(At least) 20 Questions, Part 1.

Anna leads us through the ground floor of the house, eventually leading us to a room that I instantly recognise as a changing room. The basic layout looks similar to a gym locker room, but at a thousand times fancier. The room is artfully tiled and has well-constructed benches spaced around room. Cubbyholes for bathers’ clothes are set into the walls, with wicker baskets in the place of lockers.

Despite my earlier bravado, I am more than a little nervous at the thought of getting naked and enjoying a bath with these beautiful women. In the past I had spent some time in a hot tub with friends, but we were all in our bathing clothes. Screw it, I’ve already fucked a complete stranger outside today. This is nothing. With mostly steady hands, I unbutton my blouse. Whilst my hands are busy, I glance at my companions.

Mia is still fully clothed and is watching me undress furtively. Our eyes meet, and the Mouse-kin turns a deep pink, but doesn’t look away. Anna is openly watching me, an amused if slightly predatory look spread across her face. It seems I have an audience. The thought sends a rush of excitement through me, my earlier reticence gone. Both these girls are extremely attractive themselves; their lustful glances can’t help but make me feel incredibly sexy.

I strip slowly, putting on a bit of a show for the girls. Soon enough I stand in front of the pair wearing nothing but a small smile. I strut towards the room's exit, giving both girls a knowing look, and say, “Well? Are you two going to join me? its rude to keep little ol’ me waiting, you know.” I feel incredible as both girls eye me openly, even Anna now looks slightly red in the face. I ride my high right up to the doorway where a sheepish Anna says, “It’s actually that door… we need to freshen up before we use the big bath…” and points towards a smaller exit that I had totally missed.

I sigh, shaking my head as I walk towards the correct doors. I shoot Anna an amused look and say, “That would have been great information to have before I started doing a thing and being all sexy. My point still stands, hurry up and get naked.” My gaff seems to have reassured Mia somewhat, as she begins to pull off her clothes, a small smile on her face.

The next room is a long thin room with an exit on the far side. Thin walls divide the space along one wall, creating several sheltered nooks. If I didn’t know any better, I would suspect that these are… I poke my head round the first wall into the first cubical and I am more than delighted to find that I am correct, and each cubical contains a shower. I rush enthusiastically to the last cubicle in the row closest to the exit, and, after the momentary confusion universal to dealing with a new shower’s controls for the first time, let out a sign of pleasure as warm water falls from the showerhead above.

I’ll have time to fully appreciate these beauts later, so, after a quick rinse, I shut off the shower and wander into the main room of the bath. As I leave my stall, I can hear the shower next to mine running. I resist the urge to pop my head round the side of the stall and ogle the occupant, we’ll have plenty of time for that whilst we bathe.

I let out a low whistle as I see the bath for the first time, Anna wasn’t joking about its size, the thing is truly massive. The bath is standard hot tub set up (only bigger), with a shallower ledge to sit on and a deeper potion for peoples feel. I pad my way round the tub on bare feet and, when I reach the side facing the door, I slip into the water. I let out a groan of pleasure as I enter the water. The temperature is perfect.

Parking my butt on the seat, I make myself comfortable and enjoy the soothing heat of the water as I wait for my companions to join me. The water sooths aching muscles, and I relax utterly, my arms draped over the side of the tub and a languid smile on my lips. I enjoy the sensation so much that I take a while to realise that Anna and Mia are taking their time. Time stretches onwards and I begin to worry slightly until a very smug and a very naked Anna struts into the bathroom.

I watch as she enters, hips swaying and tail swishing from side to side. I take a moment to appreciate her naked form as she slowly struts towards the tub. She has a great figure, with well-defined arms and legs and a taut belly. My gaze travels across her body, appreciating her curves before resting on her breasts. I must say, I approve. They are slightly smaller than mine, but are hella perky, with thick nipples already partially erect. “Like what you see?”

Our eyes meet, and her eyes dance with amusement as I reply, “Not bad, I guess.” She starts forward again towards the pool. My eyes travel south as she does, and I notice a surprisingly bushy thatch between her legs above her sex. Despite the slightly wild look above her pussy, her delicate lips remain free of hair. I smile, slightly relieved, I like some fuzz, hell, I was proud of my own well-maintained patch, but there was such a thing as too much. Especially on the lips, really gets in the way whist I go to town, you know? The thought brings forth a small smile, before I effortlessly lie to myself as I mentally add, not that I plan to go down on her, or anything.

She slips into the warm water, wading through the deeper portion before she settles next to me to my right. I open my mouth, eager to ask a question, but Anna presses a finger to my lips before pointing at the entrance where I spot a scarlet faced Mia peek round the corner into the bathroom. Our eyes meet, and her head pops back round the corner. Anna and I share an amused look, both of us finding the girls bashfulness incredibly sweet.

After a few seconds waiting, Mia works up the courage and rounds the corner, before walking round the bath and plopping in on my left. She’s clearly uncomfortable, so I decide not to openly gawp at her, instead, as she walks round, I turn to Anna and ask, “So how are we doing this? I bet you have a load of questions for me, as I sure as hell have a load of questions for you.” Anna looks contemplative for a moment, before replying, “Depends on how long you’ve been in our world and how much you’ve learnt already.”

