Once the carriage had come to a stop, Irelk got out, took a brief moment to scan the area - which was only party to about a dozen nobles of Kly Nocc - then strode inside the villa, Nyyra a respectful step behind and to his left. The cold wasn't bothersome - neither to Irelk in his comfortable tunic, trousers, and boots; nor to Nyyra, in her shortly-cropped, loose top, knee-length skirt, and sandals - but rather Irelk's impatience drove him indoors.
The villa was of a rather standard construction, with a hexagonal doughnut shape around an open-air atrium, which doubled as a garden and a meeting place. Irelk made his way directly to the atrium, ignoring the slaves in the vestibule and main hallway who were offering food, drink, and oral relief. There he found that a small stage had been constructed, and noted with a small hint of concern that there seemed to be more guards than usual surrounding the place, though they kept mainly out of sight behind the arch pillars of the walkway surrounding the atrium.
After making another brief scan, Irelk beckoned a slave to him with a quick crook of his finger, then took a delicate glass of wine from the tray strapped to her waist and supported by delicate chains connected to rings in her nipples. Her arms were tightly bound behind her back in an armbinder, and a bit gag wrenched her jaw open. The slave herself was a blonde, pretty human with sea-blue eyes that darted between his face and the floor fearfully.
Irelk was about to dismiss the slave when he noted that her collar had a pair of gently-glowing gems inlaid - one a soft pink, the other lightning blue. Smiling, he reached out and gently tapped the pink one three times, causing it to brighten three times, then tapped the blue one once. A soft whimper escaped around the slave's gag as her hips twitched, a faint pulse of magic traveling from the two gems down towards the girl's cunt, which was hidden behind a leather strap connected to her armbinder in the back and to her collar in the front. Only then did Irelk dismiss the slave.
"Most generous, Kheol," Nyyra commented softly, her voice not carrying past Irelk's ears.
The Zathauin grunted. "Pleasure in enough quantity is hardly a gift, as you well know. And for as fresh a slave as she was, the pain mixed in with the pleasure will be enough to see her keep diligent."
"I was not referring to you providing her with three times the pleasure as pain, Kheol," Nyyra replied in amusement. "I was referring to you providing her with any pleasure and leaving it on."
Irelk's carefully-schooled expression of boredom slipped up for a second as he glared around at his fellow elven nobles. "Few of my compatriots are likely to provide her with any just reward, and what pleasure I gave her should help to keep her out of trouble. The lash without a potential treat is a lash wasted."
The two fell silent, and passed the next several minutes in quiet, subtle observation. Among the Zathauin nobility, insults - real or imagined - were often responded to poorly, with poison, a word in the wrong ear, or a knife in the dark. And watching too closely was usually perceived as an insult or threat. Therefore, everyone among the nobility learned from an early age how to watch without looking. A 'casual' glance around the room that soaked in every detail. Reading every little clue that peripheral vision could provide.
Irelk was interested to see that nobody else present of the twenty-or-so nobles seemed to know what, exactly, Shuldre had planned. While the average noble had a bit more control of themselves than Irelk did, he caught more than one casting concerned glances towards the stage, or covertly eyeing the too-numerous guards
If Nyyra heard right,
the Zathauin mused,
and Shuldre did in fact empty an entire cell of slaves - so, something between one and two dozen - that would explain the extra guards.
He made another quick scan of the atrium, pausing for a brief moment in surprise when he saw...
"She's here," he murmured, snapping his attention to his nearly-untouched wine glass. Insulting any given Zathauin noble would be bad. Insulting
Dutchess Nokhes
at her own party would be fatal. Painfully fatal. Or a good way to end up as a slave, the rest of one's family either dead, exiled, or also in slavery.
Watch as the Dutchess of Nocc strolled through the atrium from the corner of his eye - as every other noble did - Irelk took a moment to appreciate the bitch's beauty. Pale violet skin; thick, silky calf-length midnight blue hair, held back from falling in front of her eyes by an ostentatious circlet; and piercing red eyes were her defining traits, along with perfectly angular, noble, elven features, though she was unusually petite, her lithe body nearly two feet shorter than most Zathauin women, but she was rather generously proportioned for such a small woman.
Most striking of all - though hardly surprising, given the bitch's personality - was that she was appearing in her battle garb, which consisted of very little physically: a severe black line of metal that rested around her hips as a belt, with two tendrils reaching up asymmetrically to wrap around and cup her voluptuous breasts, the end of each tendril just barely covering her nipples. Another two tendrils wrapped down her legs, though they trailed off at her ankles. Two dark red cloth panels were draped from the belt portion to give some slight modesty, though neither reached her knees.
