Author's Note:
A Drow's Dilemma began as a one-on-one roleplaying project and has been converted into a chapter-by-chapter format for weekly posting with the permission and assistance from my partner. It will contain a considerable amount of sexual themes such as femdom, lesbian, straight, 'reverse' rape, BDSM, group sex, romance, and other themes. The main goal of the story, however, is to tell an epic tale of adventures, gods and goddesses, fae, and nymphomaniacs. This episode and every episode to come will be available for free on Literotica for the foreseeable future.
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Episode Nineteen: Return
Carlotta stayed where she was for the rest of their night in their makeshift camp between the town and the clearing where the orcs had been. She woke first, having not had her sleep interrupted. The human sat up, forgetting that she wasn't wearing a shirt. She blinked down at herself, then grabbed her corset and put it on before anyone else could see.
Selene was next of the women to open her eyes. She wasn't as peaceful as the human. It was bright and uncomfortable, and she wasn't initially sure where she was. Someone was holding her, just sleeping. She could count on one hand the people she'd actually slept with, just as her older cousin could. Oh. It was her older cousin. That made more sense. The younger drow rolled out of bed, grabbed her robe, and put it back on without the human's embarrassed haste.
"Come on you two." Selene said as she nudged their feet with her foot. Her voice was still a bit irritable, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been.
Caleldir sat up too rapidly, which caused the blankets covering his nether regions to fall away, exposing himself for the world to see. His face turned a burning red, and he started to put on his clothing as quick as he could without making the same bizarre mistakes as he had yesterday morning. Then again, what was he worried about? All three women he was with had seen him naked before, in fact, they had all either had sex with him or at least seen him have sex. So any modesty he might have thought he had was far past. Sighing, he stopped moving feverishly, and quietly dressed himself like a normal person, neither flaunting nor hiding. "Good morning, everyone." He said as pleasantly as he could. He still sounded rather self-conscious.
After that, the camp had to be packed up, and a breakfast of bear jerky, roots, and nuts eaten. Then, it was back on the road. Ashyr was perfectly happy to lead them in silence. The sounds of nature had been her only companion for most of the last couple decades; she was used to it. She knew exactly where the town was -- more or less. These woods weren't entirely unfamiliar to her.
"Thanks to our new supplies, we do not need to rest or camp as much today." Caleldir said, "Still, I admit I am rather lost, and do not know how far it is to the town. Do you think we will make it by tonight, or will we be camping out again?"
Ashyr looked to the sun, and then stole a glance toward Carlotta. The human was, quite frankly, slowing them down. It didn't help that she occasionally got distracted by random reagents she found growing near their path. Ashyr was sure all the plants she gathered would be very valuable to them later so she didn't say anything about it. Selene, on the other hand, was growing irritable again. "If we keep focused, we can probably get back just past nightfall. We'll need to pick up the pace a little, though." Ashyr informed them after some thought.
"Then let's go." Selene said. She shot a glare over to Carlotta.
The venomous expression was not lost on the human. "I'm going as fast as I can. You try having short legs." It probably didn't help much that the redhead was a bit of an out of shape alcoholic. The human just happened to enjoy a youthful body with a high metabolism.
"Play nice, cousin dearest." Ashyr warned.
"It is not Carlotta's fault that she has trouble keeping up with our pace." Caleldir said in his own defense of the human. "But she cannot keep up the same pace as we can." He looked towards Selene. "You do not happen to have any sort of magical tricks that could help with that, do you? Perhaps some enchantment to bolster her physical abilities, increase her speed, or just make her weightless so we can carry her without inconvenience? If not, we will just have to walk a bit slower. Enjoy the forest for a bit longer."
Selene let out another one of her extraordinarily put-upon sighs. She was not accustomed to using magic for the benefit of anyone, let alone some lowly little human who should learn to keep up with the Lolth-damned adults. "Yes. I suppose I can help." Then she paused, concentrated for a few seconds, then an invisible disk was conjured about five feet away from her.
Ashyr recognized the magic immediately, and didn't hesitate to throw her blankets on top of the thing. They floated in mid-air, only sliding slightly into the middle of the... whatever it was that held them up. "Your chair, Lady Carlotta." Ashyr said with a grand gesture. It was an echo of something she'd seen Caleldir do on several occasions. She clearly thought it was vastly amusing.
The human blinked. Then she pressed her hand down on the floating disk. It seemed sturdy enough. It didn't budge from its place about three feet from the ground. The blankets made it look downright comfortable. Ashyr helped her onto the thing.
