Scoundrel's Answer Ch. 10

"Something wrong out there?" Vick's voice drifted from behind the curtains, and he half sat up, still in the embrace of the two women. They seemed intent on rousing him for a second go, pressing their own bodies into his sides, stroking their hands along his frame.

Tam leaned forward, both her own hands on the table. Her dark eyes settled on Alan's, and her long nails dragged along the surface of the table, cutting deep, knife like furrows into the wood. The surface was crisscrossed with many, many other such marks, which Alan had never noticed. "Just having a little bit of a discussion," the woman hissed out in response to Vick's call.

As Alan and Tam faced off over the table, Garthur and Windhawk rose to their feet. Their weapons were already in hand, Windhawk's blade still sang from where she'd slipped it from its scabbard, while the dwarf's hammer Jhernyr was clutched in one powerful, thick hand.

Faringalia finally strode forth from the door. There was nothing fearful, nothing hesitant in her approach, and she lifted her hand, pointed accusingly at Tam. "I don't know what you are, but I tire of this. You're clearly cloaked in illusions of some sort. Peel back the veil, and show us your true form." Although it sounded a command, there was a resonance of magic in the gnome girl's tone, and immediately, a rippling wave of energy spread out from her hand. With a strange distortion in the air, the tall, auburn haired beauty before Alan melted away, revealing the true visage of the creature they had been speaking with, that had been teasing and touching Alan.

There was little Alan could do. Immediately, his stomach rebelled, and he barely turned in time to avoid coating his friends as he retched onto the cave floor. Windhawk took a step back, eyes wide in shock, and even Garthur hesitated, nearly fumbling as he raised his hammer high. Only the rapid descent of a shape from above saved the three, as the bat that had been clinging to the rough cave ceiling shifted, exploding outward into the form of a black clad elven woman. Daphne's sleek hands drew her daggers as she descended.

And while events seemed to play out in slow motion through the sudden shock to the mind, and the surge of adrenalin through Alan's form, in the curtained area where Vick was cuddled up alone between what had been two buxom beauties the fat count's screams rose to a near hysterical pitch. The animal wail of primal terror that escaped him was something Alan hadn't ever heard from the man before, and hoped never to hear again.