Pathfinding: An Adult Choose Your Own Adventure, Seventy-second Entry

Story by Gideon Kalve Jarvis on SoFurry

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#73 of Pathfinding-CYOA

Rufus leads the charge into the ranks of the kobold dragonguard, while Adel holds back and leads the support team, keeping Rufus' hind end from being overwhelmed. But what tricks do these kobolds have up their scaly sleeves? Surely it's not going to be that easy.


Pathfinding: An Adult Choose Your Own Adventure

Seventy-second Entry

By Gideon Kalve Jarvis

Vote Tallies

Offense

Adel - 3

Cassidy - 1

Erlend - 9

Hanaro - 4

Jonna - 2

One-eye - 11

Rael - 8

Rufus - 4

Ryg - 1

Shara - 8

Urta - 11

Urtan - 10

Wicker - 7

Sense

Adel - 5

Cassidy - 6

Hanaro - 7

Maji - 3

Padmini - 7

Rael - 9

Rufus - 1

Shara - 1

Wicker - 4

Defense

Adel - 4

Cassidy - 4

Erlend - 2

Jonna - 10

Maji - 8

One-eye - 1

Padmini - 3

Ryg - 10

Shara - 1

Urta - 1

Urtan - 2

Additional Votes

* Urtan/Urta incest scene - 4

* Incestuous foursome with Windtooth, Wauken, Rufus, and Erlend - 4

* Spark goes back into the sex machine, and this time he has sex with himself - 2

* Meet Lysha in Valkyrie City - 2

* Check on Belthin's fate - 3

* Padmini/Wisselfleur/Imogen (adding Lesage if possible) all f/f scene - 2

* Jonna/Skaeth scene - 1

* Lesage starts using a Crown of Morpheus for sexual storage purposes - 1

* Introduce a non-sexual character - 1

* Return of the succubus imp as an active character - 2

* Rufus develops a full knot and sheath - 2

* Rael/Erlend romance - 1

* Reintroduce Kabula and Loshada, the centauress and her daughter - 1

* Let Belthin go - 1

* Romance scenes with Rufus (Adel and Urtan suggested) - 1

Vote Options in Progress

* Shara and Padmini learning flesh magic and non-lethal skills (sex quite likely)

* More Hanaro sex scenes (Rufus and Urtan primarily)

* Rufus bottoms to Windtooth (his father, the Blue Feather alpha male)

* Shara gangbanged (all-female and all-male both suggested)

Author Notes

Final Groupings:

Offense: Erlend, One-eye, Rufus, Shara, Urta, Urtan, Wicker

Sense: Adel, Cassidy, Hanaro, Padmini, Rael

Defense: Jonna, Maji, Ryg

The base chance of success for Offense, Defense, and Sense is 20%. With the winning votes all tallied and suggestions for strategy included, the final chances of success are now as follows:

Offense - 55%

Sense - 55%

Defense - 40%

Pathfinding Seventy-second Entry

Snarling out orders as fast as he could, Rufus called up his friends to assist him, feeling their comforting presence behind him as he hefted his axe and shortblade, then howled in the ecstasy of battle as he charged the line.

Of course it was a trap. These were kobolds for Fenris' sake! Rufus loved getting into the middle and seriously mixing it up as much as the next warrior, but he wasn't stupid. That, of course, was exactly why he'd ordered Adel to hold back, organizing things from the rear. He could hear her calling out commands from that position, guiding both those he'd taken into his direct command, and a few others that he hadn't chosen. It was Adel, for instance, that decided to have Shara follow along near the back of Rufus' charge - Rufus would never have thought to bring a wizard with him into a frontline battle, even if it was near the hind part of that battle line.

