by Robert Bevan
“He does not meet your womanly needs, yes?”
“That's one way of saying it.”
“Stacy!” said Julian.
“It's nothing to be ashamed of, Julian. We'll get there.”
“That's not the point. We don't know this guy. You don't have to go blurting out our private sexual issues to a complete stranger.”
“Forgive me for intruding,” said Strovgar. “But it is I who blurted out your issues. They are no secret to me, you see.”
“Why? Are you telepathic or something?”
Strovgar laughed. “Alas, I am not. But I have traveled far and wide, and have known many elves. You have no hunger for the carnal pleasures, and you have a penis like a little girl.” He rolled over onto his side, planting his elbow in the sand and propping up his head with his hand. He raised his left hind leg, exposing his junk. His penis looked like Julian's forearm and his smooth scrotum looked like it was holding two baking potatoes.
“Whoa!” Julian shielded his eyes. “That's not really approp–”
“It would give me immense pleasure,” Strovgar said to Stacy, “if you would rub my genitals until I ejaculate.”
Julian gasped. The nerve of this mother–
Stacy licked her lips. “That sounds like a good time.”
“WHAT?” Was she really that starved for sex? Was she some kind of nympho?
Strovgar turned and locked eyes with Julian. “Then your friend can lap up my seed like a dog.”
A wave of relief washed over Julian. He'd been thinking of himself as a third wheel. It was thoughtful of Strovgar to include him in his – Wait, no. Something is wrong here. Did he just ask me to...
Julian stepped forward and pulled Stacy back by the shoulders just before her hands took hold of Strovgar's slowly erecting dong. For his effort, he got a harsh glare and an even harsher elbow in the gut.
“This jealousy thing is getting out of control,” she said as Julian fell on his ass in the sand, trying to start breathing again. “I'm a grown woman, and I can make my own choices. You had your chance and you blew it.”
“No,” wheezed Julian when he had enough breath. “He's got you... under a... spell.”
Stacy shook her head. “You're pathetic.” She headed back to Strovgar, whose penis was now fully erect. It was as red, pointed at the end, and covered in backward-facing barbs.
Strovgar shrugged and grinned at Julian. “How does the saying go? Appreciate what battles you win, for you cannot win them all.”
Julian wasn't sure if he was saying that Julian shouldn't feel too bad about the fact that Stacy was about to jerk him off, or that he wasn't harboring any hard feelings about Julian not wanting to lap up his seed like a dog.
“Please, Stacy. Listen to me. He's inside your head. He was in mine too. You don't want to –”
“YEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOW!” howled Strovgar. It sent a chill up Julian's spine, for there was only one thing that could cause a creature to make that sound.
Julian looked from Strovgar's horror-stricken face to his impressively large nutsack and found that, sure enough, Stacy was pulling her dagger out of the latter. He cringed and pressed his legs tightly together.
Strovgar rolled over, winced as he got to his feet, and reached for his dagger. All his hand met was an empty sheath.
Stacy, on the other hand, was now armed with two daggers. Julian recognized one as the dagger she kept in her boot. Its straight thin blade dripped with testicle blood. The other dagger was a little on the flamboyant side for a rogue. Its larger curved blade was just about the same size and shape as Strovgar's sheath.
“Julian!” she said, flicking the smaller dagger down into the sand at his feet. Now that she had blown her cover with the Sneak Attack, there wasn't much point in being roguish. Between the two of them, she was the stronger fighter and therefore better-suited to wield the bigger blade.
Julian picked up the dagger, careful not to let any of the blood touch his fingers.
“You will pay for your deception, human whore!” said Strovgar.
Stacy balked at him. “You literally just used magic to make me jerk you off, and I'm the deceptive whore?”
Strovgar narrowed his eyes and grinned. “Your defiance only makes me crave you more. My wound shall heal, but once I've finished having my pleasure with you, I shall leave you with pain that will never go away.”
Julian shivered, thinking about those barbs on its dick.
“You better go away,” said Stacy. “Or I'll finish what I started.”
