Arriving at Eichenhall

“What did you say?”

You shout and stare at Vemaho who just told you unexpectedly she knew the dreaded and hated monster queens, the targets of your quest and journey. “You- How- I mean-“ severe coughs interrupt every word as you had just drunk water and the surprise caused some serious coughing. “Mistress, deep breaths!” the alraune replies and helps you sit upright and drink a sip of water.

“You- Vemaho” you finally say, ”Do you really know where these hideous monsters live?” The monster girl looks puzzled at you referring to the queens as such, then replies: “I mean, mistress Ana, the queens are well known among monster girls. They are the most powerful and smelliest monster girls existing right now.” She leans back and her voice becomes dreamy.

“Her Highness Queen Lebentina, for example” she says and licks her lips, no doubt dreaming about the stench belonging to the medusa monster queen. “Her feet and her tail were so deliciously cheesy; it was way stronger and deeper than anything I’ve smelled before! Sooo yummy, I could taste it on my tongue for days after, and I was only looking from afar! It was incredible, such a stench, and not just her tail, she smelled really good anywhere, but her tail was certainly the best!”

The alraune starts fondling her shapely, ivy green breasts, causing a pleasant tingling in your loins despite the several rounds of mating just hours ago. She then leans over, and plants kisses onto your boots, your knees, then your hands and goes on: “Though I love mistress’ smell the most! Please let it build up a lot more, mistress, into a really strong stench, and you will be surrounded by all kinds of wonderfully smelly girls! You’ll see, soon you’ll have all the pussy and foot licking slaves you can want, trust me! Everyone loves stinky feet, the stronger, the better!”

There she goes again about you getting more slaves for your feet and penis. Why she would want to share you is beyond you, especially since she loves your smell so much. Although after experiencing what sex feels like for the first time with her, you are more open to the thought of sleeping with more women than you were before. Even though you were taught that women should save themselves for their husbands. But then again, you can now play the male part just as well, or even better.

“Although, to tell the truth” She continues after leaning back and having another bite of food, “I do not really know Her Highness, like, at all. I’ve just seen her once from afar. It is said that she lives in some sort of temple or palace in the western mountains, but I have no idea where that could be. I have never left my home before except for rooting in the forest where we met.”

Great, you think, so what did she scare you for then? “But mistress, I mean Ana” she says while you clean and store away the bowls for breakfast, “I know we, that is, my mother and aunties often trade with two monster queens. If I remember it right, Queen Elisabeth loves the tobacco mommy and auntie grow the most, and Queen Mayumi often buys large amounts of fine tobacco leaves and opium from us. So, I am sure my mommy knows where they live! We could, like, just ask her, mistress! I’m sure she would help you, after all, Ana is my mistress and mommy is, like, the sweetest and most caring mandragora ever! Even the footlickers and farming slaves say so! And if she really doesn’t like you, just take your boots off, Ana! She just adores all kinds of cheeses, but what mommy really loves the most is drinking sweat from heavily worn boots while puffing on big cigars! Trust me, I know!”

She continues to go on as the two of you start on the final stretch towards the village. With your trusted horse in tow, you and Vemaho continue onwards the now visibly more used road towards Eichenhall, named after a massive oak tree which apparently could not be cut down no matter who tried. So eventually the first house and later the entire village was built around it. Throughout the way and over her tales, you contemplate whether meeting up with her mother is a clever idea or not. If what Vemaho said is true, it could be a valuable source of information not just for you, but for all of humanity to coordinate their fight for freedom better. But an older and more experienced monster girl, one who has a lot of experience in breaking and enslaving humans, sounds like something you would want to avoid for now, until you become more experienced yourself, even if Vemaho is on your side for the moment.

It takes you several more hours to reach the village. With a few well-placed comments, Vemaho starts talking about how her mother and aunts got the monster queen Elisabeth, who is apparently not just any vampire, but a royal vampire monster girl, the rarest, strongest and of course smelliest of all vampires, to bless the lands her family use for growing crops with her toejam. They had to invest a lot of effort to finally convince the queen, who sounds like a massive bitch, to finally visit them and walk over the fields to bless them with her stench. Vemaho and her sister even got a spoonful of her toejam to eat during their coming-of-age-ceremony, something that fills you with nausea.

But before she can go into greater sickening detail, the forest clears up and reveals orderly fields of wheat, corn, and cabbage, tended to by human men and women in proper clothing, and you can see palisades surrounding the village, of course made from thick oak trees. You pull the alraune closer and give her a serious look. “Remember what I told you. No mentioning monster girls, always keep your cloak on, say and do nothing related to feet or smells, and no calling me mistress! It could become very unpleasant for both of us if you are found out, so keep quiet!” Vemaho nods, though visibly displeased, and closes the brooch of her magical cloak. Her green skin turns into a healthy human skin tone, her hair becomes a wheat-coloured single tail instead of her usual vines and her cheesy foot stench all but disappears. You nod, then continue onwards.

