FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The Windsar Adventures

Part 9: Split the Party

By Gideon Kalve Jarvis

With a long, relaxed sigh, Sheru rested her chin on her folded arms, letting her soft green eyes close as she let the warmth of the water surrounding her sink deep into her slim, naked body, her smooth skin scrubbed to an almost glowing, healthy pink. Having lived most of the her life in a tower surrounded by magic, the times had been few indeed when Sheru had needed a bath. If she or her clothes were ever dirty, all she had ever needed to do, from very close to as early as she could remember, was wave a hand over whatever was dirty, and instantly the magic she released from within herself would deal with the problem. Uncomfortable with having his adopted apprentice daughters naked around him, even when they'd been little girls, Charles Windsar had taught them the cleaning cantrip quite early on, and of course Sheru's magical undergarments kept her from getting terribly dirty in the first place. But now, basking in the large, steaming pool within Yvette Brightstar's spacious bath chamber, Sheru had to admit that she'd been missing out on one of life's rare pleasures, and silently swore to herself that she wouldn't neglect any opportunities to enjoy such a luxury that might arise later.

Not far off, the golden-haired gnome girl, Yvette Brightstar, was kneeling in the shallow end of the bathing pool, her back to Sheru. Her mind idling in blissful relaxation, Sheru allowed herself to admire the other young woman's gorgeous hair, pleasant figure, and pert bum. Yvette's body was obviously matured in appearance despite her small statute, marking her as a late adolescent gnome rather than a human child despite her short stature. After she'd been forced to pleasure Luna by those orcs that had nearly ravished both her and her friend, Sheru had begun to see her fellow females in a different light. The strange new feelings that this change in perspective caused her were confusing for young Sheru, however, and so she still did her best to ignore them, even though she somehow felt on an instinctive level that it was a losing battle, especially in the face of all the erotic games she knew her companions were playing whenever they slipped away from the rest of the group, which had been often during their journey to the Brightstar estate.

With a start, Sheru suddenly realized that not only was she staring at another female with less-than-virtuous thoughts, but that woman was looking over her shoulder at Sheru herself with an expression that was surely the mirror to Sheru's own brief and idle fantasies, except without the inhibitions to which Sheru still clung.

"So," began Yvette, smirking as she saw Sheru's face flush bright red in the split-second in which her green eyes met the gnome's blue ones, before the young wizardling turned quickly away, pretending she hadn't been checking the gnome girl out, "what do you think of that little sprite's tale?"

Finding it a good deal easier to keep her mind from wandering into strange paths if she called up memories of earlier that day, Sheru frowned seriously.

"I don't want to believe that Petalbloom is telling the truth," the teen mage admitted, "but I know she is. I just don't know what I'm supposed to do about it."

As the late afternoon gradually settled into early evening, the sprite Petalbloom Peasblossom had stood on the long, low polished wood table in Yvette Brightstar's dining room, with the members of the disparate band of adventurers all around her, her wings buzzing in her pleasure at being the center of attention. The tale she wove, however, sobered even her naturally buoyant spirits, and made Yvette's normal gnomish good humor fade into deep, serious contemplation. Her tale was a serious one indeed: the Overlord had come to the continent of Autumn Country. More, he had arrived in the Great Green, had seized Threetails as a prisoner, and was even then amassing his forces to begin an assault on Windsar Tower. Worse yet, he was looking for Sheru - he intended to capture all of the Windsar Scions, as he called them, and enslave them to his will, so that he could control their grand destinies, which they'd inherited from their master, Charles Windsar. But this was only a secondary desire of the Overlord - ultimately, while he wanted to use the Windsar Scions as his pawns, the greater game he was playing was a quest to use the stolen energies of a great number of virgin sacrifices to temporarily disrupt the power of the gods, letting him become a god himself in the imbalance to the natural order this would cause. This, it seemed, was the great danger that threatened the world of Therafim, and Sheru realized suddenly that it was because of his efforts to stop this threat that her father, Charles Windsar, had been killed.

While it was obvious that Petalbloom, being a simple and fun-loving sprite, didn't seem to understand all of what she'd heard while she'd spied on the Overlord of Evil, and it was obvious she was probably leaving out large chunks of what she'd learned, either from excitement or typical fey forgetfulness, it was also obvious that what she had shared was the truth as far as she understood it.

The news that she was the inheritor of a great destiny came as a shock to Sheru. Until that moment, she'd thought that her entire purpose in traveling was to find the killer of her surrogate father, and bring the murderer to justice. Now, however, she was confronted with the news that her actions, whatever they might be, would bring great changes to the world of Therafim, though whether for good or for evil was uncertain. More important, however, her sisters in the Circle of Windsar were in great danger at the hands of the most powerful leader of the forces of Evil to be found on Therafim, a being who intended to dominate them and pervert whatever destiny lay in each of the members of the Windsar Circle to his own evil designs.

In other circumstances, a table of such disparate people as those gathered there might have burst into exclamations and confused chatter. This, however, did not happen; at this table were seated three strong, dominant personalities who were accustomed to leadership, and whose followers were accustomed to trusting and obeying, though for various reasons. Eärlindë, besides being a high priestess of Velos, the Great Stag, was also one of the highest noble lineage, sharing royal blood with the queen of all elves (as did all high elves, of course, though her line was far more pure). Her followers, Fieryat and Ambrae, were accustomed to being servants and bodyguards to their high priestess, to being silent watchers who kept their opinions to themselves unless they were specifically requested by the one whom they served. As for Tia, the muscular, redheaded warrior woman was a good leader who generally chose courses of action in which her friends, Harrin and Ballia, agreed. Even with the recent addition of Arag to their little band, the towering green-furred boar-man seemed content to remain silent, communicating mentally with the dwarf-girl Harrin when he needed to be heard at all. Flintclaw Firewind, of course, carried himself in all that he did like the true son of a god that he believed himself to be. Harvas, the elder wolf, followed him because he truly believed his alpha was the son of Fenrath, the god of survival that all wolfen worshiped, and heir to a great destiny, while Tornan followed him out of a sense of deep friendship and complete trust, yielding his will to that of his alpha as a good beta wolf should. Sheru felt that she ought to speak up somehow, to take an active part in deciding what her own destiny would be, but for some reason she couldn't bring herself to do so...at least, not at first, not as the three great ones among them spoke.

"If the Overlord is here," said Flintclaw, curling his lips back in a fierce warrior's grin, "this little game of ours is about to get interesting, and the stakes are a lot higher than I thought." Then he shrugged slightly, his toothy grin softening slightly as he looked toward Sheru, his manner slightly deferential without surrendering his authority completely. "It also means the potential rewards are that much greater. We need to plan our next move carefully before we take action, or we may end up in a fight we can't win."

"That's not important to me," Tia chimed in as Flintclaw stopped talking, slapping her hands on the table firmly and loudly. "I don't care who it is that's started this mess down there, and I don't care how big his army is: he's come marching into my home! Whatever the danger, we're gonna take him down." Harrin and Ballia nodded in agreement with their friend's words, and even the stately elven high priestess smiled encouragingly as she looked at the brash human adventurer. "Besides, we just barely saved loads of my people from either death or a fate worse than death, depending on what exactly this ritual takes away from them, and saved even more from ending up slaves to orcs. It doesn't make sense to just walk away and leave 'em to get into even worse trouble with this Overlord marching through the place."

"I agree with Tia," said Eärlindë as she rose to her feet, her natural and trained poise and commanding presence enough to make her own great-great-grandmother, the queen of the elves, proud of her. "We cannot allow the Overlord to continue his presence in this land. I and my guards will be returning to our comrades in the Great Green and rallying them for battle. With the permission of our gracious host," she nodded toward Yvette, who smiled encouragingly at her end of the table, obviously happy to have such a distinguished guest in her house, "we shall spend the night here to rest ourselves, and then be gone at first light."

"We'll be staying a few days longer," Tia said with a sullen look toward the little gnome. "I've got some business that I need to handle here first. Once it's done, we'll be heading back south as well to rally the local villages, and scare up what help we can."

Elf and human now turned to Flintclaw expectantly, recognizing him with their body language as someone of equal importance to them. Flintclaw, however, turned to look at Sheru, his expression uncharacteristically solemn.

"What're you gonna do, Sheru?" asked the red-furred male, reaching over to rest his large hand on Luna's shoulder as the slim, tan-skinned girl sat next to her fair-haired and fair-skinned friend. "Gonna go back and try to save your friends?"

"My sisters," Sheru corrected Flintclaw after a moment's hesitation, looking down as she felt all eyes at the table focusing on her, feeling a strange weight of responsibility settle upon her slender shoulders, a far greater weight than any she'd felt before. "I...I guess I hadn't thought that far," she admitted after a moment's thought, desperately wondering why Flintclaw had done such a thing, forcing so much of a burden onto her. She wasn't ready to make choices like this! It was too great a decision, choosing between the mission she'd been given, and doing all she could to save the ones who had given her that mission. They were counting on her either way, and Sheru couldn't see any easy answer. On the one hand, she could rush down to the rescue of her dear loved ones, her family, something that called out to her sense of youthful adventure and filial duty, to say nothing of her love for the ones now in such great danger. But even so, the distance was great, and it was unlikely she'd make it there in time to help them fight the Overlord of Evil...even if she could make much of a difference in the first place. On the other hand, her sisters were counting on her, trusting her to find the one who had killed their master and father, the one who had taught them and given them all that they knew of love and courage and sense of right and wrong and the wisdom to choose what was right. This was why she had come to Yvette, to learn what the clever gnome could tell her from her studies in the great libraries of Nemminus, guiding her to the source of the strange symbol her master had been holding when he died. The more she thought about it, the more clear her course of action had to be. Her sisters had ample defenders already, to say nothing of their own significant talents in magery. No, they didn't need her there. "I'm going to keep looking for my father's killer," she said, her pretty face setting in determination. "Somehow, I feel like that will be of more use in this matter than anything I could do on a battlefield. It just feels right."

Flintclaw gave a soft grunt of acknowledgement as Sheru finished speaking, smirking only a little at the way her face flushed after she'd shown such courage, her natural shyness immediately returning to the fore. The tall and powerfully-built male then turned back to the rest of the table, giving a slight shrug. "Then I'm gonna help Sheru in her quest. I was told by the witch Threetails that by following Sheru I'd find my destiny, and I intend to follow her prophecy through to the end, however bitter or sweet it may be. But," he glanced to the side, his gaze falling on his packmates, "I'm going to send Tornan with Eärlindë. I know he'll be useful, since he's about as good an archer and ranger as I've seen in a while - lots of potential - and I know he'll never let you down. Or me," he added, locking his eyes with the younger male's. "That, and I'd like to have some eyes on the action." Then Flintclaw looked at Eärlindë with a toothy grin. "Besides all that, though, there're some pretty personal reasons for Tornan to go with you, priestess, unless I'm very mistaken."

Eärlindë flushed deeply, and even the normally stoic and silent Fieryat and Ambrae's deep blue skin darkened even more than normal before they tugged their hoods down a little farther, shrouding their faces completely from view, save for the soft glow of their eyes.

After this, it was all simply a matter of dividing up who would be going with whom, and gathering the supplies that would be needed in order to make their journey. Now that it was all settled and Sheru had time to reflect on what had been done and what was yet ahead of her, she heaved a long sigh, closing her eyes as she turned her head, looking at Yvette once more as her fellow bather tipped a bucket over her surprisingly large breasts for her small size.

"Tia told you about my quest, didn't she?" Sheru asked, hoping the answer would be in the affirmative, as she didn't want to have to rehash the details of her mentor's death once more, the event still too painful for her to think about too deeply, and feeling a slight wave of relief pass through her as Yvette nodded, before the blonde-wizardess turned away once more, resting her chin on her arms as they rested on the side of the bathing pool, tucking her knees up beneath her stomach as she rested atop them, kneeling in the lightly steaming water. "I just hope pursuing it is what I'm supposed to do."

