Victrix responds to Antona's passion and bites with whimpers and moans of encouragement...
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Once they've had their fun, Victrix lies on her bed next to her lover, staring at the ceiling in blissed-out contentment. There's some blood and bite marks on her neck, but she evidently doesn't care. If anything, it only encouraged her to submit even more.
She holds Antona very close, her girlfriend's lips close to her neck. "That... was... quite fun. Enjoy yourself, darling?"
"Yes, I could tell that you definitely did," Antona replies. She playfully licks a few stray beads of blood off of Victrix's neck.
"Aa-aaah..." She moans before running a hand through Antona's hair.
"I was worried you'd think I was weird for... well, enjoying that kind of thing. I mean, I distinctly remember you telling me not to let one of those faceless things drink from me again..."
"I was merely worried for your health, love. And now that I know you're into this, I'd be jealous if any faceless stalkers tried to stick their tongues inside of you again. The only person who gets to taste you is me...
"Seriously, though, nothing you could do would ever make me think you were weird. You don't have to hide anything from me. I love you. All of you, no matter what."
The berserker can feel her eyes start to tear up as Antona speaks. She blinks a few times, but can't help herself.
She pulls Antona into a tight, warm hug before gently pushing her up so she can see her in her full glory. Her eyes never leave Antona's.
"I... I love you too, darling." She finally says, her voice beginning to break. She draws her back down atop her, pressing her face close to her neck. Her lips are pulled into a blissful smile.
"...could you drink from me again? Please? As much as you want."
Antona eagerly sinks her teeth into her lover's flesh once more...
Victrix gasps, and her toes curl.
She lets out a little moan into Antona's ear, giving herself over to her beloved's attentions completely. Her body relaxes fully, the trust she has in Antona complete and unconditional.
In this moment, she doesn't feel like an angry, impulsive disgrace of a soldier sent away from home. She feels as though she's exactly where she is needed the most.
When they reached the colony Ema felt a sigh of relief. It was good to be home, or the closest thing she had to one, and it was made even better by their successes. When the others went to the tavern Ema said, "I'll meet you there later, I need to check on my apprentice." She smiled in amusement, "I need to see how she's come on her studies." She looked to Oorka briefly and then said, "I think you'd like her, Medrinah is a bit of a trouble maker sometimes but she has a good head and seems intent on learning." With that Emma headed off int town to track down her apprentice and check with her mother and Carver to see how she'd been doing in her absence.
Ema finds Medrinnah hanging out with her friend Tesswyn. The young apprentice is entertaining the other girl with various tricks of prestidigitation. She smiles proudly when she sees the arcanist. "Hey! Look, I think I've mastered this cantrip pretty well!" Medrinnah conjures a crude looking flower, then changes its color from white to red. Tesswyn applauds.
Ema was pleased at seeing Medrinnah's use of the spell to entertain her friend. While magic wasn't really meant for such things in her mind the joy her apprentice took in it was a good thing and she wasn't one to talk, she'd done similar things before after all. "Very good Medrinnah, how have you done with the other spells in your book?"
"I'm getting there. I think another few weeks and I'll be ready to handle some real spells!"
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Over the next two weeks, Simon in uncharacteristically anxious.
The threats of the whisaak and hag loom over him. He still spends part of each day with Oorka and Kalikk, reading to Oorka, attempting to teach them the common trade tongue, and taking them to visit various villagers to learn the ways of the Inner Sea peoples.
He also spends a great deal of time training, trying to hone his martial skills and tactical acumen, as well as doing research to learn as much as he can about ways of dealing with magic using creatures.
Ema smiled slightly at Medrinnah's enthusiasm and said, "Ah, but didn't you know, those are real spells that you are learning." She was amused y the young woman's words and continued, "Just remember that not everything about magic is fun, not the way you have to learn it, and it is going to get very tedious as you get to more complicated spells. You've seen, now, how much effort it takes to prepare the spells you currently are able to each day, about an hour right?" She waited for the young woman's nod, "That time will never get shorter and you will begin to cram more into it each day, for example..."