I hear an "Ahhhhhh" of satisfaction to my left, and look that way and see Mia is settled in beside me. I shrug, then say, “I’ve been here less than a day, turned up in some random field outside of town and have been playing catch-up from there. Haven’t had a chance to really ask anyone questions without coming off as a loon, although most of the people I’ve met have been friendly.”

Anna looks at me with a knowing smile, then says, “We’ve all got questions, but without context, were going to confuse the shit out of each other, so I suggest we should give each other a brief run-down of our worlds, shit like politics and the like, maybe important bits of history that lead to things being the way they are today, sound good?” Mia and I nod, Anna gives me a shit-eating grin then says, “Glad you agree, because you’re going first.”

I roll my eyes, but don’t argue with her. Over the next 10 minutes, I give the girls an overview of my world. They sit, wide eyed, as I describe a world inhabited solely by humans, entirely devoid of magic, instead reliant entirely on technology. I summarize Earth’s history, focusing mainly on the events of the last century, explaining how these events lead to the political realities that I had grown up with. For an entirely impromptu lecture, I was rather proud of myself.

The girls ask a few questions, and I answer them as best I can. It’s not long until my curiosity gets the better of me, however. My curiously had been growing steadily throughout their questions. I almost broke at the stunned silence when I told them that the average pregnancy lasted 9 months but the straw (or the set of straws) that broke the camel’s back were Anna’s questions regarding my childhood and the childhood of other children. The shocked expressions when I confirmed that most children were raised by both their parents, a single parent, or, as in my case, a guardian was too much for me. I finally ask, “Why is that so shocking? What’s it like for you guys?!?”

They both share a look, then Anna says, “I guess it’s only fair for us to explain a few things about our world now. Rather than jump right in at the middle and answer your question I’m going to start from the beginning as things sound really different for you. I can guarantee you won’t get what I’m saying otherwise, that cool?” I nod, not entirely satisfied but keen to learn about my new world.

“Good. Now, where do I start? Ok, so, from what I gathered from what you said, I would guess that this world is a hell of a lot bigger than what you are used to. What did you say the population on Earth was? Almost 8 billion people? If we took our world’s (Tygal) smallest continent (Aurellius) and divided the land equally amongst 8 billion people, each person would not only live comfortably but would receive a parcel of land easily big enough to fit a sizeable town.

The difference is as things stand, the races of Tygal have probably only settled 1 or 2% of the available land, the rest is taken up by wildlands. Kybor’s Rest, the border town we are currently in, sits on the very edge of Beastkin territory. To reach the next parcel of settled land, the Human Theocracy of Thull, would take you several weeks' ride on an incredibly fast horse, between here and there you’ll only find monster infested lands and abandoned settlements.

Our world is strongly connected to 7 others, and is fairly loosely connected to countless more, one of which is probably your Earth. The main 7 are all fairly similar to our own, but slightly different in that each of those worlds embodies a virtue, as well as its less virtuous counterpart. These worlds are the pairings of Humility and Pride, Kindness and Envy, Patience and Wrath, Diligence and Sloth, Charity and Greed, Temperance and Glutton and finally, Purity and Lust.

Each of these worlds maintains a balance between the two opposing forces, and when one side exceeds the other, some aspect of the larger side seeps into our world which at likes a sponge, absorbing the abundance of energy to restore balance for these other worlds. This often manifests as higher magic, which can be harnessed by certain beings, or can act as a catalyst for certain races, transforming them. An example of this would be Orcs. If they are born of Wrath, they have green tint to their skin and small tusks, but otherwise look like heavily muscled humans. If, however, they are born of Gluttony, there features are considerably more pig like, with snouts, larger tusks, and other piggie…..appendages.

That’s how things are supposed to work, with Tygal maintaining the balance in these other worlds. Energy travels to us, and our world absorbs and makes use of it. Everything was hunky dory until some idiot tried to **** the portal open in the other direction. Records from that era are fucked so its hard to say what actually happened and who did the fucking. All we really know are the results. Corruptive energy poured in our plane and shit went south real quick. Portals began opening in random locations, where they either dumped vast amounts of corruptive energy into an area before quickly closing, or leaked a small but steady stream of the corrupted energy into a location, but wouldn’t close unless forcefully closed by a mage.

For the first few years after the cataclysm as its since been known, Feral attacks were incredibly common. We were mostly unprepared and countless people died, but eventually the various nations banded together and pooled labour and resources, and settlements began successfully prepping and fighting off the waves. Things went quiet for a year or two, and people thought the disaster was over. Then, isolated settlements began going dark, one after the other. People assumed Feral attacks had started again, so they prepped like last time, and waited.

Until this point, ferals had been interested in two things, first, killing every man, woman, and child in their path, and second, once the fighting was done and there wasn’t a single soul left living, feeding. At the start of the second wave, when units of soldiers sent to investigate towns and villages effected found that some of the population were missing from the bodies, mostly young women, but the odd young man too, little was done about it, chalking it up to the corrupteds monstrous appetite.”

Anna looks at me sadly, and despite the warmth of the bath, her expression sends a chill running through me. “We simply don’t know how many people died during that second wave. All that is left from that era is rough estimates. From what people have put together, it is believed that around 90% of our world’s population died in the first five years of that war. 63 billon, gone in less than a generation. We were losing the war, and were truly ****, but the solution the great minds of the time concocted may kill us yet.”