The Rift Walker Ch. 03: Night Fever

Some monsters were intelligent. Some lived in benevolence with humans, while others declared war. The creatures that came with the Artifact forced humanity to adapt, but, as ever, human civilization couldn't unite against the forces of the other realms because of petty differences and selfish desires. The Sorceress Enclave rose to power and the Rift Walkers Guild was founded as magical counters to the onslaught, but neither worked together happily. All were bent on finding the Artifact's power and using it for their own means.

From, The History of the Artifact, by the Rift Walker Matriarch

***

"Hail Asmodeus."

Ariana awoke with a gasp and dripping with sweat. She'd dreamed of drowning in a slick, white substance. Gallons of it. What it was, she couldn't retrieve from the swirling void of darkness that clouded her memory.

The rift walker found herself in the bed of a tavern room. Ariana threw the damp sheets aside and sat on the side of the bed with her face in her hands. The door creaked open.

Helena entered with a steaming cup of tea.

"Good morning." Ariana nodded and ran her hands through her hair.

"Good morning. What happened?" Helena placed the cup of tea on the wooden bedside table and pulled up a chair. She wore her blue sorceress outfit. Crystal blue eyes stared into Ariana's. Helena looked as radiant as ever, untouched from the nightmares Ariana still believed to be real.

"Best not to dwell on the details, but we had a bit of an orgy with a group of demons back at the tavern. Turns out it was destroyed, but they'd employed some magic to deceive us."

Memories of the night before rushed into Ariana's mind. Fire. Cock. Cum. A pit fiend. Geysers of cum.

Ariana shook her head to rid herself of the disturbing images. Helena sighed.

"You were right. The incubus got the better of me," she said.

"And they didn't kill us?" Helena shrugged and smiled a half-cocked grin.

"Looks like at least some of my charm paid off." A rage grew inside of Ariana. She stood and strode across the room, fuming.

"I'm going to assume you pulled me out of there, brought me here, and nursed me back to health and for that, I'm grateful." Ariana opened a wardrobe and found her things. She started to dress and arm herself to leave.

"But, if you hadn't done that, I would kill you for dragging me into such a cluster fuck." Her eyes bore holes into Helena's. The sorceress looked away and sighed. Ariana went back to dressing and strapping her weapons on. A few moments of silence passed.

"I understand you're upset, and perhaps not ready to admit the eroticism of it all or to hear what I have to offer, but--"

"You're right. I'm not interested," Ariana cut in. She grew frustrated that she couldn't put her clothes and equipment on faster, so she didn't have to be in the same room as the sorceress. Why do I have so much shit? She thought.

Helena crossed her arms and leaned against the windowsill. The morning sun played across her cascading hair as if it was made of sunlight.

"Suit yourself, but I am willing to offer you confidential information about the Enclave and the Artifact." Ariana tightened her leather belt and stopped. Don't do this, it's just another rabbit hole, she told herself.

"What information?" Ariana said.

Helena chuckled.

"I can't tell you unless you come with me."

Ariana rolled her eyes.

"Of course there's a caveat," she said. Helena pushed herself off the windowsill and touched Ariana's elbow. The rift walker jerked her arm away ferociously and glared at Helena. The sorceress put her hands up to diffuse the tension.

"You were right, but come with me, and I can offer a way to the Artifact. Isn't that what all rift walkers are looking for? To close the rifts?" Ariana grunted, her brow furrowed.

"Come on, Ariana, we're on the same side."

"Are we?" she shot back. Helena smirked, turned, and grabbed her robe. She slung it over her shoulders and headed for the door. The sorceress opened it and lingered in the doorway.

"Don't tell me that ifrit sex wasn't the best sex you've ever had in your life? Also, I think someone has a crush on Ryzlian." Helena gave one last smirk and left. Every muscle in Ariana's body flexed in rage, ready to burst through the door to wring Helena's neck until the memory of the ifrit snuck into the forefront of her mind.

All the rift walker's fury extinguished to steam like a dunk into icy water.

"Goddamn it," Ariana cursed and strapped her sword to her waist.

I wonder what the pit fiend was like; she thought. Helena seems unfazed.

Ariana slammed the door on her way out.

***

"Why are we going back to the tavern?" Ariana asked as she and Helena rode their mounts up the dirt road Ariana had been on the day before. She'd found her dullard horse, Whoreson, right where she'd left him.

"I don't think you want to ride to the Enclave. It's probably a five day journey through mountains and rough terrain."

