by ilo man
“—Are you listening to me?”
“Got it,” Vinnie said, nodding. “And thank you,” he added, for effect.
“Just so long as you understand.”
“One hundred percent,” Vinnie said, scooping up another pancake.
“So, this morning,” Fin announced. “I’ve got to run a few errands. You go see Angel in the training square; she’ll set you on your way.” Fin leaned in. “Then we can do lunch. I haven’t had anyone to do lunch with in an age. I’ll meet you there. First, here’s a little spell for your little spell book, and don’t look so surprised, you’ve been using it quite blatantly, word got back to me—I like to know what to expect.”
The Wanton Witch has gifted you a spell, Passageways, and Pathways.
Passageways and pathways lets you navigate your way through her castle with ease. You set your destination, choose your method of transport (select either port, walk, fly, ride or swim), and you will arrive there in the appropriate amount of time for your mode of transport. You cannot get lost.
“So,” Fin rested her cute chin on her palms. “Where you off to next, Vinnie?”
“Angel, training square—”
Fin wagged her finger at him. “No fucky—”
“Fucky,” said Vinnie.
He heard laughter coming from his sack.
“This should be fun,” said Little Red.
Vinnie retrieved his Little Book of Spells.
“Hear me now, oh blessed and wise Luna,
[Mode] me to the [Destination] sooner.
Thanks.”
Vinnie rolled his eyes and said the words.
“Hear me now, oh blessed and wise Luna,
Port me to the training square sooner.
Thanks.”
Pop! He appeared in the training square, or rather, just off to the side in the shadows where no one noticed. It was rather elongated for a square, but Vinnie supposed that training rectangle didn’t have the same ring.
Then the ring part confused him, and he started to sway backward and forwards.
“It’s the teleporting,” Little Red told him. “Makes you a bit woozy and confused—like last night, zombified.”
The square, ring or rectangle—oblong, the training oblong reminded him of a church cloister. Marble pillars lined all four sides and sectioned off shaded walkways. The ground in the center was nothing more than dry and dusty dirt, with targets at one end, a row of straw bales, what looked like a wrestling ring, and a few things he didn’t recognize.
While it certainly wasn’t busy, some half-naked men wrestled, armored ones fought with swords, and greased up fighters practiced chucking spears. Vinnie wandered out from his little hidey-hole intent on finding the woman called Angel.
The sun beat down, just like it specifically wanted to heat up this little part of the land as much as possible. By the time he’d wandered right into the middle, he was sweating quite profusely. He was sitting on one of the hay bales, watching two swordsmen spar when a cheery female voice rang out.
“What the flying fuck do you think you’re doing?” It had a distinct Australian twang. If there was a voice in the world that gave Vinnie an instant chubby, it was Aussie-Bird.
“Oh good god no,” he said, dreading it, turning anyway, eyes to the ground. “Not a gorgeous Aussie girl, please, not one of those.”
“I said, what the fuck are you doing?”
She was standing over him now, sandals on her feet, with straps that wound all the way up her calves, to her knees, and fine knees they were too. The undulations of her toned upper legs promised so much, but that promise was stifled by a short leather skirt, no more than dangling, studded leather strips around an inch wide. His eyes traveled up, the skirt ending remarkably quickly to reveal a six-pack—tanned and glistening with sweat. Huge breasts defied every law of physics known to man, questioning Newton’s law of universal gravitation especially, her nipples concealed by two small leather triangles (equilateral), and straps that didn’t look up to the job. Blond hair cascaded around a tanned face, full lips, gleaming teeth, fine nose, and blue eyes.
“Are you Vinnie? I’ll bet you’re Vinnie,” she said, suddenly calming. “Fin said you were cute. I’m Angel.”
“Of course you are,” Vinnie replied, full throb on. “You’d have to be. Yes, I’m Vinnie.”
She cocked her head. “So glad,” she gushed. “I love a blunt weapon.”
Vinnie sighed. “Of course you do,” he repeated.
“Right, let’s get started,” Angel offered him her hand.
