The Spider

“Perhaps now we should join the others,” Inari suggested, their business settled for now.

John was feeling pretty good about the whole affair. While unexpected, he got the sense that meeting Inari was fortuitous. She wasn’t exactly what John expected a goddess to be like. She was far more amicable than Gaia’s haughty and snarky attitude, or Nancy’s simultaneously charming and creepy demeanour. Well, he didn’t know for sure that Nancy was a god, but it seemed likely.

“I suppose you still have business with the Spider?” the goddess asked.

“Guess so,” John agreed.

“Ah! There you are, Ina; what are you hiding out here for?” called a familiar voice with an African accent. Speak of the devil and he will come.

“Please,” Inari sighed. “The company in that room is quite detestable; their combined egos leave you with little space to breathe.”

“Aww, c’mon, you love ‘em as much as I do,” Nancy replied, walking over to them. He gave John a sideways glance before looking suggestively at Inari. “But perhaps you were really just trying to get your paws on my buddy, John, hmm?”

“Not at all,” Inari replied, a teasing smile playing on her lips. “Just laying the groundwork for a transaction.”

“Let me guess… something to kill a warg?” Nancy asked.

John very much doubted Nancy had ‘guessed’ that. “Have you been spying on me?”

“I have eyes everywhere, Johnny,” Nancy shrugged, “can you blame me for using them?”

“So you know why I’m here, then?” John asked, perhaps unnecessarily.

"Of course!" Nancy let out a chittering laugh and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "Why, it's only been two days since I first met you, and you're already balls deep in trouble. Don't worry, Ol' Nancy's happy to help a friend. But first, come! Let me introduce you to the rest of my brothers and sisters; you've already met Ina."

“Oh, uh… I can come back another time if that’s better?” John replied. Inari hadn’t exactly made the thought of spending time with Nancy’s ‘brothers and sisters’ enticing.

"It's of no consequence!" Nancy insisted. "We convene every now and then for some… family fun, if you will. You can watch the game and mingle for a bit, then we'll have a chat."

With his arm firmly placed around John's shoulders, Nancy steered him towards a nearby door, which opened as they neared. Unlike the previous rooms, the one they entered was well lit by what looked to be a miniature sun suspended above a roundtable. John's eyes bugged as he noticed the three-dimensional map spread out on the table. It displayed a ruined fort, the crumbling walls were overrun with plants, and a broken tower rose from the rubble half a metre from the tabletop.

Four strange looking figures sat around the table in the midst of a heated dispute. The subject of their dispute was the rather indecent display of a tiny elven woman, about the size of a figurine, being well-fucked by a minotaur among the ruins. The poor she-elf screamed in pain as she was split apart by the minotaur's ten-millimetre cock, and a sizeable portion of her hit points had been whittled down from the brutal fucking.

"I say we leave her," a huge, three-metre tall figure suggested. "She looks like she's enjoying herself."

The large figure looked like something out of a horror game. Already large and imposing, the figure’s muscular body was covered in a dark coat of rat fur. From his back extended a large rat tail which curled around one of the back legs of his chair. But the most frightening thing about the skaven figure was his dirty white skull. Four horns protruded along the crest of his skull to form a pentagram with his pointed rat’s nose, and crimson red flames burned from inside his otherwise empty eye sockets, causing a black haze to rise in thin wisps.

"And how the bloody fock is she supposed to aid the fockin' party if she's bein' focked by the fockin' minotaur?!" a significantly smaller man spoke.

John blinked as he realised the man wasn’t just small--he was a dwarf, and he blinked twice more as he recognised the dwarf. His mouth opened and closed a few times, asking, ‘Hemet Nesingwary?’ but shock and wonder kept him silent. He wore the same monocle on his right eye, the same braided beard, and even spoke in the same Scottish accent.

Skinless and lipless, the giant skaven’s expression was settled in a none-too-charming grin. “A whore isn’t much good for the party when you can’t fuck her; favours are a fickle trade, and I’d rather not be indebted,” he continued. “Besides, she’s been a nuisance the entire campaign, let her die the way she lived.”

A third person, a small and thin girl with ice-white hair, lazily masturbated as she watched the scene unfold. “Leave them be, I’m enjoying the show,” she spoke, her attitude showing complete apathy towards the miniature elf’s plight.

