TRC - Lord of the Glass Desert Ch. 05

"That's an offer I can't refuse," said Chae as she entered the stall.

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Kal was fiddling with the top clasp of his shirt when he finally came back through the door next to the woman's booth. One of the cow-girls followed him out while chewing on one of the sweet brown bean pods. He failed to hide a smirk at the knowledge that the woman's sex was currently filled with his seed.

The girls on their rest day let those coming in have a quick turn with Kal if they wanted before getting something to eat. Sometimes they came, sometimes they didn't, but all of them appreciated experiencing a human who enjoyed being with them, even if it was only for a minute or two.

"Young man," called out the lady in the booth.

"Yes?"

"Here," she said, placing a bag that jingled with the telltale sound of coins on the thin shelf in front of her.

The mage frowned, "I told you I'm not willing to become a prostitute."

"It's not payment. It's a gift. These girls get the dregs when it comes to men, some of them are so ashamed they can't even keep it up. Since you went in, a lot of my girls walked out of here with the biggest smiles I've ever seen on their faces. From the sounds of it, Chae would follow you to the ends of the earth if it weren't for that collar."

"I have a lover a little larger than her, I know how to handle big girls," he said, grinning. The large cow-girl had started to get a condescending tone as she rode him. The differences in size between them made her cocky and she had started to sneer about how small he was, at least in stature since she had no complaints about the size of his cock. That came to a sudden stop when Kal's strength rune lit up and she found herself flipped onto her back and held down as the mage fucked her through a string of rapid-fire climaxes. The look on the other two cow-girl's faces when he let the pale bovine up was a mix of awe, fear, and anticipation.

"Whatever you did, I appreciate it," the woman said waving at the offering.

The mage picked up the coinpurse and pulled some of its contents out. Handing the coins to the cow-girl next to him, he dumped the rest into Ria's bag. "I had Popeh cart me around most of the morning. I'll be making a stop at the inn I'm staying at and then I'll need you to do the same until dark." The woman nodded in understanding, reminding him that now she was outside the stable, normal slave rules applied and she wasn't allowed to speak anymore.

Stepping aside, he let her lead the way back to her cart.

---

Kashka seethed as she saw the mage get back into the cart he had just exited moments ago to walk into the inn. What was the point of all this running around? Dropping to the ground from her vantage on top of a nearby shop, she stretched out her tired arms and legs before jogging after the rickshaw.

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"I get it," said Ria, appearing above Kal's shoulder. "She's following us on foot now, and she looks exhausted."

"She chased me all the way across the city yesterday, I figured she would do the same today," the mage replied. "I did some research last night and based on her markings I believe she takes after a small desert cat."

"That explains why she's so small compared to the other cat-girls we've seen in the city."

"Her size isn't the interesting part. These black-footed cats are described as stunningly good hunters that catch almost everything they stalk."

"A perfect breed to make into an assassin."

"That's what I'm thinking. But why? I haven't been in town long enough to make anyone that mad."

"Maybe Toba is trying to off you so he can walk away with your gold?" offered the sprite.

"No, I know his personality. He's a merchant foremost and dead clients are a source of bad reputation instead of money. We'll see what we can find out when we meet her tonight."

"You're a fair fighter, Kal, was all this really necessary?"

The mage nodded, "I believe it was, I think Kedder would have had difficulty making the throw she got me with, and our rogue friend probably has a decade and a half of more experience than this girl. If she's that good, I want her wore out and making mistakes when we come face to face."

"Will you kill her?"

Kal gave the sprite a sharp look before shaking his head, "I can't get information from a corpse, but if I have to..." he shrugged.

"And after you get your information?"

"Oh... I didn't think of that, I can't just let her go if she tells me what I need. Ria, I need one of the slave collars, I'll have to change it back, so it isn't an explosive anymore."

The sprite waved a hand and a moment later Kal was holding a collar taken from one of Daxas's pack after he rescued them.

"While you're doing that, I'll go check on our cat-girl," said the sprite before making her body invisible.

Kal didn't answer as he began draining the mana crystal embedded in the collar so it would be safe to make changes to the runes inside.

---

Kashka leapt to the roof of the inn where the mage was staying. Stumbling as she landed, she cursed quietly under her breath at her aching legs, Normally, she wouldn't think about attempting to complete an assignment in her current condition but it wasn't as though she could return to Bozun's hideout and rest for a while. If she came back without killing the human, her life was forfeit.