"If your friends are as powerful as you've said," Yvette said cheerfully, openly admiring Sheru's perfect, heart-shaped bottom as it thrust slightly above the suds of the bath, glistening with moisture, "and they probably are if even a part of what I've heard about Charles Windsar is true, then you're almost certainly doing the right thing. Besides, what's one more wizard among so many? Better to stick to the path set before you than to wander into who knows what sort of trouble. Hmm," the golden-haired gnome mused thoughtfully, rubbing her chin, "but you're going to need more help, I think, than what you've got on your side now. With all those people leaving to go fight the Overlord - even that sprite, Petalbloom, is going with Eärlindë back to the Great Green to help her get the fey in that place on her side - the only ones that seem to want to keep going with you are Tia's little sister, Luna, that big red-furred brute, Flintclaw, and that old grey-furred guy, Harvas." Yvette shook her head, rolling her eyes as she stroked her hands down the sides of her head, magically causing her hair to grow faster, until it was just shy of shoulder-length, barely long enough for her to braid into tiny pigtails. "No, you're going to need a lot more help than that on a quest like this, and I speak from years of experience here. I mean, you're being hunted by agents of the Overlord of Evil, for goodness sake, and that's more than I've ever had to deal with, and I never head out without at least four other companions besides myself. With what you're going up against, you'll want at least six to eight other adventurers besides yourself." Then Yvette's expression, momentarily serious, brightened almost immediately, making Sheru smile despite herself as she turned to look at her newfound ally. "You're in luck, though: I know just how to get a party together. Just ask Tia: whatever bad things she might say about me, even she'll admit I'm an ace when it comes to getting together the right team for a job."

As Sheru looked at Yvette's face, her eyes meeting the other girl's, she found herself wanting very much to trust the gnome. Though she was really only the same relative age as Tia, which was hardly that old by any standard, it was obvious to Sheru that Yvette was indeed as much of a veteran of adventuring as the scarlet-haired warrior woman, and there was something else, something that Sheru couldn't quite articulate, that made her feel that Yvette was a friend. In fact, the more she looked into Yvette's shining blue eyes, the more caught up in the gnome girl's personality she felt herself becoming.

"I'm sure you're right," Sheru admitted, her perfectly-formed bottom shifting a bit as she shrugged her slender shoulders in acceptance. "But how do I begin gathering a party? I've never even thought about something like this before, and the party that brought me here just sort of formed on its own. I've heard the tales of bards visiting the little town near Windsar Tower about how young and hopeful heroes all meet in an inn and go forth to get fame and fortune through their adventures, but I wouldn't know the first thing about making such a thing actually happen."

"It's a lot easier than you'd think," Yvette reassured Sheru, moving closer in the water to the teen wizard and resting a reassuring hand on Sheru's shoulder (and in the process surreptitiously admiring the well-defined lines of the gorgeous girl's slender musculature and delicate, refined bone structure, especially the clearly-visible dimples just above her perfect buttocks). "Adventuring is a common thing in a lot of circles, actually. The poor do it because they can get rich. The obscure do it because they can get famous. The bored do it for the thrill. And then there's the chance to meet new people, visit strange places, experience new things. It's almost as popular as tourism in some places, thanks in no small part to all those bardic songs and stories about how great adventuring is - you know how everyone listens to bards."

"Yeah," admitted Sheru with a slight smile as she leaned her cheek on her hand, not really noticing the way Yvette's small hand was stroking her back from the base of her neck down to right between her bottom's dimples (what many called "Wysha's dimples," after the feline-appearing goddess of beauty and pleasure, whose entire body was generally considered the standard of female perfection), almost as though Sheru were a cat. Though Sheru didn't seem to notice this gentle caress, however, her body did, her back arching slightly to press a little into Yvette's fingers. Of course, Sheru did know how everyone listened to the bards: more than a source of entertainment, they were how people across the world got the news from elsewhere. Bards were regularly considered to be sacrosanct because of this, even among the most vicious and barbaric tribes of monstrous creatures, so long as the bard in question had tales to tell, news to share, and songs to sing. A bard who was sharing news was welcome everywhere, and everyone eagerly hung on their words, for they were also perhaps the most important source of entertainment to the people of Therafim, providing stories and songs to ease even the heaviest burdens; any tyrant who denied the bards access to his lands quickly found himself violently overthrown.

"Personally," continued Yvette as she smiled down at Sheru's back, now using both her hands to knead the young wizardess' supple, smooth flesh, "I think it's gotten a little out of hand. Once the only people who went out to adventure were usually either nobodies looking to gain everything or nothing through their skill and luck, or the genuinely heroic, looking to make the world a better place, and maybe make a profit while doing it - there's plenty of hoards of treasure out there to go around, after all, though none of them are easy to get. In the last decade or so, though, it's become fashionable for the children of the wealthy to equip themselves with whatever they think they'll need, pump the nearest bard for a likely monster's lair, wizard's tower, or forbidden dungeon, and then head off in the hopes of becoming a part of something greater. This fad is dangerous, of course, and any number of young high-blooded boys and girls, often hardly into puberty, end up dead or captured by something or other. Most of the latter get ransomed back to their families, of course, but even so, most of the foolish youngsters who do survive promptly go out and try it again, having grown none the wiser for their experiences, but a great deal more foolhardy." Yvette heaved a long sigh as she finished her gentle diatribe, letting her hands stop at Sheru's shoulders, rolling the heels of her palms into the other girl's muscles, making Sheru moan softly at the pleasure of a gentle massage, for despite their size, Yvette's fingers were quite skillful and surprisingly strong, as was typical of gnomes. "Bad news for them, I guess, but good news for you: it means that all you have to do to gather some reckless youngbloods together is go into an appropriate tavern, go sit in a shadowy corner, and look all mysterious. The adventurers will flock to you like bees to honey, and you can take your pick of who you'd like to use."

"But what if I want _good_adventurers?" asked Sheru, looking over her shoulder at Yvette with a plaintive expression. "I have a strong premonition that this adventure of mine is going to be dangerous - maybe even deadly. Even if he's a brute, Flintclaw's still like one of those legendary heroes you hear stories about, and Tia's absolutely incredible with her sword, but Flintclaw almost died fighting the oni, Ralist, and Tia got captured by orcs after they overwhelmed her and her party by sheer numbers. If we're up against those sorts of odds, I know I'm going to need people on my side who can handle the challenge."

"Ah, that's a good point," admitted Yvette with a calculating smile. "There's two easy answers to the question. The first answer is to gather people you think you can get along with, as many as you think you can comfortably handle in your group - probably no more than twelve at a time when you're expecting serious trouble - and then give them a chance. You'll find out pretty fast who is and isn't up to the challenge: all it takes is one or two real fights to weed out the cowards and the weaklings. Fools are a little harder to recognize right away, I admit, so you have to watch out for them for a while. This is also a great way to forge your friendships with these people: there's nothing like the fires of conflict to bind a party of adventurers tightly together.

"The other answer is to do your research, find the really good adventurers, and then offer rewards you think will appeal to them." Yvette paused as she smiled to herself, prompting Sheru to look over her shoulder once more, her expression inquiring. "Well, I happen to know a few reasonably seasoned adventurers," admitted Yvette after a few moments of making Sheru stew. "I can send out some messengers to run off and find some of the closer ones, but we'd need to go to Nemminus to really have a chance at getting lucky. Whoever you choose to go with you, though, you shouldn't have much trouble getting them to join you: adventurer types are the sort that eat up stories of adventure like yours, so I think a share of any loot you get should be more than enough to get them on board. But for right here and now...hmm," Yvette lifted one hand from Sheru's back to toy with one of her pigtails. "I think the best possibility you've got would be Sam."

"Sam?" said Sheru, blinking for a moment before the name clicked with a face. "You mean the horseman out in the stables?" As she admitted freely that she'd seen Yvette and Sam in the stables, of course, Sheru's face turned a bright, adorable red that made Yvette giggle when she saw it.

"That's him. His name's Sam Dray, and he's more than just a pretty...um, face," Yvette said teasingly, making Sheru just grow that much redder. "He's actually a cleric, if you can believe it, but I guess the chosen of the gods can take all shapes. After all, what's holy to one god is profane to another, so most anybody could have their favor, anywhere. I think Sam's one of the Morrigan's chosen, so you'll have to use the Morrigan's rules if you want him to help you out."

"The Morrigan's rules?" Sheru asked curiously, though not without a little trepidation. She knew a little about the Morrigan - everyone did, for that great and terrible goddess was one of the three primary ruling deities of Therafim, the goddess of all conflict, great or small, and of the combat that was so often a result of that conflict - but she had never been much of a student of religion, having never really felt much affinity for the gods in the face of the study of magic.

"The right of spoils, for one," Yvette explained. "Also the wage of the warrior. Considering who you're traveling with, I imagine your friend Flintclaw's brought up the right of spoils at least once so far."

"Y-yeah," Sheru admitted, looking down, remembering the end of the encounter with that orcish warrior woman who had nearly taken part in raping her and Luna. "But only a little."

"The right of spoils is the right that all warriors have to loot and plunder as they wish from their defeated foes after a battle. This is pretty universal, though the more kindly-inclined people of the world tend to take less, though that's out of their personal generosity rather than the Morrigan's rules, which let a victor take whatever the conquered can't defend. That includes other people, which is why no place on Therafim outright outlaws slavery, even though it's rarer or more heavily regulated in some places than others."

Sheru shivered a little as she heard this, her heart-shaped tushie tensing like a mare's rump before a race. Now she understood Flintclaw's thinking after he'd saved her and Luna from the orcs. From his perspective, she was now his spoils, taken from a fallen opponent. In fact, that opponent, the orcish woman, had been his spoils as well. Knowing this, Sheru started to realize how much Flintclaw had given up, all to please her. What this realization meant to her, however, Sheru wasn't quite sure yet, though it did soften her heart toward the barbaric alpha wolfen somewhat.

"The wage of the warrior is the other big part of the Morrigan's rules," continued Yvette. "Sam or some other real warrior would be able to tell you more, and other stuff about the Morrigan as well, but the basic rundown is that you have to reward those who help you, and once somebody has decided on a side of a conflict, they're supposed to stay on that side until the conflict is resolved somehow. In other words, once you accept an arrangement, you stay bought. If you're going to get a guy like Sam on your side - and you want him on your side, believe me, because he's got some serious history under his belt - you're going to have to offer him something he wants. Once you've got him, though, he'll stick with you to the end."

"Something he wants," Sheru repeated thoughtfully, frowning a little, her green eyes stormy with thought before she turned to look at Yvette. "What do you think I should offer him?"

Yvette smiled.

"I thought you'd never ask."

*

Harrin sighed as she slumped down onto the plush mattress of her room, unable to avoid comparing it to the hard ground of the wilderness, but even more so to the beds back in her mountain home. Those were firm things, solid, with excellent support for the back. It was easy to get out of them, and easy to sleep lightly. Not so easy, though, to just enjoy them and the sleep that a good mattress could bring.

Not liking to be separated from the young dwarfgirl, having developed a deep attachment to her after their shared ordeals, both their near-sacrifice and their journey through the wilderness, Arag was sitting nearby, leaning an elbow against the large table in the room Yvette had supplied, doing his best to ignore the rather sizable crystal ball resting on top of said table. There was a fireplace on one end of the room, and Una, the young tyrannosaurus Ballia had saved, was lying curled up next to it, dozing quite deeply with the much-larger steel beast, Scratches, lying curled up protectively around the elf-sized dinosaur. The two creatures seemed to have formed a bond in the short time they'd known each other, as creatures close to their instincts tend to do, without the strictures of society to hinder them, and it had been deeply amusing to Tia, Ballia, and Harrin to watch the hulking metal-sinewed steel predator play-wrestling with such astonishing gentleness with the bipedal dinosaur as it flailed its tiny forelimbs at the sleek-muscled Scratches, then gnawed on Scratches' head, all without seeming to have much effect on the playful steel predator. Reflecting on how easily such creatures could become friends when unfettered from any such considerations as differences between their species, Harrin heaved a long sigh.

