Arcanum - Of Steamwork and Magic Ch. 06

IFS ZEPHYR MIRACLE! SURVIVORS TELLS ALL!

Half-Orc Walks Away from Fiery Death!

Greetings, fellow Tarantians! It is I, Victor Wright, your faithful and vigilant editor, bringing you an exclusive story that only a paper of this breadth and quality could possibly do! Just yesterday, our humble offices were visited by none other than the sole survivor of the IFS Zephyr blimp tragedy (please see photograph, pg 2), and he deigned to share his account of the final minutes of that fateful voyage with me, which I now share with you! Be warned! This story is not for the faint of heart! 'Tis a tale so real and frightening, that I recommend it only to those with the most iron-like will and constitutions!

Upon questioning, the gentleman -- one Rayburn Cog, a half-orc who has conspired through great diligence and effort to attain a nearly human-like grace and intellect despite his base and polluted roots -- had this to say about his harrowing experience: "Well, me hear big boom! It shake whole flying-ship-boat! Me much scare! Me no see nothing! No nothing outside! No nothing in cabin! I hear sound! Rat tat tat tat tat! Very scary! It sound like gunz! Me go and hide and me hear vrrrroom! Noise! Like big engine! But there are two! They small! Very scary!"

As impossible as it sounds, it seems the Zephyr had been attacked by some other sort of flying craft! Upon landing, our hapless half-orc stumbled upon frightful evidence that the flying craft that had attacked them had been piloted by villainous Half-Ogres bearing strange symbols and marks. "Me find crash machine! It on fire, but me find medallion! Me then get attack many time as me head to home in Tarant, best city in world for orcs for me find work here! But me sad. No other nice people on blimp alive. Very sad."

So, dear friends of the city! What are we to make of this? What were these strange craft and these mysterious assassins? Why did they attack such a noble craft as the Zephyr? Flying bandits? Or something even more dark and insidious? Are we not safe even in our fair skies? We at the Tarantian urge you to contact your Senators and Representatives in the Industrial council and urge them to be Ever Watchful of the Enemies beyond the boarders of our marvelous city and our stupendous kingdom! For if these strange assassins and their flying machines ever come around here I, Victor Wright, am positive that we will give them a stiff Tarantian hello with our fists and our righteous anger!

As for our hapless, benighted half-orc? What will happen for Mr. Cog? Well, I suggest he find work in one of our many factories, where his kind can attain some service to their betters!

I closed the paper and pursed my lips. Virginia and Sally were both craning over my shoulders to read, while 'Magnus' was leaning around my side, taking what advantage of her smaller stature that she could. I casually folded the paper up, then walked over to the nearest rubbish bin that had not been vandalized by some ruffians -- as we were still in the poorer end of Tarant's warehouse district. I had spent the evening and morning with Esmeralda and emerged to find that my companions had made themselves as comfortable as they could within her home. Some awkward conversation over breakfast had led to us setting out with the sun still only barely peeking over the edges of the narrow roofs that dominated the Tarantian warehouse district.

And now we had seen what my interview with the Tarantian had wrought.

"Well, uh... "Virginia rubbed her shoulder. "At least he wasn't calling for war with Arland?"

"Quite right, old girl," I said, adjusting my tie to ensure it laid properly against my neck.

Then I promptly vandalized the rubbish bin.

Once I was finished, I stepped away from the dented metal bin, adjusted the collar of my suit jacket, brushed dust from my shoulders, sighed, and said: "Come. We have an address to investigate."

Said address being provided by a spiritual medium left me feeling somewhat uncertain, even if Esmeralda clearly had some kind of precognitive powers and magickal ability. And so, I made sure to hand my revolver to 'Magnus' while my own hands gripped by trusty repeating rifle as we came to the address provided: 57 Mulligan Bone Avenue. This entire street was nearly empty, with only a few mangy dogs laying about near the porch of an apartment building that was only occupied by the rats. It seemed the women of this neighborhood had gone off to work as servants, while the men were going to work in factories. The actual building numbered 57 was the smallest on the street -- a squat house that looked as if it was planned to be renovated into another apartment soon.

