Warloc

A quiet ride through the woods... while arboreal creatures glide from tree to tree overhead and their senses are dulled by boredom.

This chapter's fun, I promise, even if there's no sex in it. Story / character building time. Give it a shot!

*

John knelt beside Corsa and gently nudged her shoulder. She murmured in her sleep but did not rouse. He tried again, a little firmer, and called her name, "Lady Corsa, the sun is up. Jennaca made you something to eat."

Corsa blinked her eyes open and peered up at John. Even with her eyes open she looked tired. Last night had been too much. Or rather, he'd taken too much from her. She stretched and yawned, her mouth opening to show her mutilated stub of a tongue.

Corsa's eyes widened and she clamped a hand over her mouth, realizing what she'd done. John smiled and made no mention of it. "Good morning," he tried again. "Jennaca found some eggs this morning. I'm not sure what they came from, certainly not chickens, but they're good."

Corsa looked down to the plank of wood that had been repurposed as a plate. She frowned and looked up at John.

"Yes, you're hiding spot is no more. We tore it down. I suppose if I'm going to be traveling with so many people we need some basic supplies. I've never had to worry about the logistics of traveling with a group. At least not a group like this... and with me in charge to handle such things."

Corse pressed her lips together and let out a sigh through her nose.

"What's wrong?" John asked.

Corsa touched her thumb to her chest and then gestured at the simple breakfast.

"You were tired. Remember how my powers work... you've heard me talk about them, right? Well, I take some of your energy when you... enjoy yourself. And you did enjoy yourself last night."

She grinned at the memory even though she blushed. She rubbed her tummy as well.

John chuckled. "Yes, but that's not a proper meal."

She snorted.

"You... um... I'm sorry my lady, but I can't help but wonder, did you have someone special before? A lover or... well, I know you were promised to the merchant from Carvin, were you—"

She shook her head and glanced around. Finally she reached into her dress and pulled out the dagger John had given her. She added her own small knife and struck them lightly against each other a few times.

"You were a fighter?"

She shook her head and pointed at him and then at Artesia where she was hooking Germaine up to the wagon. Then she struck her daggers together again.

John frowned and shook his head. She looked frustrated and looked to the ground. She took her dagger and scratched out a word, "Training."

"Oh! Of course. Artesia trains me... I... oh sweet fans of Ryzen," John breathed. "You were trained in the arts of pleasure?"

She hesitated and then nodded.

"I felt... I mean, I knew bad things had happened to you. Horrors, even, but I didn't know what they were. I felt them when we were joined... felt them in your soul, I mean. There is no physical mark of the scars you carry. Well... other than what the queen did to you."

She smiled and dropped her eyes. A tear started to roll down her cheek but John swept it away with his hand and leaned in to kiss her on the forehead. "I will do right by you, I swear it... as right as my Mistress allows. I cannot be true to you, this you know, but I will make sure you never face such cruelties again."

She nodded and blinked away more tears. She smiled and hugged him. Her palm went to her chest when she let go, her sign for saying thank you.

"I wish I'd known sooner," John said. "Before we left Khalas. I'd have found a way into the King's chambers and slain him myself. The Queen too, for what she did to you."

Corsa's eyes widened. She shook her head and pleaded with her eyes.

John smiled. "All right, I won't kill them. They deserve it a thousand times over, but for you, I won't mention it again."

She smiled and nodded.

"All right, eat up, my lady, we need to move out. I spoke with my Mistress last night and she is still expecting me at Dilly."

She nodded and picked up the plank and the crude carved wooden fork. She smiled at him again and began to eat.

John rose and looked to see how else he could help. Artesia was finishing with Germaine and the wagon was loaded. There was nothing to do but wait. Corsa inhaled the eggs and packed up her bedroll in short order. She gave Sasha a scratch between the ears, earning a yawn and a stretch from the giant cat, and then stood ready.

"Walking again?" John asked.

Lady Corsa nodded and smiled.

"We've been talking," Jennaca said.

"Talking? How?" John asked.

"She can talk, you just need to learn how to listen," Jennaca said.

Corsa blushed and looked down.

"Oh, don't do that. He'll need to learn too," Jennaca said.

"Learn how to listen?"

Jennaca grinned. "With your eyes. I'm teaching her what I know from the rangers of Altonia of hand signals. We've been expanding it to make a proper language out of it."