"Sometimes," Harrin said wistfully as she turned her eyes to the green-furred, piggish-faced orc sitting so close and yet so far, "sometimes I wish I wasn't me. Do you ever get that feeling?"

Arag gave a snort at the question, and then motioned down his body with one hand. The meaning was obvious: all the time. Harrin blinked her blue eyes, feeling a moment of shame that, for all the time she and Arag had spent with their minds intertwined, she'd never paused to consider that he might know just how monstrous he was in the eyes of the rest of the world. Not only was he an orc, he was an orc that had been rejected by his own people. Harrin had Tia and Ballia, at least, but Arag...Arag had nobody.

No, that wasn't quite true. On an impulse, Harrin rose and went to Arag. The green-furred boar looked up with some surprise, his eyes widening still further as Harrin wrapped her arms around the broad-bodied male, hugging him close.

"No matter what happens," she said softly as she buried her face in the short, coarse fur of his chest, "you've always got me."

The moment lasted so long, yet not long enough, as Arag just wrapped his thick arms around the much-shorter dwarfgirl, letting her lean into his warmth, her eyes closed. Those blue eyes opened, however, when Harrin heard a soft hum from behind her dear friend, and she craned her neck, curious to see what could be causing the sound. Arag soon turned as well, and both of them watched in some surprise as the crystal ball on the table slowly began to glow, swirling colors forming in its depths.

"We must've bumped it," Harrin commented, glancing up at Arag, who shrugged, looking a bit apologetic, readily taking the blame, obviously used to that role from the harshness of his former life as a tribal orc. Harrin just smiled at him, then stood on tip-toes to kiss the end of his porcine snout. "Don't worry about it," she said, walking around him to reach out to the glowing orb. "I know a little about things like this. Just give me a little time, and I'll have it fixed again, and then we can start getting ready for..."

Harrin's words trailed off, her eyes widening, as did those of her orcfriend standing directly behind her, as both of them felt their minds' eyes filling with images as they looked at the crystal. If either of them turned their heads even slightly, the image shivered, threatening to break, but so long as they kept their heads facing toward the crystal and only moved their eyes, those subtle motions more than enough to guide the view being shown to them, they were able to see and hear everything in the place they were being shown as though they were there in person. And smell, Harrin noted with some surprise, realizing that she must still be partially tapped into Arag's mind, sharing his senses, if only just a little, while he shared her better color vision, letting him see the view before them in far greater detail than he could ever have done with his natural sight.

Of course, it was the vision before the relatively young couple that held them transfixed with utter shock, Harrin's mouth dropping open as her mind went blank, even as Arag shifted uncomfortably, doing his best to maintain control of his body and his mind.

For what both Arag and Harrin both knew had to be just one of a several times before, Eärlindë wailed loudly in her musical high elven voice, tightly squeezing the silk pillow beneath her to her ample chest. Behind her, tightly gripping the gorgeous elfwoman's bum as it was lifted, presented to him in Matra's position (called "doggy style" by less pious humans who knew little of the nature goddess' ways), Flintclaw lightly pricked Eärlindë's elfsmooth skin with his sharp teeth as he pressed his wide-stretched muzzle all the way forward, his tongue delving deep, deep into the priestess' trembling cunny, another spurt of her delicious juices painting his tastebuds. Behind him, Luna was also on all-fours, her bouncy, brown-skinned boyish bottom thrust toward Harrin and Arag, wriggling in her eagerness as she worked her mouth over Flintclaw's sizable balls and full, potent erection, her head thrust upward between his legs, making sure he stayed nice and hard and dripping wet for his intended future penetration of the elven priestess. Harrin's mind came back to the present with a start as she realized, picking it up through Arag's snout, that Luna was ovulating at that moment, her womb seething in what one of the beastfolk would call "heat."

Not far off on the immense beds the group had pushed together to make this erstwhile orgy possible in their quarters, Tornan and Harvas sat facing each other, their legs splayed wide, openly admiring the uplifted hindquarters of the gorgeous females orally servicing each of the wolfen. Black-furred Tornan's expression was one of puppyish eagerness as Ambrae and Fieryat took turns alternating between licking up and down his wolflike member and suckling on its tip, at least to the depth of an easy mouthful. Naturally, the younger male was stroking and caressing his paws over the muscular, blue-toned bottoms of the moon elven twins, his fingertips rubbing down into the cleft of each twin's cunny, and then a little farther down, to work against their clitties in tight circles. Harvas, meanwhile, had a more traditionally wolfish expression, his muzzle parted, tongue lolling out like a starving beast as Tia and Ballia squeezed their buoyant breasts together, their perked nipples rubbing hard against each other as they pumped the grey-furred male's more humanlike cock between them, tongues flickering at the plump, dripping glans. Harvas was doing his best to return the favor with his hands, fingers pumping hard and fast within each girl's cunny, their juices running down their thighs in slick rivers.

"We...we should do something," Harrin whispered softly after several minutes, long enough for her to start to get some control of herself once more; of course, this was also more than long enough for Flintclaw to reposition Luna where he'd been, eating out Eärlindë, who now lay on her back, while the big, red-furred male took his time feeding his immense cock into Luna's smooth tan-skinned cunny with one paw, the other gripping her upraised rump firmly, holding her properly in place. "He's going to get her pregnant."

Of course, Harrin promptly realized how foolish what she'd said sounded. Luna might not know her present state like a beastfolk female would, surely, but Harrin strongly doubted that Tia's baby sister would at all mind being knocked up, just like her big sis. After all, not only did Luna idolize Tia, she was also absolutely devoted to Flintclaw, something Harrin had driven home to her all the more forcefully even as Flintclaw started to plow the cute, tan-skinned teen's tushie with a will, her trim, toned little buns bouncing with each slap of his hips, making her wail into Eärlindë's cunny with a sudden rush of orgasm, what would surely be the first of a great many before Flintclaw finally filled her up with puppyjuice. The only question that remained was if Luna would choose to have her pregnancy hastened by Yvette, like the dwarfmaid knew Tia intended to have the gnomish enchantress do first thing in the morning.

Harrin's thoughts were interrupted as Tia herself pushed her green-haired elffriend onto her back right next to where Eärlindë lay similarly splayed out, before plunging her head between Ballia's spread thighs, eagerly starting to eat out the hot rangergirl's cunny. Harvas, grinning wickedly as he reached out to take a firm grip on Tia's upturned tushie, obviously knew an opening when he saw one, and in moments he made Tia cry out as well as he roughly thrust himself into visibly-clenching depths. Moments later, both sisters were making a host of the most delightfully erotic moans, squeals, and wails as they were cunnystuffed by the older, grey-furred male and his ruddy-furred alpha, side-by-side, their noises of eager pleasure muffled only somewhat by their oral attentions to the elfgirl in front of them. Flintclaw, slightly less able to hold up than his older friend, snarled as he felt Luna's cunny tighten around him in orgasm, his red-furred rump tensing, his tail raising to give Harrin, watching, a clear view of his muscular butt as he filled the tan-skinned teen up to the brim with seed. Harrin shuddered in unison with Luna, feeling the contractions of her womb as her smooth inner walls greedily sucking up every last drop. It was all that the young dwarfmaid could do to keep from screaming out as she felt Luna's ripened egg penetrated almost immediately by a divinely-potent sperm cell, Arag's own strong arms all that kept her from falling to her knees as, sharing in Luna's own sensations, she felt as though a small sun had gone off in her belly, that primal act of creation more powerful to her psionically-enhanced senses than it was even to Luna. Soon after his orgasm, however, Flintclaw simply continued thrusting, for while his endurance didn't match that of Harvas, his resiliency certainly made up for it.

Only a short distance away, all of them facing toward the show taking place across the orgy bed, Ambrae and Fieryat were side-by-side as well, on all-fours as the young, black-furred male behind them eagerly punched his proud wolfcock into first one sister and then the other, making sure his opposite hand kept the unfilled sister nice and warm and wet while he gave the other smooth blue bottom a good, thorough humping. It seemed as though watching their charge cumming just a short distance away, Eärlindë's full, perfect breasts heaving as her back arched with Luna's unpracticed but very eager oral efforts, was more than enough to set off the twins, their cheeks turning an even darker shade of blue as they held hands, softly glowing eyes heavy-lidded with the intensity of their near-silent orgasms.

Gasping for breath, her cheeks deeply flushed, Harrin suddenly stepped back, doing her best to pull away from the intense, sensual feelings rushing through her, shared as much by the power of the crystal ball as from her own trained mental powers. What was taking place in that other room was private, something that her dwarf-raised sensibilities saw as something not for the eyes of others. Of course, Harrin mused with a slightly wry smirk as the image wavered with her movement, there were quite a lot of things that dwarven society would not have approved of in her present situation, including but certainly not limited to her own traipsing around with Tia and Ballia...and now Arag.

It was as her mind focused on Arag that Harrin gave a soft 'eep,' feeling something thick and ponderous prod her at the very top of her bloomers-clad bum. She'd been about to get into bed for the night, after all, before she and Arag had been interrupted by Yvette's voyeurism crystal, and thus had only been wearing her knee-length undergarments and a rather short shift that only barely went past the waist of her bloomers. This meant, of course, that there was next to nothing between her naked skin and the barely-contained bulge that waited behind Arag's own tight-fitting underthong, the normal garment he wore beneath his now-discarded loincloth, and presently the only clothing he wore on his broad, barrel-like body. Feeling her throat too tense for words, Harrin just stood there, her whole body feeling as though it would just burst into flames with her embarrassment; she'd never been so close to a real male's penis in her life! But with that embarrassment came another feeling, strange and unbidden, one that seemed willing to welcome the touch of this strange, bestial male. Not turning, Harrin let her mind gently reach out to touch Arag's, to find what he was thinking, what he was feeling. It was with great surprise that she discovered he was feeling much as she did: embarrassed; ashamed at not being able to control himself; hopeful that she wouldn't think less of him for his feelings; and, perhaps most importantly, despite how he tried to cover it up, a hope that she might feel for him what he felt for her.

"I...I want you, Arag," said Harrin softly, feeling a thrill of emotion shared between her and the green-furred male as they shared that moment, even as she turned to face him. "I want you so badly. It's not anything my people would ever allow...somehow, I guess your people wouldn't be too keen on it either. But it's what I want." What we want, she added silently, feeling Arag's agreement. His eyes widened as Harrin grabbed the bottom of her shift and pulled it up over her head, tossing it onto a chair by the bed, her full breasts bouncing slightly, looking bigger than they really were because of the hard pectoral muscles beneath them. "I just wish," Harrin continued, even as she felt a rush of pleasure at sensing Arag's approval of her body, pushing down her bloomers to expose her tightly-muscled, slightly plump body to him completely, "I just wish I knew more about how to do...well...," she motioned with her head back toward the crystal, which still glowed on the table with activated power. "How to make you happy."

Arag's huge hands rested gently on Harrin's hips as he smiled down at her, then bent, each of them kissing the other at the same time, their minds in perfect synchronization through their shared link, which grew steadily more powerful with each passing moment. He also desired knowledge, the knowledge that would let him bring Harrin pleasure, would make him worthy of being her mate as well as her lover.

Suddenly, the pair turned as one, Harrin biting her lower lip as this caused Arag's swelling member to sandwich itself snugly between the cheeks of her rock-hard rump. They had felt something from the crystal, sensed it calling to them, offering them the knowledge they sought. At first both of them were suspicious, Arag mostly because he shared his link with Harrin, while Harrin had a well-developed adventurer's sense that told her not to trust magical objects of unknown power. Soon, though, Harrin relaxed as she probed the crystal with her second sight, feeling in its depths that it was only responding to what they had wanted, like any information-gathering device of sufficient power and skill of crafting should. Within its depths lay the knowledge that they sought, if they would dare to reach out and seize it. For a moment Harrin hesitated, still fearful of the carnal knowledge that the conservative people of her birth would have shunned, at least before marriage. Arag's own mind, however, was made up, for he had no similar inhibitions, knowing only that he loved Harrin, and Harrin loved him, and he would do anything to bring her perfect, ultimate bliss. Trusting in her lover's desires, Harrin reached out with her mind even as she reached out with her hand, and rested her palm on top of the orb. Instantly, both their minds were flooded with another vision, a scene taking place at that moment only a few rooms away.

