Perils of Adventure Ch. 01 - Silke

While Keire watched from a distance, Silke carefully approached, delicately replaced Vissi's foot with her own knee, then waved the sorceress off to wait with their companion. Not knowing just what particular brand of nastiness the pressure plate beneath her was set to unleash, a large part of Vissi wanted to send both of her comrades on ahead just in case she proved unequal to the task before her. Where there was one trap, however, there were often a great many, so instead she decided to play things safe. After waving Keire and Vissi off to a comfortable position several dozen paces to her rear, a task made tedious by how reluctant the trio had become to put distance between one another in the wake of discovering they were not alone, she got to work.

Once she did so it was relatively easy for Silke to get at the guts of the pressure plate beneath her. In her moderately expert opinion, the thing didn't seem like much of a trap at all. She had disarmed more sophisticated devices at least a dozen times before, probably twice that many. The one before her would be child's play in comparison, or so she thought until the very last second. The young thief thought that by severing the plate's connection to the mechanism beneath she had succeeded only to realize instead that the tension on that thin line of wiring was all that was keeping the trap from engaging. But the deed was already done. Had the rest of the device not seemed so primitive, had she not been so drained by the longest of days, had camp not seemed practically around the corner... had conditions been anything but what they were she might have expected such tamper-proofing, would almost certainly have checked for it just to be safe. But she hadn't. And she would suffer for that lapse in judgment, oh would she suffer.

No sooner had the trigger wire snapped than the trap sprung into action. There were no spikes hurling from the walls or deadly curses raining down from hidden spell crystals as Silke had always assumed would be the case on the day she finally made her last mistake, though. Indeed, the vicinity of the pressure plate seemed to be entirely devoid of danger. The action actually occurred much farther away where massive hunks of rock were suddenly released from hidden alcoves in the tunnel's ceiling to descend and cut her off in each direction.

Silke's cry of alarm echoed around the improvised chamber, the sound of her voice competing against the tremendous clamour produced by the stone seals slamming down in each direction. The barrier which cut her off from Vissi and Keire was perhaps twenty paces away, its counterpart in the other direction only a little closer. The distance to either was such that the thief couldn't have hoped to reach one in time even had she already been sprinting the moment they began to fall.

The dark-haired girl was left reeling, her ears ringing as if she had spent hours working an anvil. As if it wasn't enough that she had been separated from her comrades, the heavy seals had also hit the ground with such force that they kicked up great clouds of dust which were rapidly drifting towards where she stood at the center of the suddenly isolated stretch of tunnel. Within moments the dirt and dust hanging in the air was thick enough to distort what feeble illumination the lone torch she carried could provide. It was like a scene out of the worst of nightmares, for who among us doesn't dread the prospect of being buried alive?

For several seconds, Silke stood still as a statue, heart pounding thunderously in her chest as her well-practiced eyes scanned the floor and walls before her for further traps. She had been fooled once, it was true, lulled into complacency by a clever veneer of simplicity, but that failure only left her all the more alert. Of course, no amount of awareness could possibly save her should the initial trap truly prove as thorough as it seemed.

The wary thief had yet to so much as turn in place when a new noise from behind seized her attention. Skin crawling at the grating sound of stone grinding on stone, she whirled to face the new threat. The source of the noise wasn't another trap as expected, though. A quick and clean death would have required far more luck than Silke had ever been blessed with, I fear. Instead, where before the wall behind her had seemed a plane of unremarkable, unbroken stone, suddenly there were two, no, three openings into unknown chambers or passages beyond. The third she witnessed unseal with her own eyes, a portal appearing where before there had been nothing. What she had thought to be seamless stone parted as if by magic, pulling back before sliding to the side. It was stonework the likes of which she had never seen before, what could only be the product of generations of craftsmen honing their trade. There was precious little time for her to marvel at the skill of the doors' construction, however, as no sooner had they been revealed than a far greater concern made itself known.