"Lets try talking," I said to my friends, then opened the door to find that the interior of the building was sparse and barren, save for a single large crate, and a single large half-ogre leaning against said crate, glaring about himself sullenly. I lifted my hand. "Ho, good ogre," I said, smiling slightly. "I don't suppose you know anything about a paint-"

The half-ogre, it seemed, knew quite a lot about a painting, for he immediately picked a cudgel from the ground and sprinted towards me. 'Magnus' and I laid down a remarkable amount of shot in the next three or so seconds. Most of them struck the half-ogre square in the chest, but it was the last fired by 'Magnus' up through the half-ogre's jaw and into their brain. The bullet didn't quite manage to blow through the skull, and so instead, it ricocheted around inside of the head. The end result was that the half-ogre hit the ground and skidded forward to come to a rest near my boots.

"Nice shot, Magnus," I said, grinning slightly at the young dwarfess. She looked a bit shocked herself.

"Well...yes," she said, twirling the revolver on her finger, then offering it to me. I holstered it, strode forward, then swept back the front of the crate to reveal the stolen painting. 'Magnus', Sally, Virginia and I all stood before the painting, taking a moment to admire it. Though admire might not quite be the right term. The image of the painting was that of a red robed figure striding across what at first appeared to be a silvery river. But the water was not in fact water. Nor was it metal. IT was interlocking, ghostly figures. They flowed together in some places, but they were clearly humanoid. They looked up beseechingly while the red robed figure strode forward. His face was concealed by a dark hood, and the painter had added a trick that made the hood seem deeper and darker than it could have been. It should have looked amateurish, like an artist trying to avoid needing to paint facial features. Instead, the effect was quite unsettling.

This figure was walking towards a silvery elven woman, who was dressed in a diaphanous gown that rippled in an unseen, possibly magick wind. Her face was turned aside, and a veil of black satin was draped over her eyes. She stood on the far side of the river of spectral forms and looked as if she was turning away from the red robed figure. In disgust? In horror? No. The painter had cast her features with the tormented expression of one suffering the greatest heartbreak.

We stood, looking at the painting. In the dimness of 57 Mulligan Bone Avenue, with the gunsmoke still in the air, mixing with the stink of freshly spilled blood, the painting took on an even more dark and ominous air. Sally broke the sound with a lugubrious snort followed by her plugging one nostril and blowing the other out on the floor.

"So, which -- hic- iz Kerghan?" Sally asked. "And which is, uh, Persephone?"

"Well, as Persephone is a feminine name," I said. "I would wager that she's not the one in the red robes."

"She could- hic -- be!" Sally said, then thumped her thick, gray knuckles on her own expansive chest. "I got a boy's name!"

"Sally?" Virginia asked. And with that, the eerie, somber mood of the portrait was shattered.

The Garringsburg residence was a fine mansion located rather near to an even finer mansion at the end of the road. Rapping on their front door while Sally held the painting underneath her arm, I glanced at Virginia, who smiled at me slightly. She seemed to be fairly confident in me. I sighed, then adjusted my shirt, then looked back at the door. The door opened and a maidservant opened it. She blinked, seeing two rather well dressed strangers on the front porch. I smiled at her and said: "Hello. May you tell Mrs. Garringsburg that we have retrieved her painting?" I grinned a bit wider. "Tell her it was found by one Rayburn Cog."

***

"What a smashing story!" Mrs Garringsburg said, beaming at me as she sipped from her tea cup, pinkie outstretched. "Bandits, fortune tellers, constables, mistaken identities, oh, what a lark!" She let out a little chortle. "And you're the on front page of the Tarantian, meaning this is merely a minor to do for an adventurer like you. And, might I say, you're so much more...more..." She waved her hand, then realized she had no polite way to finish the sentence, and so decided to rally by plucking some cheese and crackers from the small silvery tray that her maidservant had brought. Said maidservant somehow managed to brush against me every time she needed to bustle about the room. Sometimes, it would be her arm. Other times, the sleekness of her hip. When she could, it would be her breasts, pressing firmly to my shoulder.

I smiled. "You can say eloquent, Mrs. Garringsburg-"

"Oh, please!" the luminously redheaded woman said, putting her hand on her own ample bosom -- which itself was contained with a lacy purple dress with whalebone corset. "Call me Judith!"

"Well, Judith," I said, trying to not let my eyes roam. But Judith had taken the half hour between us knocking on her door to us being invited to her sitting room to dress to impress. She had applied some light rouge to her cheeks, a warm red lipstick to her mouth, and slight eyeliner to her eyes. Primping had given her hair had turned what were already vibrantly red locks into a cascade of crimson delight that spilled along pale shoulders, shown by a dangerously well cut dress. Still, I endeavored to keep my eyes on her green ones, and so saw them glitter with delight as I continued on: "But the newspaper did not exactly prepare you for the true character of my company."

