Wandering Subherd:
Alpha: Unamed Minotaur Bull (you)
-Healthy
-Leather Armor
-Minotaur Sized Bronze Machete (Adept)
Other Bulls:
Unnamed Aggressive Bull - Healthy
Unnamed Wandering Bull - Healthy
Unnamed Beast Master Bull - Healthy
Cows:
Mazlyn the Elf Cow - Healthy
Lady Braith Ellering the Human Cow - Healthy, Unfit to Birth Calves
Nesh the Dwarf Cow - Healthy, Touched by Darkness
Pets and Tag Alongs:
Frell the Ravenkin Bull - Healthy, Elderly, Frightened
Unnamed Swinedragon - Healthy, Tame
You decide to go along with the inkeeps game... for now, but decide to at least take initiative in picking your mate. You spend a second studying each of the cows who have drawn their respective coin purses, and identify the one whose lust is least tainted by other negative feelings.
You approach the chosen cow, a short creature by elf standards, whose fair skin is spattered with a rather unelfish collection of freckles. Placing a hand firmly on her shoulder, you issue a loud snort to declare your intentions. The inkeeper is a bit surprised by your action, but by no means displeased, he takes the cow's money, and leads you both to a room in the basement where a minotaur sized bed is waiting.
---
It does not take you long to decide that you are particularly fond of this cow. Perhaps it is the fact that she is the first to desire you enough to pay for your intamacy; Every prior had merely accepted your intimacy, at least at first, as their payment for your protection. You are careful, however, not to romanticize this cow, nor overestimate her fondness of you; You can tell by her moves and comfort level that this is not her first time mating with one of your kind. It is unlikely you mean as much to her as she does to you.
The inkeeper, for his part, is no rookie either. Just as your parter begins to tire, he enters the room with your next mate, a tall cow of mixed human and elfish blood. The Freckled cow kisses you sweetly between the horns, before vacating your bed to make way for the mutt.
---
This continues, until your fourth tryst of the night, which is interrupted by the sound of shouting and the smell of fear and wrath from upstairs. You quickly spring from bed to investigate.
You find Frell and Mazlyn in the lobby, the latter holding the inkeeper at sword point. Frell quickly approaches, and chastises you for allowing yourself to be exploited. You apologize, explaining that by the time you figured out what was happening, it was too late to withdraw without blowing your cover.
For a brief moment, you fear that Mazlyn intends to strike the inkeeper down, but she settles for cleaning out his coin purse as compensation for the time of 'her pet'. As you are lead out of the inn, you spot the Freckled Cow, and decide you might as well learn more about her. You instruct Frell to introduce himself and chat her up.
---
The sociable ravenkin returns about an hour after dawn, and tells you all he has learned from speaking with the first elf you mated with last night.
Her name, Frell offers, is Shyrell, and she is part of the team of engineer enchanters who keep the town's ski-lifts, heating system, and walls in good working order. She has signed a contract to wed the noble Sir Faithul, a distinguished member of the empress's personal guard, once he goes on sabbatical starting seven years from now. She hopes marrying somebody with the Empresses' favor will earn her an appointment to the imperial engineering corps after the marriage concludes.
Frell then takes the opportunity to explain the elfish concept of marriage to you. Since elves live a long time, they do not typically mate for life. When they wish to raise children together, a cow and a bull will sign a marriage contract, binding them for a particular amount of time (typically 80-120 years) or until a particular amount of calves (typically 2-4) have been raised to adulthood.
Elves, Frell explains, are not expected to remain chaste while unmarried, but are encouraged to keep lovers of the same sex or different species so as to spare any pureblooded offspring the indignity of being born out of wedlock. Shyrell confessed to the friendly ravenkin that her lovelife is not atypical of an unmarried elf in that regard; She sleeps with minotaur whenever the inkeeper can provide them, which is about two to three nights a month, as well as her stepsister, The half walruskin bastard daughter of her father's current wife.
Frell concludes by telling you that Shyrell's girlfriend lives at the garden estate of Shyrell's father, which is only two days travel from Lithsnow. Also living at the estate are three minotaur calves, Shyrell's own offspring, who live a pampered and privileged life at the estate zoo. The estate is also home to a vast library, which you are sure will delight Lady Ellering. Shyrell also told Frell that the estate houses a shrine to Opal, the elfish goddess of wind and minerals, but said shrine is not well maintained and so is unlikely to count as holy ground for your purposes.
Once Frell is finished telling you about Shyrell, you give the Ravenkin his next assignment; spying on the slave driver Nimivid. Frell nods, stretches out his leathery old wings, and takes to the sky to roost on one of the towers of the grand lodge where he can watch the slave-housing.
---
You spend the morning catching up on your sleep in Mazlyn's tiny bed in yet another local inn. Unwilling to let you out of her sight again, lest you be exploited, and too impatient to allow you a full day's sleep, Mazlyn wakes you up a bit after noon so that her 'bodyguard' can accompany her on her daily business.
Mazlyn spends the afternoon bouncing between the temple of The Dark Idol Ineqx and her various contacts. As Frell is not around, you do not understand much of what is going on. She does, however, manage to exchange the skins prepared by the other three bulls at their camp for some more coin over the course of her wanderings.
