loud, I almost didn't even hear him shout it, and she gushes over both Alex's and Airin's faces with a mixture of her own juices and the seed inside her. That sets both of them off, and they shudder, their hips suddenly shoving hard together, going over the edge together, Alex's spunk filling Airin up and leaking down their legs...not that you could hardly tell it.

Meanwhile, Sei jerks his hips and cums on command, his seed filling my insides and both pieces of meat. Between the feel of his spunk and the feel of his member driving hard against hers, Téa cries out, her own hips jerking as she sprays into me as well. That set both me and Kel off, and we both howled as we climaxed with everyone else in our party.

That's when the cum-shower starts. All around us, boggart-cocks started spraying us down, covering all of us almost as bad as Alex and Airin had been before we were forced into our little orgy. 'Course, it took a while for ALL of them to stop creaming us, but when they did, we all ended up plopping onto the ground, exhausted.

Kel pulled Téa off me, and I just laid on top of Sei, panting... I had to admit, for several moments, I was so completely overcome by the afterglow of pleasure that I kinda forgot our predicament. One of the boggarts stepped into the collective puddle of cream that was our little band of adventurers, though, and reached for Airin and Alex. He grabbed the ferret-girl by the scruff of the neck, and pulled her off the cat with a schlurping noise. Then he lifted her up, opened his massive maw...

...and she disappeared head-first into that throat.

As I was waking up to the realization that I couldn't let that happen, Alex suddenly screamed and ripped through the pants that were keeping him hog-tied.

I will say that I've heard of people who undergo extremely stressful situations while under hypnosis, who were able to snap themselves out of it, but I've seen hypnotized subjects pushed to the brink of death who remain zombified...so when Alex jumped to his feet and fired a massive chi-blast at the piggie's head, I was more than a little bit surprised.

I guess Mr. Piggie wasn't expecting it, either, and, well, dang... Poor sap musta been one of those overly emotional types, 'cuz he really lost his head, there!

...okay. No more puns from now on. I promise. ...for at least the next five or six lines.

The other boggarts looked pretty pissed, and the circle closed in, a lot of them charging for Alex, but I knew the rest of us wouldn't be spared. I focused my will into the circle of Mental Magic, focusing on commanding those whose minds were already susceptible to suggestions. "WAKE UP!" I shouted, snapping them all out of it. Téa started to jump into a standing positionâ€"only to find she was still stuck fast to Kel, who yelped in response to the swift tug at his knot. Saria was on her feet in a moment, wiping cream away from her eyes and cracking her knuckles, looking about as intimidated as a wolf in a sheep pen. Sei remained motionless for a moment, until I started to move. Then he grabbed my sides, and muttered, "We need our weapons. Ready?"

I blinked. There was a small crowd of charging boggarts between us and those weapons. Having no idea what I was supposed to be ready for, I nodded...then I squeaked as he rolled into a kneeling position, pulling me up with him. He swung me around rather abruptly, and flung me head-first over the tops of all those piggies. I arced perfectly and effortlessly in the air, and when I came down, I was angled so that I didn't even have to try to tumble properlyâ€"I hit the ground with my arms outstretched, rolled forward, and came effortlessly to my feet.

He really knows how to handle a womanâ€"in SO many different ways.

On top of all that, I'd landed RIGHT next to our weapons! I grabbed my belt first and foremost, securing it around my waist, only realizing after the fact that I'd have to clean it later...but for right now, I had my weapons and everything I could need for any of my magic. The sounds of combat were already rising into the sky, as the boggarts attacked my comrades.

Interesting note, the sound of combat isn't as dramatic or exciting as some people wanna make it seem. In this case, it was even less so. With my teammates weaponless, there was a lot of shouting, pummeling, sissy-slapping, and the occasional spell that Saria could pull offâ€"which mostly comprised of protection and healing magics, for the time being. Most everyone was limping around the battlefield from our pre-combat activities, and for a moment, I watched them all. It was kinda funny, honestly, especially when Téaâ€"I guess she got free from Kel, at some point, probably from necessityâ€"stumbled as she dodged a wild piggie-fist swinging at her, only to step on Kel's tail.

"OW! Watch it!"

"Sorryâ€"hey, look out!!!" Téa's warning got Kel to duck in time as he dodged a hamfist, too.

There was a second reason for my hesitating to get their weapons to them. There were two weapons I couldn't even liftâ€"the massive zweihänder that Kel lugged around all the time, and the ornate longsword I'd seen hung on Sei's hip. Kel's sword I understoodâ€"when I say it was massive, I mean it was longer than I was tall, and thicker than my arm! But Sei'sâ€"that was a bit of a mystery. There was no reason I shouldn't've been able to lift it, but it wouldn't budge from where it lay.

I finally gave up on those two, and moved along. Saria's staff... "SARIA!" was all the warning she got before I lobbed that sucker at her as hard as I could, sending it spinning through the air... She caught sight of it, and jumped up, kicking off one of the brutes' faces, sending her flipping with ease, to grab it mid-air. She clocked one of the monster's in the face with it on her way down, knocking him back.

Alex was in the most trouble at this point. He was being used as a kickball by several of the snorting uglies. He didn't seem to be getting hurt by it, most likely thanks to one of Saria's protection spells, but with the way he was getting knocked around, he was having trouble doing anything about it...and protection spells don't last forever. I grabbed his shortsword, and shouted to him, and sent the sword flying. One of the brutes saw it flying, and stopped playing kickball long enough to grab it, looking it over. In the monster's arm, it looked like a small knife...but it only looked that small for a moment. One less monster using him for a sports ball was all he needed to roll away, and leap at the thief, kicking him in the face and grabbing his sword. By the time his feet hit the ground again, he'd charged up a blast of Chi energy, and fired it at one of his assailants...

Two down, three to go. Sei looked like he was doing fine without his sword... He was surrounded, and using that fact to his advantage, causing the monsters to send their hamfists into each other as they tried to pummel him. Kel looked like he was doing all right, too, moving around rapidly to land punches and kicks to the brutes' vital areas. Téa...wasn't faring so well. I could tell she was a decent fighter, but she seemed to be having a fair amount of bad luck...or an unfair amount, I imagine she'd argue. As I caught sight of her, she was dodging out of the way of one attack, only to be hit from behind by another. Then, as she re-focused her attention on THAT boggart, another one would kick her from the side...