"Well said, very well said indeed!" Judith said, nodding as she sipped her tea. "Now, tell me more about this awful incident with Madame Beston, I always said that she was a fraud, absolutely guaranteed it, why she took five guesses to even come to the conclusion that my dear departed grandmother was named Penelope, quite an atrocious showing."

I chuckled. "It was a grisly affair. I, honestly, would have preferred to not get mixed up in the competition of two fortune tellers. But I can say that Madame Beston thought I would behave rather the same way that Mister Wright believes I should..." I grinned. "Like a bandit. Not like a gentlemen."

"Mm..." Judith said, her eyes flicking down from my eyes across my body, then up again. "But I believe you still have...a bit of banditry in your blood. Enough to put paid to the ruffians who stole my painting. Correct?"

I shrugged. "Well. The final blow was struck by my good companion Magnus here-"

"Quite right," Judith said, distractedly. "Uh, say, Mr. Cog, uh, would you perchance be able to carry that heavy painting to my boudoir? That's where we hung it when, uh...Mr. Garringsburg bought it." She coughed, politely. "I would, but Maria here is the only servant home at the time and she cannot carry a whole painting, not one that size..."

"I can try, my lady!" Maria said, taking this chance to brush against me again.

"Uh-" Sally said.

"No, Mr. Cog must see to it, and I can direct him exactly where to put it!" Judith declared, standing up and setting the tea cup down. She beamed at me. Or maybe I should say, she bared her teeth. Rather like a hungry wolf. I glanced at Sally, who was looking down at her muscular forearms. Then she looked at me and give me a huge grin, wink, and thumbs up.

Oh Sally. At least Virginia and 'Magnus' were doing their best to look abashed and ignorant.

Mrs. Garringsburg led me up the stairs to her room, giving on a running narration, as if she was too nervous to allow a moment to go by in silence. I, in all honesty, only heard every other sentence. While the painting was not heavy, exactly, it was large and unwieldy, requiring two arms and a great deal of concentration to keep it from banging into the stairwell, or knocking other paintings off the walls, or gouging the frame. I caught only that Mr Garringsburg was so very busy with his new factory, and how she had taken a tour once and-

"Oh, those poor wretches barely had shirts, it near broke my heart," she said, sighing. "Their green backs were entirely bare as they worked the machines..." She trailed off and then shook herself, then opened the door to her bedroom. The placement of the painting I could have managed without her guidance -- it was the large, blank spot on the wall with the mountings for a painting to be hung from. Despite this, Judith gave me quite a few directions on where exactly to place it and I, grunting, followed them. Once the painting was settled, I stepped back. Within its proper home, the painting merely looked tacky.

"It's quite a marvelous work," I lied.

The faint click of the latch behind me made me turn. Judith Garringsburg stood there, her hand on her throat. Her voice was soft. "Mr. Cog, it is positively dreadful, and you know that as well as I," she murmured.

I nodded, slightly.

"My husband bought it to prove how much gold he could spend on a positively dreadful thing..." she started to walk forward. "My husband, Mr. Cog, is a gnome. Did you know that?"

I shook my head, mutely.

"Do you know what it is like being the housewife of a gnome?" her voice was softer still. "A gnome who works and works and works at that damn factory every day of his life?" She reached out, her finger touching the tie around my neck. "You say you are a gentleman and not a bandit, Mr. Cog..." Her voice grew softer. "But maybe...do you have enough bandit in you to..." She paused, then whispered something so soft that even my sharp orcish hearing could hear it. My heart was going quite quickly and my breath had caught -- while I had known where she was guiding me, it was always an exciting moment...

"To what, Mrs Garringsburg?" I murmured. My finger tucked under her chin, then lifted it.

"To..." She gulped. "Ravage me."

I smirked, slightly.

"To take me..." her voice became quieter. Her eyes were lidded. Her mouth formed the words more easily every second as she leaned in. Her nose flared, inhaling my scent between each purred sentence fragment. "To claim me, to rip my clothes asunder, to fuck me. To plow my naughty human cunny with your big fat green dick and paint my womb with your cum, gods, I need your cock right now." Her palm clutched between my legs and my own hands cupped her ass, drawing her closer as I cut off the torrent of increasingly foul dirty talk with my tongue. My hands started to work along the back of her dress, undoing button after button after button, tugging upon strings, pulling apart corsets -- hearing the creak of fabric and the clatter of bone. And then as I stepped back and left Judith panting and mewling for more, her clothing simply dropped around her shoulders. She shimmied her hips from side to side, working herself free of her dress and then stepping over to the bed.