Ema pulled out her personal spell book and opened it to the first pages, "Preparing this one spell either takes me fifteen minutes, or it takes far less. There is, as you've noticed, a period of time to get into the right mind set for preparation, once you do a quarter of your potential spell preparation can be done in fifteen minutes later on but that first time of the day will always take an hour. Why it does I don't really know, but it does, maybe because you have to re-prime the magical pathways or something. Anyway, once I get that going I can manage these three in fifteen minutes, then these four in the next fifteen, and so on. The later spells take longer of course because they are more complicated. This one," she flipped towards one of the last filled pages, "was something I just completed on the way back to town to deal with the few constructs we've come across and as a nasty surprise for a certain demon that got away. It takes the better part of fifteen minutes on it's own due to the complexity and, as you can see, spans three pages. It's another oddity that spells in a book take the same number of pages as the tier of magic, since this spray of diamonds is third tier magic it takes three pages to scribe into the book. This other one," she flips to her second third tier spell that she had created, "causes a large storm of sleet that makes great cover for retreating and for temporarily reducing the number of enemies that one must deal with in a fight by keeping them away from the main conflict."
Ema put the book away after that and looked at the two young women, "So, I have something of a treat for you, we brought some visitors with us when we got back a short bit ago from a village not too far from here. One of them is about your age, well roughly anyway, and I think she'd like to meet you both. though..." Ema looked thoughtfully at Tesswyn, "You'll have to interpret for Tesswyn unless someone has a spell handy as our guests don't speak Taldane like the rest of us." Ema smiled wickedly as she headed for the door for the girls to follow her, "I hope you've been practicing your Azlanti Medrinnah, you're going to need it."
"There are other girls on this island?" Tesswyn asks, mystified. "I thought we were the only teens here."
"She's Azlanti? That's so cool!" Medrinnah says. "Yeah, I've been practicing with Carver every day. I wonder what sort of stories she has to tell about her life here!"
Ema laughed as they headed towards the Eagle's Rest she said, "I'm glad you've been keeping up your practice and no, she's not Azlanti, I won't spoil the surprise about what she is but Azlant is the only language we shared for a while. I managed to pick up enough of her language to get by with for now and will get better at it with practice."
When they reached the Festhall Ema escorted the two teens inside and then called out to Oorka, "Hey, Oorka, I brought a couple of people to meet you." She walked to where the two strix were and then said, "Oorka, I'd like you to meet my apprentice Medrinnah and her friend Tesswyn," she then looked back to the two young ladies, "ladies, this is Oorka and this is Kalikk."
The two strix are sitting at a corner table, pushed away from the wall to give them room to spread their painted wings. Kalikk keeps a wary eye on the other townsfolk while Oorka cheerfully samples various drinks.
"Pleased to meet you!" Oorka says, bobbing her head happily. Medrinnah and Tesswyn are wide-eyed with wonder.
"You too. What are you?" Medrinnah says rather bluntly.
"We are Akkiti-Skah!" Oorka replies, unfazed by the apparent rudeness.
"You have wings! What's it like to fly?"
"Fun!"
Medrinnah translates for Tesswyn as the girls bombard Oorka with all sorts of questions about herself, her home, and her people.
Once they had returned to town and had time to rest up from their journeys, Kip found time to pull Oorka aside. "You mentioned kombucha... do you think you could show me how to find the mushrooms... and how to brew the tea? I'm always looking to expand my repertoire." The grippli showed the various patches of his ever expanding garden. "I've been gathering lots of different plants that we've found in our explorations of the island and bringing them back here, as well as planting some of the things we brought from our old home. When we're not out finding ancient Azlanti ruins or meeting amazing new friends like you, I like to experiment in my kitchen and grow new plants. In fact, I'm planning to grow a community of intelligent fruit trees over there soon. Well... as soon as I can grow the trees and figure out the trick to smarten 'em up."
"I didn't know trees could be intelligent? Would they talk? Oh, could we teach them to sing?" Oorka says to Kip excitedly.