I grabbed her sword. It had a real pretty hilt, and as I whipped it out of its sheath, I saw it had an ornately carved gilted blade... Didn't look all that sharp, but I figured, hey, she carried it around for a reason, right? "Téa! CATCH!" Then I lobbed it at her. She squeaked as she saw it flying towards her, and shouted back, "NO! MY KNIVES!" Ugh, figures, I thought... What an ingrate. She grabbed the sword and threw it back at me, only to get smacked from behind. There was the sound of shattering glass as her protection spell wore off, and Saria shouted out another spell for her...

Two knives later, Téa was armed and kicking butt. She set fire to one of the piggies, filling the air with the smell of bacon and making everyone hungry, while a second one was swallowed whole by a sudden chasm in the ground.

Next, I lobbed one of Kel's glaives at him...but then I spotted him. No, not Kel, I'd already spotted him. I mean HIM! The bastard who'd called me old! I frowned; he was attacking Sei, right now... "Sei!" I shouted. "I can't lift your sword!" He gave me a funny look at that, then shouted back, "Don't worry about it!" The look he gave worried me. It was a mixed look of confusion and distrust... I'd have to do something about that later.

I heard Kel shout, "Give him one of mine!" as he stabbed his polearm into one of the beasts, jerking savagely to the side. I glanced down, and grabbed one of Kel's smaller swords that looked magical. Golden hilt, symbols etched into the blade... Yep, looked magical to me. So I lobbed that at Sei, who grabbed it, and started tearing into those monsters like a diamond through glass. I had to act fast if I was gonna get my quarry...

I rushed towards Sei's group of enemies, whistling shrilly to get their attention. It worked; my quarry and two others turned to look at me. I felt a wicked grin cross my muzzle... "Watch the dagger!" I called out, drawing my dagger and tossing it spinning into the air... They did, brilliant creatures that they are, their eyes following that black blade up into the air, and back down... One of the two I didn't care about noticed it was flying towards him, and stepped back, sneering at me. The blade plunged into the sand right between his legs, into his shadow...and that sneer would be locked on his face for a while now, while paralysis held him tight in its grasp.

The other two tried to bumrush me... I reached into one of my pouches and pulled out a handful of rose petals, raising them and blowing them towards the other inconsequential piggie. He slowed down, blinking, and suddenly looking at me in a new light. When he saw my target rush past him, he squealed in rage and tackled him to the ground, and they were soon pummeling each other, cussing loudly in each others' faces in their own barbaric language. I sent a mental command to the charmed beast to let him go, and to attack one of the other piggies. He looked at me, and let go of my target, running off to help Saria...

I grinned, pulling out my whip as my opponent raised himself to his feet, snarling at me. He bumrushed me again, but I jumped to the side and snapped my whip, wrapping it around his neck. With a savage jerk, his spine snapped, and with a scream, he dropped to the ground... I freed my whip from his neck, and looked down at him, grinning. I grunted in his language, "~That's for calling me old.~" As his eyes widened in sudden fear, I spat in his face, and let the spittle dribble down his cheek. He couldn't even move to wipe it away...

I left him that way. Served him right.

I glanced around. Alex was charging more Chi blasts and firing them at the monsters before him, but he didn't have time to fire anything big enough to drop one of the piggies in one hit, and they were pressing him back...into a trap. Three more boggarts were suddenly looming over him, ready to pound him into the sand, protection spell or no... Téa was there in an instant, hamstringing one of the brutes. As his two buddies tried to figure out why he suddenly fell to the floor, she had the second one's throat slashed, and flipped herself into the air. The third one tried to grab her, but she called out, "Wind Slasher!", and dove faster than the eye could follow, stabbing into the creature's gaping mouth, up into the top of his head.

She landed next to Alex, snickering. "Whatsamatta? Don't you have eyes in the back of your head?"

Alex shoved her to the side, suddenly, as a hamfist swung through the air where she'd been standing. He smirked at her. "No more than you do. You watch my back, I'll watch yours?"

She blinked, actually blushing a bit at that, then smirked to try to cover it. "Sure! I'll bet I take down more of these buggers than you do!"

"You're on!" He grinned, and they were suddenly fighting back-to-back. The competitiveness seemed to give Alex a bit of an energy boost, as his blasts seemed a bit bigger than before...

Kel was dancing. Like a ballerina. Except not as graceful. He was dancing with about all the grace of an elephant on squeaky roller skates. But it was effective dancing! His glaive moved with him, slashing through monster after monster as they tried to surround him...but the more they tried, the faster he cut them down. Sei, by contrast, was hardly moving. He lifted his sword to parry the occasional attack, but he was using the monsters' movements against them, letting them cut themselves on that blade, or impale it into their own bodies by mistake.

Saria looked like she was just enjoying herself. She was moving like a skilled fighter, and smacking the boggarts in the face just to piss them off. Then, when they were enraged, she'd take them down with a blast of fire, sending more bacon-smell into the air. My tummy was really starting to growl at me...

It was over in a short amount of time. I dispatched the one I'd paralyzed magically, and I retrieved my dagger... Alex, meanwhile, had found the corpse of the bugger who'd swallowed Airin. He shouted the ferret's name, and raised his sword, ready to cut her out, when Sei grabbed his hand. "Stand back," the rabbit instructed. Alex bit his lip, and did so, as Sei slashed once, spilling the ferret-girl onto the ground. For a long moment, there was dead silence, as we all looked at the naked ferret-girl, laying unmoving in a large puddle of fluids.

Alex's eyes lined with tears. "Airin..." He knelt down next to her, biting his lip, and I could see guilt in everyone else's eyes, too. Téa bit her lip, looking like she wanted to reach out to the cat-boy... Saria frowned softly, looking down at Airin's unmoving form. Kel and Sei looked away from Airin... I could tell both of their jaws were clinched, and Kel almost looked about to cry! I imagined it was probably because of their roles while everyone was hypnotized...

Alex gently pulled Airin onto her back. She flopped limply on her back, her mouth falling open...

...and she snored. There was another stunned silence as the ferret continued snoring, then everyoneâ€"even Seiâ€"burst out laughing. The sound of relieved laughter caused Airin to jerk awake, blinking and looking around blearily. "Wha--? What's everyone laughing at?" Then she saw all the boggarts lying around, and blinked again. "...Oh! I musta got knocked out?"

Alex, tears washing away the stains on his cheeks as his shoulders shook with laughter, pulled her into a sudden hug, confusing her tremendously. "Yeah, you were knocked out for a bit, but don't worry! We took care of those boggarts anyway!"

Sei recovered first, and cleared his throat. "Miss Airin... I...I wish to apologize."

She giggled, and waved her hand at him dismissively. "Oh, it's okay! You can't help if some stupid monster cheats and hits me from behind, right? By the way! You wouldn't BELIEVE the dream I had about you and Kel!"