*

Sam Dray sighed in pure, blissful contentment as he seated himself on the edge of the delightfully soft bed of the room Mistress Brightstar had so kindly provided him. Of course, Sam was as naked as a jaybird then, his blue denim overalls draped over a nearby chair. The tall and sleek-muscled equitra stallion never did care much for clothes, probably something leftover from his ages-past true equine ancestry, and as he normally worked alone or nearly so out on his small ranch, it didn't usually matter whether he went skyclad or not. Before him, the setting sun was casting warm light onto his gold-furred body, making his coat off a rich, burnished inner light, like the subtle grain of well-polished lemonwood.

Closing his eyes as he simply basked in the final rays of the late spring sun, Sam didn't even notice as the door to his room opened, and two slender, girlish figures stepped inside. Sheru nearly gasped as her eyes immediately went to Sam's perfect rump, clearly visible as his short-trimmed golden tail was splayed to the side on the bed, its rounded curves almost feminine in appearance if it weren't for the solid, muscular definition that made it very clear how masculine the owner of that gold-furred tush really was. Yvette, however, reached up to press two fingers to Sheru's cute lips, keeping the younger girl quiet, at least for the moment, while the gnomish girl smiled to herself, just taking a long, long moment to admire the gorgeous, bare naked male seated on the bed in front of her. The moment was beautiful, the play of the setting sun on Sam's well-groomed fur and utterly exposed body breathtaking, a moment of pure artistry begging to be captured. With a moment's concentration, Yvette did indeed capture that moment, using the crystal ball she'd sequestered in a nearby chamber to seize the image and store it away in its magical memory. As she did this, however, Yvette realized that the crystal was in use by the two inhabitants of that room. The realization made her smile, for she'd been working on getting Harrin to relax a little for as long as she'd known the cute shield dwarf, and now Harrin was doing it entirely on her own.

"Oh Sam," said Yvette softly, sweetly, making Sam turn his head slightly, his ears quirking in the direction of the two girls, though his eyes didn't open, at least not yet, as he was still quite caught up in just enjoying the sun, and he didn't seem to realize that he was still naked. "We're terribly sorry to come in unannounced, Sam, but Sheru here so wanted to ask you a very important question."

Now Sam's sky blue eyes opened, his expression mildly alarmed as he turned around to face the two girls, reaching out at the same time to grab a pillow and position it swiftly over his lap. While he'd already enjoyed Yvette's company, and she'd certainly given him a nice scrub-down (among other things), Sam didn't know that Sheru had been watching him before, and being naked around a human girl of such obviously good breeding...well, that just wasn't done, not by a well-mannered stallion like Sam.

"I'm sorry for not bein' presentable right now," Sam said in his slow, comfortably pleasant drawl. "I didn't expect company before bedtime."

Then Sam began to pay a bit more attention to his two visitors, and his beautiful blue eyes widened as he realized what they were wearing. Yvette, being Yvette, wasn't too terribly surprising in her attire, being dressed in only a sheer, translucent nightie that only barely reached the tops of her thighs. It was pretty obvious that, if Sam saw her from behind, he'd be able to get a good look at the smooth, plump curves of the naughty little gnome's tushie. Sheru, though, was a surprise to Sam, as he'd pegged her as being the bashful, proper type, a young lady not given to unseemly acts. Yet there she was, dressed in a pale blue chemise, which went down to slightly below her waist, the material so light and fine it was almost like mist, showing glimpses of the smooth, supple young body beneath with each of Sheru's movements, occasionally becoming almost transparent when it brushed against her skin in just the right way. Sam soon realized, as Sheru took a few shy steps forward at Yvette's quiet urging, that the chemise was only fastened with a simple knot right between her pert, upthrust breasts, and as she moved it parted in a reversed V, revealing her to be completely naked beneath the robe, save for a pair of light blue panties. The panties, Sam noticed, were completely transparent, giving the skin of Sheru's pubis a blue tint, save for a tiny section where the fabric was actually solid, right over the blonde teen's quim. Since the panties clung tightly to Sheru's body, however, Sam could see a clearly-defined cameltoe, making Sheru, at least in his opinion, worse than naked. Uncomfortable now in the presence of a beautiful young woman in a fashion he'd never even begun to suspect might ever happen, Sam pressed the pillow on his lap down even more tightly in a vain effort to fight the growing pressure there, before he turned to look at Yvette, trying to read something in her bright blue eyes about what was happening, and what was expected of him. For a long moment he was held by Yvette's gaze, seeming to read something in them, his expression slowly losing its nervousness and regaining his calm confidence as he turned to look at Sheru once more.

In that brief period, Sheru had approached the bed, and was now smiling at Sam, looking a bit nervous and self-conscious in the obviously unfamiliar clothing, but all the same equally obviously hopeful that she pleased Sam. The gorgeous blonde stallion could tell that little Sheru was exerting all her willpower to keep from covering herself with her slender arms and dainty, long-fingered hands, even when the strange robe, obviously magical in nature, brushed against her nipples, making the almost painfully perked and so suckable little nubs appear, tinted in blue, for a teasing moment before fading from sight once more.

"I..." began Sheru, before her voice faltered a moment as she blushed adorably, before she clasped her hands in front of her and began again. "I'm going to be doing some dangerous things," the blonde-haired wizardess explained, looking into Sam's eyes, her gaze showing her complete earnestness. "I don't even know if I'll make it through everything alive. But I've got to avenge my master, Charles Windsar. I know I'll need all the help I can get. So..." she raised her clasped hands before her breasts in supplication. "Sam Dray, will you help me? I know it's a lot to ask, but I know you're someone I can count on, and I need all the good help I can get."

Chuckling, Sam's smile was gentle, reassuring as he reached out and patted Sheru reassuringly on the shoulder - an easy feat, since he was as tall as her even while he was sitting down.

"I've heard enough of the story from your friends," Sam said with an easy, relaxed shrug, everything about him exuding a careless willingness to help. "Trust me, I've been on a few quests myself, so I know how it's easy to end up in 'em. I know how hard it is to make it through 'em alive, too, without some friends to back you up. So, yeah, if you want me, you've got me. I can tell you've got a good heart, Sheru, and I was kinda expecting you to show up sooner." His crystal blue eyes flicked down her body, and his smile widened a little, though somehow without appearing lecherous, only friendly. "Though I hafta admit, I was kinda expectin' you to be wearin' more."

Sheru lowered her head, her expression adorably embarrassed as her blush seemed almost to light up her whole body.

"Yvette said you'd like it if I asked wearing this," Sheru said in a small, shy voice. "That you worship the Morrigan, and you're supposed to take payment for services."

"Well, that's true'n all," admitted Sam, before reaching out, his large, calloused, and yet so very gentle hand stroking down Sheru's side, feeling the soft fabric beneath his fingers, before he stroked upward again, this time lifting the short chemise, his palm caressing smooth skin instead, making Sheru shiver, gasping softly at the contact against her trim, flat tummy. "Also true about me liking your clothes. Just 'cause I'm surprised don't mean I don't appreciate the gesture."

"Don't you think, Sheru," said Yvette, stepping up next to the human girl (who was only head, shoulders, and chest taller than the little gnome), "that you ought to give Sam some proper payment? After all, a good girl doesn't tease a man unless she's willing to make good on the teasing."

"Teasing?" said Sheru as she looked at Yvette in confusion, and then back at Sam. "Was I teasing you?"

Yvette giggled, while Sam chuckled again, then nodded. Sheru might have been an adept student of magic, but she'd spent almost her entire life within memory at and around Windsar Tower, which had greatly limited her exposure to the outside world. This made her a little slow at picking up on simple social cues that others might have taken for granted, though she did tend not to make the same mistakes too often. Sheru's mouth became almost a perfect "o" as she saw Sam's nod, and her hand went to her mouth.

"I'm so sorry," she said in a tiny voice, and started to take a half-step back, obviously about to leave in shame, before Yvette reached up, catching the trailing end of the knot holding Sheru's scant garment closed. As it parted with Sheru's backward step, her green eyes opened wide as her lovely young breasts were suddenly exposed, and the naïve little wizardling reached up to hold the chemise together, stopping her flight as her focus shifted. Yvette rolled her eyes at this, then gave Sheru a nudge on her bottom.

"If you've been a tease, Sheru, it's rude to leave suddenly," the honey-haired gnome explained with a gently teasing smile. "Now, why don't you show Sam how grateful you are that he's so willing to help you out?"

For a moment, Sheru hesitated, turning to look into Yvette's eyes once more. She stood there, matching gazes with Yvette, for almost a full minute, an expression of confusion on her face as a strange pressure built behind her eyes. Then, turning, Sheru felt the pressure immediately disappear as she slowly knelt before Sam, looking up into his beautiful blue eyes. All she felt now was a sense of rightness in what she was about to do, knowing that it would please Sam...and Yvette.

"I'm sorry for teasing you, Sam," she said meekly, before her eyes turned down to look at the pillow resting on his lap. "I didn't mean to."

Holding her breath, Sheru reached out, then gently lifted the pillow, setting it to the side. It was impossible for her to stifle her gasp, her eyes growing very wide indeed, as she saw Sam's penis, lying semi-flaccid and sprawled across one sleek, powerful thigh. Just below that beautiful unerect member hung Sam's full sac, the outlines of two goose egg-sized ovular globes clearly visible through the silk-soft bronze membrane. Hesitantly, as though afraid at any moment Sam's penis might turn into a snake and bite her, Sheru reached out and slowly, oh-so-slowly stroked one delicate hand along the horse-man's length, marveling at how warm it felt, and how it yielded a little as she gave it a gentle squeeze just below the strangely blunt-looking, dome-topped tip, which looked only a little like the books on human anatomy she'd read. Leaning in closely, resting her other hand on Sam's inner thigh, Sheru barely dared to breathe as she began to stroke her fingers down that beautiful penis, starting back slightly, like a timid woodland creature, as it began to swell under her delicate touch. It was fascinating for Sheru, watching a male grow erect, and she leaned in closer as Sam quickly stiffened under Sheru's slow strokes. As blood rushed into his penis, as Sheru had read it would, she watched as his full glans, a slightly darker bronze color than the rest of his penis, swelled up and out, becoming more conical, more humanlike in appearance, where before, in his unerect state, it had been more horselike.

Seemingly oblivious to the way Sam's large hands gripped the bedsheets tightly, Sheru leaned in as close as she could, turning her head this way and that to carefully and thoroughly inspect the stallion's staff, all the while continuing to stroke slowly up and down, feeling his velvet hardness beneath her hand. On an impulse, not really thinking about it, when Sheru saw a plump pearl of precum form and swell at the very tip of Sam's penis, she leaned in and licked it up with a flick of her tongue. Sam shivered at this, making a soft whickering sound. Sensing that she'd done something good, Sheru gently cradled Sam's penis in her hands, his thickness too much for her to wrap a single hand around him, and then closed her mouth around the very tip of his full, plum-shaped glans.

Looking up at Sam's beautiful face with wide eyes, her expression so hopeful, so eager to please, Sheru started to bob her head forward and back, just a little for now, enough to wrap her lips, at their lowest point, right around the swollen circle of Sam's corona, before pulling back right up to the very tip, where she flicked her tongue into the crease of his slit, all the while keeping her mouth tightly pressed to his warm, rigid flesh. At the same time, Sheru's hands stroked up and down the rest of Sam's shaft, her thumbs teasing the especially large vein running down the underside, coaxing steadily more precum from his heavy sac, until Sheru was swallowing regularly, the only way she could keep Sam's copious discharge from leaking down her chin.

