Gathering Intel
© 2024 by Walter Reimer

Thumbnail art by  turnbolt


When the three adventurers returned to their room from visiting MoistCo, they found that Yonka had awakened. The ewe looked haggard and was drinking water. The air in the room stank of musk despite the open windows. “Hello,” she said weakly as the mage, rogue and paladin entered the room. “It didn’t go so well, did it?”

“No, it didn’t,” Vesan said, moving to sit on an open windowsill.

“Are you up to speaking now?” Meredith asked.

Yonka considered the question as Varan cast a surreptitious truth cantrip on the ewe. “Yes,” the ewe replied after draining her cup of water. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell us everything you know of the Erotomancer,” Varan said, her feline pupils narrowing slightly as she sat facing Yonka.

The ewe shivered. “She . . . Shi was born a rabbit doe here in the city, so my grandfather told me, and shi was a student at the Wizard’s College. Somehow shi learned to draw on the corruption in the land and began to study pleasure and sex magic.”

The mage raised an eyebrow. “The faculty didn’t try to stop her?”

“My grandfather says that shi concealed what shi was doing until shi had grown so powerful that not even the entire Mage Council could stop her. Shi attacked them first, subverting them and breaking them to hir will, all thirteen of them. They then marched on the Palace.” Yonka refilled her water cup and drank thirstily. She gave a soft belch.

Meredith swiveled her ears. “Shi was a student, they were teachers,” she pointed out. “How was shi able to bring them down so easily?”

Varan gave her a sidelong glance. “Sex magic’s a powerful thing, and when it’s tainted it can be overpowering,” and the vir returned her gaze to Yonka. “Go on.”

“We never had a large army,” Yonka said, “just a police force and the Royal Guard, but the corrupted Mage Council took them down and turned them into rutting slaves as shi entered the Palace.” She sighed. “Do you recall the two statues at the front gate?” she asked, referring to the masturbating colossi flanking the main entrance to the city.

“The King and Queen?” Vesan asked.

“Yes. Shi enslaved their minds, made them giants, and petrified them both at the point of orgasm, but the amount of power shi used changed hir body to what you see now. After taking out anyone capable of stopping hir, taking over the populace was fairly easy.”

“Except for your grandfather,” Varan pointed out, “and you.”

“My grandfather resisted hir wiles, along with my parents,” Yonka said bitterly, “and they’re dead now.”

“Dead?” the mage echoed. “That sounds out of character for an erotomancer.”

“They were permanently fuckdroned. They may as well be dead.” Yonka fell silent.

Before the silence became too long Meredith asked, “What do you know of weaknesses? Anything we can exploit?”

“There’s a story,” Yonka said, “told to me by a traveling merchant, that there’s a vixen wizard somewhere that owns a dildo capable of subduing hir.”

Vesan’s ears perked. “The Vorpal Vibrator of Vexarion the Villainess?” The ewe nodded, and the vir made a disgusted sound. “I knew that it’d be useful for something, but I had to go and sell the damned thing back at Rainbow Valley.”

“We need more information before we make another attempt to topple hir,” Meredith said. “I know that we shouldn’t split up the group, but we could cover more ground.”

“It’s never a truly good idea,” Varan conceded, “but two groups would be all right.” She cocked an eye at the paladin. “You and I, and Yonka and Vesan?” she suggested.

The rogue’s ears perked and she looked at the ewe. “Yes,” Vesan said.

“All right,” Meredith said. “We’ll get some rest, and then see what we can find.”