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[b][u][center]Earning a Hero’s Place

Part 3

For yana_ambrosia

By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]

Veros thought he knew what roughing it meant. Leaving Thuurul and all the amenities of the great cities behind had been a source of deprivation that he had been told stories of, but had never experienced himself. Journeying to Gunthir’s Glade and having to spend time in caravans, off-road rather than in inns, and otherwise spending time in ‘nature’ had given him an appreciation for how the average person traveled.

Or, so he thought, until Zairissa dragged them off the very road that he had hoped to travel on. Until he learned that they were walking the whole way rather than riding or using a wagon.

He grunted as he dragged himself over yet another oversized tree-root, shaking his head as he slid down the other side. Zairissa hummed to herself as she traversed the forest with seeming ease, never slowing down, always knowing where to put her boots, while he was struggling to find the right footholds every step of the way. His vest was stained with muck from more slips and slides than he cared to count, and he grumbled as he puttered along behind her.

“Keeping up?” the red-skinned tiefling called back.

“I’m trying.”

“Try harder.”

“Ugh, it’s not that simple!”

“I thought you sorcerers were used to just waving your hands and making things happen.”

“You know, that happens a lot easier in civilized parts of the world,” Veros grunted, huffing under his breath as he leaned against the next tree. “How much further?”

“For tonight?”

A little whimper attempted an escape. He bit down on it, not wanting to give his mentor the satisfaction of knowing that she was getting to him. Or that the trip was. Either or.

He shook his head, adjusting his pack as he felt the collar around his neck jostle about. The tag at the front tapped against his neck once, twice, reminding him of the name that the Guild had given him.

Toy.

Veros Toy, not…not the name that he had come into the world with, nor the name that he had borne for his whole life. The damn Guildmistress had taken that from him just as much as she had stolen any chance for dignity among the other Guild members in the hall. He was nothing more than –

“Are you coming or what?” Zairissa called back.

“Coming,” he muttered.

He dragged himself over a root and ducked his head under a low-hanging branch. As he slid down the other side, the half-elf was forced to drag himself up short as he almost ran into his mentor. The spike-tailed tiefling was waiting with her arms crossed under her breasts and a small smile on her face.

“…What?” Veros asked.

“Just thought you’d like to know we’ve reached our campsite, Mr. Sweaty.”

“…You…you couldn’t have told me that we were getting close?”

“I thought it’d work better if you thought we had another few hours. Besides, the forest isn’t [i]that[/i] big,” the tiefling said, shaking her head as she undid her pack and let it fall to the ground. “We keep walking for another couple of hours and we’ll be right out the other side.”

He really, [i]really[/i] wished that he’d taken the time to study the map back at the Guild before they’d set off. If he’d actually looked at it properly, he might have been able to notice that himself. Instead, he’d been distracted by both the Guildmistress – what with the way that she grabbed him and pulled him underfoot in front of his mentor – and…

He blushed as he set his own pack down, turning so that the tiefling couldn’t see it. For all that she pissed him off with all the trickery so far, he couldn’t deny that she cut a fine figure. The skimpy leather armor she wore – too much cleavage by half, exposed outer thighs, and high-heeled boots – was perfect for showing off her body, and he’d learned that a tail tended to pull at someone’s ass cheeks when they were moving it around a fair bit.

She seemed to enjoy teasing him with that. She certainly hadn’t stopped when she realized that he was looking.

[i]Don’t start thinking of those kinds of relationships,[/i] Veros told himself. [i]That’s not the thing that you’re looking for out here. Once mother and father know that you’ve made good, they’ll bring you back, and this will all be over.[/i]

If the Guildmistress allowed it, of course, but she must. They were Tynns, great and powerful figures that would not be denied. Even someone with the Guildmistress’s power levels wouldn’t be able to just say no to his parents…

He hoped.

Shaking his head, he managed to get rid of the blush by the time that he unpacked the tent. He started staking out the area while Zairissa walked around the small clearing that they’d found. She had a scroll in one hand and a bag in the other, and was shaking the latter out between the trees.

“Warding?” he asked.

“Mmm-hmm. Pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

“Seems like it.”

“Good. That means that anything smart enough to see it won’t want to test it.”

Which meant that it was either a weaker warding spell, or it was strong enough that it would blow things up and it’d be better off not to have to use it. Either way, he didn’t feel particularly good being behind it.

