The Adventurer Pt. 01

We went to sleep together. But the night was not a quiet one. We were woken up by shouts and screams. I opened the window--and the undead was prowling the streets! But how? There couldn't be that many corpses around! I charged down in my nightgown, with only sword and shield.

The undead were far fewer this time, and the villagers were no folk of faint heart. Arrows and rocks flown from high floors culled many, and the men burst from their homes with cold scimitars. I stayed a little behind the mob, cutting off the heads of the undead already on the ground--one of the few ways to permanently kill the undead.

A bone chilling scream came from Monica. The villagers were too far ahead. I rushed upstairs, my knees shaking, my sweat seeping--

"Help!"

"Monica!"

I busted down the door. The necromancer was upon Monica, but he turned to face me. "Monica, run!" I said. Monica, still naked, immediately slipped away.

The necromancer was an ugly being. His face was almost fully skeletal, what little flesh remaining rotten and black. A black robe concealed the rest of his body, except his putrid hands, holding a staff of wood. Demonic magic was not meant for the mortal races at all, and it showed.

It was dark. There was no sun--I could only draw magic from energy reserves inside me. "I have isolated you at night," the necromancer said very slowly, his skeletal jaw moving so unnervingly. "Time to kill."

He thrusted his staff at the air, producing a cluster of spherical dark energies. I lunged out of the way as they damaged the walls behind. "Is that all you can do?" I taunted. I sent a jet of fire, burning some of the cloak before the necromancer put it out with his dark magic.

"Heah!" Blinding him with a flash of light, I threw his light body down from the window. He got up quite quickly. I grabbed a bottle of holy water and prepared to hurl it down--

But the necromancer quickly escaped, morphing into black shadow.

"Coward!" I cursed.

"Is-is everything okay?" Monica asked as she, with trembling feet, came back to the room.

"Yeah, the necromancer's gone," I said. "And you might want to put on some clothes."

There was no more sleep that day. The next afternoon, the Mayoress held a meeting in the village hall. Almost everyone was invited--an Imperial Agent masquerading as a troupe performer ("just a travelling circus") included.

The villagers were rowdy. "What I want to know," one housewife said, "how on earth they came in! We erected a palisade!"

"Yeah, yeah, the palisade has a gate, duh," Molly said.

"Silence!" Natalie called.

One man stood up to the centre. "Jack here was the gate guard when the undead broke through," Natalie said. "Jack, explain what happened."

"Well, my shift was ending, so I went to fetch the guy in the next shift... Max, I think, and then suddenly the undead poured in."

"The palisade is quite strong," I said. "In the few minutes that you took to notify Max, it's impossible for the undead to force entry."

"Which means someone opened the gate, we've got a traitor!" Molly roared. Chants followed. Natalie blinked rapidly a few times before managing to calm down the crowd.

"I just want to point out this man," Natalie said, pointing at the Imperial Agent who dressed more pompously than the villagers. "He came yesterday afternoon--and at night there was sabotage. Coincidence? I think not! Come up here and explain yourself!"

The Imperial Agent looked very young, and he nervously went to the centre of the hall. "Go on," Natalie goaded.

"Um, hello. I'm Hans, I'm just a travelling performer."

"No performer comes here. We barely have any coin, certainly not enough to spend on high-class entertainment!" Molly bellowed.

"Okay, okay! I'm actually an Imperial Agent!" Hans said. "I heard an Adventurer has been dispatched to subdue the necromancer, I was sent to arrest the necromancer once it's done."

"Why don't you help us capture the necromancer then?" Natalie asked.

"Uh, we Imperial Agents aren't trained in combat. I can barely use a dagger," he said. "My job really is to arrest the necromancer, that's all."

The crowd grew restless. Natalie coughed. "This is all irrelevant," she said. "Hear me! I have a few family members who live as hunters in the woods. They managed to track down the necromancer's lair this morning."

There was great cheer. "All we need to do is wait for our Adventurer to go there and kill that necromancer!"

"Try to capture him alive, it's preferable that way," Hans whispered. "Good luck, Adventurer...."

I prepared myself for tomorrow's battle. I sunbathed all day, replenishing my solar energy reserves. With my trusty horse and a map from Natalie, I went to the woods. It must be night when I arrived, but in the dark woods night and day made little difference.

The necromancer's lair was a cave--how very usual. It reeked of dark magic, a sign that a practitioner of the dark arts was nearby, but not a very skilled one. Those versed in the dark arts could conceal themselves very well.