Both older kids coughed, scratching the backs of their heads and looking away again. Alex laughed nervously. "A dream, huh? You'll hafta tell us about it sometime! But right now, we gotta get our things together and get moving."

"Okay!" the ever-cheerful girl piped up.

Then she looked around, and blinked. "Hey, why is everyone naked?"

******

Exploring the cave revealed a blessing from the gods... Deep in the cave, there was a spacious cavern where the piggies had apparently called home. Running through the middle of this cavern was a fresh spring, bubbling up at one end of the room, and cutting a swath right across it. We filled our canteens and waterskins from the "fresh" side of the spring, and washed ourselves and our equipment off in the other.

Then we relaxed for the rest of the day... Saria used some healing spells on everyone, then she curled up in a sleeping bag in the corner to recharge her spent energy. Téa and Alex had blown quite a bit of energy on the fight, too, and with both of them having been kicked around as much as they had been...even with protection before and healing after, that takes it out of a person...so they grabbed their own sleeping bags, and laid down near Saria for the rest of the day. For once, Airin seemed to sense that she should be quiet, for the sleeping fighters' sakes, and she humored herself by finding a rock on the ground, and drawing a hopscotch grid that kept her entertained for hours...

That left the three oldestâ€"excuse me, most experiencedâ€"members sitting by the entrance together. Kel insisted he hadn't even worked up a sweat in the fight, though he looked kinda worn out. Still, Sei and I didn't bug him about it.

Speaking of the rabbit... I grinned at him. "So what's your story, huh?"

He quirked an eyebrow at me. "What do you mean?"

"I saw you fightin' back there... Guy doesn't get that good unless there's a real good reason for it. What'cha after? Money? Power? Your own country?" I joked.

His eyes narrowed at that last comment, and I blinked, the smile slipping quietly from my face to go hide somewhere. I hadn't even seen him look at the boggarts the way he looked at me right then. "What'd I say?"

He sighed, and the look was gone. He shook his head. "Revenge," was all he said.

For a long moment, I stayed quiet, expecting him to elaborate. Apparently, Kel did, too. "Revenge against who?"

Sei looked at his sword-hand, frowning. "...My family was murdered, a few years ago. The traitorsâ€"that is, the people who betrayed and murdered my familyâ€"wanted...certain things that my family had for themselves. I managed to escape, and have been fighting to improve myself since then." He looked up at me, despite Kel having been the one to question him. "I intend to return home and take it all back from them."

He regarded me for a long, long moment, in silence... Kel was the one to break it. "Wow... That's, er...that's a really tough break."

"Yes," Sei said, still looking at me. Suddenly, he lifted his sword from his belt, and tossed it to Kel. "Kel, Miss Black wasn't able to lift my sword on the field. Would you do me a favor and show her how it's done?"

The air was suddenly filled with rose petals, as Kel lifted the sword and handed it back to Sei, who blinked as he took it back. He looked at his sword for a long moment, before looking back up at me. "I do apologize, Miss Black. I do suppose Excalibur is a bit on the heavy side."

Kel nodded quickly. "Yeah, and you'd already pitched everyone else's weapons, too... Ease off, Sei. Her arms were probably just tired by then." Sei nodded in agreement, and I just smiled sweetly to them both...

******

We started up moving again that night. By the end of the first night, I know I wasn't the only one wishing we'd left Airin in that beast's gullet. Even after having walked a good portion of the day, having her brains screwed out, being swallowed, then spending the majority of the rest of the day playing hopscotch and skip-rope, she still had the energy to be skipping along cheerfully, singing "99 Bottles of Juice on the Wall"... I wanted to kill her, and I could see the same look in Téa's eyes, too. Even Kel and Sei looked rather irritated with her.

By the time morning came, we all started feeling it... There was a weird vibe in the air. It was hard to put our fingers on what it was... Téa was convinced someone was watching usâ€"and maybe they were, but that didn't explain everything else that started cropping up. Saria and I figured it was some kind of foreign energy, but we couldn't tell what it was, and something was royally messed with our abilities to try and figure out what it was, magically. That fact alone had all of us on our guard.

Except, of course, Airin, who was on her 72nd bottle of juice. I contemplated telling her that all that juice was gonna make her need to pee, then sneaking off while she was off doing it. I swear she was gullible enough, she would've bought it.

At any rate, we kept walking through the dawn. By midmorning, we started seeing dead creatures laying about... They all looked about the same. Missing patches of fur. Bruised. Bleeding. Missing teeth. Most importantly, dead. Oh, right... I mentioned that, didn't I? Guess I felt it was important enough to mention again.

Not far from where we started seeing these poor saps, that's when the lightning started. Not the huge bolt-from-the-cloudy-sky-type of lightning, no... It wasn't big to start. It looked like miniature spider lightning. You know, the kind you see in really nasty storms? It spatters over clouds, looking like a really big spider web... This was like that, only smaller, and instead of being in the clouds, it was on the ground. And, more annoyingly, on every piece of metal our group carried.

That included coins in our pockets, our weapons, and any other odds and ends anyone happened to be carrying.

At first, it wasn't too bad... It just felt like a static shock every few minutes. Annoying, but was nothing we couldn't deal with, right?

It got bigger. We were all SO happy to find that out. Especially Kei... Hehe, that poor sap was getting zapped like a bug in one of those magic bug-killing lanterns...but none of us were getting spared. Even Saria was getting zapped, between the coins in her purse and standing too close to the rest of us...

Thankfully, this seemed to herald our arrival to Sunveil...

Wait. Lemme try that sentence again, for correctness.

This seemed to herald our arrival to the place where Sunveil used to be. What was there now was a huge crater... Between the odd energy feeling that got stronger the closer we drew and the way the spider lightning was causing us an almost-constant stream of pain (still wasn't bad enough to do more than lightly singe us, but to have that happening constantly was bad enough), we were all in bad moods and on edge when we crept up to the edge of that crater and peered in. Yes, even Airin was pouting and silent, so in retrospect, I guess that spider lightning wasn't all bad, after all.

Then we saw what was in the bottom of that pit, and the sight alone made us all draw back and pin ourselves down, praying that we hadn't been seen.