Mere seconds after she turned around a flurry of small creatures began to emerge from the darkness beyond and surge forward. The things ranged from three to four feet tall standing upright and appeared humanoid, if only vaguely so. Their limbs were unnaturally long and slender, sprouting off compact torsos at angles that seemed somehow wrong. Leathery, gray-green skin clung tight to their gangly frames and their faces were oddly crowded by eyes and mouths that seemed too large to be natural. They wore clothes, if the eclectic mix of leather scraps concealing seemingly random swathes of their bodies could be called as such, and chittered like madmen in a language the bewildered thief couldn't hope to comprehend. At first glance the creatures may have appeared savage, even feral, but there was an undeniable intelligence in their wicked, leering gazes as they closed on her.

Goblins. That was all they could be. Silke's heart skipped a beat and her eyes went wide with fear as she faced down one of her world's great horrors for the first time. Having spent nearly her entire life behind the walls of a civilized city, the thief had never once laid eyes upon the bastard race of creation, but there were few indeed who hadn't heard the tales of their depravity. Alone a single goblin was little threat. Even a peasant with a stick might fancy their chances against a solitary greenskin. In enough numbers, though, the little devils could overwhelm any foe. And our trapped heroine was face to face with more than a few.

Of the many races which might imagine themselves challengers to humanity's mantle as masters of the world few indeed could lodge so fierce a claim as the goblins. Rejected by most civilizations for their loathsome nature and supposed barbarism, goblins tended to dwell in hidden, isolated communities all their own. One should never let that segregation fool themselves into believing the greenskins to be savages, though. They were fiendishly clever, master tinkerers, and extraordinarily cooperative amongst their own tribes. Only a tendency to ignore the long-term consequences of their actions and the fierce competitiveness which arose between tribes who came into contact had held back the goblins from emerging as a plague which threatened to overwhelm their so called 'civilized' neighbours. Even with those shortcomings, however, it was an inevitability that every few years new reports would arise of a successful tribe swelling to the thousands or tens of thousands, large enough to spark dreams of taking their place in the sun until some army or another was raised to beat them back down.

As daunting as all that made goblinkind to the masses, though, it was hardly what caused our young thief to recoil so at the sight of her assailants. No, Silke's mind immediately leapt to that single trait which most repulsed members of the other races, that which made the greenskins' threat so insidious. Their breeding. If there had ever been such a thing as a female goblin, no living soul was known to have encountered one and escaped to tell the tale. That was not to say, however, that it was a mystery how goblins reproduced. Rather, it was all too well known that male goblins could and would interbreed with the females of other species, such unions invariably producing their own spawn rather than children of the mother's race. Not a single intelligent species was known to be immune to whatever vile magic allowed the little devils to reproduce in such a manner, nor was it known what twisted divinity or abhorrent sorcery had crafted such cruel monstrosities when the world was yet young.

Perhaps most concerning of all for Silke and all those souls unfortunate enough to find themselves in her predicament was the rate at which goblins could breed. The entire process, from the moment their seed took root in a woman's womb to the moment their vile spawn was born, transpired in a matter of weeks. Five to six most often, though the process was less predictable than its equivalent among most other races. That meant given just a few captives and a few undisturbed years even the smallest of goblin packs could rapidly swell into a colony large enough to seriously threaten anything living in their vicinity. It also meant the prospect of being captured by goblins was a fate that fueled the most terrible nightmares of many a woman, as well as the secret fantasies of a few twisted deviants. Silke, though, was no such deviant. Thus, the sight of a small horde of goblins descending on her was nearly enough to make the thief piss herself in terror. She counted ten, twenty, perhaps even thirty of the vile creatures as she scrambled backwards.

Unfortunately for our young adventuress, she was trapped and she knew it. Her instinctive retreat could only last so long before her back smacked hard into the cave wall opposite that from which the greenskins were still emerging, the collision followed a split second later by another which saw her head strike the same hard stone. That self-inflicted blow left her vision swimming and by the time it cleared her assailants were already upon her.