Her hair and attitude weren’t the only icy things about her, however. Her androgynous-looking face was fixed in a cold, ‘resting bitch’ look, punctuated by sharp blue eyes that only ever looked down on people. John had thought he’d seen the worst of it in Vanessa Hawthorne, but the air of superiority pervading from the ice-haired girl was plain nauseating.

The fourth and final figure looked, by far, to be the oldest of the lot. His face, largely hidden behind a trimmed grey beard, was wrinkled with age, but there was wisdom that glimmered from his one good eye. His dress style, however, left a lot to be desired. He wore baggy clothes, covered in grime, with a dirty sweater ripped straight from the 70s to complete the look of a hobo. He watched the argument unfold with a cool head, but he honestly looked a little baffled by everything that was going on.

“I don’t quite see the issue here…” the old hobo said. “If we save her here, she’ll go down on the next person we come across. There’s no greater way to distract the enemy than with free sex.”

"Right y'are," Hemet agreed. "She helps even if she doesn't mean it! And look, Nancy and Ina are back, I can finally fockin' kill this 'taur," he said, reaching for a d20.

An icy spear shot from the floorboards, directed towards the low hanging space between the dwarf’s legs. He leapt five metres high and breathed a sigh of relief when the spear continued past him and his nuts were still firmly attached to his person.

“What the fock?!” the dwarf’s relief quickly turned to outrage. “Ya bloody, barmy bitch!

“I haven’t cum yet,” she replied, not even deigning to cast her eyes towards the dwarf.

Hemet let out a low growl and began to look around his chair. “Where the fock is my shotgun?!”

“Friends!” Nancy interrupted. “Let’s keep **** contained to the board, please.”

The grizzled dwarf let out a huff but sat back down in his chair, but his sour expression turned to surprise when he noticed John. “Jihan of the Fluffy Goblin Guild, is that you, laddy?”

Nancy let out a small chitter, and even Inari laughed a little, causing John’s cheeks to flush with mild embarrassment; it wasn’t exactly the way you wanted to be introduced to a crowd of super powerful beings.

“Right, introductions... this is John Newman, Gaia’s ‘Gamer’, the one I was telling you all about,” Nancy told the small crowd. “He’s also my guest, so play nice.”

“Don’t we always?” the old hobo grinned and winked. Though with only one eye it could have just as easily been a blink.

“Yep, we’re always nice,” the giant skaven added.

“Fock off y’are, ya forsighted wankers,” Hemet exclaimed. Evidently, liberated from pre-written dialogue, he loved to exercise his vocabulary.

"Anyway," Nancy continued, trying to steer introductions back on track. "John, you may be wondering who a few of us are…" Quite true. With the exception of Hemet, John had no clue who these people were.

“Well, first we have Richard,” Nancy gestured to the skull-faced skaven.

John regarded the intimidating figure with mild surprise. ‘Richard' was not the kind of name he would have pegged to the three-metre tall thing. John thought about casting Observe on the guy in the name of more information, but, recalling Inari's advice, thought better of it.

"Next is Wednesday, or you may know him by his more common name, Odin," Nancy continued, directing John's attention to the old-looking hobo. Now that was a name John recognised, and his mouth fell open. He was standing in the presence of one of the most famous gods of the Norse pantheon.

“Hey there, kiddo,” the old man smiled. “Look after my children, will you?” he asked, before furrowing his brow in confusion. “Wait, you’re not the right John, are you?”

John having no clue what Odin was alluding to, was left thoroughly confused.

“The charming lady responsible for the party’s current dilemma is Aurora,” Nancy said, moving on to the icy-haired woman, who had paused her self-gratification to stare at John. He felt a bead of sweat form on the nape of his neck as she bored holes into him with those cold eyes and licked her lips.

“Lastly, we have Hemet, the youngest of us,” Nancy finished. “But I have a sneaking suspicion you already knew who he was.”

“Aye,” Hemet laughed. “Jihan--I mean, John and I go way back to the days of big game huntin’ in Stranglethorn Vale. Ain't that right, laddy?”

“Uh, right,” John agreed nervously.

“Well, now that introductions are done,” Nancy began as he strolled over to a vacant seat at the round table and sat down before patting an empty one beside himself, “sit down, watch the campaign, you might learn something,” he encouraged.

“Um… sure.”