Trc - Lord of the Glass Desert

When Tanner began screaming at her, Perra called for an open council meeting at the Inn, which was quickly seconded by Jurien and Telsin's blacksmith, Orin. She thought it strange as Orin rarely spoke up unless it was about something concerning his forge. He usually followed the Town Council's consensus and went about his day. However, his relative silence made Tanner and the other councilmembers take notice when he spoke up.

Ellis wasn't comfortable having Silma inside his Inn and refused them entry until Perra promised she or Kal would rebuild it twice as big if the salamander burned it down. Rolling her eyes at the innkeeper, Perra quickly agreed to his demand and pulled Silma over to the stone pad in front of the fireplace, grabbing a chair on the way.

When constructing the Inn, Ellis installed an oversized, semi-circular hearthstone to act as a makeshift stage for minstrels and entertainers. He designed it taller than necessary, even adding a small step around the edge, and the performers loved that the Inn's patrons could easily view their acts. For the hearth's foundation, Ellis shipped in a porous rock that floated in water and layered it with mortar around some solid support stones. He claimed it helped the hearthstone keep the fireplace's heat and made it easier to maintain the dining area's temperature on cold winter nights.

"Would you like a chair as well?" Perra asked the salamander.

Silma glanced behind her and flicked her tail before looking skeptically at the narrow space in the chair's back for her tail to fit through. "Thanks, but no."

The monster girl took up a post in front of the fireplace as the horde of humans filed in. Leaning her back against the warm stone, she appeared unconcerned that her tail rested in the flickering coals as she stared down the room full of people. Though it was clear they were uncomfortable around her, she quickly realized she was not the focus of this gathering.

Nearly the entire town turned out for what sounded like the trial of Master Kal, Lady Perra, and a dangerous monster girl. The seats quickly filled, and standing room dwindled as people continued pouring in. When the first floor couldn't handle any more occupants, residents climbed the stairs and watched from the second-floor walkway, which overlooked the main room. Master Ellis then had to yell at those upstairs to stop leaning on the railing before it broke and dumped them onto the people below. Telsin's Inn had never been so packed before.

Elta and the Town Council took up seats at the front of the crowd, so Perra angled her chair to easily talk with them and Silma. "You said you have a child with Kal," she asked the salamander. "Where is she? I'm trying to remember exactly, but she must be around two years old."

"Firo is far away, hunting," Silma replied to gasps from the crowd. "Before you speak, on the way here, I learned that salamander children are very different from humans. She is about so tall," murmurs of disbelief ran through the townsfolk as she held out a hand showing her daughter's height, "and hatched with some of my knowledge. With me gone, she is the most dangerous creature in the magma sea near my old home."

"Magma?" someone in the crowd asked.

"Melted rock," Perra replied. "It's like water to fire salamanders." Turning back to Silma, she asked, "Why did you leave her? Even if she's the size you say and has some of your knowledge, she's still only two."

"We aren't given a choice like you humans. A growing salamander's appetite is a terrible thing to behold, and while teaching her to hunt, I must eat the same food. Had I stayed, we would have run out of prey and starved to death before she reached adulthood and developed a stomach for surface food. When her hunger outstripped my own, I experienced a strong desire to get away from her. Do you have a child?"

Perra nodded, "Firo's half-brother, Talin." Another low murmur ran through the crowd at the blatant admission of their children's shared lineage, punctuated by a few snorts of disgust.

Silma smiled, "I don't know why that makes me so happy. Imagine for a moment Talin held in the jaws of some terrible surface beast, and it's about to bite down."

"That's awful!" cried Perra as tears sprang to her eyes from the thought. Around the room, many of the town's women mirrored her outburst.

"That is the feeling, only stronger. A sense of impending dread that your presence will kill your child and the only way to make it go away is to get far away from them. That is what drove me away. But enough about me, where is Kal and Ikuno?"

"Ikuno is... sort of dead, and Kal has gone off to fetch her."

"I believed death to be permanent. How can someone be 'sort of' dead?"

"That's a long story, I will explain late—"

"Who is Ikuno? Another of Kal's whores?" spat Tanner. At some point, his expression reverted to its typical scowl as he sat and listened to the conversation between Perra and Silma, but his attitude had not improved.