Initially, it looked like the skull and spine of a large dragon. The bones were dark as obsidian, though, and they hovered a good distance over the ground... About as far off the ground as a dragon's spine would be, if it were still in its body. These black bones were enveloped by a pulsing red energy, that pulsed to a beat reminiscent of a heart's. When it condensed down, it constricted almost completely around those bone structures...but when it pulsed out, it took on the shape of a monstrosity. Six pairs of wings down its massive back, folding over a chubby draconic body... Eight segmented, spider-like legs held the whole thing aloft. The tailâ€"the back end of the spineâ€"was riddled with long, twisted, jagged spines. The neck was nightmarishly long, and another pair of wings grew from it. The head was twisted and gnarled, like you might expect a dragon's to be after burning it in a fire, then stabbing it repeatedly with sickles. To add to the twistedness of the head, horns grew out of it in odd locations and directions, making absolutely no sense at all...especially as one of those horns was twisted around to stab itself in the neck anytime it looked down.

It hadn't been looking in our direction when we ducked back over the lip of the crater. We all looked at each other. Saria motioned for us to huddle closer together, and we did...

"I know what that thing is, guys. That's a Xiuhcoatl..." Before anyone could try to get her to repeat that wonderful name, she explained. "Imagine the most powerful dragon you can think of, and compare them to the average peasant on the streets. That's how powerful one of these is compared to a demon lord. They're supposed to be trapped in the lower planes of Hell, but every once in a while, some idiot tries to summon one, thinking they'll be able to control it... Every time that's happened, wellâ€"" she gestured at the crater. "...yeah. That's a Xiuhcoatl. We need a really powerful wizard to send this back... Someone who'd make me look like an apprentice."

My mind raced. This was bad. I'd been hoping to find a certain powerful artifact here, causing all the destruction, but no such luck. What's more, this thing could ruin everything...not just for us, but for everyone.

Sei nodded at Saria's news. "We're only getting paid to get here, and get out. Let's return to Devil's Anvil."

"Screw that," I said, frowning. Maybe it was wrong of me, but I started using my natural influences on everyone gathered as I spoke, turning their wills to be more agreeable to whatever I said. Saria may be able to figure out what I was doing, though, so I had to make this as inspirational as possible. "Let's say we go back. By the time we find a suitable mageâ€"or group of magesâ€"to weaken and banish it, it could've moved on to another city, and leveled THAT one, too. I say we take this bastard out, here and now."

The entire group stared at me, enthralled. They nodded, obviously getting psyched. Except, predictably, for Saria. "Hang on, Relena... I don't think we're qualified to--"

She was stopped short. We were all stopped short. Airin had jumped up to the lip of the crater, and shouted out at the top of her lungs, "NEENER NEENER BOO-BOO! YOU CAN'T CATCH ME!!!"

...Yeah. Shoulda left her as monster-lunch. I snarled, and slunk back. Even I hadn't wanted this to start up quite like this. I'd been imagining getting the drop on the monster, everyone using their strongest attacks and weapons, and hurting it something fierce right off, and getting rid of it as soon as we could. But the bratling scattered that hope all across the ground, just as the beast roared hard enough to shake the earth. It lifted into the air, and started soaring towards us, ethereal claws reaching for the otter girl.

Alex shrieked, and dove for Airinâ€"just as Airin suddenly disappeared, diving over the edge of the cliff. She let out the mightiest battlecry she couldâ€"which, coming from an 8-year-old, ain't saying much. We all expected her to end up in a monster-gullet againâ€"some of us were rejoicing from the ideaâ€"but just before those jaws would've snapped down on her, she vanished...replaced by a second Xiuhcoatl! The double lifted off the ground, and while the original was trying to wrap its mind around the fact that it now had a twin, the Airin-dragon slammed into it full-force, and belched a ball of green flames straight down our enemy's throat.

The Xiuhcoatl reared back, thrashing, the green flames exploding out along its spectral body, engulfing it completely in green fire. Airin didn't stop; she followed up with another body slam, then she drove her ethereal claws into the Xiuhcoatl's eyesockets, roaring as the green flames burned her. She drove the odd horn growing out of the demon-dragon's chin into its own throat, then jumped back as the thrashing, burning monster collapsed back, roaring in pain.

Airin spun around, then, and we could see exhaustion setting in to her spectral eyes already. I imagined it must've been really rough to suddenly channel that much energy through herself. She was suddenly forced back into her otter-girl form, stumbling back towards the group with a mischievous grin on her face. "I did it!"

Then she collapsed. All of us were too stunned to move, for a moment. For a little kid, she packed one impressive punch.

It's too bad it wasn't enough. The Xiuhcoatl lifted its head, shaking it for a moment, before leveling its incendiary gaze on the rest of us. Even without eyes, it could still see. Being an energy creature, puncturing its throat hadn't killed it. We still had a Xiuhcoatl on our hands...only now it was angry and on fire. Lovely.

I heard Téa mutter, "Luciendar, don't fail me now..." She drew the golden sword, and held it aloft. "FIAT--"

As she started swinging the sword over her head, the blade now glowing white, the rest of us dove for cover, while the Xiuhcoatl bore down on us.

"--LUX!!!" She screamed, and slashed downwards, sending a sudden tornadic blast of white energy at the monster.

...It ate her attack!

I could tell Téa hadn't been expecting that, either. The Fiat Lux is the kind of attack where you use it, and things just die. Game over. But not this time... The Xiuhcoatl just opened its mouth and gulped down her blast like she'd just tossed it a doggy-treat.

Téa looked numb from shock. She didn't even try to defend herself as the dragon bore down on her, maw open to swallow her, next.

"PORT!" Saria shouted, holding her hand out, and suddenly, the golden vixen was next to the cheetah... Téa shuddered, and tried to catch her breath again. She clutched the golden blade in her hand desperately, watching as the demon-spawn bit into the ground where she'd been, chewing through it like a child chews through candy...

It was obvious I'd be useless in any direct confrontation with this thing, but I wasn't done, just yet. I made my way over to where Airin was, already plotting a way to destroy this thing. It was possible, but everything had to play out exactly right for it to work. I put my hand on Airin's forehead, and started pouring my energy into her, re-filling her reserves. Her eyes fluttered open slowly, and she looked around. "It's...still alive?"

As the beast's attention was drawn to Alex, Kel jumped out from his hiding place and screamed. The Xiuhcoatl shifted its attention to the wolf, then, who started running. The Xiuhcoatl hesitated just long enough to shake itself off, dousing the green flames.

"Yeah, it's still alive. Listen, I need you to do what you did back there, again... Turn into that thing, and get it pinned down. We need it pinned down in order for everyone to be able to hit it. You understand?"

Maybe the girl wasn't as stupid as she'd always seemed. I had, after all, misjudged her usefulness. She nodded somberly, getting up slowly. "Good girl," I said. "Wait here for me."