There she sat and there I marveled at her. She was youthful and perky, but her breasts were easily the largest that I had seen on a human woman. They were full and round and sagged ever so fetchingly. Her nipples were hard little nubs, thrusting out against her pale skin, while her thighs were already spread, showing her thick puff of crimson red pubic hair. She was clearly not simply dying her hair, then. I grinned and leaned forward, catching her mouth, kissing her fiercely as her hands fumbled at the buttons of my shirt. She drove my shirt off my body with a restrained need that I found quite charming -- taking care not to rip the fabric, but nearly ending up popping the buttons off anyway. My shirt ended up on the floor and the young Mrs. Garringsburg ended up with her cheek pressed to my abdominal muscles, cooing quietly.

"So very strong," she whispered, reaching slowly up to circle one of my dark, emerald green nipples with her fingers. I grinned, then stroked my mustache with one hand.

"More than just strong, Mrs. Garringsburg," I said, my hand dipping to my belt. It slithered from the loops on my pants and Judith smiled faintly. Then her smile vanished as my pants and her jaw dropped at a nearly simultaneous beat. Her hand shook as she gingerly reached out, placing her palm on the base of my cock, her eyes going slightly unfocused as she whispered under her breath something along the lines of 'great gods' as her fingers barely managed to encircle my thick shaft. Her mouth closed with a soft plop noise and she shook her head to try and clear it, even as her hand lifted my cock upwards, so that her eyes could drink in my length.

"You're going to fucking wreck my cunt with this," she whispered, her voice growing husky. Her decorum had slipped before, but now she was stripping it as rapidly as her dress. "Mm, you're gonna shove this big fat green dick into my human cunny and paint my womb with your fertile orcish cum, aren't you?" Her voice became a croon, her eyes growing lidded as she started to pump my shaft with her hand -- adding a second to fully encircle my cock. My member had already been hard, but hearing such a cultured, refined accent say such filthy words made my heart race as if I was on the battlefield.

"Yes," I rumbled.

"You wanna knock this silly little human bitch up and leave her with a green baby to show to her limp dicked little shit of a husband, yeah, you're a bad orc, aren't you..." Judith leaned forward, sucking on the very tip of my cock. Her tongue slowly encircled it, teasing the fold of my foreskin, tasting the precum that dripped liberally from my tip. Her eyes closed and she made a muffled moan, almost gagging on the tip of my cock alone as she pushed her mouth forward. She drew back, her lipstick having smeared and spittle connecting her dick-sucking lips to my member. "Look at me drooling over this subhuman dick...I'm such a fucking slut for green cock, doesn't it disgust you?" Her voice was breathy.

If Judith Garringsburg wanted degradation...well...

After that newspaper article, I could stand degrading a human today.

I grabbed the back of her head and forced her nose against the joining of my shaft and my balls. Her nose flared and she inhaled my scent as if I was a line of snuff. Her hands went from my cock to my balls, squeezing and fondling them in her palm as she mewled and whimpered and kissed at the folds of my scrotum. I growled. "You love worshiping my fertile balls, don't you? Kiss what's going to knock your silly ass up..." I grinned down at her as she opened her mouth, gingerly sucking one of my balls into her mouth. Her eyes closed and she shuddered, her pendulous breasts swaying as I saw her back arch, as if she was in the throws of orgasm. I squeezed her hair tighter, grinning. "Take both in that whore mouth of yours."

She opened her mouth wider, and managed to take my entire sack into her mouth, mewling as her tongue slurped and slipped around my balls. I nearly came right then and there -- less from the physical sensation and more from the delirious sense of power as this married, wealthy human woman sucked on my balls. I pushed her head back and she made the most adorable little gasping noise as I forced her head away. Her mouth hung open and she looked nearly drugged as I put my cocktip to her mouth. Her mouth already hung open, and I slammed down her throat with brutal disregard. Simultaneous noises reached my ears -- the faint patter of her juices spurting against the bed as she showed her approval in the most base way, and the loud sound of her gagging on my cock. Her palms slapped to my thighs, and I looked down to see her eyes slowly closing as she looked up at me, a mixture of abject bliss and pleading desire in those eyes. I shuddered, then drew back, allowing her to gasp in air through her nose...and then plunged forward again. Her nose flared and I could feel the tightening of suction around my cock as her throat worked, trying desperately to breathe around me.