Like most of the buildings in Fazal, the inn had a flat roof supported by wooden beams and covered in the mortar used to hold the mud brick buildings together. Rain was extraordinarily rare in Fazal, but the roof still had a slight slant directing any possible rainwater to a hole in one corner that dropped into a barrel below. In the daytime, the roof was brilliant white, those who could afford it had the tops of their buildings painted to help reflect some of the sun's heat. At night, the tiny white crystals in the paint caught the moonlight, making the roof flicker and shimmer as she crossed over to the side above the mage's room.

Looking over the edge, she saw the human's window was open. A few seconds later the light inside dimmed, then dimmed again as though he was putting out candles. The room went dark and Kashka breathed a sigh of relief. With the window open she could drop down to the sill, as she had hundreds of times before, then slip inside, put one dagger in his heart while the other slit his throat, and be out the window and gone within seconds. All she needed to do was wait a little while until the man had gotten into his bed.

"He's not in there," came a voice from behind her.

Whipping her head around and seeing two glowing red eyes, the cat-girl launched herself up and to the side, her puffed-up tail windmilling frantically to keep her upright as she sailed through the air. When her feet touched the roof again, her cloak was sticking out behind her, held up by her tail. The mage looked like he shrunk slightly as his boots scraped across the rooftop. How had she not heard him coming up behind her? The question was quickly overtaken by the realization he had been waiting for her. In the blink of an eye, daggers appeared in her hands. Her plan was still the same, the only change was he was standing up.

Kal regarded the woman carefully. The cat-girl's most striking feature had to be her eyes, in the low light the way they gathered light gave them an eerie glow. Her fighting stance was good but unpracticed and she looked neither calm nor comfortable holding the daggers defensively in front of her. The jet-black skin of her forearms combined with the black hilts of her daggers made it look like she had blades instead of hands.

"Who wants me dead? Did I wrong you in some manner? Or maybe the man you work for?" he asked indicating the slave collar around her neck.

The woman pressed her lips together and gripped her daggers harder.

"Well, I had hoped that would work. A better question might be, why are you here?"

Over the last hour and a half, Ria had been checking on the woman while she followed them around the slowly emptying streets. He was trying to wait until darkness fell and the city roads became deserted enough there would be less chance of an incident like with the man and his son yesterday. Kal had expected the cat girl to give up the chase out of exhaustion, at which point he would turn the hunt around knowing that she was too worn out to properly flee. For some reason he couldn't figure out, that never happened.

After a few moments of her continued silence, the mage sighed, "I guess, I'll have to get my answers the hard way. Ria, staff."

Kashka blinked in confusion as the staff appeared in his hand before remembering the knight saying this man had fought him to a standstill. She assumed he meant with spells, not that the mage had crossed swords with him. This disrupted her plan of waiting until he began drawing a spell to strike. Remembering the knight also reminded her how excited she had been to face someone who might be an actual challenge. That sentiment hadn't aged well considering she was about to fight for her life against a man whose full range of abilities weren't known except for the few details the knight had given them when hiring she and Bozun.

Kal began circling the woman carefully while using his ability to see magic to scan her. The cloak and daggers each had low-level enchantments on them, probably for hiding and sharpness respectively. There was also a small spot of magic inside her mouth along with a mild enchantment on her eyes. The flows of magic in her eyes seemed to be linked to an item in a pouch on her belt. The only surprise was the lack of magic coming from her slave collar, it appeared to be fake.

Kal was thankful he cast Darkvision on himself beforehand or he wouldn't have seen the woman's legs shift from human to feline when she crouched just before leaping at him. His speed rune flickered as he darted to the side and well out of her reach. He held up this staff defensively in case she tried throwing one of her daggers but instead found himself spinning it to block a flurry of quick attacks as she charged in.

The girl was fast, forcing Kal back on his heels for a few moments. The mage was able to verify one of his biggest concerns with the woman. She never missed. Every time she tried to cut him the dagger moved swift and true. The only way to defeat her ability was to block, deflect, or otherwise make it physically impossible for the weapon to reach him. It made dodging impossible unless avoiding her blade took him out of her dagger's range, the tip of the blade would adjust to his motion as though tied to its target.

The flip side of her talent was that she hadn't learned how to use it defensively. While she landed a number of nicks on him, which he healed over immediately, in return she took several precise blows on her arms and calves designed to slow her down further.

Kashka grunted in pain as the mage's staff came down on her forearm, numbing her from elbow to wrist and nearly causing her to drop her dagger. Skipping backwards, she took both weapons in her good hand and stretched out her arm, wiggling her fingers until she was certain she could hold the blade. The mage's face was a mask of confusion as she again took a dagger in each hand and advanced on him.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked again.

