Disclaimer:
Everyone is over eighteen. If you are not deeply into fantasy pulp fiction, gender fluidity and pansexuality, you are in the wrong place. This chapter also features drug use as well as plenty of sex and violence. This should not be taken as encouragement to take drugs in real life. In fact, none of what Tallia does should be taken as an encouragement to action. Tallia is not a role model. So, some friendly advice -- don't charge into the maw of demon bears, consort with devil-swords or three-eyed wizards, or do drugs. Except for single malt scotch of course. Scotch rules.
BEHOLD! I, Thutmose-Neferkare, royal scribe, chief librarian and high priest of the divine Ra do return unto ye once more with the third scroll in "The Saga of Tallia the Unwilling". Alas, that I must begin this scroll by speaking unto thee, my good and faithful disciples, that I have had to put unto death some of my sub-priests for their many crimes against the gods and for, yay, being shiftless, lazy jackasses who hath greatly pissed off my most exalted self.
Why was this regrettable action necessary? They hath posted statements upon the Sacred Wall of Thoth (often going by that most despicable and deceitful of names -- anonymous) that have both besmirched the honor of myself and the accuracy of these sacred scrolls. Note well, that I have never claimed that this work is one hundred percent historically infallible. Lo, didst I not forewarn ye even before the first scroll that there art problematic claims herein? Yay, go forth and check for thine self. You will find it is so, lo, even unto the ending of the age.
But when they claimed that this work is wholly a baseless and fraudulent work of most prurient bull droppings -- they hath gone too far! Indeed, some even bespoke that these scrolls must be naught but lies because the events herein could not possibly be written down since they predate the invention of writing itself. Those people only prove themselves to be heretics who even now are being sodomized most roughly and eternally by our baboon-headed master. Yay, Oh Great Thoth, thou forgoing the use of lubricants on these varlets is most just!
Noble readers, I bid thee put these villains far from thy minds and instead focus upon enjoying this forthcoming work. I hath read the finished translation entire and found it, verily, most hot. Praise the great monkey-headed god of learning who gave unto us all that is required to scribe upon papyrus tales most righteous and raunchy.
Yay, let them be written! Yay, let us be done!
Chapter Three: Hot, Risky Threesomes
Diagoras moved slowly up the stairs of the old ruin to the high tower where his master Arion Three-Eyes had made his private sanctum. This was the very heart of Arion's lair and soon to be the center of his newborn empire, or so his master claimed. The ascension was slow and painful. Like everyone in Arion's service for any length of time, Diagoras was no longer entirely human and he walked with a painful limp and hunched back upon cloven feet. His bald and leathery head was almost scaled sported a long white beard and was dominated by a pair of goat's horns. He entered the chamber of his master and finally dared speak. He bowed and averted his eyes, not daring to meet the gaze of the wizard.
"Your most ghastly and gargantuan grandiosity, I bear news," he groveled.
The wizard did not bother to turn towards his major domo and continued his work carefully, reducing and distilling some horrid concoction in a seething alembic. Arion Three-Eyes was a tall, bald man with high cheekbones and a hawkish nose. His demeanor, his countenance and his every manner spoke of old nobility used to being obeyed. His dress was simple and yet exquisite -- he wore only a black silk robe adorned with intricately tangled serpents of vibrant green brocade that struck out from the bottom hem. That was his only visible garment save for a simple sash and the occasional glimpse of his low boots as he paced about his horrific laboratory. And of course in the center of his forehead was a single closed third eye. "I am busy, Diagoras. My research has reached a critical phase. This had better be most important. You come perilously close with each passing second to wasting my time."
Diagoras was of course nervous talking to the wizard even after all this time. Such conversations could always go terribly wrong and result in pain or, worse, transformation. But he also recognized that this particular threat was not actually a threat. This was just Arion's manner of small talk. When Arion casually threatened your life, it was his way of showing that he cared.
"Forgive me, your most awful and exquisite omnipotence. Our spies in Jiu Shan have reported a girl with golden hair who asked the village elder about you most specifically, my most ruthless and resplendent ruler."
Arion paused. "Golden hair, you say? A foreigner in Jiu Shan -- most unusual. Did she give a name?"
"Leah or Liadora -- something like that, my most loathsome and loquacious lordship."
"Liandra!" exclaimed the wizard. "A name from the old kingdom -- no doubt! That must be one of those ridiculous sluts from the Temple of Love. So, they think to hunt me, do they? Fools! The best thing I ever did was abandon their decrepit realm and its frail, foolish king."
Diagoras, the sole servant who had been with Arion long enough to recall the time before their journey to his remote and ruined fortress, did not quite remember the events of that time that way, but who was he to correct the words of his master? Regardless, contradicting Arion was not a good long term survival strategy.
"Is she still there? Is she in the village?" asked the wizard, suddenly much more interested.
"No, my most terrific and terrifying tutelary. She sailed downriver towards Denggang supposedly to hire sell-swords."