"No!" Silke squealed as the bravest among them leapt at her. "NOOOO!!" The greenskins' spindly fingers already seemed to be grasping at every inch of her body all at once as she reached for the nearest of her many sheathed knives. If not to use that precious blade on them, then at least for her own slender throat. The thief almost managed to draw it, too, her fingers wrapping tight around the hilt before one of the goblins latched its own grip around her wrist. Even fighting the creature's surprising strength she managed to slide the weapon most of the way out of its sheathe before all hope was lost. Just as she thought she might manage the feat, another of the little devils' hands joined the struggle and from there it was a lost cause.

Silke wailed out her terror as together the two goblins pried her fingers from the knife, another wresting away the torch she still held in her other hand. From there she couldn't resist as several of the little monstrosities committed to keeping each of her wrists pinned back against the wall while yet more clung to her legs, their weight bringing to an end the frenzy of kicks she hadn't even realized she was delivering. Thus subdued, the captive thief was helpless to resist as the rest of her assailants began to run their hands across her supple body.

Perhaps a larger woman might have been able to hurl the vile things off of herself and fight back, but not lithe young Silke. She could do nothing but sob and writhe in place as a legion of tiny hands conducted their thorough search, the goblins familiarizing themselves with her modest curves and relieving her of every object which might possibly be of use in resisting them. By the time they were satisfied, her every knife and tool were gone. Even the few odds and ends she had collected during her brief travels were handed off to a waiting stream of couriers who swiftly whisked them away into the dark of their hidden tunnels before returning for more. She would see most again, sooner or later, though their presence would bring her little comfort in her new life.

The incessant cackling of her many captors was almost too much for Silke to bear. Never in her life had she felt so helpless, so worthless. Not even when a bitter turf war had led a rival street gang to beat down her own and celebrate by making sport of her and Vissi had the thief felt so pathetic. There was just something about the goblins who now held dominion over her that made her predicament incomparable. Whether it was how repulsive she found them, how feeble they were as individuals, or the dread fate which she knew awaited her in their lair, there was simply nothing she could imagine that would match the humiliation of becoming their prisoner.

It was impossible to know how much time had passed before the goblins' search came to an end. In its wake, those not preoccupied restraining her nubile form clustered together into something like a pack, the individual greenskins glancing back and forth between one another and chittering eagerly in their bizarre tongue. Silke herself was left panting, her breathing ragged as she watched and waited with wide eyes. While all her many knives and tools were gone from sight, spirited away into the goblin tunnels, her torch remained. One of the little freaks stood apart from the rest, holding it aloft like the staff of a wizard, and a truly preposterous sight that was. They had come with no light of their own and the tunnels from which they emerged were dark as pitch so the fact her light was still present could only mean the fiends wanted her able to see for what was to come.

After a long exchange between himself and another, one of the goblins, one which wore an odd set of markings painted upon its face, held up a long-clawed hand. Quickly the rest of its comrades fell into a hush, deference to what must have been some sort of leader. After letting the silence linger for a moment the thing chittered alone briefly, its proclamation immediately answered with what could only be a cheer of approval.

Silke let out a girlish yelp when she was suddenly pulled away from the cave's wall and dragged down onto her knees. From there, two goblins jumped onto her back, their weight sending her toppling to the ground. Her face smacked agonizingly against the hard stone of the cave floor and she heard a wicked crack as pain suddenly flared up in her nose. If the goblins even noticed, though, they didn't let her petty distraction impede their plans. A second later three of them were tugging at her side, the team easily managing to flip her onto her back.

Once they had their captive positioned as they wanted, the greenskins restraining Silke's wrists began to tug, twisting and pulling her arms until they were held together as far above her head as she could reach. At the same time, a small pack of the fiends descended on her ankles and got to work, tugging them apart until there was enough open space between her thighs for three of their kind. The desperate thief tried to lash out at them, tried to prevent what she knew was coming next, but her efforts were too feeble. By that point she and her assailants alike knew her to be entirely at their mercy. And mercy, well, I'm afraid mercy was something goblinkind had never understood.