"So then, what are we going to do instead? Summon a dragon?" Ariana said with snark. She wasn't in the best of moods.

"That's ridiculous," Helena replied. "Your lack of knowledge surprises me, Ariana. You had me fooled as a prodigy until now. What are you? Twenty-four, twenty-five?" Ariana didn't respond.

"Still green, I suppose."

Helena clicked her tongue and her horse picked up the pace. The tavern came into view as Helena trotted down to it. The tavern was unrecognizable from the night before. None of the four walls still stood, and any piece of wooden wreckage that stood was black. Ash blanketed the dirt surrounding the tavern and with each gust of wind, an ashen dervish swirled off into the sky.

The sorceress dismounted where the entrance would be and stepped inside. She stepped through the wreckage and to where Ariana remembered the bar was. Now it was decrepit and charred. Helena passed around behind it and bent over. When she stood, she held two full, corked bottles in each hand.

"Care for a drink?" she said and laughed. Ariana rolled her eyes. Helena exited the tavern.

"This might seem like a stupid question, but you do know where magic comes from, right?" Helena asked and set the bottles down in the dirt.

"Of course I do," Ariana said.

"And you know why the monsters from the other realms are the way they are?"

"It's the first thing they teach you at the guild," Ariana said. Helena drew a circle in the ash and dirt, stepped back, and brushed her hands off.

"Then why are you so upset about last night?"

"Because we are trying to rid the world of monsters, not use them for magic."

"See, that's where our respective philosophies differ, but we need each other in order to get what we both want."

"You manipulated me last night." Ariana dismounted and took up the reins of Whoreson, fairly certain now where this was going, although she had thought it was a myth until now.

"Fair, but such is the way of the world. Now," Helena said and picked up a bottle. She raised it to Ariana.

"Cheers," Helena said, and drank. The rift walker watched as Helena gulped down the thick, viscous liquid inside the bottle. Her throat chugged as she drank. Cloudy, white substance leaked from the sides of her mouth as she downed the bottle and oozed down her chin and cheeks.

Helena polished the first bottle off and took to guzzling down the second. Once finished, she put her lips together and sighed as if refreshed. Helena's lips glistened in the morning light.

"Ahh, alright, let's do this. And if you wouldn't mind. There's several more behind the bar." Ariana grimaced, but curiosity got the better of her. She approached the bar and looked behind it. There were at least twenty bottles of the cloudy substance and more appeared as bottled liquid lava. She now knew what Helena had collected with all the bottles still intact at the ruined tavern. Ariana blushed.

"Load them on Whoreson and in your saddlebags, if you will," Helena commanded.

Helena took up a stance as if she was about to begin an elaborate dance. Then her hands whirled around in an invisible circle in front of her and burst into blue flame. The sorceress continued this dance before blasting the blue flame at the circle she'd drawn in the dirt. From the dirt materialized an ethereal portal that swirled like a menacing whirlpool. Helena exhaled and gestured towards the newly created portal.

"Pit fiend cum is powerful stuff. Shall we?" she said.

Ariana said nothing, but shivered at the display she'd just witnessed, either in arousal or anxiety. The rift walker approached the portal with Whoreson, but stopped just before.

"I think I'm going to hate this."

"Come on, rift walker. Where's your sense of adventure?"

***

When they exited the portal, Ariana inhaled thinner air. She opened her eyes and saw clouds rolling by.

"Welcome to the Enclave," Helena said. Ariana turned to see Helena, but instead beheld the Sorceress Enclave: the most majestic mountaintop temple she'd ever laid eyes upon.

"Impressed?" Helena said with her hands on her hips, "come on." The sorceress started towards the temple. Ariana hesitated for a moment as the height made her weak in the knees. The plateau she stood upon was only a few feet in width and the path Helena now walked on to reach the gate, even less so. Ariana tightened her grip on the reins of Whoreson and took her first step.

"Don't act up now," she said to him as they both tread towards the gate of the Enclave.

Helena looked back and chuckled as her heels clicked on the tile of the walkway.

***

Within an hour, Ariana found herself at a conclave of the sorceresses. Servant concubines took Whoreson off to be fed, bathed, and groomed. The concubines took care of the day to day at the Enclave. At the highest point of the temple, the Sorceress Circle was an open air, circular solarium where each sorceress of the Enclave claimed an ornate chair. Snow peaked mountains and clouds dominated the horizon.

