Just one: where do you go from here?

You take a moment to regain your breath and, after realizing you're sitting there with your still surprisingly hard member exposed to the air, pull up your breeches and refasten them. It is a wonder you have any shame or embarrassment left to you, after what you've just been through, but you still find it in yourself to blush as you quickly right what clothing you have remaining. You quickly shake that off as you clear your throat and turn your attention to the naiad, trying hard not to notice the fact that a bit of your semen is dribbling from the corner of her mouth down her chin.

"Er, th-that was...er, very good. Th-the information you gave me, I mean!", you stammer as you get to your feet and dust yourself off.

"It was my pleasure, master. And a bit of yours too, from how much of your seed I swallowed.", she replies in a teasing manner that makes you blush again.

"Er, yes, well, that's...true.", you concede before clearing your throat again and continuing on, "But the information you gave me will be helpful in understanding what this...Artifact wants with me and the nature of the power it has. And I trust you will be able to give me more information as we travel."

At that, the naiad looks at you with puzzlement. "Travel, master? Whatever do you mean?"

"Well, yes, I cannot stay here. I still have things to accomplish and I cannot accomplish them here. And, as you know these caves, I would have you guide me through them. Considering I am your m-master, I think that would be more than acceptable.", you tell her, but she shakes her head with a small frown on her face in return.

"Master, I cannot. I am a naiad. I am bound to the body of water I call my own, meaning the underground waterway here in the cave. If I were to stray too far from it, I would die. I'm sorry, master, but I would be of no use to you dead.", she informs you.

"But...but how will I make my way out of here without guidance?", you ask, sounding more than a little worried and on the border of frantic about this disheartening piece of news that the naiad has shared with you.

"It's all right, master.", she says as she stands up and, very gently, embraces you, "I can still be your guide..."

You are about to ask how she can guide you if she can't even leave this particular part of the cavern when she looks up at you and rises up on her toes in order to press her lips to yours tenderly. She kisses you and, despite yourself, you return the touch of her mouth with your own. The kiss, however, is not a purely physical thing, you find, as, suddenly, a myriad of images run through your mind as though being pushed into your mind from somewhere outside of your own head. And that, you realize, is exactly what's happening.

It is a dizzying feeling, the naiad's sharing her memories with you, but you know that's what she's doing almost instinctively. You are given the memories of navigating through the caves by way of the underwater streams that flow throughout the caverns. You are fed the memories she has gleaned from other prey she had trapped with her seduction as she had tried with you. Information floods into you in the form of half remembered snippets of conversation, images that seem hazy and knowledge stolen from the dying minds of others, but, somehow, all of those things knit together to a coherent map of sorts in your mind. They come together and, suddenly, you realize you know how to navigate the cavern as though you had been doing it your whole life.

The naiad breaks the kiss, leaving you breathless as she steps away from you with a smile. "There. Now you should be fine, master.", she says as she continues to walk backward away from you, "I will miss you, my master, but my power will be with you as long as you live. Please, master, survive for we are bound now and your life is part of my own. Survive and grow strong and grasp the **** you seek, my master."

"****? How do you...?", you start to ask, but you realize that she knows what has happened to you the same way you now know how to escape these caves. It seemed your mind had been as open to you as hers had been to you and you wonder if you should be worried about that.

The naiad, however, only smiles at you as she steps backward to the edge of the shimmering pool where you had first encountered her. "Go now, master. There is still much for you to do. And be careful. Though I could show you how to get out of these caves, I cannot show what I don't know and I don't know what dangers may lay beyond here. These caverns hold others besides myself, my master. Be careful of them.", she says to you and she gives you one final smile as she says, "Farewell, master. And good luck."

With that, she lets herself fall back and, with a splash, she is back underwater and out of your sight. You take a few steps towards the pool, but stop yourself as you realize that she was right. You had much still to do. The ones who had betrayed you were still out there, living unpunished for what they'd done, and that you would not abide. Yes, you still had much to do and so you would set out to do it.

With your newfound knowledge of the caverns in mind, you gather what little equipment you have (namely the chest with a severed dwarf's hand in it which is all you can truly claim as your own now)and set off in the direction the naiad's memories tell you is the correct one.