I made my way to where Téa and Saria were hiding. "Hey, when you get the signal, I need you two to hit that thing with everything you've got, understand?" They nodded, blinking.

I made my way over to where Sei and Alex were hiding, and passed them the same message to them.

Kel had tripped, and in the split moment before he became demon-chow, Saria 'ported him to her, just like she had Alex. I trusted they'd pass the message along to him, as well, so I just dashed back for the otter-girl. "AIRIN, NOW!" I shouted.

She heard, and again assumed the form of the demonic dragon. Fortunately for all of us, the dragon's attention honed in on ME, so it never saw Airin coming. Not so fortunately for me, it still got off a green fireball at me before Airin got it pinned down. I clenched my eyes shutâ€""PORT!"--and felt myself not get engulfed in flames, in much the same way that rivers don't.

No time to celebrate life. Téa was already charging another Fiat Lux... Saria was charging up for a Ragnarok spell. Airin was already out of energy, and losing her grasp on the Xiuhcoatl...and its form. Alex jumped out of hiding, and screamed, "AEGIS DESTROYER!!!"

Sei and Kel came charging out, then, too... Sei had his Excalibur drawn and at the ready, while Kel was swinging Caladbolgâ€"the giant sword I'd been unable to lift, before. The wolf screamed, "SHINKAMI TENBU!!!" As he started swinging it, arcs of spider lightning flashed off it, leaving electric trails as he slashed into the beast. Sei made not a sound, but his blade began to glow, even as Kel's did...

The otter-girl was completely spent. She reverted back to herâ€"very unconsciousâ€"otter form, just as all those spells and attacks hit the dragon right under her.

Téa's Fiat Lux engulfed the prone dragon, this time, just as Saria's Ragnarok spell rocked the ground with multiple explosions, all centered around the Xiuhcoatl. At the same time, the beast was pierced by a massive blast of chi energy from Alex, which cut through the ghost-dragon like a knife. Kel's massive sword started cutting into it, too, each connection causing blasts of lightning to burst out of its side, as if it was bleeding lightning bolts. Again, it looked like the wolf was dancing, as he swung that gigantic blade, biting its electrified edge into that spectral hide over and over again... Sei leapt up, spinning in mid-air as he dove down, and drove Excalibur into the demon's neck, electricity suddenly dancing down the creature's spine just before he severed its spinal cord. As Téa's Fiat Lux roared up around him, he left his sword in the spinal column, still glowing with coursing electricity, then he grabbed Airin, and leapt off.

All of that in less than three seconds...and I could tell it wasn't going to be enough. Not quite. The Xiuhcoatl shrieked and thrashed under the onslaught, looking far worse than he had when Airin had attacked him the first time, but it turned its head towards Kel and lunged for him.

I gritted my teeth, and stepped back... "MIDNIGHT FLARE!" I screamed, holding my arms out.

There was one last earth-shattering roar, as the beast was engulfed in black flames. That finally did the trick... The black flames ripped into it on a very basic level, weakening its ghostly body enough for all of the other attacks to obliterate the entire thing. There was nothing left of it when we were done.

Across the way, I saw Alex sway on his feet and collapse. A bit closer to me, I saw Saria grab her bow, swivelling to point it at me. Téa reacted, too, levelling Luciendar at me, even though I could see she was getting exhausted from taking advantage of the power enhancements I knew it was giving her.

I held my hands up defensively. "Hey! What gives? I just helped take that thing out!"

Saria drew the string back a bit more, a magical arrow appearing in the weapon. "I don't know who you are, but noctumancy is forbidden, and punishable by death!"

Sei was there in an instant, gently taking Saria's bow and angling it down. "Easy," he said. "I know as well as you do that shadow magic is illegal...but she just saved our lives with it."

Téa sputtered. "Butâ€"butâ€""

Sei looked at her sternly. "Téana. Put Luciendar away. She just saved our lives...and probably quite a few others' lives, as well. Don't you think we owe her for that?"

Saria frowned, and reluctantly agreed. Téa gave me a look that told me, in no uncertain terms, that she was watching me.

I smiled gratefully to Sei, then tried to smile reassuringly to Saria. "I was a rebellious teenager, once... I got my hands on some books of forbidden magic, and studied them, just to spite my parents. By the time I'd figured out how stupid that was...I'd already learned the secrets of those forbidden circles. I can't very well un-learn what I've learned, but I swore only to use it when it was absolutely necessary... I'm sorry for not telling you sooner, but...well, like you said, it's forbidden, and punishable by death. It's not something I typically just come out and tell total strangers, y'know?"

That seemed to satisfy both her and the vixen. They slowly put their weapons away, smiling a bit sheepishly. They thanked me for my help, and apologized for rushing to judge me.

I forgave them, of course. I guess I just have that kind of forgiving nature, no?

******

Our problems weren't over, yet...

We were all exhausted from the fight, for starters. All that teleporting people around, combined with her most powerful spell, left Saria leaning on her staff for constant support, and with too little energy to heal anyone. Téa had Luciendar back in its scabbard, and was using it in much the same way that Saria was leaning on her staff. She, too, was in no position to be healing anyone. I had used up most of my energy re-enabling Airin to transform, and into my Midnight Flare spell.

So needless to say, healing each other wasn't an option right at this moment...so it was

seen as a bit of a bad thing that neither Alex nor Airin were waking up from the fight. They were succumbing to some kind of sickness, and it was getting bad fast in Airin. She was starting to look a bit like the creatures we'd seen on the way here; her fur was starting to fall out by the handful. Her skin looked bruised. Several teeth were loosening in her slack-jawed mouth.

Alex was starting to get it, too. He was only starting to lose fur, but it was obvious he wasn't feeling too good, conscious or not. Sei had the boy over his shoulders, and Kel had the girl. It was Saria who figured out that the weird energy was probably to blame for both the lightning and the kids getting sick, and we all needed to get out of there before we shared the same fate.

The mysterious illness had us running as hard as we could, for as long as we could. My lungs felt like they were going to burst, but I wasn't about to admit that a bunch of kids could outrun me, so I kept on going. When we couldn't run anymore, when it felt like we were going to puke our stomachs completely out, we slowed to a brisk walk, and forced ourselves to keep moving.

By the time the lightning stopped bugging us (Ha! Get it? Spider lightning? Bugging? ...oh, hush, you. I'm a genius, and you know it!), the rest of us were starting to feel not so good, ourselves. The nauseous feeling that had come from running too hard and too long never left us, but intensified and got worse. At one point, Saria put a hand on Téa's shoulder, and widened her eyes in alarm as she drew a hand back with a handful of the vixen's hair.