“Save your meaningless threats for the little elf bitch.”
Julian threw up his hands. “What the fuck, man?”
“Come on over here and see how meaningless my threats are,” said Stacy. “I'll be doing a favor to every woman who crosses your path.”
Strovgar gave her a slight bow. “Very well. If it is a fight your heart desires, a fight it shall have.”
“Come on, man,” said Julian. “She's letting you off easy. We've got weapons, you don't. Just go away and nobody has to get hurt.”
“You needn't be afraid, little girl. It would still give me pleasure for you to watch, so I shall only cripple you.” As if being a rapist wasn't bad enough, he was being a real prick about the whole thing.
Julian shrugged. “Have it your way, asshole. Bring it o– Oh shit.”
Seven more Strovgars appeared, all standing side by side whichever one of them was the original Strovgar, mimicking his movements precisely. It was like Riverdance, except with lion-man rape-monsters bleeding from the nuts.
All eight Strovgars pounced simultaneously at Stacy, blurring and changing positions. Stacy blocked their human-like arms, but one of their fore-paws raked its claws across her belly, tearing through her clothes and into her skin.
She sliced Strovgar's dagger down hard on one of him, revealing the extra seven to be mere illusions as it winked out of existence.
“Stacy!” said Julian. “Are you okay?”
Stacy backed up and readied herself for another attack. “I'm fine. He fights like a kitten.”
Strovgar let out an inarticulate roar as he and his six remaining backup dancers lunged at Stacy again. Julian wondered if what Stacy said had pissed him off because it was emasculating, or because it was racist.
She rolled under him as he leaped at her and was back on her feet before he turned around. She glared at Julian. “Go around the other side and start stabbing away the fake ones. Keep him between us, and I'll get my Sneak Attack bonuses.”
Julian was impressed. Stacy was really getting a handle on the nuts and bolts of the game a lot faster than he had. It must have had something to do with her high Intelligence score.
“Stop flapping your lips, walking cock-sleeve,” said seven Strovgars. “Your nonsensical words make my ears hurt.”
“You know what?” said Julian once he got into position on the other side of him. He waited briefly for a What? that didn't come. Strovgar didn't even turn around or acknowledge him. Nevertheless, Julian answered the question. “FUCK YOU!” He held Stacy's dagger high and ran at one of the Strovgars, hoping it was an illusory one.
It wasn't. Julian caught a rear paw in the gut that threw him back. He didn't think he was injured, but he also failed to get in a stab.
Stacy, on the other hand, hacked the shit out of one of the illusory Strovgars. If that had been the real one, he would have been in some serious shit. Instead, there was just one fewer image.
Strovgar seethed with rage as he continued to swipe at Stacy and she continued to duck, weave, and jump out of the way. She looked pretty pleased with herself until one of his fists connected with her face.
“Ha!” said Strovgar.
Stacy wiped a drop of blood from under her nose, then looked at her finger. “You son of a –”
“YAAAAAA!” said Julian, annoyed that he was still being ignored and wishing he had a better battle cry. He brought down Stacy's dagger hard on lion ass and was shocked when his hand failed t
o swipe right through it.
“Ooow!” said Strovgar, finally turning to acknowledge Julian. “You loathsome pest! Can you not see that the adults are fighting?” He reared up on his hind legs to bring his front claws down on Julian, and Stacy took the opportunity to leap onto his back.
Unfortunately, Stacy leaped onto the wrong back, eliminating one more illusion and falling face-first into the sand.
Strogvar's claws tore down both sides of Julian's serape, tearing great gashes into it. It was painful and would definitely leave some red marks on his chest. He might have even lost a couple of Hit Points from the attack. But he wasn't scooping his intestines up off the ground like he'd expected.
“You're right,” Julian called past Strovgar to Stacy. “He really does fight like a kitten.”
Five Strovgars snarled and took a wild swipe at Julian's head. He ducked it easily and jabbed away one more illusion.
Strovgar's four remaining faces grimaced and groaned as Stacy stood up with Strovgar's blade, dripping with Strovgar's blood which had, judging by his expression, come once again from Strovgar's balls.
