Frozen Soul, and other works: Chapter 86

Book IV of Rules-Free VRMMO Life is now available on Amazon! Only $0.99!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073QSD9S4

--------------------

Monwihr was a typical dwarven frontier town, with a bunch of smithies, barracks, taverns, and other such things. Yeah, there was more to the town than that, like shops and such, but let’s face it, most of the stuff in town was designed to support the troops protecting the gateway into the mountain. Most of the serious traders would continue on, through the deep roads, to get to the capitol or other major cities, following the subterranean trade routes. The trading posts here on the border were simply for those surfacers who did not wish to linger underground, or those from underground who did not wish to see the sky.

Dwarven culture was definitely clan-based, and only a rare few of them ever left their caverns to go aboveground, unless they were on a mission from their clan or their gods. Dwarven adventurers found plenty of death and danger to entertain themselves with in the deeps, and there were always the constant conflicts with the drow to keep them occupied. Besides, when you lived your whole life with stone over your head, you could get a bit touchy about open sky. It wasn’t to the point where a dwarf who stepped aboveground would be cast out of society, like in some games, but dwarves raised underground did tend to get anxious outdoors.

None of that mattered to me, really, as I was just passing through, myself. Still, it would hardly do to pass through dwarven lands without trying dwarven ale, right? They were pretty much famous for that, as well as for their work at the forge. So I headed towards the Golden Nug, to see about quenching my thirst a little.

The reaction when I entered was not quite what I was expecting. The entire tavern grew quiet, and the dwarves in the room began looking angry. At first, I figured it was the whole ‘incubus’ thing again, but then I saw that their attention was directed mostly at Hrozne and Jastra. Great, this was going to turn into some kind of dwarf vs. drow thing, wasn’t it?

As we passed the bar, heading for one of the tables, the stumpy bartender growled, and said, “We don’t serve their kind here!”

Looking back at the dwarf with an imperious glare, I said, “Which kind?”

The dwarf spat. “Those drow! We don’t take kindly to their lot around here!”

Well, damn. Now I was going to have to do something impressive or this was going to be a long day. So I shifted into my drake form, and said, quite loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, “I am Zayn Darkmore, Knight of the Wyrmwood, Friend of Black Rock Hold, and Consort to Dragons! You DARE say you will not serve those in my train? One is my personal slave, and the other has turned hir back upon hir dark kin, and played a critical role in the freeing of Duskhaven! Now, you DARE to say you will not serve them, because of your own foolish prejudices?”

OK, so I wasn’t really all that offended. But it would be inconvenient for me to have to split the party all the time, so I may have channeled a bit of Torgan there. That damn Paladin was always going on about the dangers of pride and prejudice. Really glad I’m not him any more.

Now, surprisingly enough, people backed away from a man-sized dragon that suddenly appeared in their midst. I heard one person growl, and turned to see a table of dwarves, one of whom, a berserker type, was grabbing his axe. I turned away from the dwarf as black tentacles erupted underneath him, and began ripping and tearing at the dwarf’s armor, stripping him.

I turned back to my Incubus form as the tentacles began violating the dwarf while holding him aloft in the air. The two dwarves nearest him attempted to grab their axes and help, but more tentacles sprang up, and they were subjected to the same experience. I figured I’d let them enjoy that until the berserkers ran through their rage, or until the tentacles going in from front and back met in the middle, whichever came first.

Looking back at the bartender, I said, simply, “I will not allow attacks on my person or upon my train, dwarf. However, in respect to this establishment, which was recommended to me by one of the guards outside the city, I have done what I could to limit the damage. Now, is there going to be any further problem?” The dwarf shook his head, clearly cowed by that display. Seeing that, I removed several gold coins from my pouch, and said, “Good, then bring ale for myself and my party, the good stuff. And don’t try anything stupid, like trying to poison me or spitting in my drink. You’ll only make me angry. One of the guard captains will be joining me soon, and will be drinking the same thing I am.” That got a quick nod, and I moved with my minions to an empty table.

Kylana was the first to speak. “Master, you’re horrible!” Well, that’s what she said, but she was trying hard not to laugh. “Look at those three dwarves! I don’t think they’ll be able to sit for weeks!”

I shrugged, and said, loud enough for those nearby to hear, “I would have let things go, but the moment their hands touched steel, they needed to be taught a lesson. And it was only out of respect for this establishment that the fools retained their heads.”

We were into our second round of ale (the threats and coin being enough to ensure we weren’t cheated) when Captain Warsong joined us at our table. She cleared her throat and pointed over her shoulder to the three dwarves, who were in… less than pristine condition by this point. “Your doing, I take it?”

I shrugged. “They touched steel, with the intent of harming me and mine. I defended myself and avoided damage to the tavern while leaving them alive. Killing them would have been simple enough, but that would have caused more trouble than it was worth.”