He got up, covertly adjusting his pants. “What’s first?”
“Full body massage. Gotta get you oiled and limbered up.”
“Oh good god no,” Vinnie muttered to himself, his voice cracking midway through.
Little Red’s evil laughter filled his mind.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Angel crouched in front of him. Vinnie crouched and faced her, staff in hand. She’d stripped him of his clothes and given him a similar skirt to hers—a sparring skirt, Romanesque, or as Vinnie now thought, true freedom. Angel feinted a jab, Vinnie skipped out of the way, tried a reverse, but her staff took his legs away.
She stood over him.
He groaned, looking up, looking right up. She offered her hand.
“See,” she said, winking. “When you’re on your back, at least you get an eyeful.”
They crouched. Angel feinted a jab. Vinnie feinted a reverse. Angel went for the sweep. Vinnie blocked it. She tossed down her staff and clapped. “Finally, finally you’re using your head more than one step on.” Angel sank to her haunches. “Did ya see? You read me.”
“We’ve done it like ten times,” Vinnie said, still fairly downcast about the beating she’d been giving him.
“But you saw in the end. Now you know. Every fighter’s got a tell; you just need to stay alive long enough to learn what it is, then bam! You go in and gut the fucker.” Her eyes were alive. Vinnie could feel her esteem, her silken strands of attraction reaching out for him. She beamed at him. So far they’d practiced the mace, hammer, club and now staff. “So, you know what you want to specialize in?”
“I’ve got a mace?”
She scratched a random pattern in the dirt between them. “You get two weapons. Wanna know what I’d do?”
Vinnie wanted to know everything she wanted to do. He blinked to clear his mind. Her breasts glistened in the midday sun. Mini Vinnie was swinging free, though not swinging so much at that moment. “Oh god, yes,” he rasped.
“Chainsticks for your main, mace, if you must, subordinate. The logic?”
“Please.”
“Wanna gimmie your Morningstar.”
“Oh god, yes,” said Vinnie, then handed over his mace.
She sprang up. “To put it in its basest terms, you can swing this bad boy like this, this, this or this.”
The Morningstar blurred as she showed him a flurry of strokes, finishing with a spin and then crouched down once more, handing him back the Morningstar. “And that’s it. You don’t want to waste all the bonuses you get for your main skill on those few strokes, now, do you?”
It made perfect sense. “No.”
A pair of chainsticks appeared in her hand. She started passing them from one hand to her other, over her shoulders, behind her back, through her legs. She tossed them, whisked them past Vinnie’s head, jabbed them, so they stopped right in his face. Vinnie became mesmerized by her incredible skill.
“Chainsticks, on the other hand, are bloody lethal, but difficult to master. Choose them, we’ll work on them together, and your skill will help you advance. The staff or mace for your subordinate and you’re good to go. In fact, I’d pick staff over mace. From what I heard, you crushed a dozen heads using The Morningstar without the need of skill.”
“We’ll do that then,” Vinnie agreed, mind you, he’d have made a shovel his specialist weapon if she’d asked.
Angel jumped up again. “Let’s go see
Fallon, see if she’s got a pair for sale.” She pulled Vinnie up, and they sauntered over to the pillars and into the shade. Angel stopped by an open barrel of water, filled a pale up and tipped it over her head. Water cascaded down her, flooding over her, down her flat stomach, flowing farther as she pulled her skirt out slightly and tipped half a pail-full down her groin. “Man, that feels good. I’m so hot.”
Vinnie shut his eyes and thought of Jenny-May’s scimitar.
Fallon’s shop was a little way down. To Vinnie, it looked like a museum of antiquities, with ominous ranks of busts clad in chainmail, racks of helmets, poles with gauntlets on and the like. Fallon herself was a homely looking girl with lush green eyes and coppery hair. Angel walked straight up to her and gave her a full kiss on her lips, pushing back and introducing Vinnie. “Fallon, Vinnie, Vinnie, Fallon. Fallon’s real friendly, her door’s always open.”