"The mushroom we use grow near Sheshkadrann. I'm sure the other Akkiti-Skah would be happy to trade with you fro some of your own herbs!"
"I don't know if they could talk. I hope so! I just read about it being possible, and I've been learning how to use magic to grow plants faster too, so I hope to be able to make them smarter some day too."
"That would be great! I can even write down some of the recipes I've created for you guys. Maybe we'll come up with even more new tasty treats by working together."
You spend several days in Talmandor's Bounty, resting, retraining, and tending to your places of business. During this time, people begin whispering about the strange bite marks and bruises that can be seen on Victrix's neck. Rumors abound as to what exactly the barbarian is getting up to behind closed doors...
"What? The bruises? Oh, you noticed those. Don't worry about them--I barely notice them half the time."
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"...bite marks. Yep. That's what they are. And?"
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"...no, I'm not being attacked every night. At least, not in the 'meaning to kill ya' sense..."
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"...alright, fine. They're love bites. I like getting bit, and Antona's fine with it. You caught me. I'm into that. Can we get back to work now?"
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"...don't you bloody kink-shame me."
"Wait--one more thing. Who's been seeing mermaids down by the beach?"
"Oi, that were Tipps!" says hairy miner Tipps Kreggan, referring to himself in the third person as always. "Ol' Tipps caught a peek of them naughty fish-ladies a couple o' times, but he ain't seen them out there lately! And he's been looking, too!"
"...really." Victrix blinks a couple of times, forcing her expression into one of curiosity instead of irritation.
"What'd they look like?"
"Well, Tipps didn't get too close. Wouldn't wanna scare 'em away! But one had hair o' purest silver, and the other's burned orange like a glorious sunset! And o' course, they had the biggest..." He looks at Victrix's chest briefly then back up to her face and blushes. "Er, tails. Biggest tails!"
Victrix's irritation briefly gives way to flattery before surging back with greater strength than before.
"Of course, Tipps." The aasimar tries to keep her expression neutral. "How long have you been watching them? When did you start seeing them?"
She runs a hand through her burnt orange hair.
"Tipps first saw 'em a few weeks after we got here. It's been, what, three months now, on and off?" The hairy man follows the motion of Victrix's hand. "Y'know, now that he thinks on it, Tipps thinks one of 'em kinda looks a lot like youuuuuuohhhh s~!+!" he finishes, eyes widening.
During the time they spent in town resting and gathering needed materials Ema put herself to work obtaining more of what she needed for her magic workshop.
By the time she was done she had come out with nearly all of the goods she needed.
Victrix nods once. "Yep."
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't do that again. And I'm certain Antona would too." Her tone is surprisingly even.
"O-of course!" Tipps stammers. "Swear to Erastil! To Abadar! To any divinity of your choice!"
"Good."
"Now, go change your smallclothes." Victrix waves Tipps off and starts walking away.
...she can't help but snicker as she leaves.
Kip split his time in town between caring for his garden, preparing a written list of recipes for Oorka and trying to twist his tongue around the words of her native language. If they were going to be neighbors, it'd be best to be able to actually talk to more than just a few!
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Having had his head deep in studies over the last fortnight, other than the occasional sessions with Oorka, Simon looks up one day realizing that he has simply been looking for ways to avoid the inevitable.
Standing, and strapping on his sword with a determined expression, he goes to locate the other party members. One on one, or in a group, he speaks to each of them.
"I apologize for ignoring you this last week or so. I've felt... a presence... like someone staring at me from the corner. I know it is just the stress of anticipating the coming struggles, but I have been hiding myself away in my studies, and I realized today that is what I am really doing... hiding.
I think the time has come to confront our demons. Is there anything else you want to accomplish before we head out or before we challenge the Hag? There is that Observatory somewhere on the island we could try to explore beforehand..."
"Do we have a good supply of acid? Because I remember we're going to be facing trolls..."