Silma answered before Perra could stop her, "The blue-skinned oni who has been protecting the pass north of Uvu... Uvo..."

"Uvelo?" offered Perra, sighing in resignation as scandalized whispers ran across the room, and several people wondered aloud what an "oni" was. Twice now, she hadn't been able to stop Silma from revealing closely guarded knowledge about her and Kal's lives. Reaching into her pocket, she ran a thumb over her pendant. Perra felt naked without it, and the temptation to put it on bordered on compulsion. Taking it off on the way to the Inn was a difficult choice, but she knew she couldn't have its ability to sway people's opinions weighing on her conscience.

"That's the place," said Silma. "She's been protecting the pass north of Uvelo, and it sounded like Ikuno is another of Kal's lovers, or so it seemed when they visited. By chance, does Firo have any blue-skinned half-siblings?"

"Her kind can't have children with humans," said Perra. Rubbing her face, she scanned the crowd and muttered, "At this rate, the whole town will know every woman Kal has been with." Looking at Tanner, she explained, "Ikuno is the one who rescued me from a," her eyes flicked to Elta sitting just to the right of the councilmen, "overzealous gentleman who ignored me when I said, "No." She delivered me from my scum of a brother to Kal and Merantha, and Ikuno gave Kal the money for the potion allowing Mera to live as long as she did."

"I remember that day," said Jurien. "I didn't see the boy that happy again until little Talin was born. I heard Mera sat him down and made him swear up and down he didn't knock over some rich guy to afford it. I imagine we don't need to imagine what he did for the money," the man chuckled.

Perra noted that short laughs of amusement drowned out the sounds of disgust in the crowd as the apothecary's inference sunk in.

"Ikuno did more than that. She avenged those who died to the werewolf who took Kal's father and grandparents." Many of the adult men in Telsin back then were part of the posse who discovered the grizzly remains of Kal's kin. A couple of them let out a small cheer at the news before being shushed by those standing nearby. "The story isn't mine to tell, but her kind is very long-lived, and she is part of the reason Kal was born. I'm certain that there are a few people here," her gaze alighted briefly on Ellis, and his son Jasem who sat in his mother's arms staring wide-eyed at all the people around them, "who wouldn't be here, were it not for Ikuno."

"She did something to let Mera get pregnant, didn't she," said Jurien's wife, Nina. "That poor girl tried everything possible with no luck, from my tonics and Jurien's herbs to watching the phases of the moon. After all that effort, I believed the girl barren until she arrived in town pregnant."

"As I said, that's not my story to tell," said Perra. That woman's mind was far too quick at times.

"One good apple doesn't save the orchard from rust," grumped Tanner.

"When was the last time we received news of a bandit raid on the western road, Chairman?" she asked.

Stumped, Tanner looked over at the captain of their largely unused town guard.

"The Western road? Not since last year that I can think of," said the man. "Which is odd now that I think of it. Uvelo always took the brunt of ruffians coming through the mountain pass, but we had to deal with those coming from the capital."

"Exactly," said Perra. "Not long after Kal first set out, he rescued a wolf and some dog-girls from slavers. Half stayed in the woods near where they were rescued, while the rest came back here and set up their territory west of Telsin. Any bandits have to make it through them before they can threaten us."

Luckily, Telsin's distance from the capital and relative poverty protected them from most raiders over the years. But Perra knew the town's growth had caught the eye of at least a few bandits as the marauders Dax and her pack dealt with became more frequent. Soon the groups would be too large for the canine women to handle on their own.

"And how many mongrel children does Kal have with them?" sneered the Master Tailor.

"Is that relevant?" said Elta, drawing surprised looks from many in the room. "She just told you these women have been silently protecting us for the past year. What does it matter if every one of them has a pup with him?"

"Who is 'Lina?" someone called out from the crowd. Perra recognized him as the rider sent to fetch her and Elta earlier. "I thought I misheard you, and it was miss Nina watching your boy. But she's here, so who is 'Lina?"

"Alina is one of the dog-girls in the pack I spoke of."

"AND YOU TRUST HER WITH YOUR BABY?!" a woman shrieked.