What came next was inevitable. The goblin with the painted face strode assuredly between Silke's parted thighs, a wicked grin on his distorted face. The dark-haired girl just clenched her eyes shut as his delicate fingers fought with the laces that held her tight leather pants in place. She didn't need to see him work. She didn't want to see. But her captors had other ideas. Barely a moment had passed before she felt her head being yanked up, a goblin gripping her harshly by the hair with one hand while his other scrabbled at her eyelids and slapped at her cheeks until she gave in and opened her eyes once more. The sight she saw as she gazed down her body was no more or less than she expected, though its predictability did little to dull its horror.

Once he had her pants suitably loosened the goblin leader began to tug. Silke let out a whimper as the tight leather gradually crept down her thighs, cool underground air raising goosebumps as it kissed the pale, delicate flesh revealed beneath. The young thief's traveling boots and footwraps were already long gone by the time her pants reached her ankles, leaving her nubile form bare from the navel down save for the simple wool knickers which covered her womanhood.

All around her the rest of the little devils began to chant as one when their leader moved back into position between her thighs. It was a slow, quiet murmur at first, rising in volume and speed as the wicked creature retrieved a small curved knife from a sheathe on one leg and held it aloft. Leering up at his prisoner's face while the minion holding her head ensured she wasn't able to look away, he slowly lowered his blade and made two precise cuts on her delicate undergarment, one above the top of each thigh. Silke couldn't help but blush at the way her captor held her gaze and the ceremony with which he was baring her body for what felt like all goblinkind to see.

Returning his knife to its place, the lead goblin reached down to pluck up the freshly severed portion of her knickers which covered her snatch and slowly peeled it away to reveal the charms beneath. A thin patch of scraggly dark hairs carpeted the upper portion of that hallowed chalice between her thighs, but they were far too sparse to conceal the small slit hidden between her legs. The greenskins' chanting had nearly reached a fever pitch by the time Silke's soon to be rapist started shedding his leathers, but her attention was elsewhere. The pretty thief's eyes were locked on the fiend's cock, the sight of it rendering her momentarily stunned. By human standards its six inches were nothing of note, he was certainly smaller than some of the men she had lain with in the past, but on the goblin's tiny frame it looked almost comical.

Noticing where her eyes had fallen, the goblin leader's thin lips twisted into a deranged grin as it lined itself up with Silke's entrance. She tried to close her eyes and look away, but the greenskin clutching her head wouldn't let her, slapping and scratching until she obediently turned her attention back to her own imminent conquest. The bested adventuress let out a primal cry as the first goblin cock surged into her body, but it was drowned out by the chorus of cheers which erupted from her audience of captors that same moment. Tears began to flow like rivers down the girl's cheeks as her body was roughly claimed, but their emergence only seemed to encourage her abusers. She hurt, oh how she hurt. Nothing about the situation she had found herself in prompted even the slightest arousal in Silke's loins and like so many before her she was dismayed to discover that a goblin's skin was far rougher than a man's, the leathery material chafing and scraping at her dry, delicate interior.

The first of the goblins to enjoy their new captive's charms lasted but a few minutes. It felt like he had barely gotten under way before his body seized up like he was having a fit, a bizarre warbling cry escaped his lips, and his load was splashing against her sensitive depths. The fiend's seed was hot and plentiful, but no more so than a man's. Silke whimpered pitifully as she watched her conqueror pull out of her and stagger back, lusts momentarily sated. Instead of tracking him, though, her eyes lingered on her own gash, watching as a few dollops of viscous gray slime trickled out. She couldn't help but wonder whether that single load was already enough, whether the goblin leader had already sealed its victory in her womb and her fate along with it. Not that it would really make a difference. There was, after all, no shortage of greenskins waiting to take their turn with her. Unless Silke's friends somehow managed to rescue her, a prospect that seemed unlikely given all her captors had proven themselves capable of, they would continue to use her again and again until eventually their seed took. Whether that moment came in an hour, a day, a week, a month... it would matter little in the end.