Koroko had quite a hard time believing his luck. Two weeks ago, in an odd, un-stealthy manner, he infiltrated a drow outpost and broke into the temporary home of a dark elven woman on a twisted, idiotic booty call. Much to his or honestly anyone's surprise, Koroko actually got laid, although it was in a tortuously erotic manner, and somehow managed to survive the entire ordeal. More still, the drow woman had taken a liking to Koroko. Now Arora Tisilira, who styled herself as the human's master, and himself were en route to a dwarven town named Athorven for reasons known only to the dark elf.
For a village dwelling hick like Koroko this little trek had been a real eye opener; never before had he seen such scenic mountains or magnificent valleys. The sight of the majestic, snow capped Rogoli Mountains had left the human awe struck by their natural beauty. Perhaps foolishly, Koroko wanted to traverse the mountain passes. Arora, however, wisely chose to use the dwarven tunnel through the mountain; this bypassed both the harshest of the terrain and reduced a week of travel to around a day of walking. Now the duo found themselves on the outskirts of the dwarf lands.
Koroko had grown curious about Arora's so called friend living in Athorven. All that he'd been told was that her friend was a female dwarf. He had seen dwarves, merchants mostly, in Glendall before. There were a dozen or so at any given time, proudly selling dwarven weapons and armor. However, he had noted that every single one of them had a beard; a big, bushy beard that reeked of powerful dwarven booze. Not once did he see anything resembling a woman among them. It was unlikely, he thought, that a female dwarf merchant had never visited Glendall. One of those bearded booze hounds had to have been female. Suddenly he had a vision, a vision of a female dwarf with a waist length beard. She was completely nude and covered in thick, woolly body hair. The image in his head made him shiver with fear and disgust. For a brief moment his stomach churned.
"Oh man, this is not going to be good. We'll get there and she'll be a bearded lady. I feel like throwing up just at the idea." Koroko thought to himself. The thought had festered in the back of his mind for days. If only to change the picture in his head, he asked, "Hey Arora, what kind of person is your friend?"
"Well she's pretty loud and a bit of a hard drinker. And she's pretty mean with a war hammer. Course right now she's probably so pent up that she's ready to burst," replied Arora, who was intently watching their surroundings.
'Pent up? Why?"
"Dwarves can be a fickle bunch when it comes to sex. Most of them at least," she replied.
"Oh greeeaaattt, that means not even the dwarf men will have her. She must be hideous even by their standards." Koroko thought while his stomach churned as a new, pickle-nosed visage of a dwarf woman came to mind. "I-I think I'm gonna be sick," he gagged slightly from the thought.
"There's the village." Arora said, pointing to a palisade wall-enclosed village atop a hill, "We'd better hurry. Sunset will be here soon and this is one area of dwarven territory you don't want be out in at night." Arora warned, picking up her pace slightly.
"Why's that? This place seems to be pretty safe, safer than Glendall at least." Koroko replied; he quickly scanned the landscape around them.
"Rogue orc raiders, they're pretty vicious in this area. They've been harassing the people here for years." Arora explained as they drew closer to the village, "The orcs wouldn't dare attack the dwarves' villages, but the hills are another story."
"Waaah? Wait, wait, wait! Why are there orcs here?" Koroko asked. Orcs were one of the most powerful races on the planet. They controlled a vast empire centered in the north-eastern desert, past Glendall and the frontier. In the centuries before Arizian Empire rose to power, they waged war on the other races and had enslaved tens of thousands. But in modern times, the orcs had become mere boogiemen. Generations of little contact had reduced former orcish glories to mere legend. However the threat they posed was still real.
"They're low orcs, ones from the slave castes mostly. During the old wars some of them escaped into the mountains and started living there. They lack the high orc's intelligence or finesse though, but they're still very brutal fighters," Arora explained, "But their mostly a nuisance since their numbers are low."
"T-t-that's reassuring..." Koroko stammered. He now found himself glancing over his shoulder towards the quickly encroaching shadows. After a moment of pondering, he sped up his strides.
Koroko had noted that Athorven was far smaller than Glendall. Unlike his home, Athorven's outer wall was only a palisade around ten feet high with a wooden platform behind it; a far cry from his home's fifteen foot crenellated stone walls. While a palisade was sufficient against mere low orc raiders, Koroko had his doubts that against an organized force it would take little effort to breach the town. Although there was a major difference, Glendall was a frontier town, a large one at that, while Athorven was a tiny village located near the heartland of the Arizian Empire.
Before Koroko realized it, the gate of Athorven stood in front of him, "We're here," informed Arora, "Hey! Garel, it's me Arora, open up!" she shouted at a bearded dwarf in the tower.
"Arora? Well long time no see! What brings you here?" the dwarf shouted back to her before shouting down to dwarves on the ground.
"I'm here to visit Meila, We've come to pick her up," Arora shouted back.
"Oh god, please don't say that," noted Koroko. Arora silenced Koroko with a quick jab from her elbow.
Garel turned to the dwarves below, "Open 'er up! We got a visitor." The sound of grinding wood could be heard as the crossbar was pulled off. A small clap followed before the main gate swung inwards.
"Thanks Garel." Arora waved as she passed by the tower. Despite his intense wish to be outside the village and far away from his vision of bearded dwarf women, he followed Arora inside regardless. All hope for escape slipped away as the gate closed behind them. "There's her house." Arora said, pointing to a small stone and log building next to the town square.
Koroko, who was still dreading this meeting, glanced around at the people in the village. Except for a few merchants and a few dozen mercenaries, perhaps a few travelers, most of the villagers were dwarves, all with coarse beards and stocky builds. Reality descended on the human; female dwarves really did have beards. Koroko dry heaved at the mere thought of having to sleep with such a creature.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Arora knocking on the door. "Oh shit, oh shit, we're here." Koroko panicked. To him, it felt as if he was standing at the colossal, skull-clad gates of hell, with a monstrous dwarf woman waiting to toss him in the fire and violate him with a white-hot poker, or worse.
As his dread reached its apex, the engraved wood door swung open, however to his great surprise the thing that greeted them had neither a beard nor did it carry the overpowering smell of dwarven booze. In fact, the creature in front of him looked more like a young human girl instead of the beastly bearded she-dwarf that he imagined. She spoke in a high-pitched, cute sounding voice, "Arora! You said you'd be gone a week, what the hell kept you?!"
"Hello Meila," Arora said with a slight grin, "Enjoying Athorven I take it?"
"Like hell I am!" she was shouting, loudly, "This place sucks worse than Koganusan!"
"The directions I got from that human were wrong, my mistake."
