Nenewyn

  Out of all of them, really, it had to be this one. I groaned, internally.

  Did you know that in terms of human nonhuman breeding, elves are the most compatible for humans? Both elves and humans love horses, so you'll always have at least one thing to talk about. We elves can make love almost tirelessly so your pairbonding experience will leave both of you glowing nigh constantly. Indeed, once an elf falls into a state of true love he or she will almost always be in the mood to act upon it; and this desire is fully single-target. Our respective scents are attractive to the other for reasons long speculated upon and hotly debated; some theorize it to be glandular in nature others say it has to do with mana receptors. There is something highly romantic about an elf caring for one human until death, a fleeting moment for one of us but worthwhile all the same.

  Additionally successful procreation results in a versatile hybrid, mixing the best traits of both our peoples. Having elvish in a bloodline increases height, magical aptitude, and longevity for many generations - you have but to look at Hylaria to see this in action; they are all descended from the children of such a couple. Though the blood of elves has diluted over the centuries, people from Hylaria are taller and stronger than the average human. In extreme corner cases having a significant human influence in an elvish population can create a whole new variety of elf - such as what happened with the Eastborn, but ‘tis a long story.

  The catch of course is that there's a biological disparity: an elf woman with a human husband will need a great deal more time and attention to achieve motherhood. Our fields have a narrow planting window, so to speak, compared to a human's; but to make up for that the seed of our gentlemen is much stronger and more prone to sprouting. In other words, it is infinitely easier for an elvish man to impregnate a human woman than the other way around. If a human and an elf want to start a family, the couple must make frequent attempts or barely try at all depending on the configuration. Importantly, the elf in the relationship can continue to guide the generations that follow even after the human has passed on. The human will have achieved a lasting legacy that can endure for ages, and the elf can watch it grow. Aye, that is the second half of our disparity - the difference in lifespans.

  Except in cases of violence, the general rule is that we tend to outlive our human paramours. This fact has been the subject of many tragedies both true and fictitious. In fact someone close to me had even experienced the sorrow of a poorly handled relationship with a human personally. That would be Sylfaena, the third princess - my dearest friend. Sylfie used to keep a stable of gentlemen she would call upon when the mood struck her once every odd year. One man in particular she would see several times, eventually to the exclusion of all others though not always frequently. But one day she returned to his home village after a twenty year absence and discovered that he'd died of old age. She learned that he had never married and it puzzled her, for he was quite handsome and well-off. Those that knew him said that he often spoke of the true love he was waiting for. Then she visited his grave and read the epitaph:

  "Ever faithful to his love, the angel with aquamarine eyes".

  Sylfie had seen eyes that color before: every time she looked in a mirror. That is when it hit her - he had been in love with her. She was the reason why he never got married. What was worse, she came to the crushing realization that she had fallen for him as well. Knowing this, it wounded Sylfie deeply that she never fell pregnant by him. Had he settled down and married someone from his home town instead of pining for her, perhaps he'd have many descendants by now. Realizing this changed her overall approach to, er, relations and so forth. Expectations and boundaries had to be set - and most importantly, she decided that next time a human fell in love with her she would stay by his side until the end. Hers is a lesson that all elves can learn from, I think - do not toy with the hearts of the shorter-lived and have a care not to ignore your own.

  But why did I suddenly start thinking about this? Well, there he was, standing by my side, elf / human compatibility, the subject of many romantic tales, and lurid ones, made incarnate. One who had previously indicated that he found me attractive enough, for inexplicable reasons, to flirt with me while we were traversing one of the wastelands. Upon stepping through the portal, I'd wound up in a narrow corridor with only Selafyn as my companion. Oddly enough he'd never tried anything with Sylfaena, who was much more cute than I could ever be. Selafyn is an attractive specimen, of course, brave and strong if a little crass; biologically speaking I could see the appeal but I could never understand the mentality of seeking that sort of companionship in such a dangerous place.

  Sigh. Adventurers.

  Now we walked side by side through the dank hallway that seemed to go on forever as it winded about like a serpent. Surprisingly, the swordsman was silent, with his eyes focused ahead and brows fully furrowed; not like his usual frivolous self. This silence wasn't going to do us any favors, for I needed to know what our strategy was going to be should we end up fighting anything.

  "Might I ask something?"

  Selafyn said, "Go ahead."

  Hmm? No snide remark, no pithy comeback?

  "Are there any particular long-term enhancements that you would like me to cast on you ere we come to blows with any monsters?"