All the chairs were filled, except one. Helena took her place amongst the sorceresses as Ariana leaned against a column behind her. She tried not to think about the harrowing drop only a few feet behind her.

"I wasn't expecting a rift walker to grace our meeting," a sorceress with caramel skin, heavy black eyeliner, and straight, adorned black hair said the instant Helena sat down. Helena shrugged.

"She may be of use to us, Nefretine. We've only met recently."

"And you allow her to see the Enclave and all its glory without vetting her first?" Another said.

"Nefretine, please, let's not feign all of this secrecy and protocol for a rift walker. She is trustworthy," Helena said. Nefretine, who had cinnamon skin and locks of curled, sable hair, eyed Ariana with clear suspicion. Ariana shifted her weight. She sensed the power of this place and the nine individuals in her presence.

"We cannot discuss our confidential information in the presence of a low-ranking rift walker. My apologies, it just cannot be so," another sorceress said, adorned with an elaborate kimono and ornamental hair. Helena sighed impatiently.

"I already know what this is about, and she will be of some use to us. I know most of you think little of the rift walkers, but this one has proven her worth to me, a member of the enclave."

"She does not need to know everything to take part," Nefretine said, "you are excused rift walker." Helena caught Ariana's eye and put her head down.

"Thank you for your hospitality," Ariana said, and left. Everything became eerily silent until she was deep within the fortress that was the mountain enclave.

***

A concubine met her soon after her departure from the meeting and offered everything Ariana could have wanted. She decided on wine, charcuterie, and a soak in the hot spring forged into the rock of the mountain.

"Anything else?" The concubine asked. Ariana raised an eyebrow as the young woman bowed.

"Do they force you to wear that?" Ariana inquired about the peasant shift she wore. With no expression, the concubine said,

"Right this way to the hot springs."

Ariana followed the concubine outside the fortress. The route took them along a perilous cliff. Wind billowing through Ariana's maroon hair and she regretted having come here. Her fear of heights made her knees weak again. The rift walker watched her feet and hugged the cold cliff wall to keep her balance. Eventually, the freezing night path opened into a steaming haven. A vast pool of water of glowing wisps that somehow kept alight underwater. Ferns and other luxurious flowers grew amongst the smooth, igneous rock of the hot spring.

Once Ariana got closer, she felt a slight change in atmosphere. A spell, no doubt, to keep the plants alive and the hot springs hot against the chill mountain air.

"Thank you," she told the concubine. The young woman only bowed, grabbed a fur coat from a coat rack built into the rock near the path, and left.

Ariana removed her tired clothes and set them down at the water's edge. As she stripped, she didn't want to see how many bruises and scars she had from her long campaign since leaving the guild.

Not bothering to organize her pile of equipment, she stepped into the hot spring. With each step, pure bliss encompassed her naked body. By the time it reached her thighs, she fell in with abandon.

***

"Good thing you haven't drowned." A voice awakened her. Ariana lifted her head from the most comfortable rock she'd ever slept on and found herself in the mountain hot spring, back against a smooth rock.

"I suppose you're right," she said and sat up. When she looked up, she saw a beautiful, naked woman stepping into her hot spring. The woman was an hourglass of curves and had a full figure. Her enormous tits rested on her chest and the fullness in her hips made Ariana quiver a little as she readjusted herself. Ariana remembered her from the sorceresses' meeting, but she'd hid her figure under the swath of a luxuriant, flowing dress.

"I imagine your first impression of the Enclave isn't a glowing one?" the woman said. She'd settled into a comfortable position opposite of Ariana in the hot spring.

"Not quite," Ariana said, and chuckled. The woman laughed too.

"And your name?" Ariana asked.

"Xiomara," she said. Ariana couldn't help but appreciate her bold, umber irises that stared back at her, honest and friendly.

"They...can be harsh. And judgemental, but once you get in the good graces of the Enclave, you basically don't have to worry about anything."

"Once I get in the good graces," Ariana mocked. Xiomara shrugged. Ariana could tell she was sympathetic.

"I understand as well. I am only here because of my gifts. It isn't like this where I am from. They're all just trying to do what's right, but sometimes even that gets in the way," Xiomara said.

"Where are you from?"

"Some islands you've never heard of, I'm sure." She sipped a drink next to her Ariana hadn't noticed before and got comfortable in the hot spring as if she was settling in for an hours long soak. Her head relaxed against the rock as if it was a silk pillow.