So you can bet your tail we were still hauling ass, sick or not. Airin's and Alex's breaths were coming shorter and shorter, but we could already feel the alien energy starting to ease up some. The air was feeling less charged, less dangerous.

That's where we finally set up camp. Saria went to sleep right away, just after telling us to wake her immediately if the two youngest kids' conditions changed. Téa collapsed without even trying to get into a sleeping bag. I got out a blanket and tossed it on the ground, curling up on top of it, and I was out.

I didn't even dream. Next thing I knew, it was morning again, and Saria was bent over the cat and the otter. They weren't doing good, either one of them. Their breaths were short and ragged... Airin was almost completely bald and toothless, and she bruised from just touching her. Saria started working on her first, since it seemed like Alex still had a few more minutes to live. He was still doing pretty bad, but not as bad as the girl was...

Saria started with something I'm not sure I would've thought to do. She used a Dispel Energy spell to cleanse the toxic energy that was still inside the otter's body... Only after she'd cast that several more times did she start to heal the girl, repairing the internal bleeding, and slowly regrowing her hair, fur, and teeth. Within ten minutes' time, she was the same old Airin, just laying there, sleeping peacefully.

Alex was the next to get cleansed and healed...then Téa, then Sei and Kel, then me. Saria cleansed herself last, purging the last vestiges of our encounter with the Xiuhcoatl. Alex and Airin slowly woke up while the wolf and rabbit were getting cleansed, and started into our food supplies pretty ravenously. They had no idea they'd been sick, but they seemed grateful enough we'd made them better.

After that, we headed back to Sun's Anvil, in pretty high spirits. Alex, in particular, was looking forward to the promised rank upgrade. "A Rank, here I come!" He even challenged Téa to a race as soon as our destination was in sight, and the two tore off across the desert towards the town, kicking up clouds of dust in their wake.

Saria laughed. "I betcha there's no force in this universe strong enough to slow those two down for long..."

We caught up with them at the village gates. They were gasping, holding their chests, and arguing over which of them had touched the gate first. After collecting our two fighters, we headed inside, to the Adventurer's Guild, where we regaled Leon with the story of our fight with the Xiuhcoatl.

"Well, that certainly is amazing! You kids have earned the money and the rank upgrade."

"SWEET!" shouted Alex, grinning ear to ear. I wondered for a moment if he had a cousin named Cheshire. While everyone else started excitedly discussing what they were going to do with their share of the reward moneyâ€"well, everyone else besides Sei, who sat there saying nothingâ€"Alex started singing, "I just got my A Rank! I just got my A Rank! I just got my--"

"In six months," Leon cut in.

For a moment, there was dead silence. Alex started to stutter. "Whâ€"whaddaya meanâ€"six months?"

"Yes. Well, at *least* six months."

"Why?" Téa demanded, frowning.

"Well, it IS quite a tale you've told," Leon said with a smile. "We need to dispatch mages to determine that you're telling the truth...but first, we need to wait for that toxic energy to start clearing up. According to other stories I've heard regarding Xiuhcoatl's, that takes at LEAST six months' time. Once the area is clean enough for us to do our investigation, all you need to come back to this branch office, and we'll give you all the reward money and the rank upgrade." He smiled warmly. "So check back in about six months to a year."

Alex started twitching. "Six...months."

"Mhm!" the lion said, brightly.

There was a dejected and sullen silence in the group. Even Airin was pouting at the guildmaster. Then we all got up and filed out... There was nothing left for us to say.

"Six months is like forever!" Airin whined.

"Yeah, really," Alex sighed. "I'll probably have my XX Rank before they get around to investigating this..."

"And I'll have my XXX," Airin pouted. Aside from a few coughs, noone corrected her, or commented on that statement.

So we all headed out into the streets. Téa was grumbling about being broke again. Saria was reassuring her that they'd find another job.

Kel looked at Sei. "So what're you gonna do now?"

Sei twitched an ear. "I think I'll stay with with you three. I don't believe I can enact my revenge by myself, and you three are most assuredly competent fighters." Kei's chest puffed out at that praise. Sei glanced at Alex and Airin. "What about you two?"

Alex shrugged. Airin smiled. "Can we stay with you, bunny-man?"

Sei blinked, and chuckled. "I have no problems with it. You two are surprisingly strong in a fight, as well... As long as noone else has a problem with it. Saria? Téa?"

Saria smiled as she looked up from consoling her vixen friend. "I have no problems with it."

Téa waved a hand dismissively, not even paying attention to what was going on. "Yeah, Sei, whatever you say is cool."

Sei nodded. "Alright, then. If we're all going to be traveling together, we need money a bit more immediately than six months to a year... Let's all go back inside and get a different job. Are you coming, Relena?"

I smiled to him. "No, sweetie, but thanks for offering. I didn't find what I was looking for on this mission, and I'm a li'l disappointed by that. I need to keep moving." I patted Airin, Alex, Téa, and Saria on the head, then kissed Sei and Kel on the cheek, whispering quietly in each of their ears.

What'd I whisper? Never you mind. Suffice to say that they owed me a favor from it, teehee.

Then I bid them all farewell, and turned and walked out of the town's gates.

And that's the situation as it stands right now. Still no sign of the Tear of Heaven. So did you figure out Sei's deep, dark secret, Vassallo? I sure hope so, since it applies directly to you. Anyway, I'll report back in when I get to the next town.

Loveless out.

******

Sneaking through a corridor in the castle nestled in the center of Junglara's capitol, a sugar-glider dressed in a cowled black cloak crept silently through the halls. Concealed under her cloak was a number of magical artifacts that were supposed to protect her from various kinds of magics, and an artifact-dagger that was meant to kill giants. She had successfully driven herself this deep into the castle's defenses by skill alone, but the guards in this part of the castle were more competent than the guards she'd dealt with to this point. She knew she'd have to stay on her toes at all times...

She peered cautiously around a corner, and found two guards in the hall she needed to be in. Two warhorses, clad in full plate mail armor, their heights easily towering hers, the weapons on their belts looking capable of cleaving most people in half with a single swing. She darted her head back around the corner; she was certain they hadn't seen her, not yet...but she needed to get down that hall. But how...?

Her silent prayer to the gods was answered when she heard rapidly-approaching footsteps. Drawing herself into a shadow, she spotted a servant come running down her corridor... As he passed, she expertly knocked him out with a single blow to the side of the head. He fell to the ground silently, and she pulled his form into the shadows with him. Changing clothes was a quick and easy task, and she grabbed the scroll he'd been carrying. Then she walked down the hallway and approached the guards. As they moved to stop her, she held up the scroll. "Message for Lord Vassallo..."