  He stopped and stroked his chin, "I don't suppose you happen to know that one that increases endurance?"

  I nodded, "Aye, I know similar ones as well for your strength and sprightliness - I can overcast for duration, not intensity, on those."

  He said, "I could use an agility booster I suppose. In terms of raw strength I've already got that covered," he indicated his belt. "What else do you have available?"

  "Mainly protective ones but is a particular spell I've been keeping in reserve since it takes a lot of mana at my level of mastery, but it doesn't last very long."

  He nodded. We walked forward more, and then the stark difference between his previous attitude and the new one became annoying, but why did I care? Surely I was not harboring some subconscious desire to be hit on? Sigh. Mayhap a little.

  "Why is it that you haven't tried anything with me since we were teleported?"

  "Huh? This is a dangerous, serious situation. We're cut off from our teammates and have no idea where we are or what lies ahead. Why in the hells would I be thinkin' about that now?"

  The lack of care outside, then moving with purpose once things became perilous. That. That is almost too familiar. I could have sworn that I had recently encountered a very similar situation. Somewhere cold.

  "Apologies," I said, "I had been under the impression that you were incorrigible. Spouting the most obvious pickup lines to a woman who, due to having lived long enough to have been your distant ancestor on one side of your family, has heard each and every one of them scores of times."

  Well, I’d read about them in books anyway.

  "That, I can't deny. But even I've got a limit, ya know," he coughed. "You don't look a day over twenty-five, Lady Nenewyn, and that's a fact, I wasn't lyin' about ya bein' gorgeous. But, yeah I shoulda kept my damn trap shut. Sorry."

  "I am far too seasoned to take much offense." Beneath the crass veneer lies some kindness, I see - why does this feel so gods damn familiar? "Pray, if you do not mind my enquiry, how many summers have you seen yourself?"

  He stopped again, and counted on his fingers, "Um, somewhere in the neighborhood of forty I think, more or less; um forty-two is probably the closest number I think."

  So young, no wonder he was so brazen. Well we kept walking; I'd already finished wordlessly casting protections and enhancements on us both. At some point we both realized that we had been walking in circles; Selafyn had made it a point of marking the floor with a bit of chalk and we came across his markings after some time. All paths lead to the office - that meant that there was some trick to this hallway that would allow us to proceed if we figured it out. Wait. I stopped.

  "Why are our footfalls echoing so loudly in so cramped a hall?" I tapped my staff to the ground and there was an answering tap that repeated, degrading until it was gone.

  Selafyn began to sing. "O land of adventurers, of heroes brave and true, O Andalon, our home, we raise a glass to you."

  The Andalon national anthem, was it? Huh, so he's from Andalon. That wasn't important though, what was important was the unnatural acoustics. I smiled, ah very well, it was more of a smug smirk. It wasn't often that I got to show off the usefulness of the hundreds of utility-grade spells that I knew in a context outside of my capacity as court mage, these seemingly trivial spells had gotten me that position in the first place after all. "What makes a spell truly powerful," the king had asked, and my reply was "its ability to improve daily life."

  "Close your eyes and listen carefully, with me," I said, and Selafyn obeyed. I finished the utility spell with a snap of my fingers, it made a loud high-pitched click instead of the usual sound one might expect. Our ears twitched. "None of these walls are real."

  "Huh? Then why can I touch 'em."

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  "Very powerful illusions can even fool your sense of touch," I explained, "you don't want to push beyond it because you believe it to be a real wall and therefore believe that you couldn't possibly do it."

  "Gah, so it's messin' with my damn head too?"

  I nodded, "Yes. Illusions this powerful are exceptionally rare. It is likely that in truth we have been wandering around a large dome, probably not moving nearly as far as we thought with every circuit."

  "So how do we break it?"

  "We can't, not truly, but now that we know that it isn't real," I stuck my arm straight through the wall, "We can will ourselves through it and find the real exit."

  Sure enough, after not twenty paces we exited an opaque dome into a five-foot wide walkway encircling it. It didn't take us long to find not a door, but a teleportation square built upon a pedestal. The moment we touched the square the illusionary dome vanished, the room lit up, and we heard the voice of a dead man.

  "Congratulations. Be you friend, thief, or historian, you have proven yourself to be wise. You may proceed."

  We breathed sighs of relief and had a good laugh. Rare were the moments where I could truly relax and drop my usual manner.

  "Hopefully," I said, "This will lead us to where the others are doubtless waiting for us."

  "I shouldn't be disappointed that we didn't have to fight anyone, but."