"Because I don't have a choice. Either you die, or I die," she said, her voice calm despite the mounting fear inside her head.

"I don't want to kill you; I just want to know why you are trying to kill me. More specifically, who hired you?"

The cat-girl's eyes widened for a moment, surprised that he knew she was an assassin. Of course, her previous victims never got the chance to ponder such things. She brought her daggers up again, "I said too much. It's not a weapon's place to speak."

The mage sighed, "So be it." Instead of waiting for her, the human closed the gap. Batting her daggers wide as she attempted to attack him, she instead found herself skidding backwards across the inn's roof from a kick to her stomach she never even saw. Flipping up onto all fours before she came to a stop, she realized she had lost her daggers. Looking back toward the mage, she saw them laying where she first hit the roof. The human made a motion with his hand and both blades skidded off in opposite directions.

Her arms shifted to their black-footed feline forms; she didn't need weapons to be dangerous. Bounding towards the human, she leapt at his head, claws outstretched. The mage crouched and Kashka swiped down at him as she passed over, but the tips of her claws only ruffled his hair. A hand closed on her ankle and her forward momentum came to a jarring halt. She thought she felt something in her leg pop but didn't get to think about it as he swung her sideways. Out the corner of her eye, she saw two runes on the mage's vambraces glowing brightly, one deep red and the other white. Her mind barely registered that she should have fallen to the roof already when the human swung upwards and let go, sending her sailing into the air above the city.

For the second time that night, her tail spun to get her body oriented. She wasn't afraid of the fall, as a cat-girl, she could fall safely from any height, she just needed to be facing the ground and spread her arms and legs to slow herself down before landing. Kashka's tail managed to get her flipped over but she only had a fraction of a second to pick a place to land before a shadow came streaking towards her from below. The cat-girl barely managed to make out the mage's face before his fist caught her in the stomach. Pain exploded in her mind for a moment before her eyes closed.

A few seconds later Kal gently laid the feline woman on the inn's roof, "Ria?" he called out.

The sprite flew over from a nearby building, "It looks like she was working alone. I haven't seen any indication of backup or even an observer."

"Good," he held out his hand, "Sleep powder please." Sprinkling some of the fine sand onto the feline woman's head, he cast the sleep spell to make sure she wouldn't wake up before lifting her onto his shoulder. Activating the flight rune, he silently drifted over the edge of the inn's roof and down to his window.

After carrying her inside the tent, he sealed it behind him and laid her on the bed in his guest room. "I need the collar I modified earlier, Ria," he said removing the fake one from her neck and tossing it to the side.

"Got it."

Kal fastened the new collar around her neck and was about to start tending to the many wounds he had inflicted when his ability to see the flows of magic drew his attention to her mouth. The spot he saw earlier was getting brighter as it drew in energy and released it toward the collar he just put on her. Filling himself with magic, Kal's eyes glowed purple instead of blue thanks to the Darkvision spell and he watched as the thing in her mouth scanned across his collar as though searching for something. When it finally completed the loop there was a moment's pause just before a small pop and a flash lit the inside of the cat girl's mouth. A second later, wisps of green vapor rose from between her lips before her breathing spewed it out into the room.

"Ria! My mask!" the mage yelled in panic. Grabbing the feline woman's arm, he activated the cure poison rune on his back and pushed half of the magic into her.

The leather mask that appeared next to the cat-girl on the bed allowed Kal to breathe underwater, but its original purpose was to filter toxic air found deep underground. He was far from needing to worry about running out of mana but pushing the cure poison rune was going to burn through it quickly, the spell wasn't meant to be used constantly in this manner. The mask took much less energy, saving the cure poison rune for the cat-girl until the tent's magic could scrub the toxin from the air. Putting the mask on one-handed was a bother but with some help from Ria, he managed to get it into place and soon enough the runes on the outside lit up and began pouring out purified air on the inside for him to breathe.

Making sure he remained in contact with the feline, he knelt next to the unconscious cat-girl and opened her mouth. The top of one of her teeth had popped off and the green vapor was still oozing out.

"If this doesn't wake you up, I may have hit you harder than I thought," he said, reaching in and grabbing the tooth. It took three tries before he got a good enough grip but with the help of his strength rune, he removed the fake tooth and had Ria store it.

Surprised that she hadn't woken up through all that, the mage resumed tending to the girl's wounds.

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