Author's Note: Welcome back, dear audience, and apologies for the long wait. Our lighthearted misadventure begins here, though I would recommend any new readers first check out the brief prologue published a little while back. Not essential, but still. Now for the disclaimers. This story features content with dubious consent at most (and probably some offensive language). Rape is wrong. Don't do it. Everyone knows this. If you don't enjoy stories with this kind of content, don't read them and don't whine about them in the comments. All characters who engage in sexual conduct are of age. Now, on with the show.
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The day our heroines' collective fate began its drift towards the unthinkable was born much like any other. When the company awoke and broke camp it was under clear skies with the mighty sun just cresting over the Eastern horizon. As they set out the same gentle breeze that had whispered them to sleep the eve before still held sway, but that was to change within the hour. The first sign of trouble came when the distant horizon grew dark and hazy, an onrushing tempest casting a shadow over the land. From then it wasn't long before the winds began to build, slowly at first but rising ever faster. By midday the very air had been whipped into a frenzy and a seemingly boundless armada of ominous thunderheads grew closer by the minute.
Silke, the party's lightfingered thief, walked at the head of the company alongside their elf-blooded huntress Keire, the two girls typically entrusted at the vanguard as between them they could boast the sharpest eyes and ears in the party. Sharpest in this case referring to the sensitivity of their ears, of course, not the unusually pointy shape of the the huntress's. Silke, whose ears appeared perfectly normal for a human though they were quite sensitive as well, was having a particularly unpleasant time. Her choppy black hair was even wilder than normal, each and every gust rearranging it into a newer, madder pattern as the shivering young woman clutched her bare arms tight around her exposed midriff, a vain effort to stave off the wind's harsh bite.
After glancing once more towards the encroaching thunderheads, a move she had been repeating at an ever-increasing rate over the past hour, Silke finally turned towards her companion to voice those concerns they both surely shared. "How much farther is it to the next village, Keire?" Even with the scout just a few measly feet away, Silke had to raise her voice to be heard over the roaring gusts.
"I'm not sure," the archer returned her companion's grim look as she too strained to be heard. "Two miles, maybe more."
"We'll never make that in time," the thief shouted back, an undeniable hint of dread creeping into her voice at the prospect of being caught out in the kind of torrent that was due to arrive any minute. From the expression on her face it was clear the archer wasn't keen on the prospect either. Silke hadn't gotten to know Keire quite as well as she had some of the other members of their party, her fellow scout wasn't exactly the most talkative of women, but spending a good chunk of each day walking out front together had given her enough experience to read her comrade's expressions at the least. Right then the huntress's face showed more than a little worry, and if the woman who had spent more time in the wilderness than all her comrades put together was concerned, well, Silke wasn't about to question her.
"No, we won't," Keire agreed. "And it won't take a storm like that long to turn this track into a mudpit. Once that happens we might as well be crawling." Silke groaned at the prospect of being bogged down further, the sound swallowed up by the winds before it could reach even her own ears.
"Then what's the plan? Will the forest give us cover?" No sooner had the words fled Silke's mouth than her wide-eyed companion began to vigorously shake her head, the motion setting her long brown ponytail aflutter.
"No way! The forest would be suicide," the huntress shouted. "We'd still be soaked to the bone within the hour and it'll get so dark in there you can't see your nose. Even if I managed to keep us from getting lost we'd be helpless against whatever beast we stumbled across first." Silke felt herself shuddering at the thought, it certainly sounded like a nightmare. Specifically a recurring nightmare from her childhood which had always begun with her wandering lost through the woods, evolved into a terrifying chase by a monster she could never remember by the time she woke up, and then culminated in a whimsical dinner party under a dead oak tree at which her own left leg was the main course. Naturally, that was an experience she had little desire to reenact in her waking hours. Especially the dinner party. Frogs shouldn't sing, that just wasn't natural. More than a little shaken by the sudden reminder of a trauma far in her past, Silke was about to repeat her first question only for Keire to cut her off before she could, nodding emphatically towards a cluster of craggy hills they had been approaching for some time. "Our best bet is in there. Find a leeward outcropping to hide behind or, goddesses willing, some kind of cave."
"I would kill for a cave right now," Silke shouted, her fellow scout nodding in agreement. Next to the prospect of being caught out in a thunderstorm even the dingiest of caves would have seemed practically a palace. Not that she had ever minded being underground half so much as most humans seemed to. The cramped spaces and damp air were nothing compared to some of the spots she had been forced to squat growing up on the streets. And as to the dark, well, a thief does her best work at night. Burglary, pickpocketing, mugging, it all came easier when one could fade away into the darkness the moment the deed was done.