  I tousled my wavy hair, "Do the same to your own. We can tell the others we had a rough time; we need not mention that it was a battle of wits."

  He grinned, and did as I had, "Though they might think we'd been up to certain other activities with messed up hair."

  I shrugged, "If they do make such an assumption, then we'll play act as though we had done and have some fun at their expense."

  He braced himself against the wall with one hand and laughed until he was hoarse. There it was again, that odd sensation of deja vu. I pushed it from my mind and we stepped on the circle. Little blue motes of light began to float around us. Those gestures. That laugh. The wild appearance his hair had taken on. Forty-two years. Andalon.

  I froze.

  My eyes widened, my jaw dropped. There is no road which leads this way, surely not? I looked at him again. Sylfaena's tendency to glare at him. The color of his eyes, half-way twixt brown and ruby red. His age. His homeland, where we had stopped in at least three towns for respite, one summer forty-three years ago. Lightning struck my brain just as the teleport pad spirited us away.

  Fuck.

  Victor

  Find me in the alps! Not only was the path behind us gone, so were the vast majority of our companions. Crap, had they all been vaporized or something? What was going on? I said it before and I'll say it again: this just don't add up!

  "What the hell," I cried.

  Sylfaena and the princess examined the wall with their magic-eye or whatever it was called.

  "I'm detecting residual teleportation magic," said Sylfaena.

  "Also something else," said the princess, "Chaos. Yes. There was some chaos thrown in."

  Sylfaena sighed, "Teleport randomizer. But we saw no such aura on the opposite side."

  "Must've been masked with illusions," said the princess, “Illusions that we wouldn’t have noticed because the shimmering portal effect was also produced by illusion magic.”

  I sighed, "Well we have no choice but to forge ahead, that's what heroes do after all."

  The other two nodded resolutely with furrowed brows, ah, yes, they made the exact same face! Sisters true!

  With me and the princess bringing back our old two-person Macedonian phalanx, and Sylfaena taking up a protected position between us, we carried on through the dark narrow tunnel, until we found ourselves inside a relatively unassuming office. Just, an office. Huh. It was a big office, for sure, with bookshelves and stacks of paper, and little nooks with what might have been workbenches. There was also another wooden door at the far end, though I couldn’t tell what it was for - bedroom or bathroom maybe?

  Sylfaena said, “This is almost certainly a wizard’s lab. That’s an alchemy set over there, and those are artificer’s tools used in the construction of magical items.”

  The Princess cried, “Ah, so many books - Lady Nenewyn’s going to have a field day here!”

  I said, warily, “This was almost too easy…”

  I really need to stop jinxing myself, for all of a sudden there was a bright glow atop a raised dais and then something rose from the ground, head first.

  First I saw a pair of black curved ram-like horns, then I saw a head of crimson hair; not like redhead hair, I meant blood-ass red hair peaking out. Then I saw a face, and a body, the most alluring and voluptuous naked body I had ever seen in my entire life; the strange woman who rose from the ground also sported a long spindly tail and a pair of black-and-purple bat wings. Every inch of her pale bluish skin radiated sensuality, from her wide hips, to her massive exposed breasts, to that perfect crescent of venus and narrow waist. Lord Jesus Christ, preserve me - there stood an actual demon right before my eyes. The kind that seduced men and drained them of their life, according to legend. Before anyone said her name, I already knew what she was, for it had also been a type of minion in a certain famous online game and was already part of the pop-cultural zeitgeist in my old world.

  "Succubus!" cried Sylfaena.

  Sylfaena began to form shards of ice in the air, while the princess began to channel stone rifle. But both spells were deflected with a single flash of the demon's eyes. Then she snapped her fingers and my friends were both frozen in place, as though time had stopped.

  Fuck.

  Wasting no time I drew my arming sword and charged - only to myself be frozen in place; not by a paralyzing attack, but by my own mind. Yes. I couldn't harm someone so beautiful. The demon, no, the beautiful sexy girl before me was looking right into my eyes, pouring energy into them. Those had to be the nicest, loveliest, supplest tits I’d ever seen; I couldn’t look away. Ah, then she embraced me, and I felt my lower half become excited. Did I know how much danger I was in? I don't know. At that time I didn't care. Nor did I care when she started to kiss me passionately. Damn my first kiss in years and it was the best I’d ever tasted. I could feel my very vital essence draining through her lips as she stroked and caressed me, and somehow I didn't care. I fully embraced the demon, and saw no more.