While Sheru made soft noises to herself with her pretty, high-pitched voice, sending tingling vibrations down Sam's manstaff as she continued to bob her head, her cheeks so flushed with embarrassment and arousal at what she was doing, Yvette was hardly idle. Giving a teasing smile up at the heart-stoppingly hot stallion, the little gnome carefully hooked her fingers beneath Sheru's chemise, and then slid the filmy blue garment back and off the cute blonde teen's shoulders and down her arms, laying her completely bare save for the gauzy film of her tight-stretched panties. Then, eagerly going to hands-and-knees, the scantily-clad gnome girl got right next to Sheru, her little mouth starting to lave over Sam's swollen sac with little nibbles and licks, before she finally worked her mouth into the sensitive crease right behind the stallion's scrotum.

There was no way Sam was going to be able to last long like this, with two adorable females like these working him over so eagerly with their talented mouths, and he knew it. Despite himself, his hips bucked when Yvette's mouth met his perineum, and he watched with more than a little surprise as his cock thrust upward into Sheru's mouth, her lips widening to accommodate him, all without seeming to choke her for even a moment. Sheru looked as surprised as Sam at this discovery, her expression as comical as it was erotic as her little mouth was stuffed with a good third of Sam's stiff, heavily-leaking shaft. Experimentally, now that she'd discovered something about herself that she'd previously never suspected, Sheru pulled back, until just the plump head of Sam's cock was back in her mouth, making sure to keep stroking all of his heavy girth that she wasn't fellating actively. While Sheru swirled her tongue around the conical glans of Sam's cock, she took several long, deep breaths, like a diver about to go for an extended plunge, before she thrust herself forward and down with a will, determination showing on her face. Making soft, cute, high-pitched grunts of exertion, Sheru made herself go deeper, and deeper, and deeper still, until, her bright green eyes opening with astonishment, she felt her chin touching Sam's balls. She looked up at Sam in awe at her accomplishment for several long moments, and then, experimentally, began to rotate her head slightly as she pulled back, making Sam's penis gyrate as well just a little, enough to add a sudden additional rush of stimulation.

If he hadn't been so focused on Sheru's oral exploration, Sam might have blown his load already. Now, however, Sheru was starting to get into a new rhythm of pumping forward and back, lowering herself onto all-fours alongside Yvette, which just made Sam's cock bend downward until it was standing at a right angle away from his body. At this moment, Sam's endurance was spared a little longer as Yvette paused long enough to rise to her knees so that she could peel off her nightie, leaving herself completely naked before she returned to all-fours, thrusting her tongue up right against the tense pucker of Sam's tailhole. Gritting his teeth, knowing he'd hit the point of no return, Sam reached out with both large, strong hands, and firmly seized both girls' outthrust, heart-shaped bottoms. The crease of Yvette's tushie was well-defined, plush and plump and bouncy, as was normal for gnomes. It stuck out a bit as well, just like her breasts, rather large for her small size, even when one took proportions into account. Sheru's bottom, however, didn't stick out; it didn't need to. Unlike Yvette's rounded curves, Sheru's own shapely bum was a natural part of her, a smooth and seamless fraction of her flawless whole. Rather than dominating her features, as Yvette's booty did, Sheru's drew the eyes naturally, and then let them flow elsewhere without disruption, allowing a viewer to take in all of her supple pubescent beauty. With his heavy hand gripping her bum, squeezing each cheek in turn, spreading them apart, Sam took this in, admiring the nearly-naked firmness of her cheeks, framed in gauzy, transparent blue by her panties, which did nothing to conceal her body from the rear.

Slipping his hand beneath the waist of Sheru's panties, Sam let his fingers tease their way over her tense anal bud, making her wriggle, whining cutely around her mouthful of hard horsecock. Oh yeah, she'd be a natural for taking a penis anally, and loving every moment, an anal fiend in the making. Then, at the same time his fingers found Yvette's own plush, pouty labia, Sam's digits slowly, gently caressed over Sheru's moist lower lips before he squeezed his index finger inside. That was all he could fit! Almost immediately after pressing that single finger into the trembling, loudly-moaning teen, her noises mingling with those of Yvette in an erotic chorus that was quickly driving Sam to distraction, her inner walls clamped down on his finger, hard. Experimentally, being careful not to go too fast for fear of hurting her, Sam carefully wiggled his index finger a bit, working Sheru open as much as he could, before he slowly squeezed in his middle finger as well. Sheru's inner walls stretched readily enough, surprisingly without any signs of discomfort for the smooth young teen, but then immediately closed down on Sam's fingers once more, making it just a little hard for him to move them. It was as though her cunny would stretch to accommodate whatever was thrust into it, and not one hairspan more, keeping her achingly tight no matter what was inside of her.

That, however, was the last realization that came to Sam at that time as, quite suddenly, he hit Sheru's and Yvette's G-spots at almost the same time; as it turned out, on the inside, gnomes and humans were very similar indeed. His thumbs diddling their clitties rapidly, Sam's jaw tensed as he heard the squeals of the two females as they both started to cum quite suddenly, the experience obviously a surprise for Sheru, who'd been concentrating too much on giving pleasure to Sam to realize how close to the edge she was. The same, of course, was true for Sam, who'd been too busy exploring Sheru to realize what was about to happen in time to give a proper warning. The next thing he knew, as Yvette's tongue penetrated his tailhole, and Sheru's throat clenched down on him, both girls giving muffled squeals as their pleasures hit their peak, the sounds of their pleasure was all it took to set Sam off, his whole body tensing up, his rump tensing, sculpted abdomen tightening even more as he felt his balls rising in the fraction of time before he came in an eruption of almost geologic levels.

Her cheeks suddenly puffing out as Sam's cum filled her mouth, Sheru's eyes went wide in astonishment: she'd never thought there would be this much! But her own orgasm was strong upon her at that moment, her juicy insides spasming around the fingers pumping inside of her, and it was only a matter of moments before her eyes rolled back into her head, then squeezed tightly shut, her throat gulping almost entirely of its own accord as she swallowed almost every drop of Sam's copious cream, only a thin trickle running down her chin. This, Sheru decided without conscious thought, was heaven. Of course, when her rational mind reasserted itself, she'd be horrified at what she'd done. Right then, however, she simply basked in the glorious pleasure of the moment, heedless of the adorable and oh-so-arousing noises she was making as her whole body gyrated, spitroasted by Sam's fingers and cock.

*

Unknown to Sheru or Sam, and only guessed at by Yvette, the scene playing out in Sam's room was being somewhat mirrored in the one shared by Arag and Harrin. On her knees as Arag stood, her slightly plump, hard-muscled bottom resting on her heels, the dwarfgirl was anything but shy or delicate as she rolled her tongue around the inside of Arag's foreskin, then pushed her head forward, peeling that thin circle of skin back as she took a deep breath, then sank the big boar's cock right up to the back of her throat. Harrin almost gagged at that moment, before she got control once more, and swallowed, taking him all the way to the roots, feeling Arag's heavy, furry balls pressing against her chin. Not content to stop there, Harrin grabbed her porcine and orcine lover's butt, right below his short tail (which was not at all curly like a domestic pig's), and started to pump her head forward and back, looking up to watch his face, sharing in the surge of arousal her expression brought to the needy male.

Inside of Sheru's mind, there had been something powerful, something wonderful, a repository of immense carnal knowledge, more than even Sheru herself was aware. Touching the human girl's mind with the lightest caress had almost immediately sent vast stores of that hidden, unknown knowledge rushing into the minds of both Arag and Harrin, knowledge that they immediately had to start putting into practice.

Bending his knees, Arag reached down and wrapped his immense hands around Harrin's waist. With ease, thanks to his immense strength, the thick-bodied male lifted the full-bodied dwarfgirl, turning her carefully in midair, allowing her to keep servicing his cock with her mouth all the time he was repositioning her so that her legs rested on his shoulders, her ankles hooked behind his neck. For a moment, Arag just admired Harrin's snug and very moist cunny, framed in a thick, healthy bush of golden fur (the true source of the rumor that dwarven women had beards). Caring little about anything but pleasing his lover, Arag plunged his snout downward and started to greedily lap at Harrin's quim with his tongue, which differed from a human's only in that it was slightly more pointed at the tip, making it quite easy for the muscled, barrel-bodied orog to work it hard and fast through the quivering lips of Harrin's cunny, until the dwarfgirl squealed like a piglet herself, the shrill sound muffled somewhat around the hefty girth of Arag's cock.

That was only the start. It was only a matter of not a long time at all before Harrin's juices were running down Arag's chin, after he'd worked her through several oral orgasm, until he was drunk on her wetness. Harrin, meanwhile, felt her eyes widening as she sensed Arag's own imminent orgasm, pulling back just enough to get a good taste of the first spurt of his copious cream, before she plunged herself down once more, using the tapped knowledge of Sheru's mind to guide her actions, letting her swallow almost every drop.

His legs wobbling a little as Harrin finished draining him, Arag carefully lowered Harrin to the bed, his small eyes admiring the way she looked as she crouched there on all-fours. Grinning over her shoulder at her green-furred lover, knowing his thoughts as surely as he knew hers, Harrin reached back and slapped her firm buns, then squeezed her fingers between her thighs to start rubbing herself rapidly. Knowing it was a trap, Arag nevertheless stepped forward, his immense uncut erection surging swiftly back to its full length, jutting out before him as he approached behind Harrin, pointed straight at her upturned tushie as she spread her labia wide for him.

The moment the orog's uncircumcised cock nudged its way into Harrin's cunny just a little, she roughly shoved back against him, not letting him go slow. Grunting softly as she felt her hymen burst, a footnote of pain against a backdrop of pleasure, Harrin raised herself up on her hands as though she were doing a pushup, then wrapped her short-but-powerful legs around Arag's waist, holding him firmly in place. Using her own considerable strength, Harrin turned Arag, twisted him onto the bed on his back, and then rose up over him, gritting her teeth in pleasure as she started to ride him, reverse-cowgirl, picturing herself as the hammer slamming down upon the anvil as the sounds of her flesh slapping against his hips filled her ears, along with the sounds of his grunts and her own loud moans. Suddenly Arag's huge, hairy hands were reaching around her, and Harrin's eyes grew wide as his calloused hands started to grope her full breasts, then squeeze and roll the erect, very dark red nipples between his fingertips. Dwarves were made for savage, brutal loving, and so were orckin, and as Arag matched Harrin's ferocity with his own, his cock's swollen head pressing against her cervix with each of their perfectly-timed thrusts and counterthrusts, Harrin felt herself crying out again and again, her ruddy dwarfskin bathed in a sheen of pleasuresweat. Then, her own squeal of orgasm matched only by Arag's own deep-throated, grunting squeal, Harrin's eyes rolled back into her head as she felt the orog's dark green cockhead punch through her cervix, straight into her womb. For a human without magical protection, such a deep violation would have been painful at best. For a healthy and energetic dwarfgirl, however, among a race whose males were legendary (by those in the know) for the relative sizes of their penises, this was the final straw to set her jerking and gyrating and writhing on Arag's hard shaft, her inner flesh churning just as much as the rest of her body as she felt the gush of his cum splashing against the back of her uterus.

'I should never have waited so long,' thought Harrin to herself. 'This is better than I ever imagined.'

She couldn't help but smirk slightly as she felt Arag's silent agreement in her mind. Then another orgasm ripped through them both simultaneously, their link letting them share the other's orgasm just as though it were their own, and all conscious thoughts left the lovers as they simply continued to thrust against each other, eager to explore every possible sensation that this newfound world of eroticism had opened up to them.

