Venderbrast

Venderbrast it is! You've been to Erthainya before, after all, but Venderbrast is big enough to spend a lifetime in and still not see everything. So, you decide, it might be wise to see as much of it as you can. You set out on horseback on the north-east road, not hurrying but not exactly dallying either. It will take you approximately a week to reach the border, but you've plenty of time to spare.

The journey's not as pleasant as you'd hoped for, though. On the second day it rains, and on the third day it rains, and on the fourth day... and so on. By the evening of the sixth day, you're thoroughly fed up with it all. The sun is sinking below the horizon and the light dims from the sky. You're bored and cold and wet, and you haven't yet seen an inn, even though this must be a well-travelled road.

But there's a dirtrack now, just off to the left, that leads away from the road. You follow it with your eye, trying to track the place where it ends, and finally you spot a tower in the distance- a great stone tower several stories high, rising from the landscape all alone. It looks a rather ominous place, but you're so fed up that you decide to throw caution to the winds and see if its owner will take you in for the night.

An hour later you find yourself knocking loudly on the door with your fist, trying to get someone to open it. After five minutes you begin to wonder if you've made a mistake and its abandoned, but then the door opens a crack and someone peers out.

It's a girl of about eighteen, and she's a stunner. Her long red hair falls down past her shoulders, framing a delicate face set with big green eyes. She's wearing a simple servant's dress in white, but she obviously has one hell of a body underneath it. "Can I help you?" she asks. Strangely, she doesn't sound like she's a servant; she seems too well bred.

"I'm looking for a place to stay for the night," you say to her. "For fairly obvious reasons, and was wondering if I might find lodging here?"

She chews her lower lip anxiously, then opens the door wider to let you into the hall. "Come in out of the rain. I'll have to go speak to my mistress and see if it's alright to let you in. What's your name?"

"Sir John, Knight of the Mighty Thrust," you say, smirking at your own epithet as you step inside. She shuts the door behind you.

"I'll go talk to my mistress," the redhead says. "Please wait here." She retreats up a flight of stairs, and leaves you standing in the rather draughty hall. Ten minutes later she returns and says, "My mistress would be happy to receive you. Will't you please follow me?"

You go with her up the flight of stairs, then another and another, until it seems you reach the very top of the tower. There you step out into a spacious room with a roaring fire to one side. Various pieces of alchemical equipment lie here and there on tables, as do scrolls of parchment and heavy tomes. Beside the fire a woman sits in a threadbare armchair that's obviously seen better days.

"Mistress," the readhead says, curtseying. "I've-"

The other woman holds up a hand, and the redhead stops talking and, with another curtsey, left the room. "Well, well," the woman by the fire says. "Sir John, Knight of the Mighty... Thrust. I must admit that I never though to see you in my humble abode." She stands and approaches. "It's an honour to meet you," she says, holding out a hand."

"The honour is mind, ma'am," you answer, taking the hand offered. She laughs.

"There's no need for such formalities here. My name is Morrin, and aside from my servant Fae whom you've met already, there's nobody but me in the whole tower. So you may call me Morrin and I shall call you John, as is friendlier. Agreed?"

"Very well. But it seems unfair that you should know my occupation while I don't know yours."

"I'm a sorceress- there's no reason to fear me, though! I'm a member of the Sorcerer's Guild. I do research here on... well, various things that would bore you terrifically."

You accept this explanation, and move on to looking her up and down; you have to admit that you're pleased with what you see. She's a woman in her late twenties or early thirties, with wavy brown hair and sparkling blue eyes, more than pretty but less than beautiful, and imbued with an impressively large pair of breasts. She wears a deep purple dress, adorned with such trinkets as crow's feathers and glass beads. A necklace that hangs down into her cleavage seems to be made of odds and ends of metal.

She smiles when she sees where your eyes have wandered to. "Perhaps while you are here I shall have the chance to see if what I've heard of you is true."

You raise an eyebrow as the two of you walk together to the fireside once more. She sits back down in her armchair, and you sit opposite her in another. "And what have you heard?"

"All manner of things. That you have no fear in facing magic and all kinds of beasts; that you are as good with words as with a sword; and that after a woman has slept with you, no other man will ever do for her."

You laugh, and she leans forward, licking her lips. "Is it true that you were once captured by the women-warriors of the Azron tribe, and had to fuck your way to safety? I hear they only agreed to let you go if you fucked all twenty of them one after the other, without pause, and made them come, and you succeeded. Is this true?"

You shrug. "Mostly; there was actually only nineteen of them."

She purrs appreciatively. "Surely you can't be telling the truth- no man can have such stamina!"

"Would you care to find out?"

She stands up and crosses to you; leaning over you, she brings her face to within a centimetre of yours. "Do you know," she murmurs, "I rather think I would." And with that, she kisses you.