  Sylfaena

  This was bad. This was very bad. My sister and I were both paralyzed by the demon's Holding spell; an insidious enchantment that convinced the subconscious mind that one's own body couldn't move. It wasn't true paralysis of course as one could still breathe, move one's eyes, and think. Once she had Victor in her grasp she made a slapping gesture and I crumpled to the ground. Then I felt my neck crane up forcibly and now I could see the two of them again. The demon smiled as she licked Victor's neck with her long serpentine tongue and that's when I had a horrible realization: the hell spawn was going to drain Victor to death and force us to watch.. Blast it, I could manage some magic wordlessly, but without gestures? Not so much. Nenewyn could have done it, teleported us all out of here I think, even without the use of her fingers. But where was she now? Damn it to the hells.

  How had this foul demon even come to reside here, was it Expanius' doing? Of course it was, this was his office so this had to be his guard demon. This wasn't just any ordinary succubus either, this was a succubus matriarch - not a higher order demon, but not the lowest either. One of the she-devil’s foul creations who perverted passion into a weapon to corrupt and murder mortals. Right now she was slowly draining Victor of his life force; if my sister weren't frozen she could certainly restore him but if he died there was nothing that she could do.

  I-I wasn't sure if we were going to make it. I thought about Princess Katherine, and the others back in Kurvania. I thought about the people depending on us back home in Tor Anaura. I thought about the grief of Valyrian and my mother more out of all of them. I thought of all that I'd failed to do, the ways in which I had yet to surpass Master Merlinda, and, I will admit, I started to lose hope.

  But lo! All of a sudden I heard a desperate scream. I moved my eyes in the direction of where it was coming from. Huh? My sister's body was glowing bright as the sun, her eyes had taken on a terrifying glow, and her hair was billowing every which way. This - this can not be! Nay, it would be more accurate to say that it was improbable, highly, desperately improbable. In a burst of golden light, the whole room exploded with energy; holy energy. My sister shouted four words clearly, in old elvish, words I understood but, at the same time, found them puzzling. At the moment of that burst of radiance I felt my limbs regain strength so I took a stance and readied my staff.

  The succubus had turned to my sister, and snarled.

  "An awakening? Impossible!" It said before promptly crying out in pain.

  Victor had regained his senses, drawn his pistol, and unloaded eight rounds directly into the succubus' unfairly well-endowed chest. The projectiles practically drilled a hole straight through her ribcage and exited violently through her back in a shower of flesh and blood. My sister released a blast of holy power from her outstretched hands which turned the demon into a pile of ash and she immediately collapsed to the ground. Victor rushed to her side and nearly fell over himself.

  I understood what had just happened, though I could scarcely believe it: Illiana's holy power had finally awoken, explosively, from a tremendous burst of emotion. Things such as this only ever happen once in a divine magic-user's life, and, today happened to be the day Elianora chose to pull the trigger. Though, judging by her choice of words I think there was a different reason for it rather than divine fortune; I smiled and staggered forward.

  Victor was kneeling before Illiana and checking her vital signs. He breathed a sigh of relief. You idiot. You're in no position to be worrying about someone else's health - that demon drained your vitality so much that I'm amazed that you can still move. I took my place by my sister's side, she was snoring loudly.

  Victor looked to me, stern-faced as usual. "Is she all right?"

  I nodded, "Her mana is nearly spent, and she used so much of it in a single burst that now what she needs is a good night's sleep. An explosive awakening - that's what this phenomenon is called. Any person with latent powers can have one, but it only happens once." I poked him in the sternum, "But you! Have a care! You're half dead from that demon's attack."

  He rubbed his forehead, "How the hell did I let that thing near me anyway?"

  "Charm magic - especially potent when wielded by demons of that particular breed. Don't you dare see this as a failing on your part, Victor. Demons are predators, and they are very good at ensnaring prey with such weapons as they are gifted by the devils."

  He coughed, yeah he looked ill, "I dunno. As a hunter I should be better at spotting traps."

  At first I thought he was beating himself up, but he was smiling. Ah, in good spirits and cracking jokes even when nearly at death's door. That's a good sign. From down the hall we'd come from I heard footsteps, running, and familiar voices. Oh good. The cavalry is here, just in time to have stumbled upon our fresh corpses if the earnest screaming of Illiana's heart hadn't broken the demon's binding. Three of them: Malcolm, Rayna, and Sir Guy. Shortly afterwards, Nenewyn and Selafyn showed up as well.

  We had conquered the dungeon.