"Try me," Ariana said.

"The islands of Karraka," Xiomara said.

"Believe it or not, I know them." Xiomara looked at Ariana in disbelief.

"Bullshit." Ariana couldn't help but admire her incredible figure as she leaned up from her comfortable position in the hot spring. Ariana grinned for the first time in a long time.

"I do. At the guild, during academy, we had to memorize a world map, and even though most people follow a world map that isn't complete, the Guild's is more developed."

"You're lying," Xiomara said with a knowing grin. She thinks I'm bluffing, Ariana thought.

"No, really, it's an archipelago. Five islands. Mostly sand and palm trees."

Xiomara resumed her comfortable position in the hot spring and did a flourish with her left hand. Her colorful beverage refilled out of thin air in a glass cup next to the hot spring.

"Well done, rift walker. I'm impressed. Perhaps we can use you to find the Artifact." She did the same flourish again and another of the same drink appeared on Ariana's right. Ariana couldn't help but chuckle. Perhaps she could use this hospitality to get more information about the Artifact.

"So, care to share?"

Xiomara laughed.

"You'll have to take me to dinner first." Ariana knew what that meant and it wasn't the cliche.

"Alright then, does the Enclave have any jobs for a rift walker?"

"Good guess. In fact, I, not the Enclave, do." Xiomara sipped her drink and continued,

"but I like you so much, I'll tag along."

"I'm all ears as long as I gain a reputation with the Enclave."

"You will. Trust me. It's a power hungry den of harpys here, but it's also an orgy. We all know how to fuck." Xiomara winked at Ariana and finished her drink. She stood up from the hot spring. The fuming water cascaded from her body as she reached up and wrung out her thick tendrils of umber hair so long the ends grazed her thick hips. She faced away from Ariana and arched her back in a stretch. Xiomara's enormous ass cheeks were in full view. All Ariana could do was stare and watch the droplets of the hot spring roll down her body.

Once she finished, she faced Ariana, who couldn't believe the beauty she was witnessing on this night amongst the steam of the hot spring.

"Then let's go, first thing in the morning. I'll give you the details all night."

***

In the morning, Ariana had a slow start. She couldn't pull herself from the massive bed they'd stayed in. The white sheets played perfectly against Xiomara's tawny skin. At last, however, Ariana pulled aside the white sheet and climbed out of bed, stark naked. She walked over to a decanter and poured herself a glass of water. Ariana sensed Xiomara's gaze on her as she sipped the cold water. When Ariana turned and leaned on the counter to see her, Xiomara mewled in satisfaction and stretched her arms in bed.

"God, it's true what they say about rift walkers."

"What's that?"

"You can fuck." She giggled and re-immersed herself in the comforters and sheets. Ariana chuckled and finished her water.

"Shall we go?" Ariana said.

"But I love fucking in the morning," Xiomara said, placing her head on her fist with a sultry grin. Ariana let out a breath that was half chuckle and half annoyance. There was work to be done after all.

"Okay, you win," she said, and went back to bed. She'd fuck that voluptuous body one more time.

***

Eventually, the pair got on the road. Xiomara wore a stunning purple romper with jewelry fit for a sorceress that included an enormous multi-ringed silver necklace. Ariana, in her usual leather gear, waited for Xiomara to open a portal to their destination.

"Have you ever faced a night stalker before?" Xiomara asked.

"Can't say that I have, but I am well versed in their behaviors and habits."

"Does it frighten you?"

Ariana guffawed.

"All these monsters should frighten everyone," she said.

"But not you," Xiomara said.

"Fear is a tool to be used, not to be paralyzed with."

"They teach you that at the guild?"

"No, that's one of my own," Ariana said.

Xiomara grinned at her, and the portal opened.

"Right this way."

They stepped through the portal and found themselves in a quaint village, tucked into a forested mountainside. Ariana figured they weren't far from the Enclave based on the snow-capped mountain range that stretched off into the horizon. A verdant green forest filled the valley below and surrounded a crystalline lake. Humble cabins filled the village around a central longhouse. The cabins resembled the thick, titanic trees that rose all around with their construction.

"Cozy," Ariana quipped.

"I agree," Xiomara said and set off towards the longhouse.

The leader of the village was of the same cut Ariana had seen before. A middle-aged couple who were familiar with everyone and had lived in the village their whole lives. Brown hair with a little grey and a little wisdom to keep the candles burning and daily life going. She learned the village's name was Ergon.