*

With an adorable squeal, Sheru kicked her legs on either side of Sam's golden-maned head, her precious little tushie squirming where it was cupped in his large, gentle hands. Digging her fingers into the sheets, the lithesome young wizardess' back arched, toes curling as she was brought to yet another orgasm as the big blonde stallion continued to move his astonishingly agile lips against her juicy cunny, engulfing them almost completely, mouthing and sucking all the way up to her baby smooth pubis. After Sam's orgasm, and Sheru had a chance to clean herself off a bit with a handy towel Yvette brought to her from the room's washstand, the friendly equitra stallion had felt that it was only fair that he return the favor. At first, Sheru had been a bit hesitant, since, after all, she'd never had a male touch her down there, and allowing such activities seemed rather risky to her, since she couldn't guess where they'd lead. However, between Yvette's coaxing and Sam's heart-melting blue-eyed gaze, to say nothing of how good it felt as he stroked her slender, naked body with his large, work-calloused hands, standing up to look down on her, all the better to caress every inch of her, Sheru soon relented. Now she had no idea why she'd hesitated, giving up all control to Sam as the powerful, gorgeous male set her on the edge of the bed, at least at first, and had gently parted her supple thighs, his broad and wonderfully smooth tongue extending for his first taste of Sheru's moist lower lips.

Of course, that had just been the start, and Sheru hadn't stayed seated on the edge of the bed for long. The first orgasm had made her back arch, her cries of joyful pleasure growing more ecstatic when Yvette started to suckle on her plump pink nipples, which had both stiffened and broadened with Sheru's heightened arousal. She'd tumbled onto her back on the bed after the second orgasm, and soon after Sam started to inch his way forward, pushing Sheru slowly back onto the bed fully, while he eventually used his same forward momentum to crawl up and onto the bed as well. Now he was kneeling between Sheru's legs, his bottom in her hands, holding her up at a forty-five degree angle to better suckle on her entire cunny, making a host of succulent slurping noises as he feasted on Sheru's delicate, delicious pink parts, his supple lips reaching steadily higher up Sheru's tender mons with each forward thrust of his rounded equine muzzle.

"That's it," murmured Yvette eagerly as she knelt to one side, watching the show, one hand working between her legs. "She's almost ready now, Sam. Almost..."

Ready for what? Sheru's pleasure-dazed mind couldn't quite get a firm grip on what the perky little gnome could possibly mean, but a glance at Sam's beautiful face and soulful eyes told her immediately that the stallion didn't have any wicked designs - he was quite blissfully content to keep doing what he was doing right then, obviously enjoying eating out Sheru to his heart's content.

"So hard," Yvette murmured, her other hand reaching forward, and Sheru, craning her neck slightly, could just barely see the gnome's tiny fingers wrap as far around Sam's perfect penis as possible, stroking the smooth, slick length. "It must ache, being so hard for so long, doesn't it?" Sam's eyes started to grow more heavy-lidded as Yvette spoke, his eyes meeting her own briefly, before he slowly nodded, the motion making Sheru's train of thought momentarily derail as it sent her into another round of hard climax, her pleasures so extreme right then that she couldn't even make any noise any more. "Don't worry, though," Yvette soothed, the hand between her legs leaving their busy work, and then gently stroking Sheru's smooth, flat stomach, a finger briefly teasing into the human girl's navel, leaving lines of wetness from Yvette's own juices. "You can put your seed in this fresh, ripe little human filly."

What? Sheru's green eyes widened as she heard Yvette's words. Wait, she'd only agreed to this as long as Sam didn't...ah! A soft blue-white glow spread from where Yvette's hand was caressing the human teen's tummyas the gnome whispered soft words of power, words Sheru recognized from the times she'd gone with Master Charles to help the farmers who lived near his tower. It was a spell of fertility! Yvette intended for Sam to get Sheru pregnant! Yvette lifted her hand slightly, letting the glow diffuse throughout the room, and then began to slowly press downward, the ball of gleaming magic between her hand and Sheru's stomach expanding slightly with the steady increase in proximity to its caster and its intended recipient.

Fighting her way past the intense pleasure Sam was inflicting upon her, Sheru began to buck, struggling ineffectually in her present position, her youthful body's gyrations doing little except to arouse the pleasure-drunk stallion further. Sliding his hands up the undersides of Sheru's legs, making her shiver as she fought to find her voice, to tell Sam to stop, to let her go, that she didn't want to get pregnant, Sam immediately halted the kicking of Sheru's legs as he closed his hands around her calves, just beneath her knees. Making adorable noises of exertion, Sheru squirmed under Sam as the big stallion crawled forward, pressing her legs back with steady, irresistible strength. At the same time, he was moving forward, angling his hips downward, stealing Sheru's voice as his beautiful gold-skinned penis pressed into the channel of Sheru's cunny, working his hips back and forth, nice and slow, working the underside of his cock into her quim until her juices had stained almost the entire underside of his length, and were running down her thighs and outthrust, heart-shaped bottom in rivers. All the noise Sheru could make right then, so worn-out with pleasure had she become, were desperate, pleading little whimpers, as she tried to get Yvette to stop, to let Sam know she wasn't ready to be a mommy yet. A single look was all it took, though, to see that Yvette had no intention of stopping, her expression the pleased look of an alchemist performing a promising experiment in a lab as she used the hand steadily stroking Sam's cock to gently angle it downward, the tip catching against Sheru's cunny on one of Sam's slow retreats, ensuring that on his next, slow, steady forward thrust, Sheru was going to be stuffed to the brim with hard, dripping stallioncock, and not too long after that, her tummy would be swimming in potent stallionsperm, all of it eagerly racing for the egg Yvette was magically coaxing from Sheru's ovaries.

"Please..." Sheru managed to get out, looking straight into Yvette's eyes as she shook her head, hoping her expression would say more than her words...and then paused, her eyes widening in realization as she felt the same sensation of gentle pressure she'd felt before, when Yvette had talked her into giving Sam head. The gnome had been using magic on her! Aware of what had been done to her, Sheru's heightened attention soon allowed her to see the faint outlines of the lenses pressed to Yvette's eyes, lenses that Sheru knew from her studies must be able to produce an enchantment spell on demand, one that would make Yvette supernaturally persuasive, without truly dominating the minds of its subjects; instead, they would find themselves regarding the caster, in this case Yvette, as their best friend, and become willing to do most anything for her...within reason. Yvette had just crossed that point of reason for Sheru, and the pubescent mage had managed to throw off the spell's effects. But would it be in time for her to get Sam to stop? Surely Sam wouldn't put his penis into her if she told him not to - he was a good guy, after all. If Sheru could only find her voice in time as she turned to Sam, could only catch his eyes, turning them away from watching that exquisite penis of his so slowly stretching her cunny lips apart, her juices flowing in rivers around his glistening golden glans...

Then Yvette's hand pressed fully down upon Sheru's stomach, the blue-white light turning into a glowing pink as it spread over the pleasure-paralyzed girl's belly. Sheru could only watch, gape-mouthed, her voice silenced by the raw, earth-shattering pulses of ecstasy that jolted through her inexperienced body, brought on by the direct, almost electric stimulation of her ovaries, turning her into a magically-charged baby-making factory. In her last, desperate action, Sheru feebly kicked her legs on either side of Sam's chest as he pressed her knees back to the bed, Sheru's innate flexibility making this not terribly uncomfortable for her, his stiff shaft bending slightly for a moment as he started to squeeze his stallion-sized cock forward and down, his plump cockhead nuzzling apart the folds of the teenaged mage's cunny. Sheru reached down desperately, her delicate hands trying to grab at Sam's shaft, to somehow hold him in place, to make him pause long enough for her to make the beautiful male realize that he was under a magic spell.

Just as Sheru's fingers managed to wrap around Sam's penis, however, he gave the slightest of nudges with his hips, his tail flagging a little as his sweet buns flexed. In that instant, Sheru's mouth dropped open as she watched Sam's shaft straighten, his penis straightening as her fingers slipped on the many inches that audibly popped into her. There was nothing to say then, nothing Sheru _could_say, as Sam, considerate lover that he was, as well as one blessed with a significant, stallion-sized endowment, steadily fed inch after meaty inch into the squirming girl's clenching inner walls, spreading them wide apart, wider than Sheru had even thought possible, and all she could do was watch. There was no way this was possible, no way that someone Sam's size could possibly fit into Sheru, or at least not all the way. Yet, as Sheru's eyes never turned from watching Sam's penis sink into her, she saw every last fingerlength of the gorgeous stallion's golden shaft fill her up, until his hips were growing soaked in the copious juices of her gushing cunny, his balls pressed firmly against Sheru's perky pink bottom.

"Incredible," whispered Yvette, masturbating herself as she watched Sam's entire shaft enter Sheru. "I'd have never thought it possible from someone so small." She reached forward, making Sheru squeal loudly as she carefully worked one of her fingers in alongside Sam's girth, stretching Sheru open just a little bit more, the finger curling upward to rub forcefully against the ceiling of the pleasure-bound teen's inner walls. "It looks as though little Sheru can take whatever you can give, Sam," the little gnome concluded with a pleased nod. "Don't hold anything back." She smiled eagerly, and Sheru, catching a glimpse of that smile, whimpered with a virgin's trepidation.

Despite Yvette's entreaty to plow little Sheru like one of his fields, however, Sam paused for a long, long moment, just letting Sheru get used to the feeling of being full of hard horsecock. His large, calloused hands stroked and caressed her entire body, so smooth and soft compared to his roughness and hardness. Big as Sam was, though, he was very, very gentle, obviously knowing just how much damage he could cause with such size and strength as he had, and wanting to avoid it at all costs. His belly tense, tight, the muscles standing out in firm definition, Sam began to pull back, his smooth golden shaft glistening with Sheru's juices, right up until a good two-thirds of his glans popped its way outside of Sheru's clenching little cunny, which continued to pulse and spasm around the great void Sam's shaft had left behind when he pulled back. Looking down, Sheru saw her lower lips grip the tip of the stallion's broad, plump glans, kissing him there in a way that was at once terribly lewd and embarrassing, and also terribly arousing for little Sheru. Looking up into Sam's beautiful blue eyes, Sheru leaned up, kissing him on the lips, her eyes closing as she felt him kiss her back, her small hands stroking his chest and sides as she spread her legs as far apart as she could, splaying them out to either side of Sam's hips until her knees touched the bedsheets. Though she still felt used by Yvette's magical trickery, Sheru admitted to herself that she'd probably never have ended up at this point by herself, too shy and reserved and inexperienced to have ever even considered trying to talk Sam into having sex with her.

Besides: it felt _really_good.

Feeling Sam's wonderfully smooth tongue caress against her own with such skill, such experience, Sheru's cheeks flushed deeply, her eyes growing heavy-lidded. Her eyes closed completely, then, as Sam started to lower his hips, slowly, so very, very slowly sinking his beautiful penis into her trembling pink lips. It took so very long, and soon Sheru was feeling so very full, that she couldn't resist breaking the kiss to look down, only to gape as she saw only half of the beautiful male's cock was inside her! Her eyes turned up to meet Sam's, and he just smiled reassuringly, nuzzling and then kissing her forehead, before his body started to tense up, and he began to put slow, steady effort into his downward thrust, fighting through Sheru's exquisite inner tightness while holding himself back just enough to avoid hurting her. Then, finally, at very long last, Sheru felt her bent legs spread apart like the wings of a butterfly, held there by Sam's hips, which rested flush with her own, making her bottom thrust downward in a perfect heart shape, a perfect cushion against which Sam's heavy sac gently rested. Smiling down at her, Sam slowly ground his hips against Sheru's cunny, making her cry out in a sweet, musical tone of pure pleasure as his grinding rubbed firmly against her clitty and against so many of her most sensitive inner places - he was so big, Sam was touching her everywhere all at once! An especially hard, short thrust made Sheru's cries turn to a sharp squeal as she grabbed Sam's gorgeous buttocks and held him tightly in place, her fingers caressing into the crease of his bottom, unwittingly stimulating Sam all the more as Sheru teased her fingertips against his tense tailhole.