Perra leveled an even glare at the woman, "More than I trust most of the people in this room. Alina would give her life to keep Talin from harm, as would any of Dax's pack."

"What does the Revered Mother have to say about all of this?" asked Tanner.

Elta looked over at Perra, "Perhaps a better question is why Lady Perra is telling us all of this?"

"The people of this town deserve to make an informed decision, so I'm laying it all out here."

"Since we are doing that," came a low rumbling voice from the Inn's counter. "My mother is a quarter giant," said Bren, standing up and towering over everyone assembled. "That's right, you've been living with monster-kin this whole time."

"But you're a man!" several people yelled.

"Damn straight 'e is!" Kahrin called out in response. Bren's massive hand on her shoulder stopped her from saying more.

"Master Kal wishes to find out how a monster girl had a son when his errand is finished, but he believes it's because giants are just very large humans. That closeness gives them a chance to make a half-breed, like my Mother, Gran, and me," explained the Inn's strongman.

"Is he going to change the monster girls so they can have... uh... monster boys?" another called out, but Bren and Perra were both shaking their heads.

"No," said Bren, "in fact, he is very against the idea of making more monster-kin like me."

"That's all fine and good, but our Revered Mother still hasn't answered the question," said Tanner. "What does the church have to say about living side by side with demons?"

"Demons?" Silma looked over at Perra, frowning. "Humans really think we're demons?"

"Wait," said Perra, holding up a hand as Elta got to her feet and climbed onto the stone stage.

Instead of speaking, the cleric pulled a rod out of her robes. A click of the small oval button on the rod's side and white leather strips sprouted from the end, turning it into a lash and making the people next to the stage step back in momentary fear. A second click and the strips fanned out before braiding themselves into her staff. After casting a telekinesis spell, which Perra thought was odd as the cleric never used or mentioned having such a spell before, she held the staff in front of her and spun it, using the cantrip to keep it floating and maintain its motion. The entire town looked on as she used a finger to trace glyphs and sigils that appeared on the side of the twirling weapon facing the crowd.

Besides thinking it strange to see Elta drawing out a spell, instead of casting it from her hand like usual, Perra noticed subtle differences between Kal and Elta's techniques. The glow as Kal drew spells followed the tip of his finger or the point of a mana crystal. However, Elta traced a single glyph that passed through the spinning staff and filled entire sections of the large spell with more complex runes. She also noted the spell pulsed each time the staff passed by an area of the circle, then slowly faded until the staff's next pass. Perra smiled, thinking about Kal's reaction to seeing this new technique.

Once finished, the cleric looked over the magic circle a final time, then stepped aside as the staff and spell swung backwards and up. Stepping beneath the spell, Elta reached up and touched it. The rune-filled circle pulsed and burst outward, bathing the occupants of the room in a golden glow as the cleric's staff fell, clattering on the stone by her feet.

Perra looked down and watched as the glow surrounding her lightened and changed to green.

"Elta!" she hissed, "What are you—"

"Silence, Lady Perra," said the cleric. "You will understand in a moment. Ladies and gentleman, the glow will not harm you but is important for what I am about to say."

Taken aback, Perra couldn't remember the last time Elta spoke to her in such a manner.

"Many in the clergy are having dreams," she said, squatting down and picking up her staff. Pressing the button on the rod portion, she frowned as nothing happened, indicating she spent all the staff's magic casting the spell. It would be little more than a walking stick until tomorrow. Holding out a hand, Elta cast another spell, "The dream is the same for all of us." The illusion forming next to Elta seemed drastically out of place to Perra, even more than the telekinesis spell she used earlier. "A faceless, golden-haired woman wielding a flaming sword stands atop the shoulders of a dark, hooded man," the cleric continued, the images appearing in the illusion as she described them. "An army of women stretches into the distance behind them, each holding an animal, plant, rocks, flames. Every combination of monster girl you have ever heard of and many you have not can be found in the horde following them."

The crowd stared in awe at the image forming within the illusion, matching Elta's description. Those on the side of the large hearthstone made room for others to move over and see it for themselves.