Once you are ready to depart, you venture inland towards the central volcano of Ancorato. It takes about six hours of travel to reach your destination--it is early afternoon when you arrive. Past where the forest tapers off into sparse, dead trees, the mountain slope becomes steep and rugged, leading to a circular ridge enclosing the sunken peak of the mountain. Once crested, the high caldera rim gives way to a rugged, rocky slope bristling with scrubby vegetation, leading down into a large, steaming lake. At the center of the crater lake is a small, rocky island upon which an octagonal tower rises one hundred twenty feet, its peak lying just below the caldera wall. The top of the tower consists of a dome of plated copper, long ago turned green with verdigris. The crumbling stone columns of a long-collapsed bridge are all that remains of a land route to the tower.
The shortest distance from the crater wall to the island is 290 feet from the northwest edge of the lake, following the path of the ruined bridge. From the southeastern rim of the caldera, a small cave is visible that leads into the small island.
The raft looks sturdy enough. The construction is recent, probably within the last several months.
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"Well, I think the raft will hold us.
How do we go about getting across the lake? We could grab a couple of big tree branches to use as poles. That might be easiest, unless the water gets really deep."
Simon gets distracted while thinking about the water. "I wonder how hot this water is..."
Heading over to the water, Simon carefully touches the water to test the temperature.
The water is rather warm, but not uncomfortable. It gives off a faintly eggy smell.
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"Sulfur. Typical for a volcanic lake. I wonder if a source of sulfur would be beneficial for the town?"
Nodding to himself, he turns to the group. "Let's start with poles. If the water gets too deep, or something bad happens, my armor will allow me to swim and pull us. I won't move as fast as the manta ray, but it will still be faster than drifting aimlessly"
Simon will start looking for branches capable of functioning as poles, then prepare to launch the raft when everyone us ready, keeping a close look on the water for danger as they go.
While the sulfur in the lake cannot be easily harvested, Simon recognizes that the crater's walls have a high concentration of andesite, a volacnic stone suitable for building large, load-bearing structures. The colony would certainly benefit from this discovery.
You begin to cross the lake on the raft, using the poles to help push you along. You're about halfway across the lake when Simon spots something huge lurking beneath the water's surface. A spiny, long-legged crab the size of an elephant is following your raft. It doesn't seem like it's going to attack you--yet.
Just before leavign town:
As they prepared to leave town and continue their explorations Emalliandra came staggering up lugging a small bag with her. The sack appeared to be about two feet wide and two feet across, but it apparently weighed a lot more than that even though it appeared to be empty. When she finally reached them she let the bag drop with a thud and bent forward, hands on her knees, which caused her ample cleavage to nearly fall out of her normally abbreviated clothing. After a moment she said, "Vix, Simon, one fo you should take that. It took me ten days but I finally managed to make it, just don't ask me to carry it anymore."
Valcanic Lake:
When they found the volcanic lake and raft Ema knew better than to go out there unprepared. She pulled out a wand and tapped herself with it, then cast a spell on herself before she said, "There, I'm ready."
As they made their way out onto the water in the raft Ema let those more suited to such physical activities do the rowing. The fact that the water was so warm made her curious how deep it was and if there were any hidden dangers, it might be nice to have a hot spring to soak in sometime. Granted the sulfer smell sucked but still the minerals in the water might make it woth dealing with the smells.
Simon recognizes the creature as a shark-eating crab. Their hunting skills have evolved over the ages to track the movements of fast creatures swimming above them as the crabs blend into their surroundings. The crab is a mindless vermin, and is likely just waiting for a good opportunity to attack!
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"What do you guys think? It is probably just waiting to make sure we aren't dangerous. We'll probably have to fight it one way or another.
If it attacks the raft, we might all get spilled in the water. I could just jump in now and attract its attention. When it comes near, Victrix can start slicing it up."
Victrix readies her axe and sits at the edge of the raft, keeping her feet out of the water. "Think it'll try to get out of the water?"
Ema considered the problem when Simon explained about the waiting crab, how it likely just wanted to find out if they were a threat before trying to eat them, and said, "Rather than go swimming with it I could try and summon something to distract it until we get past." She gave the half-orc a mischevious grin and then said, "But if you really want to fight the armored dragon Sir Simon then I won''t stop you."