“Just kill him already,” said Julian. “You don't need to keep attacking his junk.”
Four Strovgars backed away from Julian and Stacy, tears welling up in their eyes. Tiny plants sprouted out of the sand where his testicle blood dripped.
“May the gods damn you both to the Abyss!”
Julian was taken aback. “Are you... crying?”
Strovgar and his three illusory Strovgar's made a sound between a roar and a wail as they turned and fled.
“Hey!” Stacy called out after him. “You forgot your dagger!” She held it up by the blade, not so queasy about the nut blood as Julian had been, and hurled it at the fleeing Strovgars. It went right through one, which vanished. The three remaining Strovgar's shrieked and continued running, not even bothering to stop and pick up his dagger.
“He's not getting away that easy,” said Stacy. She hopped on Julian's horse and whipped the reins. “Ya!” The horse obediently bolted after the Strovgars.
“Just let him go!” Julian called out after her. “He's not worth it!”
If Stacy heard him, she wasn't swayed. As the horse ran at full gallop, she leaned over, plucked Strovar's dagger out of the sand, then sat upright again. Julian had to admit, that was pretty impressive.
Julian wouldn't shed any tears over Strovgar's death. Strovgar was a creep, for sure, and the world would probably be a better place without him. But he didn't like watching Stacy chase down an unarmed person and slaughter them while they were fleeing. Besides, however vile Strovgar's intentions may have been, he hadn't succeeded with them, and he had certainly come away from the encounter worse off than Julian and Stacy combined.
Under ideal circumstances, Strovgar might have been about just as fast as a horse, but his gait betrayed the pain in his nuts, and Stacy was quickly catching up to him.
She leaned right, holding the curved dagger blade out as far as her arm could stretch, like she was going to do a drive-by knifing.
Three Strovgars looked back at her. “Please!” they cried. “Mercy of the gods! Spare me!”
Stacy rode even harder until she was almost right on top of him, pulled her arm back to swing, then tumbled ass-over-face into the sand when the horse disappeared out from under her.
“Coward!” she called out after Strovgar, hopping to her feet and kicking sand in his direction.
Julian started walking northward again, giving Stacy some time to chill and Strovgar some time to keep fleeing before he summoned another horse. Whether her desire to murder him was justified or not, Julian was down to his last Level 1 spell for the day, and wanted to get as much distance out of it as possible.
“He said there's a village not far from here,” said Stacy when she finally caught up with Julian.
Julian didn't know whether she had sufficiently chilled in that very small amount of time, or whether she was intentionally bringing up a different subject because she didn't want to talk about it. Either was fine with him.
“Do you think he was telling the truth?”
Stacy shrugged. “I can't see anything he'd have to gain by us believing that. And he had to have come from somewhere.”
Julian scanned ahead. “I don't see any signs of... well, anything.”
“We're bound to find it if we keep riding north. Conjure up another one of those horses.”
“Okay,” said Julian. “But this is my last one, so we can't afford to go running off on other errands.” He felt he was putting it Diplomatically enough.
“I'm cool now. I gave him more than enough to remember me by. Hopefully, he'll think twice before trying his tricks on someone else.”
That was good enough for Julian. He pointed at the ground. “Horse!” Their transportation for the next couple of hours was taken care of.
They rode for an hour or more, until the sun began to set on the featureless desert horizon. Julian peered ahead, squinting to make his eyes focus on the furthest point that they were capable of, but it didn't look any different to anything else he could see for – As if they'd just stepped through a dimensional rift, they were galloping through a cabbage patch. Dwarven farming folk were leaping out of their way as Julian's horse trampled their produce. There was a charming waterwheel ahead and to the left of them, and a wooden footbridge across a –
“SHIT!” cried Julian, pulling the reins too late as the horse ran off the edge of the ravine. His heart barely had time to stop beating before he realized the danger wasn't quite as great as it had first appeared.
Five feet down, they hit water. They hadn't even fallen off the horse's back. The magical beast of burden, even now, was diligently horse-paddling its way across the river.