Fallon sashayed up to him, an outstretched finger brushing over his nipples. “Especially for strangers,” she whispered as she rounded him and patted his butt. “Especially for handsome strangers. Rumor has it you’ve got a cock like a cannon with balls to match.”
Vinnie coughed. “Cannon, yes, cannon. I err…”
“We need some chainsticks and a club,” Angel asked, turning to Vinnie. “You wanna club, don’t you?”
“Might as well.” A club sounded good, brute force, no thinking, like his mace. He remembered the girl’s heads exploding like ripe melons. Maybe he should have stuck with mace.
Vinnie equipped himself with both for two gold and a promise of a late night visit he wanted to fulfill but had no intention of doing so. He looked at his skill sheet, reasonably proud of his morning’s work.
Current weapons status:
Specialist Weapon: Chainsticks = Fundamental Awareness
Subordinate Weapon: Staff = Novice
Morningstar Mace = Novice.
Club = Novice.
Hammer = Novice.
“So,” said Angel on the way out of Fallon’s shop. “Let’s get you in the baths and all freshened up for your lunchtime date with Fin.”
“She told you?”
“That you were coming? Of course, how did you think I knew it was you in the square?”
She reached out, grabbed Vinnie’s hand and pulled him down the shaded walkway. “Y’know, she’s not so bad, Fin. Gets kinda possessive, and if you’re training under her, so to speak, she’s pretty intense, but there’s nothing stopping you having a little fun.”
Vinnie thought there was everything stopping him, for a start, he didn’t particularly want to be turned inside out, especially as it involved some form of reaching in. Angel, on the other hand, seemed to think it wasn’t such an issue. She guided him through a small, stone arch which emanated a blue-tinted haze, a lazy glow, much like his dwarven light.
“I had all your stuff brought here, so, we wash up, rub up, and you’re good to go.”
Her voice echoed around, the walls of the strange chambers made out of thick, gray stone, small archways leading from one to the next. It reminded him a little of where he and Atrixa had made love. Such fond, fond memories.
They ducked through a final arch and came to a rectangular pool around twenty by ten. Steam rose up to a slatted skylight. Stone slabs doubled for benches down its length, and Vinnie’s were clothes piled about half way down.
“Well, there’s a slice of luck. We’ve got the place all to ourselves,” Angel said, then sat and unstrapped her sandals. “What are you waitin’ for? I’ll be in in a sec; we’ll have a soak, then I’ll pat you down, quick cold shower under the waterfall, perfume you up and you’re sweet n’ ready for Fin.”
It all sounded so easy.
Vinnie took his boots off, slipped out of his training skirt and slid into the pool, adopting the crocodile position, just his nose and eyes above the surface. Angel started humming softly to herself as she unstrapped. Then she slipped out of her bra, her breasts hardly moving as their support vanished. She had gorgeous nipples, small, just how Vinnie liked them.
His dick throbbed. No fucky, fucky, he repeated in his mind.
She stood, slipped out of her skirt, her body lithe and hairless.
“Mind if I do some stretches?” Angel asked.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Vinnie thought. “No,” he muttered, getting a mouthful of steaming hot water for his trouble. She grinned, pulling her leg up, her instep touching her forehead. She flexed. Vinnie’s heart skipped a beat. Her foot swept down; he skipped another beat as her other leg arced up.
Vinnie’s fixed his gaze on her sweet spot, as one leg after the other swept down, then back up. Angel changed her stance, her body still facing him, one foot sliding forward, the other back. Her groin came to rest on the cool stone. She bent forward, chin up, breasts right in front of him, and then she slid, head first into the water, gliding towards him, her head brushing his legs, his thighs, his cock, chest, then breaking the surface right in front of him.
“Is that the ring that bewitched Sivatious’s girls?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said like a vice was squashing his balls.
“Can I touch it?”
He wanted to say yes, he yearned to say yes. “No fucky, fucky,” he blurted, and Angel laughed, drawing away, swimming to the end of the pool. She came back with a leather chamois in her hand.
“Let’s get you washed and ready for lucky old Fin,” Angel pouted, and began working his body with the chamois. “Nothing to stop me lingering a bit,” she said. “That’s not against the rules.”