Within seconds, Rufus was glad he'd let Adel make that little change: just instants before his tight-packed team, consisting of the three gnolls and the two actaeons, impacted with the heavily-armored kobolds, a host of scaly skirmishers, lightly-armored, wielding spears and savage bone and stone daggers, leapt down on them from seemingly impossibly-small crevasses from the rocks and ridges on all sides. Crying out the words of her spells, Shara sent strange fluctuations of light and shadow crashing into the attacking wave, sending them screaming in all directions except at Rufus' team. Whatever images she'd called up, they must have been pretty bad.

Then Rufus' shoulder plowed into the shield of a kobold dragonguard, and he lost himself in the fury of combat, laughing as he fought. This was the sort of thing for reveling in! The kobolds screamed before him, the rest of Rufus' party crashing into their ranks behind him, Urta and One-eye giggling like mad things, making fear spring swiftly into the eyes of the kobold dragonguard: there is little as unnerving as a gnoll's giggle in the midst of a battle.

[Rolled 42 vs. 55% - Offense succeeds!]

Adel, of course, was far more concerned than Rufus, all her concentration focused on making sure the battle went well. Cassidy was near the front of her massed team, Rael and Hanaro beside him, all three of them picking off kobold skirmishers that didn't flee from Shara's illusions, keeping up a steady stream of arrow fire. Meanwhile, Adel kept Jonna, Skaeth, and Padmini back, the heavier warriors not really suited for the speed and mobility necessary in the tight confines of the narrow pass. Even Padmini, as astonishingly agile as she was for her size, would have had problems in such close quarters. Thinking ahead, Adel even released Maji, the orca elemental flowing smoothly from her decanter; though she wasn't happy with the general lack of moisture in the area, after Adel had the rest of her team toss down their waterskins, Maji was able to absorb enough to spread herself outward with numerous watery filaments, ready to fill out any one of them with a full defense.

Suddenly, Cassidy stopped his rain of arrows, and spun, looking straight at Adel.

"They're coming from below!" he yelled as loudly as he could.

Faster than Adel could quite follow with her eyes, Padmini reacted to Cassidy's words, as well as to the strange tremors she'd sensed with her elephantine ears, but hadn't quite figured out what they meant until that moment. The ground was crumbling under them all, everyone not out front with the archers Cassidy, Rael, and Hanaro, but Padmini was there, pulling Adel over just before the supple chipmunk girl could be swallowed up by the earth.

Then Jonna was stepping into the breach, the white paint visible on every part of her black-furred body not covered by her magical armor (which was quite a lot, thanks to the amazon tendency to make their armor as skimpy as possible) gleaming with enhancing and protective magic. Maji and Skaeth were at her shoulders in moments, with Ryg stepping up behind, chanting prayers to the spirits of the earth and the wind to protect them as the kobolds came boiling up from the depths, screaming their high-pitched, yelping battle-cries.

[Rolled 12 vs. 55% - Sense succeeds!]

Bellowing her own mighty cry of defiance, Jonna shoved her shield forward, plowing through the first ranks of the kobolds, driving them back as she swung her huge mace around, letting its rage-granting powers heighten her strength, her resilience, making her almost invincible against any frontal assault. If the kobolds had been able to sneak up on her as they'd wanted, or drop her down into a hole, they might have been able to defeat the might turos paladin. Facing her in a fair fight, however, they had no chance. She was vaguely aware of Maji and Ryg to either side, Maji's body and Ryg's magic extending out in sharp spikes of water and stone, respectively, cutting through the kobold ranks with as much ease as Jonna managed.

Suddenly, however, Jonna gave a sharp gasp, then came to a complete stop. Something...something had pricked her right in her rump, in the spot where her tail thrust out through the armor plates of her rear. Half-turning, feeling the paralyzing poison already starting to take effect, Jonna looked at Skaeth. The bull smirked.

"This was a lot more profitable," the mercenary explained to the unasked question in Jonna's eyes, before more kobolds came up behind their fellows, blowgun darts sticking into the momentarily-stunned Jonna in a flurry. If she'd had some time to recover, with her race's resilience and the holy power of a paladin to protect her, she might still have overcome her opponents. But with Skaeth's treachery taking her utterly by surprise, she didn't have a chance, the kobolds swarming over her, their dexterous talons plucking away her armor in seconds, tossing the plates aside in wicked glee, until the muscular warrior babe was stripped naked.