The entire outfit was a statement, besides being actually effective at protecting the Dutchess. It was likely that she had enchanted it herself, and it was rumored that Shuldre Nokhes was a prodigy enchantress, even among Alth; and all elves stood head and shoulders - and often even chests and waists - above all other races when it came to enchanting. The fact that Shuldre wore her scant metal 'armor' into battle, and was better protected than a dwarf in full mithril plate behind a tower shield was a compliment to her prowess as an enchanter.
The conversations in the atrium continued as the Dutchess slowly made her way to and up the stage, though every noble present was aware of their host's arrival. When she wanted their attention, she would have it, but before then it would be beyond rude to think to disturb one's better without a matter of exceeding importance.
Luckily - as far as Irelk was concerned - the wait was rather short. Only a few seconds after she had taken her place on stage, flanked by a pair of her slightly less scantily-clad guardswomen, Shuldre spoke. All other conversations instantly ceased the moment her voice was heard. "Noble Zathauin, this event will be rather unlike any you have attended in recent memory. In fact, such an event has not been held for several centuries, much to my dismay."
Shuldre paused for a moment, allowing a wave of silent confusion to spread through the gathered nobles. "You see," she continued, "what I have planned for today is, I believe, something that truly demonstrates what we are, fellow Zathauin." With a grin, she gestured to one side, and everyone turned to see nearly two dozen emaciated, dirty, rag-wearing or nude slaves trundle into the atrium, herded onto the stage by a number of guards. "Today we shall be holding a slave hunt!"
Polite, if hesitant, applause greeted Dutchess Nokhes's proclamation, along with confused, soft murmuring. She basked for a moment before turning to the slaves, selecting one at random, and yanking her - a totally nude wood elf female - forward by her hair, the Dutchess' grip twisted to force the girl into an arched position with her neck wrenched back. "We have here twenty-one unbroken, untrained slaves of all sorts; simple humans, sturdy dwarves, our Aulithir and Vaulari cousins," she gestured to the slave she was currently holding, "and if you've a keen eye, perhaps one or two more... exotic specimens."
Irelk did a quick scan of the slaves - and saw a reptilian Izaril, a feline Thrikt, and even what looked to be a cambion - but what had caught his eye right away was the Vaulari that Shuldre had pulled forward on display. The girl was somehow even shorter than Shuldre by an inch or two, though given her emaciated state Irelk couldn't tell if her petite frame was genuine or just evidence of malnourishment. Her dusky green-blue hair was knotted and unkempt, and her pale green skin smudged with dirt, but she was still incredibly striking despite her sorry state.
Further remarkable was her Vaula - her Mark of the Forest. She had three, in fact: a small crown of stag-like antlers atop her head, each only about six inches long from base to the furthest tip; a doe's tail poking out from behind her ass; and furred, digitigrade and hooved legs, starting at her mid-thigh.
"The rules of the hunt are simple," Shuldre continued, pulling Irelk's attention away from the small Vaulari. "We shall release these slaves into the forest, with vague directions to the nearest non-Zathauin settlement. After an hour, you honored few of Kly Nocc's greatest houses will be free to give chase, and do whatever you wish with whichever slaves you catch. Anything... at... all. The hunt itself can be carried out using anything short of direct scrying magic."
More murmuring, but this time it sounded approving, and the applause, while still polite, was much more enthusiastic. Even Irelk, disproving as he was of his fellow noble's likely intents to needlessly torture whichever slaves they caught, found himself anticipating the hunt. His gaze was fastened to the Vaulari, still caught in Shuldre's grasp. He watched, jaw clenching, as the Dutchess grinned maliciously at the slave, then sensuously leaned in and slowly licked the girl's neck before shoving her back into the group of slaves. She then jerked her chin at the guards. "Take them to the forest's edge, and give them their directions in their crude languages. The time starts once they've been released."
The guards nodded, then herded the slaves out of the atrium. The nobles watched, and Irelk knew that, like himself, they were all picking out their favored prey. And he knew - and feared - that
his
favored prey was likely the prize of the hunt, even if it was only because Shuldre randomly chose her as the display piece, at least partially.
Once the slaves were gone and Dutchess Nokhes had descended from the stage, muted conversations began throughout the room, the current of eager anticipation stark. Irelk glanced around for the nearest unoccupied slave, then waved him over. "The villa has magical chambers available for noble use, correct?" he asked. The slave nodded demurely in response. "Lead me to the nearest one," Irelk commanded, then followed as the slave swiftly walked towards one of the exits from the atrium. Less than a minute later they stopped outside a door in the wraparound indoor hallway.