The captain nodded. “Well, let them go now. A couple boys will see they get someplace to sleep it off, and maybe stop by the healer on the way.” With a nod, I snapped my fingers, and the tentacles disappeared, dropping the three dwarves to the stone floor.

As they started to get their gear, I loudly cleared my throat. “The gear stays with the barkeep, as payment for causing a scene. You can buy it back from him later.”

When one of the dwarves started to object to having to leave the tavern naked and unarmed, another snap of my fingers brought more tentacles up in front of him. The dwarf yelled in fright, and all three turned and ran out the doors as I dismissed the tentacles. I seem to have made an impression on them.

Warsong sighed, and said, “Just how long were they up there? I know those three, and they’ve never run from anything less than a dragon.”

I shrugged again. “Little more than half an hour, I think? I wasn’t really paying attention to them after they were caught, and just left the tentacles to their own devices.”

The captain considered, and then said, “Right, not my problem. So, what does a party so… varied do to have business with the Hardbottle clan?”

“Well, as I said, one of the Clan had met with unfortunate circumstances out on the surface. They had, it seems, placed their trust in the wrong people, and paid grievously for it. By chance, I was able to help them out of the situation they had found themselves in, and so they gave me a quest to find the people who had broken trust with the Clan, and convince them that they should never have been that stupid. Of course, this conversation required proof that we had talked, and the dwarves were very unwilling to give up that proof. They were quite attached to their heads, you see, and not at all willing to give them up.”

Warsong laughed, and said, “Damn! So the Hardbottle clan sent you out after the heads of the people who betrayed them, huh? Makes sense they wouldn’t want anyone saying that they’d gotten one over on them without paying the price. So how’d ya do it?”

“Well, we were passing through from the human lands to the Tribeslands when we encountered a patch of Blight…”

So one round of drinks became several, and eventually the conversation moved from the tavern to the Officer’s barracks, where the topics turned from our respective adventures on the battlefield, to our adventures in the bedroom. The girls giggled and told stories about me, and Captain Warsong laughed and said they were exaggerating. Then the girls made me prove that they weren’t.

This, of course, led to a very stunned dwarven female, trying to come to terms with my… attributes. That bit of play led to some experiences she wouldn’t soon forget, as we tried to fit a 20” rod into a creature 50” tall (and only 32” of that was torso). Fitting the entire thing inside her was, it seemed, wholly impossible, not without causing some serious HP damage, and I’d tried to avoid doing that kind of thing since that first time with Della.

After a few long, hard rounds of penetrating questions and answers where both parties were quite willing to go all the way in order to satisfy their passion for new experiences and expanding their horizons, I lay under an unconscious Warsong, still buried as far as I could get within her. It was quite an evening, and much more interesting than simply staying at the inn. Of course, my girls were not left idle during this time, for I had given them instructions to enjoy themselves as they saw fit. Suffice to say, more than one dwarven officer had a good time that evening.

When morning came, we got a later start than I had originally intended, in no small part because Warsong had hurriedly called a couple of her friends to ‘wish me farewell’. OK, so it was more like ‘use me as a sex toy, because DAMN’, but still. I felt like I was the entertainment at a Bachelorette party, and couldn’t say I minded. Maybe I should have mentioned to them that I’d used Fruitful Passion on each of them before I thoroughly enjoyed them, but they would figure out my parting gift before too long.

Anyways, after a very breathless farewell to Monwihr, we queued up for the transfer portal. Teleportation spells could be… tricky at times when used underground. No one really understood it, but there were magical energies that concentrated underground and made magic unreliable. That’s one of the reasons that races which lived undground tended to be fairly resistant to magic in general. Drow may not be any more powerful magically than their surface kin, but they are easily able to withstand more magical attacks than surface elves could.

The side effect of this, as far as teleportation spells went, was that they were practically useless unless one was intimately familiar with the target location (and knew the local quirks of the magical field), or were insanely powerful (and could just ‘punch through’ the interference). For everyone else, permanent transfer gates were required, or you had to travel the long way, through the Deep Roads connecting the dwarven cities.

The transfer gates, unfortunately, had limits, meaning we could not take our horses or wagon through the gate. And none of us really wanted to go wandering through the deep roads just yet. There were too many places for ‘accidents’ before we got to Vag Todur, where the Hardbottles had their family holdings. It cost some extra coin, bringing the entire cost up to 200 PP, but I was able to pay for someone to teleport the wagon and animals to Lithaes before we stepped through the transfer gate.

Now, I just had to find Bylres and complete this quest.

Previous Chapter Table of Contents Next Chapter

Be sure to read my published works!

Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):

Frozen Soul https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT

Tales of the Void Traveler https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37

Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy LitRPG):

Volume 1 - Tutorial https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB

Volume 2 - Beginning the Journey https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VR7M41/

Volume 3 - Wyrmwood https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072QKVBYV

Volume 4 - To the Deeps https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073QSD9S4

Into the Black (Sci-Fi LitRPG):