John scowled.

Jennaca's brow furrowed. "Don't you want her to talk?"

"Yes, I do," John said. "I told her before that I knew there were unspoken languages like that and I'd find more about it and teach her one."

"Oh...well... I suppose you did, in a way."

"Hmm, I suppose you're right."

"But let's be off, we have far to go."

"Yes, that we do," John agreed and climbed up onto the bench. He slid over to make room for Artesia and nearly bumped into Zynga. "Ready for another day?" he asked the imp.

"It's a bit dull, but I suppose a little dullness between adventures is to be expected," she said. "Then again, I feed better when times are dull."

"Feed better?" John asked and then he remembered his time spent communing with Beytrixxa last night.

"What, you don't remember?"

He blushed. "I remember. I thought that might not happen, what with spending myself with Lady Corsa so recently."

Zynga snorted. "Mistress could arouse a long dead matron mother of that saint of oaths if she put her mind to it."

John chuckled. "Yes, she has an undeniable allure about her," he admitted. Last night he'd given her his recounting of the past couple of days and gathered that she was pleased with how he'd bedded all of his companions except Artesia. She was most interested in Jennaca and asked him questions about her before her talk turned to Dilly and the mysterious Jaspara he needed to find and convert to her cause. At the end of their extra-planar conference she stroked him and slid a finger up his arse. She touched a spot inside of him that turned his mind and body to mush. A few strokes later he came undone in her hands and fell into darkness while his body on this plane pulsed out a reward for Zynga.

John shifted in his seat. He wasn't sore in the least from her invasion of his bottom, but the memory of it brought a heat to his cheeks.

"You liked that, did you?"

"What? No— I—"

Zynga cackled. "It doesn't mean anything, Master. Mistress knows pleasure better than any. How to give it and how to deny it."

John grunted.

"You desire women, yes?"

"Of course!" John said.

"And men?"

"No!" he snapped. He paused and took a breath, knowing that while Zynga tormented him every chance she had. That meant he didn't need to torment and lie to himself. He considered her question honestly and then smiled. "No, I do not."

Zynga scowled. "Damn, you actually thought about it and meant that."

"I did."

"You're not very much fun."

John chuckled. "Not sorry to disappoint you."

She stuck her tongue out at him.

John chuckled and turned to fetch one of his books from his chest. He opened it and glanced at Artesia. She kept her eyes moving from Germaine to the forest ahead of them and around. Jennaca and Corsa were ahead of the wagon, the scantily clad woman leading them between trees and across solid ground while they talked and gestured to one another. Sasha bounded through the forest around them. Appearing and disappearing almost on a whim.

"I think this is overdue," John said to the former bandit.

"What's that, my lord?"

John nudged the book. "You can't drive and read so I'll have to begin by discussing magical concepts and theory."

She snorted.

"I thought you want to learn this."

She hesitated before nodding. "I do," she said. "I didn't think it through. I didn't realize there were books involved in it."

Zynga giggled under her breath.

"I can teach you to read," John said.

"I can read," she snapped. She let her statement stand for a moment before adding, "Well enough."

John looked down at the spell book and nodded. "Well, we'll come to that soon enough. Reading magical texts is not like normal reading anyhow. Do you know your letters and numbers?"

"Yes, of course."

He smiled. "Good, there won't be any problems then."

She risked a glance at the book and then at him. "There won't be?"

"Trust me, there will be plenty of things that frustrate you about magic long before you worry about reading."

She lifted and eyebrow and then nodded. "All right."

"Remember, anyone can learn magic like this... anyone that can understand the concepts and order their thoughts as needed."

"Okay."

He studied her and then smiled. He shut the book but left it in his lap. "Let's start with magic... what do you think it is?"

"It's... magic," she said. "You do whatever you do and that makes things happen. I don't know, if I did I wouldn't need to be taught."

"That's fair," John agreed as her voice grew tighter. "I'm not trying to tease you or make you feel small. Magic isn't naturally of this world. It exists outside of this realm. Outside of all realms, truly. It is everywhere, but it's nowhere."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Frustrating, isn't it?" he chuckled.

She glanced his way to make sure he wasn't poking fun at her and then shared a ghost of a smile.