With no corpses to raise, and two bottles of holy water left in my pocket, the necromancer must be impotent. I traversed the damp cave carefully, but there was no threat, no undead to suddenly pounce.

At last I happened upon a vast chamber, where the necromancer laid in wait. An empty suit of iron armor was there too, and so did a human-sized, wooden effigy of a beautiful demon.

"I got you cornered," I said flatly. "Now, you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?"

The necromancer exploded in a cackle of mad laughter. "No! No! It is the other way round. The Mayoress has goaded you here in my trap."

"The Mayoress? Natalie? What does she have to do with anything?"

"She is my bitch. A weak woman easily swayed by promises of wealth," the necromancer claimed. "I have been offering sacrifices to Lady Mepetra the Scythe, my patron demon. But she demands more. She demands not fragile villagers, but a proper warrior with some magical abilities. In short, an Adventurer."

"This has been a trap from the start since the bounty was posted, huh," I said. "And I bet she opened the gate as well."

"Yes, indeed. One more sacrifice and I will receive the ascension to demonhood that I want, and the Mayoress can have her gold." The necromancer turned to the effigy. "Lady Mepetra, I bring you your prize!"

Dark energies filled the effigy. I took a step back as the effigy moved on its own. Its left arm swung with unimaginable speed. I raised my shield, which was broken immediately.

"You're gonna regret using wood for that damn effigy!" I roared, unleashing a twin jet of fire from my palms.

The effigy glowed, dispelling my flames. A split second later, I found its arm punching my guts with an unnatural strength. "Arkh!" I gasped as my body was hurled against the cave walls. I threw all the holy water I had, to no avail.

The effigy then stood still, the malevolent energies inside swirling upwards ominously as a black cloud, which quickly dashed at me.

"Die!" the necromancer taunted.

"No!" A voice not entirely my own boomed. I stretched my arm and, drawing power from a source I didn't knew even existed, I halted the cloud. "GRAHHH!"

A great wave of energy burst from my palms, shattering the effigy into a thousand splinters. The necromancer was sent flying. "Take this!" I breathed a squall of fire, burning the necromancer to his true death.

My legs lost all strength and I fell to the cave floor. My breath drew short. It was strange; that was definitely neither fire nor light magic--it was almost like demonic magic if nothing else. How did I do that?

Well, no matter. I pushed myself to stand up. I took my waterskin and drank some water to calm myself down. I uncovered some of the necromancer's personal belongings in a trunk, including letters sent to and from Natalie the Mayoress--enough to incriminate her. I also searched for valuables or even some coins, but none was found. I did find a few dark artifacts scattered around, such as talismans and dolls. I shoved them all into the trunk. Strapping the trunk and the necromancer's dead body to my horse, I walked back to the village. The village hall was full.

"Well, the necromancer's dead," I said, dragging his stinking body to the centre of the hall. Cheers followed.

"But, uh, I've also got a few letters here," I said, looking at Natalie. "It would appear the Mayoress is in league with the necromancer."

"What are you talking about?" Natalie hotly contested.

"Here, let me read them. It would be fair," Jack offered. The man took a few minutes to read, and he was steadily becoming angrier. "Yes... this is true. The Mayoress betrayed us!"

Natalie ran, no, sprinted, wading her way across the hall, but she was never going to make it. The villagers detained her. "No! Please! Yes, I did it, but--but please, I didn't think it would go this way! Please!"

"Explain yourself," Hans, having read the letters himself, demanded. The friendly man's demeanor took a sharp turn, his eyes glinting.

"Look, he came to me a couple months ago, I was in a bit of a bind financially, I needed just some cash, okay? I just needed some coin. And--and--he offered me so much more, okay? If, if the plan succeeds I'll have enough coin to buy nobility and--"

"Selfish bitch!" one man in the crowd roared and the others followed.

"Okay, calm down folks!" I asked. "If it's money you're hoping, you're not getting it. I scoured the whole damn lair. Got enough coin to buy half a loaf of bread."

Natalie was sobbing. "So what will happen now?" I asked.

"This happens to be my job description," Hans said. "In cases like these, I will arrest her and sell her to the Slaver's Guild. The coin obtained will be distributed among the victims of the crime--in this case, all of you. The distribution of it, I will leave to you. Her property will be given to her relatives."

"I-I have none," Natalie said.

"Then... hmm... let me review the codes." Hans brought out a massive book. "Ah! Yes, Code on Villages: Part V, Section 6.4: if a Mayor commits a crime deemed sufficiently heinous, their property will be seized and inherited by the next Mayor, which shall be elected from the populace by the populace."