"D-don't hold anything back, Sam," Sheru got out in a small, part-frightened, part-excited voice, feeling her heart pounding in her chest as she said the words. "Give me everything you've got."

Sam paused a moment as he heard Sheru's words, then smiled down at her, before kissing her, first on her forehead, then on the tip of her nose, and then on her chin, each burning touch of his lips against her tender flesh making Sheru moan loudly and wriggle beneath the mighty-yet-gentle stallion's immense, sleekly-muscled body, her toes curling a little as she kicked out her feet to either side of his hips.

Then Sam began to do just as both Yvette and Sheru had asked: he began to give Sheru everything he had, and he did not hold back.

Hands falling from Sam's body, Sheru gripped the sheets beneath her, her beautiful voice raised high as her ears were filled with the soft, breathy grunts of the beautiful, virile male plowing her like one of his fields. Wriggling against the bed, Sheru's legs jerked upward and outward as Sam's pubis slapped against hers, his potent sac similarly slapping her perfect teenaged tushie until it was a nice, bright red. It was too much! In desperation, her back arching upward, rubbing her smooth breasts against Sam's chest, her nipples rasping wonderfully through his short, soft fur, Sheru wailed loudly, her body tensing up as she was driven over the edge of orgasm, her whole world reeling with pleasure, spots of red and black flashing across her vision as pulse after pulse of raw, overpowering pleasure shuddered through her body.

Vaguely, as though through a fog, Sheru became slowly aware of Sam's grunting getting louder, his thrusting growing more forceful and determined, until her breasts bounced with each stroke his hips against her quivering body. That meant something, something important, but what...then it came to Sheru, and her green eyes, heavy-lidded from the exhaustion of repeated orgasms, grew wide as she realized what was about to happen: Sam was going to cum!

"That's it," cooed Yvette, shuddering herself as she fingered herself to yet another orgasm, mostly forgotten until that moment next to the two entwined lovers. "Cum inside of her."

"Please, not in my cunny," Sheru gasped out, her voice strained from the continuing power of the stallion plowing away on top of her, using the term for her sex that she'd decided she liked best - it sounded cute to Sheru. "P-please...ah!" Further words, though, were cut off as Sheru's body arched upward once more, her belly tightening as she felt that beautiful golden shaft moving deep inside.

Looking up at Sam's face, Sheru could see the conflict in his expression. On the one hand, he was still under the power of Yvette's charm, and felt a powerful need to please her. On the other hand, Sam was a gentle soul, not one given to acts of cruelty or rape, and Sheru had asked him not to cum in her vagina, most likely to avoid pregnancy as much as possible under the circumstances. Pausing for a moment, Sam fought his inner struggle as he slowly ground his hips against Sheru's, soaking his inner thighs with her copious, sweet-smelling juices as he did so. Then, suddenly, Sam's expression cleared as he came to a solution with his somewhat slower farmer's mind. With a soft whimper, Sheru felt a gaping void inside of her as Sam did as she'd asked, and pulled out of her cunny. The emptiness, however, was soon replaced with a feeling of even greater fullness, as Sam grabbed the backs of her thighs, just above her knees, and hoisted them up, almost to her shoulders as he thrust his cock slowly forward and down once more. This time, however, Sam's target was the perfect heart-shaped crease of Sheru's buttocks. Gasping loudly, Sheru's mouth formed a perfect 'o' as Sam worked his domed cockhead against the tense nub of her anus, gyrating his hips in steady, inward-pushing circles until, quite suddenly, the tension gave way to Sam's irresistible, gentle force, and he plunged inside of Sheru's body once more. Squealing loudly, Sheru's cunny gushed more of her juices, these coating Sam's belly without his cock to get in the way as he started to thrust once more, nostrils wide as he puffed like a racehorse, his gorgeous, muscular flanks rippling with each lunge of his hips forward and then back.

Sam's whinny of orgasm filled the room, his cum flooding and overflowing Sheru's bottom in mere instants - there was just so much of it! - as Sam managed to obey her wishes as well as Yvette's. In her turmoil of shuddering pleasure, Sheru was vaguely aware of the slightly disappointed look on the gold-haired gnome girl's face, but then lost sight of it as Sam's lips met her own, kissing her with crushing force as his strong hands cradled her back, holding her tightly against his sleek-muscled body as he trembled above her for many long minutes.

*

Harrin lay, shivering slightly as she felt the pleasuresweat cooling on her naked body. Arag lay next to her, breathing heavily after the raw passion they'd shared with each other, holding nothing back. The purple-furred orcblood had tugged the sheets over both lovers as they'd settled down for the night, to better rest up after their erotic exertions.

"I should have done something to warn her," she whispered softly into the night, barely feeling Arag's sleepy thoughts teasing against her own to let her know he was still listening. "I should have known that Yvette would try to get Sheru into one of her cross-breeding experiments."

Thoughts served better than words as Harrin reviewed the past for her lover, explaining finally why Tia didn't like being around Yvette any more, even though they'd once been quite close, and even lovers. Yvette Brightstar had an overwhelming passion for the breeding of new creatures. She'd had this passion ever since her parents taught her all about their family farming business, which drew much of its profits from the breeding of steadily better cattle and pigs. It was only natural, then, that Yvette, after demonstrating her magical abilities and her right to ascend to the Council of Wands' magocratic aristocracy, that she had promptly begun to experiment with summoning and taming a variety of strange creatures from other realms, all as part of the quest to breed the perfect servant. Scratches, her steel predator pet, was the ultimate product of her mid-childhood breeding projects, and he'd been with her ever since as her most faithful companion and protector.

Breeding monsters, however, had only been the start of Yvette's passion, as she began to explore still deeper into creating new species. In her studies, Yvette discovered that some creatures had an affinity for breeding outside their own species, an affinity that was quite rare. Among the species with this ability were dragons, some outsiders (as creatures from other planes of existence were typically called), the fey, and, strangest of all, humans. This last intrigued Yvette to no end, and she could not resist seeking out the reason behind the ability of humans to produce hybrid offspring like creatures of far greater power and adaptability. Dragons, of course, were alive with the raw powers of creation that had originally former Therafim, so it made sense that they should be able to interbreed with most of Therafim's life. The fey, as creatures of creative chaos, naturally could similarly interbreed with almost anything. Outsiders, however, were a strange breed, and those capable of sexual reproduction tended not to reproduce with their own kind except under rather extreme circumstances, while on the other hand tending to be quite willing to interbreed with mortal races. Why they should be able to do so was not really known, though of course there were a variety of theories behind the fecundity of outsiders with creatures on the material plane, ranging from the likely to the outright bizarre.

After much study and thought, Yvette finally hit on a realization: humans were outsiders, at least after a fashion. It was a well-known fact that humans were not native to Therafim, but had arrived on the planet thousands of years in the past, after having fled their own homeworld on great ships designed to travel through space, time, and the planar boundaries as well. Thus, humans were outsiders, except that they were from another material plane, rather than from one of the more exotic Outer Planes that made up the building blocks underpinning reality itself. This explained why humans were able to interbreed with such a wide variety of other species.

Upon making this leap of logic, Yvette became consumed with proving her theory correct, the gnomish passion for discovery taking deep root in her psyche. Unfortunately, her field of study required acts that a great many people considered taboo. While she would never condone outright rape or other non-consensual behavior, Yvette was known for using enchantment magic to further her experiments when she couldn't engineer more traditional ways of getting humans erotically entangled with other species. The threat of being bred with some manner of monstrosity looming quietly in circulated rumors (though none of these rumors had been substantiated by the legal authorities) had led to the various serfs and servants working her family estate, most of them human, to do all they could to avoid being near Brightstar Manor when Yvette was known to be present, while at the same time leading a number of truly deviant individuals to develop an unhealthy interest in Yvette's scientific inquiries.

Eventually the lack of suitable subjects was what had inspired Yvette to become an adventurer at first, and then, when she'd developed a sizable number of contacts among other adventuring bands, led her to become a touchstone, as those who helped adventurers to find suitable parties for various quests were sometimes called, after the tool used to assess the value of precious metals. It made sense, really: after all, adventurers dealt with a wide variety of creatures, a great many of them were human, and if one or two of these human adventurers ended up in a tryst with something of a quite different species every so often, well, so long as they achieved success in their adventurous lifestyle, and nobody was seriously hurt, surely this was an acceptable risk. That, and Yvette had quietly sunk a goodly sum of funds into facilities in a special center on her family estate for the care and rearing of the offspring of such unions. Of course, she only used those facilities when adventurers didn't make use of her freely-offered magical abilities, including abilities that allowed her to speed up the gestation and maturation of an adventurer's offspring to mere months rather than years, the resulting individual having enough of the memories of their parents to be able to function as an adult (or at least a late-pubescent) individual of their species until they could establish their own personality more fully. While Yvette's facilities for raising the offspring of adventurers didn't see much use for infants, they certainly saw a significant amount of use by these newmade adults, who regularly and eagerly accepted training that allowed them to rapidly enter the adventuring lifestyle of their human parent as soon as possible.

Tia's time with Yvette had fallen somewhere near the end of Yvette's time as an active adventurer. Actually, it was Yvette's last major adventure, and it took her, Ballia, and Harrin up into the frozen wastes of Rimevast, the northernmost continent, to defeat a mad hobgoblin wizard who was creating a host of living siege machines that would surely have seen use in the many raids by that warmongering and conquest-hungry race against the people in the southern lands. While the adventure itself was successful, during the course of that adventure, the party had ended up in a parlay with a band of frost giants who took umbrage at the party traipsing through their territory. The situation had looked rather grim, as there were far too many giants for their little party to handle, right up until Yvette had used her eyes of charming on Tia. She picked Tia because the frost giant jarl proved too resistant for her to affect, but the end result turned out the same, as she convinced Tia to seduce the blue-skinned, blonde-haired jarl, and even provided Tia with a powerful enchantment to make sure the red-haired woman's efforts would be possible. After a night spent in the jarl's tent (during which few others in the giants' camp got any sleep, thanks to the noise made by the two in their throes of passion), the party had pressed onward, nobody willing to speak of the encounter until several months later, when Tia started to show signs of pregnancy.

By that point, Tia, with the help of Ballia's understanding of magic, and Harrin's understanding of Yvette, had worked out exactly what had happened, and came to Yvette in a full fury. While she was able to calm Tia down, and eventually convinced the Fairbank girl to accept Yvette's spells to hasten the term of the pregnancy as well as enhance the rate at which the girl-child born of the human-giant union grew to maturity, it was only after Tia had ended her friendship with and trust of Yvette for good. While she still didn't feel she'd done anything wrong, Yvette was sufficiently hurt by the loss of Tia as a friend (for she had regarded Tia as a true friend) that she swore off active adventuring completely, and instead became a touchstone, helping other adventurers to accomplish their desires for a fraction of the fees charged by others in Yvette's profession (she hardly needed the money, after all), while occasionally making arrangements for healthy, attractive human specimens to end up in carnal relations with various inhuman creatures to better further Yvette's continuing research.

Arag's comforting thoughts soothed Harrin's conscience as she ended the tale, for it was true that Harrin hadn't even thought of Yvette's tendencies, hadn't once thought that she might still be engaged in her former experiments. Harrin had every reason to believe that Yvette's loss of Tia's friendship had turned her away from further crossbreeding attempts, and it was only now, as she let the additional thoughtfulness of her afterglow take her, that she put the pieces together, including the rumors she'd heard about those parties that had regular dealings with Yvette, and realized that Yvette was still up to her old tricks. What had happened to Tia was a private matter, not something that needed to be brought up, and it made sense that Harrin would have neglected to tell everything to Sheru without knowing what Yvette was planning.

"I'll tell her everything in the morning, though," Harrin said with a firm nod. "After all, she's got a right to know now. Well," Harrin flushed slightly, "after I've gotten Tia's permission first, of course."

A strong hand rubbed Harrin's back as she sat in bed, and she looked into the surprisingly pleasant smiling face of her orcish lover.