Eichenhall is a small, but respectable village capable of surviving even in harsher conditions and cater to occasional travellers to or from the duchy’s capital city of Esense. Consisting of about three dozen houses of various sizes, though most made from wood and clay and having straw roofs, most people here are farmers, with a few others such as lumberjacks, hunters and simple craftsmen. The village has a blacksmith, a windmill on the outside and a small, but respectable inn where you hope to spend at least two nights to rest, seek information and see if you can purchase another horse from someone. A small, simple chapel with a little bell tower sits on top of a tiny hill and could be a picturesque view, were it not for the half-dead tree almost pushing in the roof. Overall, it seems quite like your home village, and you are happy to be back to civilisation after a long time on the road.

Unfortunately for you, your excitement about being back to human civilisation gets doused fast. Right as you enter through the gate and step into the village, you are hit by the contents of a bucket that a burly looking matron in a stained apron empties out onto the street. Unfortunately, the bucket was not filled with clean, warm water, but an ice-cold, sticky, and smelly fluid you suspect is urine. Judging from the cloud of stench that hits you, it is not even human urine. Understandably, you start cursing loudly, but to no avail as the fat-bodied crone just turns away into the house. Not even your violent knocking at her door results in an answer.

With another few choice words for the ill-mannered peasant, you turn towards the guard on duty, a short and thick man wearing dirty, stained leather, who is failing miserably at trying not to topple over laughing at your predicament. “Could have at least warned me before I got doused in animal piss” you snap at him and try to clean up the offensive liquid now running down your face and front. Next to you, Vemaho looks a lot more convincingly upset that her mistress had to suffer from such a behaviour, despite probably liking your newest smell. The guard just coughs dryly, but at least has the dignity to stop laughing. “At least tell me where your inn is so that I can get out of the wet clothes but warn me if there are more crazy crones throwing piss pots around in here!” You berate the guard.

“My apologies, miss” the man says now somewhat embarrassed. “The old Ammet never cares for anyone around her. Better just stay clear of her.” Vemaho shakes her head at that, the monster girl looking as annoyed as you are at the crones’ rude behaviour. “The Oak’s Crown inn is at the northern end of the central plaza” the soldier now says to appear welcoming. “If I may, go there first” he points in a direction opposite of the mad crones’ house, “you will find a well there so you can wash off some of that- you know”, he grins and gestures with his left hand. “Then just turn right towards the centre and you can’t miss it. The house with the torch an’ shield. Also, don’t be lookin’ at the landlady too much, but the ale is really good” He grins again and makes a gesture that could be friendly, but from him just looks obscene.

You consider slapping the insolent guardsman but decide against making a bigger scene or risking a penalty for assaulting a guard. After another grim look at the guy, you walk towards the direction he pointed you. True to his words, you find a well after a turn and pull up some water to briefly clean your face and hair. “What an insolent guy” Vemaho says as she helps you clean up after the filthy ****, “And what a creep! Did you see how he looked at you? And that old bat, so rude! She should at least warm it up, so it feels nicer, and offer more for the hair! But that fat pig, just staring, he makes me so mad! I should have taught him not to stare at a lady in discomfort, with my toes down his throat! Who does he think you are, Ana? Some common hussy?”

“Shhh, keep it down!” You remind her and accept a dry piece of cloth from your bag to dry your face. “I get your point, but it is a bad idea to mess with a guard. We might get thrown out of the village and that is not worth it.” You stand back up and thank her for helping you, then turn towards the right, to where you can see the central oak tree. “Let’s see if we can find that inn, I’m freezing and really need to change clothes.” Who would have thought that getting drenched in cold horse piss is not fun. Vemaho nods and follow you towards the plaza.

It may be because of your bad mood due to being drenched in stinking piss, or that you are freezing from the cold liquids, or even your days at the witches who were so exquisitely friendly despite being monster girls. Whatever it may be, the human village seems appalling, unfriendly, and dirty to you. The differences to your own hometown cannot be all that great, but everything you see, hear and smell seems off-putting.

The mad crone at the entrance is not the only one to just throw rubbish and excrements out onto the street, as there are several suspicious piles and puddles littering the muddy path, despite it being a warm and sunny day. In one corner, several large, dirty pigs are messily devouring some kitchen leftovers, one of them has just dropped a pile of pig poo right in the middle of the road, making it difficult to avoid, not to mention the smell. As you pass a gap between two smaller huts, you hear shouting and a chicken runs between your legs, almost tripping you, followed by a kid no more than five in a muddy gown who trips and lands face first in the pile of poop, but gets up quickly and chases after the chicken.

But the worst one is the creepy-looking young man, well past working age, who sits in front of another house, barely hidden by some overgrown weeds and openly strokes his boyhood with his dirty hands. He and you lock eyes as you pass and he gives you a dirty grin, speeding up his movements, and waves at you to step closer. You look at him in disgust, then hurry after Vemaho who has already reached the plaza. Still, you could not help but notice the little wanker could hide his prick fully in his hand. What a far cry from your own, who seemed significantly larger and thicker. Not that it matters to you at all.

All this combined means your mood has gotten even more sour as you step onto the central plaza, which in reality is more of a broad oval-shaped road since the centre is dominated by a massive, long hall, from which a tree rises. “It is not as big as I imagined. The tree, I mean” says Vemaho who is staring at the building. “I guess oak trees don’t grow that high” you reply shivering. “Come on, there is the inn. Let’s hope they have some warm water and a lit fireplace.”