"... by the way, I know it's probably just a trap, but I was promised 100 gold coins for this," I said. Villagers murmurred among themselves.

"Yeah, it's a trap, I don't have that much money," Natalie admitted. "I've got only about 30 gold coins."

"Why are you admitting everything so freely, I wonder?" Hans asked. "Anyways, you're still obliged to pay the hundred coins--if you have property it will go to paying it first."

"I am obviously hoping my sentence would be reduced."

More whispers. "Even if everyone pitches in, we won't be able to raise that much money," Jack said. "Maybe we can if we sell the Mayor's house."

"Wait!" Monica said. She hurriedly came forth. "Take me instead! I'm Natalie's slave worth about 70 gold coins--check the ownership certificate in her house. Add that to the 30 gold, and it's a full hundred!"

"Alright, I accept," I said. Monica smiled at me. "I also found this trunk--full of dark magic imbued items. I'm not sure if it's worth anything, but I think, lawfully, it belongs to the village."

"Oh, it's definitely worth something," Hans said. "The Imperial Wizards should find use of them once they're purified. I can sell them for some amount--in fact, I would buy them right now. Thirty gold coins to be distributed to the village--how does that sound?"

More pompous cheer followed. After that, the villagers' meeting ended. "I never got your name," Hans said as I handed over the trunk to him.

"It's Darryl," I said. Hans gave a pouch of coins to Jack, the interim Mayor until a new one could be elected. "Huh, you really gave away so many coins just like that?"

"With my father's connections, it won't be hard to get a decent profit from this," he said.

"Your father?"

"Yes, he's a retired Imperial Wizard and of minor nobility," Hans said. "Anyways, speak to you later. I gotta arrange some papers."

"Of course you do. See you."

I went to the inn for lunch before heading back to Easthaven. There Monica was waiting for me with a bag of her belongings. "Hello," she said. "I suppose I'm yours?"

"Well, until I do the papers in the Slaver's Guild, no, but I suppose yes in a manner."

She sat down next to me, in her eyes flashes of both sombreness and excitement. "So, what would you do with me? Sell me?"

"I would think not," I said. "The idea of it is... distasteful to me."

Monica smiled. "Lucky me that you've tried my body," she said, shaking her breasts.

"I could use someone who can cook and clean and stuff. My house's not large, but if I don't need to do housework anymore, I can spend more time paying off my debt."

"You've got a debt?"

"All new Adventurers do. Training isn't cheap," I said. "I really got suckered in by that 100 gold reward, honestly."

"Well, anything's an upgrade for me. Whoring isn't really what I want to do for the rest of my life," she said. "But of course, Master, my body will always be available to you."

"Cheeky, aren't you?" I chuckled. "Well, we'll leave tomorrow morning. Have you packed your things?"

"I have," Monica said. "Just tell me when we leave. I'll say goodbye to some of the villagers."

"Of course."

With Monica gone, Hans came in to take her place. "Hello," he said. "You're not going back to Easthaven?"

"I'll do tomorrow morning," I said. "And you?"

"Same."

"So, you said you were from nobility?"

"Yes, the Heinz family. We're very minor nobility, really," Hans said. "But I presume you're a commoner?"

"Guilty as charged."

"Yeah, no surprise. Adventurers are notorious for not accepting any nobility titles."

"Hm? This is the first time I've heard of it. I guess I haven't paid much attention," I said.

"Well, the legend is that the first Adventurer Guildmaster refused a dukedom, because he didn't want to swear allegiance to the King. That has been followed by all his successors."

"Huh. That makes sense, I guess," I said. I did recall Erich saying something like "we don't owe anything to the King and the Crown except for an annual tax payment". "What about the Imperial Agents?"

"I can say nothing, sorry."

"Oh right. Secrecy and all that."

"Yeah. I need to write my reports. Catch you up later!"

"Sure."

The next morning, Hans had gone first with Natalie. Monica was in my carriage and we went straight back to Easthaven. It was evening when I reached Easthaven. The Slaver's Guild was my first stop.

"Oh hey Darryl, great to see you," Amelia greeted me. "What do you need?"

"Just some administrative work," I said.

"Ah, this must be what that Imperial Agent said, huh?" Amelia cut me off, grinning. "Your first slave, hm? She's got a nice body." Monica was blushing.

"Heh. That she does," I said. "So, obviously, I need to go through the bureaucratic process of transferring ownership from Natalie to me?"

Amelia snorted. "If the Slaver's Guild has something called friend, it's the Adventurer's Guild. Gimme half an hour."