Turning instantly, before it was quite clear what he'd done, Skaeth whipped out a large flask of fragile glass in one hand, a familiar circlet in the other - a Crown of Morpheus. Ryg was so intent on listening to the wind spirits telling her of the targets in front of her, she didn't have time to react as Skaeth smoothly slid the Crown onto her head, making her give a soft yelp of surprise, then sink to her knees, lost for just a few seconds in waking dreams as she fought to regain control of her senses. Maji, able to see through her entire body at once, turned on Skaeth, fury on her face as she started toward him, sharp-edged tentacles ready to pierce his flesh. Skaeth, however, tossed the flask right into the center of Maji's body, where it splintered in the churning tidal forces of her inner self. Almost immediately, the liquid inside the flask spread through Maji's body, slowing her, making her turn steadily more gelatinous, until, finally, she began to lose her fluidity completely. It was in this dire state that the kobolds came yapping onward, swarming over the fallen defenders in a mighty rush.

[Rolled 55 vs. 40% - Defense fails!]

Against such odds, kobolds coming in a single, solid mass, not even Padmini's might could stop them, not without either the initiative, or some room in which to maneuver. The powerful elephant girl planted herself in front of Adel, swinging with fists and feet and trunk. Despite all her great skill as a combatant, however, and all her immense strength, Padmini couldn't hold up that much weight, and soon collapsed onto her back before the charge of scaly bodies. Within seconds after she went down, many scaly talons were raised, their owners exclaiming in delight as they held up the tatters of Padmini's slit-sided cheongsam, one of them even perching on her full, bare, grey-skinned breasts, his toeclaws curling inward, squeezing them tightly for purchase. It was only moments later before the kobolds reached Adel, the chipmunk girl managing a single cry of shock before she was surrounded by many surprisingly strong, scaly bodies, rough hands and snapping teeth tearing at the straps to her armor, jerking down her trousers, wrenching off her breastplate, until she was as naked as Padmini and Jonna.

All this time, Cassidy had been firing into the crowd, desperately trying to stop them, to at least hold them off until Rufus could turn and get to them in time. Hanaro and Rael were still firing at the kobolds in the front, heedless of the danger from the rear...at least, until they both were struck with a hail of poison blowgun darts right in their rears. Hit on the less-armored back parts of her lacquered greaves, darts sticking in the tender spots on the backs of her kneecaps, Hanaro fell to her knees, quickly feeling control of her body slipping away. Rael, on the other hand, was stuck right on her bottom numerous times, and flopped forward onto her face, her pert tushie thrust into the air, her loincloth falling over her lower back, baring her tender pink treasures to the greedy eyes of the kobolds as the scaly little men surrounded her and Hanaro both, stripping both combatants with ruthless efficiency, then tossing their equipment aside, leaving them where they'd fallen.

Standing on a rock near the side of the narrow valley, Cassidy kept on firing his bow, seemingly heedless of his own safety as he tried to keep the kobolds back. The task, however, seemed impossible, for there weren't just a lot of kobolds: many of them were fast enough to dodge out of the way of his arrows. If Skaeth hadn't betrayed the party, actually, Jonna, Maji, and Padmini could probably have held them bottled in, and Cassidy could have picked off any that might have had a chance of getting past those three. As it was, however, with him now all alone, the tan-furred rabbit didn't rate his chances highly at all.

Path Choices

The choice for us now is a matter of what you'd like to see in the story.

Does Cassidy run away? Yes/No

If yes, he will help the party track down the kobolds to their lair, which will shorten the time it takes to get through the numerous traps and sentries of the kobold lair.

If no, Rufus (an accomplished tracker himself) will take that role, while Cassidy joins the girls as they are pounded by kobold cocks and massive minotaur meat.