"I guess I do worry too much, huh?" she answered Arag's unspoken thoughts, before kissing him on the snout. "Goodnight, lover."

*

Morning came far too soon for most of the companions. Sheru awoke with a strange sensation of warmth, only to discover that she was wrapped in Sam's arms, her cheek pressed against his chest. To her embarrassment, she'd been so tired out after last night's "activities" (she couldn't think too deeply on them without turning beet red and having her mind lock up, so she left it at that) that she'd ended up drooling on the golden stallion's fur, matting it in a tiny patch. A quickly-whispered word of magic cleaned away the mess before she could be discovered, though, and Sheru slid smoothly from the beautiful male's arms and got dressed as quickly as she could. In proper clothes, as her blue robes weren't that far away, and not the naughty thing Yvette had charmed her into wearing last night.

Descending the stairs to the dining room, Sheru discovered Yvette sitting there, a large tray stacked with various breakfast foodstuffs before her.

"Help yourself, Sheru," Yvette said brightly, motioning to the platter, and Sheru saw little reason to turn down the offer. "Sam was awake earlier, like a good farmer, but he didn't want to wake you, so I convinced him to go back to sleep for a while longer. The elves and their wolfen buddy, as well as that darn sprite, have already left, and Tia and her friends plan on leaving tomorrow, after I hurry up the term of the child in her belly." Sheru blinked at this, but Yvette only shrugged between bites of pain perdu. "It's probably going to be a half-orc, based on the tests I did, and those tend to gestate quickly, but Tia's not the patient sort, and she's in an especial hurry now to get back home."

Digesting this slew of information, Sheru ate a significant portion of melon while she mulled it over. Briefly, she considered accusing Yvette of manipulating her last night, but found herself too embarrassed to talk about it right then. She'd heard that people were supposed to feel dirty and used after something like what Yvette had done, but all Sheru felt was relaxed and strangely satisfied in a way that she'd never experienced before. After a moment's additional consideration, she decided to take a different tack of approach.

"Am _I_pregnant?" Sheru asked, her green eyes fixed on the little gnome. Yvette blinked at the question, then frowned in concentration, her nose wrinkling cutely as she drew some of the magic inside of herself up for use. Sheru could feel the subtle tingle of divinitation magic on her body, and shivered as she felt that tingle on the inside of her womb, a place she'd never thought much about until last night, when Sam had done his level best to stimulate Sheru all the way to her innermost depths.

"No, and more's the pity," Yvette said with a sigh. "Actually, it looks as though you've got some sort of magic in place to prevent pregnancy. It's powerful, whatever it is, more powerful than anything I've seen before."

Sheru's hand went to her stomach, her eyes widening at Yvette's words.

"I didn't..." then she frowned. "Threetails. She must have put this on me when I saw her." The frown deepened, then, as Sheru did her best to remember the details of her encounter with the strange red-haired woman in the woods. Certainly, she could recall their meeting, but there were gaps in her memory, bits of time that just weren't there anymore. "I don't remember her doing anything to me," she admitted finally. "But then, everything about my encounter with Threetails is a little hazy."

"I'm not surprised," Yvette said with a smirk. "That old witch is pretty dangerous, and she likes her privacy. She probably used some magic to mess with your memories of her, so you couldn't go spoiling all her mystery. Theatrics are at least as important as actual power when you're in a profession like ours - magic, that is - and Threetails has both in spades." Then Yvette fixed Sheru with a serious look from her blue eyes. "I guess you'd like to know why I charmed you last night, huh?"

The gnome's forthrightness surprised Sheru, and she blinked in bewilderment for several moments before she started to stammer out something. Yvette waved Sheru to silence, however.

"I'm sorry for doing that. It's just, after I noticed you watching me and Sam in the barn, I knew you'd be a perfect fit for Sam, but you were just too shy to do anything about it without a little nudge. So I provided the nudge." Yvette shrugged, smirking lightly. "After all, a simple bit of magic like that can't make you do something you wouldn't. That, and nobody was hurt, am I right? You seem pretty chipper this morning for a rape victim."

"It wasn't rape," Sheru said firmly, folding her arms. "I admit I didn't appreciate you using magic to manipulate me...but I suppose you're right. And," she blushed deeply, avoiding Yvette's eyes as her voice dropped until the gnome was forced to strain to hear the wizard girl's next words, "it did feel really good." Then Sheru's eyes met Yvette's once more, and she held the gaze. "Just promise me you won't go charming me again."

"I promise I won't even try to charm you any more," said Yvette, raising her hand in a mock vow position, then sighed heavily. "Not that I'd bother, really - with magic like you've got in place, you can't get pregnant, and that's my gnomish passion. Breeding humans with other creatures, that is. And before you start accusing me of anything, it's for science." Yvette folded her arms huffily. "I'm a researcher, not a deviant." Then her expression softened slightly. "Though I guess I'll accept charges of being a little bit of a pervert sometimes."

Sheru's eyebrows went up at this, but she finally decided to let the matter drop. After all, it wouldn't accomplish anything, and for all she knew, Yvette might be right, even if her worldview was a bit strange. Best to press on to other, more important subjects. Subjects like...

"So, what now?"

Yvette grinned.

"Now we get you hooked up with an adventuring party," she said, leaning back in her chair, her fingers looping behind her head. "Trust me, with what you've got ahead of you, you're going to need all the help you can get."

Bonus Content

Touchstones (Organization)

Touchstones are a collection of loosely-allied individuals who had developed special connections with the adventuring community. For a finder's fee or a percentage of any loot gained, depending on the services required, touchstones actively assist new adventurers in finding like-minded souls, more experienced adventurers to locate the right aid for various jobs, and assist adventurers of all levels of ability to find more work in their specialized field. This means that a typical touchstone is constantly on the lookout for rumors and bardic stories and old tomes telling of ruins and dungeons and monstrous lairs. Frequently touchstones also serve as middlemen between people in need of heroes to save them, and the heroes who will do the saving.

__**Entry Requirements**__: At least 8th level in any player character class; must have been an adventurer at some point; Charisma 14+; Intelligence 12+; at least 5 ranks in Knowledge: Local and/or History.

__**Benefits**__:

Economic: When a fresh band of up-and-coming adventurers gathers, they often find themselves short on funds and easily taken advantage of by con artists and others eager to fleece these young would-be heroes. Touchstones can act as the saviors of these fresh parties, helping to finance their early adventures in exchange for an equal share of the profits, while guiding them through the perilous straits that accompany an adventurer's downtime. Much of such help is often seen as an investment by touchstones, and so they may provide room and board to a band of adventurers that they like for free, at least until that party has wised up a bit.

Gear: Besides acting as party organizers and questgivers, touchstones also regularly keep tabs on where adventurers can find the equipment they need for their next adventure, and where they can sell their booty for the best possible price. Depending on the individual touchstone, this can include questionable material, such as poisons, monster body parts, and cursed items. Typically a touchstone will charge 10 gold pieces for every 1,000 gold pieces over a given location's buying or selling limit that an adventurer requires (100 gold pieces for illegal wares), or a flat fee of 10 gold pieces for the location of individuals catering to legal adventuring needs, such as those who craft weapons and armor within the budget of a given community, or 100 gold pieces for illegal needs, such as poison sellers and contact points for thieves' guilds.

Services: The typical fee for a touchstone to bring together the formerly unassociated members of an adventuring party is an even share from the first adventure that party undertakes, as though the touchstone were going on the adventure as an equal partner. Most touchstones also charge 1% of any monetary treasure found thanks to their efforts in locating adventures for a party, or a flat fee of 100 gold pieces x the Challenge Rating of the party for an adventure tailored to their level of ability, based on the ability of an adventuring party to pay when seeking out the touchstone's assistance.

Information: Commonly touchstones actively work to gather the locations of various persons who might be of service to adventurers. While not sages, touchstones regularly keep tabs on the locations of sages willing to assist adventurers, as well as where hirelings of various degrees of cheapness and reliability can be found and hired. Information such as this generally costs 5 gold pieces per inquiry.

Access: Touchstones regularly stake out a tavern frequented by adventurers and make that their point of contact with the adventuring community. It is traditional for touchstones to take on the role of the mysterious individual in the shady corner of the tavern, and so adventurers regularly approach such individuals with the expectation of finding someone who will lead them to adventure.

Status: Like adventurers themselves, touchstones are regarded as a necessary evil by most law-abiding societies. What they do is typically not illegal in itself, and so most touchstones are regarded as quasi-legal and generally left alone by the constables to do their business without interference, so long as they don't deal too frequently in things beyond the limits of legality.

__**Combat**__:

The whole point of becoming a touchstone is to avoid the dangers of adventuring while still bringing in a profit from them. Because of this, most touchstones avoid combat if at all possible. Nevertheless, all touchstones were seasoned adventurers themselves before becoming information brokers, and are also now at the center of a web of contacts, many of whom are also seasoned adventurers. Thus, it is considered unwise to cause trouble for a touchstone, since, if the touchstone isn't able to beat an offender down, that touchstone's friends and allies almost certainly can.

__**Advancement**__:

Since there isn't any formal organization to touchstones, they don't have a method or traditional advancement in their profession's ranks.

__**Missions**__:

The entire purpose of a touchstone is to help adventurers find jobs. However, most of these jobs are on behalf of others, rather than the touchstones themselves. Sometimes, though, touchstones find themselves in need of especially hard-to-find bits of lore, or the key to a forgotten vault, or something similar, so that they can provide another adventuring party paying for a lucrative quest with the essentials needed in order to go on that quest successfully. In this case, a touchstone might waive the typical fee for an adventuring party, so long as the party provides the touchstone with the needed item or information.

__**Responsibilities**__:

All touchstones are free agents, able to set their own hours and spend their time as they please. However, as is the case with all self-employed individuals, touchstones tend to make money only when they work for it. Because of this, all touchstones generally expect to work at least half their waking hours. Additionally, touchstones are expected to keep information about the adventurers they assist completely confidential. This confidentiality is what keeps touchstones in business, and while some touchstones breach confidentiality for bribes or because of threats to their persons, any touchstone with any degree of professional pride would rather die than give up information on that touchstone's contacts.

__**Structure**__:

Rather than a formal organization, touchstones are individuals who happen to keep the same line of work. Typically, touchstones regard others in their professions with a measure of friendly professional competitiveness, working to get information on the latest big quest and then sell it off first, while being willing to share information (for a finder's fee) when another touchstone can locate a party but not a quest, or a quest but not a party.

__**NPC Reactions**__:

Most NPCs that know about touchstones are connected in some way to either the law or the vast number of merchants and tradesfolk who cater to the needs of adventurers. The law tends to be neutral toward touchstones, since they deal with adventurers, noted rogue cannons, but also tend to help keep those adventurers from running wild in their search for things to do. Tavernkeepers, tradesfolk, craftfolk, and sages regard touchstones with varying degrees of approval, depending on how much they enjoy the money brought in by adventurers, and how much they can tolerate the trouble that tends to follow said adventurers.

__**Lore**__: (Knowledge: Local or Diplomacy for information gathering)

__DC 10__: Touchstones are the ones to see when you want to find work as an adventurer, or like-minded souls to go on an adventure. This will also lead an inquirer to the closest touchstone.

__DC 15__: There are plenty of touchstones around, and this level of knowledge will lead an inquirer to four or five of them, in case additional quests or material are needed. It's also possible to find touchstones who can provide directions to places where it is possible to purchase illegal or dangerous materials.

__DC 20__: At this point, it is possible to locate all the touchstones in a given community, or surrounding communities in the case of sparsely-occupied regions. It's now also possible to find touchstones who are reliable and won't sell out the adventurers who make use of them.

__**Encounters**__:

Almost every tavern frequented by adventurers will have a local touchstone. That shadowy figure in the corner is probably one now. Typically, touchstones will be at least level 8 in a player character class, and will know at least one Challenge Rating 8 party of adventurers willing to assist in a pinch at any given moment, and usually more.