Indeed, half an hour later, the slavery certificate has my name on it, not Natalie's. One copy was kept by the Slaver's Guild, one other for me and one more for Monica--that way, if one copy were destroyed, two others remained.

I returned to the Adventurer's Guild to meet Dorothy. "Hello there, Darryl. A successful mission, I hope?"

"If it weren't, I wouldn't be standing here, would I?" I joked. "Here's the Guild's cut." I took out twenty pieces of gold coins from my pouch.

"Why do you have so few left?" Dorothy asked sharply. "Purchasing a slave in your situation is not wise, Darryl!"

"No, no, please listen. The bounty was a trap. The Mayoress was really in a league with the necromancer and she posted the bounty to lure an Adventurer to the necromancer, to sacrifice to a demon called, uuuh, Mepetra the Scythe or something like that?"

"I see," Dorothy said with cold anger in her voice. "This... Mayoress will receive her due."

"She should be in the Slaver's Guild. An Imperial Agent arrested her."

"Good."

I took Monica to my house next. It was a simple, small house on the outskirts of Easthaven, where the rent was cheap. It comprised only of a single, admittedly rather large, bedroom and a small bathroom, as well as a kitchen.

"We'd have to share the bed," I said, pointing out the double bed I got for cheap in an auction long ago. "I hope you don't mind?"

"Of course not," Monica said with a smile. "I'll need to change clothes."

Monica took off her thick clothing slowly, giving me ample time to admire her--judging from her smirk, it was all very intentional. First she revealed her bosoms, pleasurably large and dangling with her nipples erect. Then she took off all her clothes in its entirety, allowing me to ogle over her naked body. She turned around, showing off her firm butt. She bent down, blatantly showing me both her vagina and her anus--both had certainly seen some use.

"I don't think you need to put on your clothes," I said, undressing myself.

"I wonder why, Master?"

I walked up and rubbed my cock between her ass. "Let's see," I said. "This hole sure looks appetizing." Two fingers of mine probed Monica's anus. I spat on it to lubricate it.

My cockhead penetrated Monica's anus slowly as she relaxed, allowing my cock to push further inside her warm hole. A few moments later, Monica was ready for complete penetration.

"Ooh, ooh!" Monica moaned as I railed her ass. "Yes! I'm--I'm coming! I'm coming from anal! Fuck your private whore, Master!"

"Your ass is so warm!" I said as I shot my cum into her gaping anus.

Driven by lust, I pulled out and shoved my cock into her wet pussy. Monica's legs trembled. "Yes! Ah!" Monica moaned. "Harder, harder, Master! Fuck my whore pussy harder! Stretch it even more!"

"Yeah, you like it, don't you? And you're orgasming again!" I taunted playfully. "Is that how much you want a good cock up your hole?" I grabbed Monica's flapping arms as I drove deeper and deeper into her wet hole.

"I love it, Master!" Monica said. "I love the sensation! I love your thick cock inside me!"

Our bodies spasmed almost uncontrollably, a master and a slave both in heat and drowning in the vice of pleasure. I unloaded a burst of fresh sperm deep inside Monica's stretched pussy.

Monica wasn't done. She positioned herself next to me. She used her feet to pleasure me, her toes carefully massaging my bulge. "I didn't know you could do that."

"Training, Master. I was given some slave training."

"Oh, really?" I asked with a smirk. "Tell me what you learnt."

"Oh, a lot of things, Master. Suffice to say our holes were thoroughly ready to service men by the time it ended," she whispered. "But of course, sex was never the main point. It was submission. We were taught to kneel, to obey. We learnt to flatter clients with sweet talks and have fake orgasms."

"Top of the class, I expect."

"The best of what's left, I'm afraid. The real talented ones were snatched by nobles as soon as they began showing skill."

I groaned a bit as Monica skilfully played around my cock. Most of the sperm inside her had flowed out. My fingers messed up with her wet, pulsing womanhood.

"It's not very tight, is it, Master?"

"Tight enough for me," I said. Her feet kept on massaging me whilst my fingers dug deeper into her wet snatch. We orgasmed quietly and simultaneously. Monica hugged me tightly. "I think we're going to have so much fun going forwards!" she giggled.

"Oh, definitely," I said with a smile as I still ogled her body.

Only a few moments after we clothed ourselves, Erich came knocking. "Darryl," he said as I opened the door. "I heard something about Mepetra the Scythe. You encountered her?" A deep chill caressed my spine at the last word, and there was a slight tremble on Erich's voice, as though he was afraid.