Vinnie was dying, wished for death, a swift, throb-easing death. Angel worked the chamois, a small bloom of golden magic bursting out briefly.
“My god,” gasped Angel. “We’ve gotta get it on, that thing nearly made me cum just by touching it.”
“They say it’s The One Ring,” Vinnie gasped, just wanting some release, any kind, anything.
Angel pushed herself away. “Let’s get you showered. Might calm us both down.”
Vinnie couldn’t help but think that was a sound idea. He pulled himself out of the pool and followed her through another archway. Light shone down on them, the sky above still a brilliant blue. Water cascaded down from a stone gutter. Angel pushed him under, grabbing a towel off a closeby hook and wrapping it around her agile body. Vinnie breathed out in relief. “Thank you,” he gasped, two words he never thought he’d say when a beautiful girl covered her fantastic body up.
“Intense,” Angel muttered, then shook her hair out. “That was fucking intense.”
The freezing cold water doused Vinnie’s desire. He stuck it out, shivering until she pulled him forward and laid him on a stone slab, massaging his body as she’d done earlier. The minty, honey-like smell of eucalyptus oil enveloped him. His eyes grew heavy until she suddenly slapped his naked butt.
“You’re good to go,” Angel said.
Vinnie groaned and pushed himself up, swiveling around and ambling back to the pool. His heart stopped when he saw Fin sitting by his clothes. She cocked her head. “Anything to tell me, Angel, Vinnie?”
Angel’s arms shot out, palms up, waving frantically. “No, no, no, nothing Fin, bugger all. We behaved.”
“Vinnie?” A single word said like a door creaking open slowly with a homicidal killer just behind.
“What she said,” he said, pointing.
“No, fucky, fucky?”
“Definitely no fucky, fucky.”
Fin slapped her knee. “Good. Get dressed, let’s lunch.” She stood. “You coming, Angel?”
Angel glanced at Vinnie. “Nah, I’m good.” She swept up her clothes and hurried out.
“I’m impressed,” Fin told him. “Didn’t think you had it in you, but a girl can be wrong about things. Tell you what. I’ll make it up to you. What do you want to eat?”
Vinnie slipped into his pants and sat. “You did all that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“All what?” Fin asked, innocently.
�
��You set me up. You knew Angel—”
“I knew Angel would get hot and heavy from the fighting, hot and horny. Vinnie, your esteem is a relatively healthy +9. You’re good looking. You’ve got a great package, and, you have the most powerful ring in the land. You’ve weathered the storm of your early dumb choices. Of course, she’s gonna want to be with you, Fallon too, heck, all of them. So, tell me, what did you learn?”
Vinnie wondered if he’d learned anything. He was fairly sure he hadn’t boned Angel because he didn’t want to be turned inside out, but hey, Fin was well foxy, so if she wanted to think otherwise, who was he to argue?
“Restraint,” Vinnie said, nodding furiously.
“Horse shit,” said Fin. “You were just scared I’d turn you inside out. You learned that a shag isn’t everything, that it isn’t worth certain consequences. Had those consequences been ever so slightly lower, well, you’d still be banging now. So, what do you want to eat?”
“Anywhere we can get a good steak around here?”
“Funny you should say that.” Fin slapped him on the knee and pecked him on the cheek. “Get the rest of your gear on, pop your all your stuff in your sack, and we’ll be off, my treat.”
Pop! They appeared in a shadowy cobblestone alleyway, a narrow slit of bright blue sky fighting the dark. The stench of human waste pervaded all around. Fin grabbed his hand and led him out onto the street, only slightly brighter, the overhanging buildings stifling the sun.
“I thought the sheriff was looking for me,” Vinnie hissed.
“You’re so gullible. We’ll have to work on that. It’s my town, my rules. Why would I need a sheriff? Sure, I let things run themselves around here, but only because the commerce feeds all the folk in the lands around. Takes all sorts, Vinnie. As long as Sivatious sticks to his mountains, the threat here is manageable.”