The D6

“Please, I’ll sign the land over to you, I’ll sign my whole company over to you, just let me go!”

Hwa ignored the man as she walked past his cage. His begging was little more than useless prattling as he droned on about things that mattered only to the laws of men.

She was above such things. Soon enough his bones would join the others that decorated her cave, and perhaps some day men learn that the mountain—and the forest that surrounded it—were hers. He would surrender more than his claim to her, he would surrender his heart.

And his liver.

Hwa’s claim was written in blood.

Still, his droning voice was getting annoying. He was lingering longer than she had expected before giving in to hunger, but then humans were fatter now than they had been. This one had been especially plump when she had plucked him out of the little trailer his company had set up when they arrived to survey her land. He was thinner now, but apparently was a way off from starving. There was a point in the aging process when they gave up hope but still held a trove of vitality inside them, and he was nearly there.

Hwa would content herself with soup. For now. She stepped to the cauldron she kept over her fire. Wisps of smoke occasionally burst from bubbles that rose from the murky depths of the contents, then roiled over the edge to fill the room. It gave the place a delightfully murky atmosphere that suited her, and a fraction of a smile tugged her lips into something that might have passed for a smile.

The bowl clattered to the floor a moment later, the pool of cooling soup that spread across the room swiftly concealed by the fog that filled the room.

“H-hello? Are you still there? Please, I have money…”

* * *

Kevin stared at the fourth woman to arrive in astonishment. Unlike the first three, this one didn’t stumble, but smoothly flowed out of the door and into the courtyard like an oncoming flood. She was wearing a long skirt of a bright red material as well as a long sleeved white blouse. The latter was lined with white fur—or so he thought, until he realized it was moving independently of the skirt.

“Tails–”

Only a single word escaped his lips before the woman began to speak. Tess and Elsie both looked confused, but Kevin and Penny both clearly understood as she angrily addressed the room.

“By what right have you brought me here? I am Hwa Sun-ah! I will not allow a mere nightmare witch to treat me with such lack of dignity.”

Hwa’s features were gorgeous, but they were twisted in anger. She seemed to have no difficulty in picking out Lily as the responsible party, but the glare she dragged across the rest of the participants was not much less intimidating.

As the small red cube flew from Kevin’s hand to float above the newest arrival’s head, the music changed. He couldn’t immediately identify the style, but it sounded Asian, with string instruments plucked and caressed to provide an eerie atmosphere that seemed to suit Hwa perfectly.

Lily turned once more to address an invisible camera with a gesture towards her. “Next to arrive, Hwa Sun-ah, the D6!”

Hwa was average in height. It was the only average thing about her, though—her hair was not just black, it was obsidian. Her features were rounded and surprisingly soft for such a sharp sounding woman. The fact that her eyes were inky black orbs was a little off-putting to Kevin. She directed a flinty glare at him when she noticed his eyes on her. Their eyes met and he half stumbled back at the flash of red he saw within, before she turned her attention back to Lily.

As when the others had arrived, Hwa stepped forward to introduce herself. Unlike any of the rest, when she began to speak, she then bit down hard on the words. The woman’s teeth ground together as she **** her jaw shut and strained against the succubus’ control.

For a moment, it appeared as though she had caught their hostess off-guard and was about to break free. She trembled briefly, then suddenly relaxed. Her features twisted into a slightly disturbing smile that spoke of barely hidden rage as she proclaimed, “My name is Hwa Sun-ah. I am four hundred and eighteen years of age. I claim for my domain the Hamgyong Mountains of Korea. I am a nine-tailed fox—what the Dungeon Master would call a kumiho.”

The woman appeared to be in her early to mid thirties, despite her claimed age, but the gravity with which she had spoken when he had first heard her convinced Kevin that she believed that she was telling the truth, however—that she fully believed her claim, no matter how impossible it might have seemed.

“What did she say?”

The interjection came from Tess, who seemed to have recovered her composure a little and was standing not far from Penny. Elsie was keeping her distance from the group before Hwa’s arrival, but the venomous gaze of the fox-spirit had caused her to take a few steps to the side and Kevin realized that she was using him as a shield.