They moved to the sides, then, and let her through. With a practiced step that suggested she'd been in this castle before, she went right up to the Vizier's chamber, and knocked on it. When the large horse within bid her enter, she opened the door--

--and froze. His eyes were directly on hers. She mentally screamed at herself to grab her weapons, to strike him down, to do SOMETHING...but she found she couldn't.

He smirked. "Congratulations on making it this far, my dear...but a former maid does not make for the best of assassins. Why don't you hand me that message, and go stand in the corner?"

She moved sluggishly, but her mind was racing, screaming at herself to fight the mind control, to produce the dagger and stab the monster standing before her, but his will was too strong. It even overpowered the gemstone that was supposed to protect her from such problems... Could that emerald have been a fake? Or...or was Vassallo really that powerful? The thought made her stomach churn as she stood in the corner, waiting patiently and quietly for him to read Loveless' report.

At first, as he read the report, he remained placid, but as time went by, his eye started to twitch. At several points in the report, he looked shocked or enraged, and the glider started to fear for her life. As he finished reading, his nostrils were flaring, his teeth were bared, and he looked ready to break something.

In that moment, she felt his control over her slip, just a bit. The dagger under her new vest flashed in her hands as she dove for the horse, hoping to catch him by surprise, since she knew she couldn't overpower him...but he was faster, and he grabbed her wrists. She snarled, resisting the urge to scream in pain, and instead screamed out, "LONG LIVE KING SAILLUNE!!! LONG LIVE PRINCE SE--" He slammed his fist across her face, and her world reeled. A hoofed foot to the gut doubled her over, the magical dagger falling from her fingers.

Vassallo lifted her up by the neck, and looked ready to strangle her to death, but stopped himself short, his eyes narrowing. He smiled slowly. "I told you, girl, a former maid makes a lousy assassin...and you tried to catch me while I was in a fighting mood. You almost got away with death...but I have a much better idea in mind for you."

She started to protest, to cry out, to say ANYTHING, but she felt herself losing control of her own mouth...and the rest of her body, for that matter. Her mind recoiled in horror as she felt her body relax... The equine grinned, letting go. "Are you still in there?"

"Yes," she felt herself mumble, as if half-asleep. She wanted to cry, or to scream obscenities at him, or SOMETHING...but her body just meekly obeyed as he ordered her to remove her clothes.

Vassallo snorted and grinned, looking her over. She wanted to cover her breasts, perky as they were, or at least cover the sheath between her legs, but she just stood there placidly as he eyed her over. "Yeeees," he mused. "You shall make Polori quite content...for at least a few days."

A pit of dread opened in her stomach as she placidly agreed to make Polori happy... He took the hermaphrodite by the hand, and lead her into the king's audience chamber.

The pachyderm was inside, pacing, looking obviously irritated, his shaft standing at half-mast. The new slave-girl murred as she saw it, her sheath beginning to swell, even as mentally, she wanted to turn and run as fast as she could.

Polori saw her and grinned. "It's about time! I got bored with the last girl twenty whole minutes ago, Vassallo! Do you have any idea how--"

Vassallo snarled at him. "CEASE your incessant whining, right NOW!" Polori drew back in shock. He hadn't seen Vassallo this irritated in years, and last time, someone had been extremely, extremely sorry. The horse held up the report. "Loveless wrote in. We have problems."

"Did she find--" The elephant desperately searched for the name of the artifact for a split moment. "--Heaven's Gumdrop?"

The enraged look slowly crept back onto Vassallo's face, and Polori flinched back again. "No," Vassallo said, his voice strained. "She did not find the Tear of Heaven. She found, instead, a major problem!"

Polori glanced around nervously at the brief pause in conversation. "Was she...er...was she looking for problems?"

Vassallo was beside himself. "NO, YOU GREAT IMBECILE, SHE WASN'T LOOKING FOR--" He had to stop, and blink. Twice. He grumbled to himself, his eyes narrowed for a moment, and said aloud, "I suppose this is Loveless we're talking about... She's always looking for problems..."

Polori had cowered back at Vassallo's initial outburst, but now he gave Vassallo a tiny bit of a hopeful smile...as his eyes wandered back to the nude sugar glider.

Vassallo snapped at him again. "Pay attention! We need to dispatch a group of assassins to Devil's Anvil in Sandrune. Tell them to be on the watch for a group of young adventurers who look out of place there..."

Polori nodded somberly, trying hard to keep his eyes on Vassallo. These were very obviously serious matters, and he needed to listen, and not pay attention to the hermaphrodite's ample chest, or her curvacious hips, or the two shafts poking out of that cute little sheath, or the way the patterns on her legs naturally led the eyes up to her--

"POLORI!"

The elephant jumped, and shifted his eyes back to Vassallo. "Yes? Hello?"

"Hello?" Vassallo mimicked in a simpering voice. "Hello? Is there anybody in there? Polori? Hello?" He picked up a vase, and hurled it across the room, sending small porcelain fragments almost all the way across the floor. "WHEN I'VE JUST BARELY TOLD YOU TO PAY ATTENTION, YOU--" Vassallo stopped, and blinked.

Polori actually looked rather panicked, and was backing away towards the throne... The glider silently wished she could do the same, slip somewhere completely out of sight of the raging horse.

Vassallo hesitated a moment, then drew himself up to his full height, took a breath, and smoothed back his hair. "Polori, my friend, I apologize. This report from Loveless is so very troubling that I lost myself."

Polori blinked. This was new. He gave a weak smile, and nodded. "Oh, that's alright, Friend Vassallo... Uh, everyone, uh...loses their temper sometimes?"

"Your understanding is most gracious," Vassallo smiled, and bowed to him... When he stood upright and found himself meeting Polori's vacant look, he said, simply and stiffly, "You're too kind."

Polori smiled a little, still nervous. Vassallo didn't simply switch moods like this, and even someone as dimwitted as the elephant knew that the danger may not have passed.

Vassallo gritted his teeth. He wasn't looking forward to the next part, but it was time to get it over with. Nervousness and fear did tend to have a powerful effect on the memory of even the most idiotic of creatures, and Polori looked plenty afraid, right now. Through still-gritted teeth, which he tried to make look like a grin, he asked, "If you've forgotten what it's called, I suppose you've forgotten what the Tear of Heaven does, then, as well?"