"By itself, magic is nothing. It's energy and matter and... stuff. It can be anything, but by itself it is nothing. To make it do something a wizard must show it how. There's where spells become necessary. Magic cannot be used without a spell."

"Wrong," Zynga sang.

John sighed. "Okay, my obnoxious familiar is correct, magic can be used without a spell, but only for beings that have magical abilities. In truth, they have spells worked into their beings allowing them to call on and use magic. A wizard is unable to use magic without a spell."

Zynga shrugged when he glared at her.

"Okay," Artesia said. "Not so hard yet."

John smiled. "Good. Let's talk about spell forms and the variations needed to alter effect, target, duration, range, type, intensity, volume, and perhaps a few others I'm forgetting without consulting my notes."

Artesia's eyes widened. "All that?"

"And more."

She let out a sigh. "Okay. I've nothing better to do anyhow."

John chuckled. "First there's the pattern needed to open a connection to the magic so we can pull it into our spell..."

Artesia listened as John droned on and on. Zynga went from interested to bored in seconds. From being bored she eventually lost interest entirely and began to look around. She spied small creatures hiding in the leaves of the palm and fig trees. They weren't much smaller than her but had pinched faces like rodents. Long tails wrapped around branches and trunks. Their hind legs were short and ended in claws while their forelimbs were longer. Furry flaps of skin stretched from the wrists to their sides like wings.

As Zynga watched one of the beady eyed creatures leapt from the side of a tall tree and stretched its arms out. The wind caught the flaps of skin and, combined with its long tail, allowed it to glide and slalom between other trees to one a full forty feet away. All the while it only dropped a few feet.

Zynga snorted, not impressed.

The creature ignored her and easily climbed up the trunk to the bundle of leaves at the top. It clung to the branches with its hands and swung its feet into a cluster of dates and began to pluck them. The creature curled in on itself and ate the dates one at a time from its feet. The seeds were spit out and fell to the ground.

Zynga smiled and glanced over her shoulder at John and Artesia. They were busy being boring. She slipped off the bench and dropped lightly to the forest floor. She moved away from the moving wagon and searched the nearest tree, scooping up discarded nuts. She continued around a few more trees and then hurried back to the wagon. She dropped her disguise and leapt up, her strong leg muscles propelling her high into the air. A stretch and a flap of her wings took her the rest of the way to the side of the wagon. She landed with another extension of her wings, slowing herself so that she made no noise before she slipped back into her halfling guise.

Zynga settled into her spot on the bench and watched, waiting for Jennaca and Corsa to pass near a tree. She eyed the distance carefully and launched a nut into the air, arcing it high so that it came down and bounced off of Jennaca's shoulder.

"There are many boys where I'm from," Jennaca was saying. "Some were even sweat for me. I had sort of a friend, a farmer's son, but— ow!"

Jennaca twisted and stared up at the tree above them. "Watch where you're dropping those!" she called up to the creatures hiding among the fronds of the tree. She shook her fist at them and turned back to Corsa. "Silly panamoos."

Corsa held out her hands, which was the gesture they'd decided would be used when they found a new word or phrase they needed to translate into Corsa's sign language. Jenna grinned and forgot all about the creatures overhead as they started working on the new gesture.

Zynga frowned and waited for the next tree. She took careful aim as they approached and tossed it high in the air. It struck one of Corsa's hands and made her cry out in a warbled yelp. Zynga snickered as quietly as she could.

"Twice?" Jennaca cried while she looked up. There was only one of the panamoos in the tree above them and it was on the opposite side of the tree. Jennaca glared and looked into the other nearby trees.

Corsa was still rubbing her hand when Jennaca turned and looked back at the wagon. Zynga was yawning and John was busy explaining magic to Artesia, who was struggling to keep her eyes open.

Jennaca turned back and shrugged. Corsa shook the bruise off and they continued walking and learning to talk.

Zynga waited several minutes before plucking two of the nuts from her pocket. She held them in her hand and planned the perfect throw. A few more steps and... there it was, she drew her arm back and—

The wagon shuddered as something heavy landed on top of the wine barrels. John's lesson was forgotten as he started to twist, just as Artesia clutched the reins in one hand reached for her sword with the other.

A roar deafened them. John nearly fell off the bench while Artesia stood and spun around in a single motion. She drew her sword and stopped when she saw Sasha was crouched on the barrels and snarling less than a foot from Zynga.