"These dreams are creating a schism within the church. Even if they don't particularly like it, those whose minds are open to change have these dreams while the clergy who cling to their hatred of monster girls have not. That rift grows wider by the day in Lantaris. It breeds hatred toward those who have had the dream while fear grows among those who have not, believing they have lost the Goddess's favor."

"But the church said they were demons," a man called out.

"Yes, the church did. But if you look at the Goddess's sacred texts, she never says monster girls are demons, only that they are unnatural. Kal discovered the first generation of monster girls to appear across the world were created by magic, not born into the world.

"However, a thousand years later, we can no longer say they are unnatural. In that time, they have settled lands, created communities, and found their place within the natural order. The Goddess understands that monster girls are not going away. Even if every one of her followers took up a mighty crusade, we could never hope to wipe them all out." Elta took a steadying breath, "After getting to know the women who associate with Kal and Perra, I think the world would be a poorer place if we did."

A woman shoved her way through the crowd and ran up to the stone stage. "My husband was taken by one of those things!" she shouted, pointing at Silma. "He died trying to escape and come home!"

"The road must be walked by both sides," said Perra. "Many men and families have been hurt by monster girl's actions. I won't say all monster girl attacks have been out of desperation, but when that desperation is passed down from generation to generation, it turns into callousness and uncaring when dealing with prospective 'husbands.' Just as we human women need to learn to accept monster girls and their quirks, people like me, Kal, Elta, and others like us must help monster girls to unlearn their disregard for a potential mate's wishes."

"If it's okay for men to sleep with them, how are we supposed to compete when they spread their legs to a man at the hint of a stiff breeze?" another woman called out.

Perra chuckled before answering. Most of the monster girls she knew were exactly as the lady described, though it was only for Kal. "Monster girls need you, need us. Without human males, there are no more monster girls. Without human females, there are no more males. Most monster girls already understand this and don't mind sharing a man as long as they have some assurance of a future daughter."

"Is that why your farmhands aren't prowling the town for wives? They're too busy fucking a bunch of mutts instead?" snarled Tanner.

"No, they are both in relationships with harpies, as are Kal and I. If any single women are interested in forming a triad, come visit my farm."

"And share my man with a bird? Hell no!" Despite the lady's vehement declaration, several of the younger women in the crowd wore expressions of interest. Telsin's population growth mainly consisted of older married couples with a daughter or two in tow. The sons often struck out on their own path instead of moving with their parents. The surplus of younger single women in the town made competition for eligible bachelors fierce. Perra could not have pulled off her 'second son' idea when hiring the farmhands in today's Telsin.

"YOU slept with a monster girl?!" said Tanner as his face began turning red again.

"Many times," she answered with a flat tone and sober expression that left no room for the Council Chairman's opinions. "I'm not ashamed of it any more than Kahrin is ashamed of bedding Bren, and neither should anyone else be." Perra shifted in her chair. Talin missed his midday meal because of all the commotion, and she felt her back twinge from the weight of her milk-heavy breasts. "As mentioned earlier, monster girls are not demons. Along Kal's journey, he discovered all their human characteristics were copied from female adventurers the creator encountered."

"How do we know if you're telling the truth? You could just as easily be filling our heads full of horseshit just so we'll accept these demons." The people around Tanner gasped and backed away from him as the green glow surrounding him turned yellow.

"You're showing your hand, Chairman," said Perra with a smirk. "Even you don't believe what you just said."

"What! How dare you—!"

"Lady Perra!" Elta called out, silencing Tanner and getting everyone's attention. "The sky is purple."

The crowd gasped again as the glow surrounding the cleric turned yellow, similar to Tanner's aura, which was already reverting back to green.

Perra smiled and called out, "Kahrin hates Bren." The glow around her immediately flickered to yellow as well.

"Like bloody fuckin' hell I do!" shouted the barmaid, looking pissed.

Bren chuckled and rested a hand on the hot-headed woman's shoulder. "Peace, Kahrin," he rumbled, "the priestess cast a lie detection spell." He looked at the woman standing at his side opposite Kahrin with massive breasts and said, "Deenah has tiny tits." As the server squeaked with indignation and held a serving tray in front of her chest, Bren's green glow changed to yellow like Perra and Elta's.