Polori didn't answer, just glanced around for a moment, then returned to grinning sheepishly at the vizier, whose eye twitched ever so slightly as he fought to keep his face as pleasant as he could muster, right now. "Very well, then, friend. I suspected as much. I have devised a new method to enhance the span of your recollections, and perhaps exercise that insipid mite you attempt to pass off as a frontal lobe."

Polori blinked, obviously trying to follow that, and just as Vassallo was about to say something else, the elephant brightened. "Oh, thank you! I HAVE been feeling rather mighty, lately!"

The horse-man looked rather bemused. "...Quite."

If the sugar glider could've burst out laughing at that, she would've. As it was, trapped in her head, she was RATHER enjoying this show. Even with as frighteningly powerful as the vizier was, if this was the kind of incompetence he surrounded himself with, she wasn't sure what she'd ever been afraid of... She even found herself relaxing, seemingly forgotten in all of this.

And then Vassallo dashed that fantasy by pushing her forward. "As I was saying, I have here a memory enhancement device."

"That's funny... Looks like a slave-girl to me."

Rather than get irate, Vassallo simply grinned, as the glider suddenly mentally squirmed in her own head. With the elephant's attention on her, she could feel her sheath swelling again, her twin lengths swelling outwards. "Oh, but my friend, this is no ordinary slave-girl... She's a sugar-glider! You do remember what...aspects these people bear, don't you?"

Polori furrowed his brows slowly. Neither the glider nor Vassallo could tell whether he did this trying to understand what the vizier had just asked him, or if he was trying to think. It turned out to be the latter, with "trying" being the key word in that phrase. "They...are really cute?"

Vassallo tilted his head back and forth, regarding the girl for a moment. "They are, indeed, but what else?" He smirked, and reached down to stroke the herm's lengthening shafts.

Polori's eyes wandered down, and his eyes widened. "Oh! They have two dicks!"

"Yes! And for that reason, they also have two..." Vassallo trailed off, loathing how lewd he would have to be to finish that sentence in a way the elephant would understand...so rather than finish it verbally, he forced the girl onto her butt, leaned her back, and spread open her folds, revealing the two tiny holes concealed inside.

THAT raised Polori's eyebrows. "Oh! Twice the fun!"

Vassallo grinned. The elephant was falling for it, hook, line, and sinker. He just had to make sure the idiot didn't fall TOO far... "Yes, and twice as tight! BUT!" He stepped between the glider and the elephant, blocking the king's view of his soon-to-be prize. "I am tired of repeating myself, my friend, so I want you to swear to me you're going to pay attention this time...or the next time I have to explain about the Tear of Heaven again..." The temperature in the room noticeably dropped almost fifteen degrees. "I will cut off your balls, and you won't be playing with any slave-girls ever again."

The expression on Polori's face was one of absolute horror. "Iâ€"I swear," he gasped out, "that youâ€"will never haveâ€"to repeat anything aboutâ€"the Tear of Heaven again!"

Vassallo nodded, smiling, proud of his own genius. When beating an idea into the brute's head didn't work, try instilling abject terror into him. "Alright. The Tear of Heaven was one of the most powerful Artfiacts created by the Precursors." His eye twitched ever so slightly when Polori's hand shot up like a child's in an elementary classroom. "Put it down, Polori," he said with an exasperated sigh. "The Precursors were those who lived on this continent before our ancestors, who founded Lanreal." Polori's hand slowly lowered to his side, as he nodded, very obviously paying very close attention to every word his vizier said. "As such, it is very old and very powerful."

He gave Polori several moments to contemplate that thought. "So...very old and powerful, made by the Pâ€"Preâ€"those really old guys..." Vassallo nodded. That was good enough. "So, uh...what does it do?"

An eyebrow raised on the horse's brow. "There's hope for you, yet, Polori! That was the most brilliant thing I've heard you ask in weeks!"

Hearing the horseman raise his voice, Polori responded defensively. "I'm sorry! It'll never happen again!"

Vassallo muttered, "That's probably true..." The assassin couldn't help giggling at that, mentally. In spite of herself, in spite of being turned into some kind of prize for that horrible king, in spite of the danger she was in, she was finding this more and more amusing...and the information she was getting from this could be helpful, later, if she could just DO something with it.

Vassallo addressed the pachyderm again. "As for what the Tear does...it magnifies a mage's power a millionfold."

"A...million folds?" The king scratched his head, trying to picture a million slave-girls, bent over and showing off all their clefts at once.

Vassallo saw at once that he was losing his target audience. He coughed to bring the elephant's attention back to him. As soon as Polori remembered the threat to his balls, he snapped back to attention as the horse quickly contemplated the means to get through his king's thick skull... His attention fell on the sugar glider, and he sighed inwardly. "Polori, do you see this slave-girl's breasts?"

Polori suddenly liked where this was going. He nodded rapidly, smiling.

Vassallo knew he had to talk fast. "Pretend they're my power. If I had the Tear, those breasts would be the size of a mountain."

"Those're some big boobs," Polori said, admiringly. The glider blushed inwardly at that compliment. Outwardly, her body giggled.

"Indeed," Vassallo said, in a bit of disgust. "Alright, now pay attention." Polori's eyes immediately swiveled to him again. "With those kinds of b--" He stopped himself, and coughed, hoping his audience was too dense to catch his near-mistake. "With that kind of power, I could sap the minds of everyone in Lanreal within a matter of minutes. Noone would be able to stand against me!"

Polori took several moments to let this all sink in. "So...with the Tear...the Tear of Heaven," he quickly corrected himself, "You could...turn every girl in Lanreal...into my personal sex slave?"

Vassallo wanted to dance. "I CAN make you understand!"

Polori started to flinch back, but blinked slowly, realizing how happy his Vizier was. "So...my balls are safe?"

"Yes, my friend! I will not be hurting you, today!" Vassallo grinned down at the glider. She gasped to herself, knowing what was about to come. Her body giggled in its stupor, just excited to have attention paid to it. "So please, my king, help yourself to your prize! I hope you enjoy her for a very...VERY...long time."

As Polori grinned and started advancing on her, she whimpered inwardly, even as her body moved of its own volition, crawling towards the eager king with tongue hanging out, ready to lavish her saliva over his massive shaft. ~Oh my gods,~ she thought desperately, ~My Prince, anyone, please, that madman has to be stopped! ...and by all the GODS, that is the biggest cock I've ever seen!~ Then Polori lifted the glider up, and lowered her giggling form on his shaft, and her conscious mind slowly fogged over in pleasure...

The last thing she was fully aware of seeing was Vassallo walking out of the audience chamber.