He glanced around for a moment, then realized what happened. “Penny and I—we used a spell, tongues.”

Lily chimed in to note, “You can review it by pulling up your character sheet. Just tap the inside of your left wrist, at the glowing icon.”

Kevin noticed that the succubus was already universally understood. No one seemed to have any difficulty understanding the succubus’ words, despite the language barrier the group had encountered before.

He also noticed that everyone was starting to follow along while he was staring at the incredibly attractive women that were suddenly surrounding him. His arm jerked into position as he located the glow the hostess was talking about, and tapped it.

Above five wrists were floating four glowing character sheets. Above the fifth was nothing, until a blast of golden energy from Lily caught the woman off-guard. She shook it off only a moment later, but seconds later Hwa was studying her character sheet the same as everyone else.

Elsie spoke up a moment later. She’d been the first to bring up the floating letters of her character sheet and get to the end. At the bottom was a section labeled ‘spells’, and she had pulled it up immediately. “That’s actual magic that’s going to work for us?” The brownie actually managed to sound excited for a moment, right up until she finished reading the first and only spell.

“They want us to kiss each other? I mean—why?”

“Why do you think, sweetie?” Penny appeared to be doing her best to ask the question seriously, but a hint of disbelief tinged her voice. “Guys think it’s sexy when girls kiss. Right, Dungeon Master?”

Kevin held up his hands defensively. “I didn’t ask to be here. I was—I think I was in the middle of putting away groceries.”

The explanation seemed to pacify the siren for the moment. As Lily’s insinuations had gotten more and more blatant, Penny’s ire had been raising steadily. She wasn’t ready to explode the way the Korean woman had, but she was getting tired of the show.

“And yet, I have not noticed you taking any steps to actively prevent any of this.”

“Lady, I’m just a human, if you can’t make her do what you want, what makes you think I can?”

Hwa glared at him in silence for a moment, then sniffed and asserted, “I will escape this hell somehow, mortal, and when I do I will remember how I am treated here.”

She then pointed at Tess and Elsie, and commanded, “You two. Kiss.”

The two stared at her in confusion, and the kumiho turned to Kevin and ordered, “Tell the two of them to kiss. You and the siren cannot do so again for an hour, if those two touch tongues for a minute all five of us will understand each other.”

Kevin hesitated until Elsie looked at him and asked, “What did she tell you?”

“She said if you two kiss, all of us will understand each other.”

“Obviously. I’m not about to put my tongue in fox lady’s mouth.” She turned to Tess, who shrugged. Both women leaned in and moved their lips forward. Tess paused as their tongues began to touch, only to find Elsie’s lips sealed against hers as the other woman kissed her. Both women seemed equally surprised by the development, but neither moved to pull apart until their mouths had been somewhat awkwardly intertwined for a minute or so, at which point the brownie pulled back.

“That—I didn’t really mean to do that, but once I was there I felt like I had to commit. I don’t know–”

Tess hesitated. “I—I’m glad that worked, but—I have a boyfriend, and–”

“I’m sorry, I–”

“No, it’s cool, It’s—I didn’t expect it.”

As the two women nodded, Lily turned and addressed the camera, “As an aside, you repeat viewers might notice a little extra **** here and there. Some of our contestants have some junk in the trunk, power-wise. Never you worry, I’m good and–” She slapped her ass with an exaggerated tilt of her hips to one side, drawing everyone in the room’s attention, “-juiced up with magic to throw around, if I need to. Probably.”

Lily then giggled, swayed as if drunk, then swerved back into an upright position. “Woo! Let’s goo!”

Elsie and Tess met one another’s eyes briefly, then looked away. “That was weird, right?”

“That was weird. Yeah. Anyway.”

“I did real magic. Though.”

Tess nodded, then all eyes were pulled to Lily as she continued, “And for the next member of the party, Dungeon Master, if you would?”

Kevin reached for the bag,