“Where are we?” said Stacy. “Did we just teleport?”
“I don't think so. The air feels the same. We might have just stepped through a –”
“Gator!” cried Stacy.
“I was going to say facade or illusion, but if that's what people say down south, then –”
Julian felt himself being grabbed by both upper arms and yanked to the left, Stacy's weight pulling him off the horse and into the water.
He took a moment to orientate himself and found Stacy swimming underwater beside him. She pointed in the direction they'd just come from. Julian turned and saw his horse's brown legs paddling wildly. Then a massive set of reptilian jaws clamped down on its back and belly. The water turned blurry red, then the jaws snapped shut as the horse, its Hit Points drained to zero, winked out of existence.
“Dammit!” Julian said in a burst of bubbles.
Feeling a tug on his serape, he suddenly appreciated that he and Stacy were in a river with a giant hungry alligator which had just been cheated out of a meal.
He swam in the other direction, but couldn't help but look back. The gator's massive snout poked through the murky pink cloud of dissipating horse blood. It was swimming right for him. There was no way he could out-swim that thing. He'd had a good run, but this was it. He was going to –
Stacy grabbed his wrist tightly and pulled him upward faster than any human being had any business swimming.
Julian looked forward again and saw that Stacy had grabbed hold of one of the buckets on the water wheel. Julian grabbed the next bucket, and Stacy let go of his arm. As he was lifted out of the water, he gratefully took in a great breath of air and realized that he had a very short time to think about what action he might take before the wheel dumped him right back into the river, and into the jaws of a just-as-hungry but more-pissed-off giant alligator.
“Jump!” said Stacy.
Julian turned just in time to see her leaping from the top of the wheel onto the footbridge. Near as it was, it wasn't so near that he had any prayer of making the same jump. Then again, there was always the chance he could roll a Natural 20.
“Shiiiiiit!” he cried as he pushed himself away from the top of the wheel.
Nope
. Not even close. His timing was off, he hadn't accounted for the added weight of his wet clothes, he hadn't allotted any Skill Points to Jump. He was fucked.
He made a desperate grab for the edge of the bridge, but he was going to miss it by a mile. Then an upside down Stacy filled his field of vision. She grabbed both of Julian's wrists. And there he was, suspended in the air by his arms.
He looked up. Stacy was hanging upside down from the bridge with her legs locked on its railing. That was some quick thinking on her part, and an incredible feat of Strength and Dexterity.
Looking down, he found that the giant alligator hadn't yet given up the hunt. Julian pulled his feet up just in time to avoid its snapping jaws.
“Stacy! Help!”
Stacy grunted, and Julian felt himself ascend. Other hands grabbed his wrists and pulled him up onto the relative safety of the bridge.
He and Stacy lay on the bridge for a moment to catch their breaths. Julian sincerely hoped that the four friendly-looking dwarves who were staring down at them had no intentions to rape or murder them. They needed a bit of a break from that.
A small round of applause broke out from the dwarven farmers watching from either side of the bridge. Julian assumed that was mostly for Stacy's acrobatics show.
“Good evening,” said a plump male dwarf in brown overalls. “You gave us quite a scare. We thought for sure you were going to feed Old Edna for the night.”
“Old Edna?” said Julian. “Is that what you call the giant alligator?”
“Crocodile,” the dwarf corrected him. He smiled warmly and offered Julian a hand while a couple of other dwarves helped Stacy up. “My name is Orgol. I'd like to welcome you to our little village, Tamar.”
Chapter 38
It was just as well that Katherine's first voyage as captain was accompanying another ship. Being co-owner of the Chicken Hut had taught her little about leadership and absolutely nothing about sailing. It also didn't help that her entire crew was composed of people who had just been trying to murder her, and several of them probably resented her usurping what they felt was their rightful position. If they got a few minutes of privacy to chat amongst themselves, they might each make some concessions, come to an agreement, and regroup for a good old-fashioned mutiny, which Katherine, aided only by Butterbean and Randy, would have a difficult time putting down.