"Can we go now?" Said the impatient Selene. The disk floated a consistent five feet behind her like a dog far more calm and obedient than Bard ever was. Now the shortest legs they had to worry about were Ashyr's, as she was a couple inches shorter than Selene was. The ranger made up for it with better stamina.
"Oh ho!" Caleldir exclaimed, impressed and wanting to encourage the clearly un-altruistic Selene into helping the party more. "That is an elegant solution indeed. I, at least, am very grateful to have a mage of your ability with us. Thank you for all your help; it is greatly appreciated."
"Do not pander to me, boy." Selene snapped back. She still sounded irritated. Apparently one night of comfort was not enough to cure the woman's surliness. It was to be expected, considering how much life seemed to hate her recently.
Ashyr snickered quietly -- though not quietly enough to go unnoticed by the rest of the party. This must have been something like being a third party to her own sometimes painfully awkward conversations with... well, everyone. For some reason, there really wasn't any place Ashyr could go where she didn't have strange cultural differences that made everyone feel uncomfortable.
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After a few hours of keeping much better pace than before, Caleldir began to notice that the terrain around them was... different than he remembered. He scratched his head. Oh yes! On the way here he and Carlotta had not moved in a straight line: as they were following Ashyr's sometimes twisted trail rather than heading straight to the location they eventually found her at. Which was probably a good thing, as they found themselves in a distressing part of the forest. Obviously once lusher and more vibrant than its surroundings, the dense grove around a particularly rugged bit of terrain was now diseased. It was slimy and rotting, with the stench of grasping death and decay hanging about like thick mucus. No birds sang in the trees, although there were clouds of over-sized insects swarming in the air.
Both Ashyr and Bard grew uncomfortable the closer they got to the seemingly blighted portion of the forest. "We should go around this place." The drow ranger recommended. They weren't in THAT big of a hurry to get to the town. Ashyr was bold even for a drow, but she knew how to pick her battles. Bard whined his agreement. He'd stuck uncharacteristically close to his mistress as soon as he sensed the... wrongness about this part of the forest.
"Nonsense." Selene said firmly. She looked into the insect-ridden land with an arrogant gleam in her eye.
Then they fell into an argument in their native tongue. Mostly, it was about Ashyr accusing her of trying to show off in front of Caleldir. Selene responded by throwing more general insults at her older cousin, all of which did not seem to affect her. Then they were both boasting about their respective talents. Their words had a familiarity about them, as if this was not the first and would not be the last time they had this sort of conversation. Ashyr even seemed to be enjoying herself. Selene looked as irritated with the world as ever.
To Caleldir, listening to the natural cadence of Ashyr and Selene's native tongue was very helpful, as was learning the more modern words in it. Sadly though, as amusing as listening to the two Drow argue was, Caleldir felt he had to intervene at some point. "Ladies," he said in Undercommon, his accent now matching theirs perfectly, "Perhaps it would be better to go around. If for no other reason than that the smell is getting rather intolerable." He continued in Common. "Seriously, this place stinks, and we have no idea how large it is. Let us retreat to the edge, and travel around."
The rancid stench that Caleldir spoke of had started out rather slight, enough to be easily ignored, but as they traveled it grew in potency. Disturbingly, when they stopped, it continued to get worse. Then, the forest around them started to shake and sway, and a boiling, moist wind blasted across them. "That can't be good." Caleldir observed inanely.
It was not. A few seconds later, a huge multi-armed beast larger than four bears - apparently made of rotting vegetation, decaying animals, and living insects - came crashing through the woods, roaring at them. The creature took a swipe at Caleldir, who, predictably, did not dodge, and instead flew about forty yards away into a tree.
The three women scattered when the abomination came crashing through the forest. One of them screamed. Probably Carlotta. Definitely not Selene. Nope. The next noise was of shattered glass. The human had reflexively threw a bottle of extremely potent alcohol not for drinking (everyday) at the... whatever it was. It hit something hard on the horror and sprayed its contents everywhere.
"Hope you got some fire, Selene!" Carlotta called out before ducking behind the biggest tree she could find. Usually she caught the bottle on fire herself, but in her haste she'd forgotten. It was reasonable to assume that Selene could fix that problem.
"I have fire." Selene said with a haughty grin. She motioned with her hands. Then there was an extremely uncomfortable wave of heat and flash of light. A fireball roared through the forest and into the rotted creature. It roared with such force that the dying vegetation and slimy earth around it quaked and rumbled. The blast forced it to stumble back with smouldering bits of it breaking loose from it. The abomination turned towards Selene, anger in the mass of glowing insects that made up its eyes.