Shortly before sundown, Mazlyn pauses her travels to investigate a crowd gathering in the streets. Upon inspection, the object of the crowd's fascination is Nesh, who is currently preforming her magic in the streets. You place a hand on Mazlyn's shoulder, signaling that you wish to stay and watch.
Most of the dwarf's show consists of her assuming elephant form and preforming various phyiscal tricks. She does, however, preform a few other tricks as well.
At one point, Nesh calls out to the audience, who begin to hand her the eggs of various birds and reptiles. The dwarf rubs the eggs one-by-one, mutters a strange incantation over each, and on her cue the eggs all hatch into fully mature adult vultures! The new flock circles overhead for a few minutes, before vanishing beyond the tall roofs of the larger buildings in town.
Another impressive feat occurs at the end of the show when Nesh plucks a wild rat from the gutter and uses a small hatchet to chop it in half. At first, nothing happens, but then a tall beautiful, mature, dark skinned, and completely naked humanoid cow somehow pulls herself out of the top half of the tiny bisected corpse! This new woman crawls on all fours and squeaks like a rat. You can smell on it a fear that is bestial in nature, as if the rat's soul was still alive in the newly formed cow!
Nesh then uses her stout dwarven strength to force the strange rat-minded cow to stand upright, before calling out to the audience, at which point you smell lust rising from almost every elf-bull present! One such bull offers Nesh his coin purse, which the dwarf takes, pushing the rat-cow into his embrace in exchange. As soon as the bull's lips touch the cow, however, the rat woman shrieks! Her body begins to shrink and distort, and thick fur begins to sprout from her flesh. In less than a minute, the rat-minded cow has turned back into a rat, leaving the bull who purchased her humiliated and everybody else amused!
Mazlyn makes a few more stops, before allowing you to retire for the night. You catch up on lost slumber, and are not roused again until well after dawn.
---
Morning time. Instead of allowing Mazlyn to lead you around like a pet today, you make a scene until she figures out what you want, and assembles the herd for a progress report.
Frell, the translator, speaks first. He has spent all of yesterday and most of last night spying on Nimivid and has learned a decent amount. The slave driver lives in a modest apartment at the lodge with his three adult daughters. He works long days, and strikes Frell as somebody who is not much more happy than the slaves he commands. Frell informs you that the only thing offensive that he witnessed Nimivid do was rape an enslaved Caimankin cow, which indeed enrages you, but would not be considered illegal under the laws of the Tropic Empire unless the slave's master (and Nimivid's employer) expressly forbid the behavior beforehand.
If you wish to get Nimivid alone so that you may punish him, Frell reckons he could arrange it if given a few more days to observe the elf and learn his routines.
Lady Ellering informs you that she has stopped attempting to befriend the group of local elves she told you about earlier. Apparently one of the elf cows proposed becoming physically intimate with Braith, which rather unnerved the human cow. Frell takes some time to explain to Lady Ellering what he had explained to you about elfish love lives. As Lady Ellering listens, you smell the stench of disgust rise from her; Apparently she finds the idea of homosexuality to be quite offensive. You ask Frell about this, and he tells you that this is not an abnormal view for a human to hold; Same sex intimacy is punishable by death in most human lands. The Ravenkin then assures you that the human cow will likely get over her bias in time; Most humans who travel among the elves eventually do.
Nesh informs you that she is making good money as a street performer, and informs you that if you travel to Cresent Grotto she intends to stay behind and save up money. The dwarf is confident in her ability to track you to whatever city you end up in. As she speaks, you smell a small twinge of deception upon her. You suspect she wants to stay behind to pick a fight with those hobgoblins as much as she does to earn money.
Mazlyn then tells you of her dealings as they relate to you. The caravan to Cresent Grotto will leave in five days, and she is sure that you will be given free passage, if not the opportunity to earn some money, if you lend your mighty Swinedragon to the caravan as a beast of burden. As for the shrine, Mazlyn informs you that there is a ritual planned in three days that she is working to get you involved in, and if that fails, she can plan to help you fight your way into and out of the shrine shortly before the caravan leaves.
With the daily reports out of the way,
the herd speaks up with ideas on how to proceed:-Nesh suggests that Ineqx, patron of hedonism, would appreciate any punishment of Nimivid, but that mating with the slave driver's daughters might be especially appealing to the Dark Idol.
-Nesh's suggestion disturbs Lady Ellering, who notes that you are already planning on visiting the Cresent Grotto, where there is a shrine to Krowl. Perhaps, she suggests, that you do not need to deal with something as foul as a Dark Idol.
-Frell notes that if you would rather visit the estate of Shyrell's father than the Cresent Grotto, you could easily win an invitation by privately revealing your sentience to her. Failing that, Frell offers to continue his efforts to befriend the elf in hopes of eventually offering to deliver letters to her father or girlfriend. Doing this, of course, would hinder his attempts to spy on Nimivid so that you might get him alone.
-Upon hearing Frell's offer, Mazlyn displays her loyalty by offering to attempt to seduce Shyrell into extending an invitation. Allowing Mazlyn to help with this, of course, would impede upon her efforts to get you into the shrine.
-Lady Ellering notes that she is at a loss for how to spend her time in town. After learning that elves are open to homesexual desires, she is no longer comfortable around the locals...
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Topic: (SG) Minotaur: Awakening (Read 4682 times)