"You might have to," Keire warned. "Any cave large and dry enough for us is liable to have something gnarly living in it." There was a flash of something painful in the huntress's eyes at that warning, but Silke didn't catch it. She knew nothing about the first time her friend had been forced to take a life, that of a ragged outlaw whose den she had unwittingly sought refuge in and whose intentions towards her quickly proved anything but honourable.
"Ugh, one bridge at a time, Keire. I'm going to fall back and tell the rest of the girls to pick up the pace. Those hills look pretty far away." Silke's companion just nodded in agreement as the thief turned to walk back the way they had come. The rest of their company was clustered together some thirty paces back of the scouts, far enough that it took a few moments before they could be heard over the wind.
Estelle, the tall lady-knight who had been responsible for gathering their party, strode at the front of the pack, her face set firmly in an emotionless grimace. Silke wouldn't have said she was fond of their supposed leader, per se, but the redhead was at least more tolerable than most highborns. She didn't actively talk down to those around her and had paid half of the coin she promised up front, so she was alright in Silke's books. Not that she wouldn't still pick the woman's pocket when they parted ways.
"What's the news?" the tall redhead asked as soon as Silke was within shouting range. She never had been a particularly patient sort.
"Keire thinks we can find shelter in those hills, but we need to pick up the pace if we want to make it before the storm hits." That wasn't exactly what the huntress had said, perhaps, but a street orphan like Silke had once been learns fast that hope is a far better motivator than despair.
Estelle just nodded in acknowledgment, turning over her shoulder to glance back at the rest of the party. "You heard the lady, double time girls." That was another thing Silke had come to respect about the young noble. Most of her kind always thought they knew best. Estelle, though, trusted her comrades' judgment. She didn't seem to feel the same need as so many of her peers to instinctively question every decision made by another.
If any of the remaining trio grumbled at being told to hurry, the sound never reached Silke. Before she fell in next to Estelle, the boyish thief shared a look with her company's other redhead. Vissi's hair had fallen prey to the hectic wind same as Silke's had, but the curvy young woman didn't look half so cold as her best friend felt. Out of all our novice adventuresses it was that pair who knew one another the best, having been close since they were, well, very young. Neither girl had ever known exactly how old she was, after all. Growing up they had run with the same gang of street kids, and once they aged out of that life they had moved on together. In the years since they had remained partners in crime, literally so more often than not. Silke provided the finesse for their frequently ill-advised schemes while Vissi backed her up by way of the unpredictable arcane talents which had manifested in her from a young age. So it was only natural that when Estelle had come recruiting the two girls had signed up together, drawn in by the promise of a little fame and a lot of money.
Even with the company accelerating to a near jog, it took Silke and her comrades almost ten minutes to reach the hills Keire was leading them towards. By the time they arrived the first wave of rain had already hit, falling in sheets to soak through their clothes and packs alike. A frantic search ensued, the girls' need for shelter growing more desperate with every minute that passed.
Then they found it.
In those first few moments after rounding a bend in one of the bigger hills and laying eyes on the entrance to a large cave, Silke thought that portal beneath the earth was the most wondrous thing she had ever seen, a true answer to her prayers. If only the thief had known then what lay within the girls may well have chosen to weather the tempest out in the open. In their ignorance, though, one by one she and her comrades broke into a sprint, not coming to a stop until they were through the cave's mouth. While the others were still doubled over catching their breath and shrugging off the heavy packs they had carried all day, it was Keire who first raised an alarm.
"Um, girls? Come look at these," she called back from where she knelt some twenty paces into the cave.
Gradually, each of the huntress's traveling companions straightened up and trudged over to see what was concerning their scout. It was hardly unusual for Keire to serve as the party's voice of caution, but never before had the other five been so reluctant to heed her counsel. A mistake they, and one among them in particular, would soon live to sorely regret. Still, they weren't about to ignore her entirely so before long they were standing in a small cluster peering down at a patch of dirt that had collected in a dip in the cave floor. Perhaps three hands wide and twice as many long, the tight packed soil was covered in tracks.
"What made those?" Vissi was first to inquire, the sorceress scowling as she turned towards Keire.
"Not sure," the elf-blooded huntress murmured, her friendly face crinkled with concern. "I've... never seen their like. Three toes, moderately webbed so there's a good chance they're reptilian... Looks like some pretty wicked claws or talons... I'd say a little bigger than a dog or a wolf, judging by the size and depth of the prints."