"What's this?" John demanded. His voice was loud, louder than he intended due to the ringing in his ears from the tiger's roar.

Zynga looked at him wide-eyed and sputtered, "I don't know what's wrong with this stupid cat!"

Sasha growled and advanced a half step.

"What's in your hand," John asked.

Zynga looked down at her hand and shook her head. "Nothing."

"Why is it clenched?"

"To defend myself. I'm going to make a rug out of this creature!"

"What are those stains?" John was looking at the underside of her palm where her fingers couldn't cover her skin.

"My hands are dirty," she mumbled.

John stared at her a long moment before demanding, "Zynga, open your fist."

She scowled and muttered obscenities in an infernal language before she opened her fist and revealed the nuts in it. "I thought you didn't eat regular food?"

"I don't," she said.

"So why the nuts?"

She glanced around, unable to answer him.

"Zynga!" Jennaca scolded. "You could have hurt Corsa! Or me, for that matter."

"Hurt you?" John asked. "How?"

"She was throwing them at us. We thought the panamoos were dropping them," Jennaca said. "No harm done, but it wasn't very nice."

Zynga rolled her eyes.

John shook his head. "Don't," he told her.

"It wasn't supposed to hurt anyone," Zynga whined. "This is boring!"

"Funny, Lady Jennaca and Lady Corsa are doing fine. Artesia and I are busy too. Seems you're the only one struggling. Perhaps I could give you some tasks to keep you busy?"

She scoffed. "What could you possibly need me to do out here?"

"Help," John said.

"Help what?" she grumbled.

"You've known many wizards over the years, I'm sure."

She shrugged. "So?"

"So tell us about what they wanted from you. How did they summon you? How did they hold you to a summoning... or how did they fail?"

She smiled. "That was before Mistress and before you. Client confidentiality applies."

"What?"

She rolled her eyes. "It means I don't have to share that if I don't want to, and I don't want to."

"You're being difficult."

She grinned.

"Fine, then tell me this," John said. "Why is it I've met several people now, but only the women stand out?"

"Are you complaining?"

"No, I'm wondering why I've barely met any men of substance since I woke up in that tavern. I've had a few conversations, but nothing beyond that. Many, it seems, want little to do with me or worse, they're hostile to me."

"Are you really going to make me point this out?" Zynga asked.

"It seems I am."

She smiled and looked down at his crotch. "Men are simple creatures, no matter the race or world. They lead or they follow. They're also animals at heart, and they pick who's the best among them by simple rules. Who's the strongest... and having a cock the size of a footman's mace is a sure sign of strength."

"I'm not flashing my— Nobody's seeing that unless I want them to," John said.

"True, but you're a man too, Master. You see it and you know you have it. That, and the powers Mistress has given you has made you confident. Other men want to be that confidant. Most want it more than they should, and that makes them take foolish actions. You, with your confidence, handle them swiftly."

"So you're saying I'm no better than they are?"

She smiled. "Much better. You win... and you've got a really nice cock."

Artesia snickered while John cursed.

"All right, that's something useful," John conceded. "Some of it was, at least. But what of how I seem to find the right women to talk to or just run into out of nowhere?"

Zynga held her head up and wiggled her fingers. "Magic."

John's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Mistress is guiding you on a path for a reason, Master," Zynga said. "It is to test you and to strengthen you. Having the help of these women adds to your strength."

John nodded. "So Mistress knew of Artesia and the bandits? She knew of Corsa and of Jennaca?"

Zynga shrugged. "I doubt it."

"Then how— it can't be coincidence!"

"Oh, I doubt that very much," Zynga said. "Your own lesson spoke of magic being part of everything, remember? And every being can use it if they learn how, do you think they could do so if they did not have some connection to it? Your magic is powerful, thanks be to Mistress, yet it is only a ripple in the pond. A ripple that will still affect others around you."

John considered her words for a long moment, trying to find fault with them. "So you're saying I'm a lodestone for women?"

Zynga cackled. "There's confidence and then there's this!"

"That's not what I meant!" John snapped.

The imp giggle some more before answering, "In truth, I don't know. I've seen enough to believe you are guiding them to you though. The ones you need the most, at least. Although who's to say your enemies might be pulled to you in the same fashion? Like a moth to a flame. A dangerous moth with venomous fangs."