Then again…

Despite his annoyance at the whole situation, the walk had left him with a great deal of time to think, and he had thought about the whole mission more than the dragoness had allowed him to back at the Guild. The forest was theoretically under the charge of the druids that Gunthir’s Glade had an arrangement with, and that meant that he and Zairissa were effectively in someone else’s realm at the moment.

[i]But the druids wouldn’t have an arrangement with the Guild if they could just handle the whole thing themselves…[/i]

Which explained how imps could get into the forest in the first place. Weaker creatures like that should have been kept at bay with any competent druid circle, which meant that there was a complication. Either the druids were wilder, too strong to do it peacefully, or…

Or they were weak enough to need the Guild in the first place, and were trying to rest on the laurels of past druids that had helped make Gunthir’s Glade in the first place so that they could stay safe.

He finished embedding the stakes in the ground and started pulling the ropes from his pack as he thought about it. It came down to two possibilities.

One, the druids were weak, which meant that they didn’t have the power over their forest that their forebears did. If that was the case, then their deal with the Guild was one that allowed them to keep prestige, look like they were handling things out of sight for the town, and ensure that the world continued to treat them with respect. It was an illusion of power, but that was something that he understood. The business of trade, shipments, and more were all based on projecting power as well as the illusion of power. Capability, superiority, and more were all down to what you were able to get someone else to believe.

Two, the druids were powerful, but too powerful, unable to wield that power in a subtle way. If that was the case, then the deal with the Guildmistress was more to keep them from damaging the town or others by going overboard, almost like when a cleric pumped too much positive energy into a wound. It would make someone explode, and then everyone else had to deal with the mess.

Somehow, he didn’t feel like the situation reflected the second possibility. He strung a rope between the trees and threw a blanket over it, forming a rough tent as he considered the first possibility more.

[i]They need us to take care of this. And we can’t throw too much magic around because they won’t be able to compensate for it…[/i]

Which meant that they were in a bit of a bind. Too much real-power in the forest, and the druids’ secret could come out. Too little, and the imp problem would get much worse.

But how did the imps manage to sneak into the forest in the first place?

He dragged the blanket down, forming a proper pair of walls for them to sleep under. It would have to wait for now. He didn’t have enough information to make a good guess, and –

“That’ll keep anything with a brain on the other side until morning,” Zairissa said, interrupting his thoughts. “How’s the tent?”

“As good as I can make it.”

“Lovely. Come over here.”

Veros blinked, leaning around the side of the cloth tent. The tiefling had taken a seat on one of the tree roots on the edge of camp, one leg crossed over the other as she leaned back against the trunk. She patted another root.

“Come here,” Zairissa repeated. “I need to get on my part of the assignment.”

“Your part?” he asked.

“Come.”

This time, the command hit the collar, and he yelped as he was forced to trot along across the clearing. The command stopped as he reached the root –

“Sit.”

There was just enough force in the words to make him do just that. He grunted as his rump slammed down on the hard wood, and he groaned as he reached around and rubbed the base of his spine.

“Did you have to do that?”

“Were you going to listen?”

“…Can I pay you to not do that?”

“Heh, even your parents wouldn’t have enough money to afford that kind of deal,” the tiefling said, shaking her head. “Now, come on. Buck up. There’s a lot of work that we have to get done, and not a lot of time to do it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your magic.”

Veros perked up, looking her in the eye.

“What – oh. Oh. The thing –”

“Yes, the things that the Guildmistress commanded that I teach you,” Zairissa said, shaking her head as she crossed her arms under her breasts. “I don’t think that there’s going to be an easy way to do this, but I don’t really want her pissed off at me, either. And if that means taking a while to get this done to make sure that you learn the magic properly, then I guess that’s going to have to happen.”

“You have so little faith in me?”

“You’re a [i]sorcerer.[/i] You don’t have that work ethic.”

“I’m fairly certain I’m allowed to be offended at that.”

“Be as offended as you like; I’m not wrong.”

She shrugged as he held back on the urge to lash out. The last thing that he needed was to give her more reasons to use the collar against him, considering how easily it dragged him hither and yon. He still remembered the ‘taur at the Guildhouse fucking with him. If they could make him bark, roll over, and sit like this, he could only imagine the other commands that could work on the damn thing.

And he still remembered what he’d seen with the monocle. Knowing that he could be dragged into all kinds of fantasies, all kinds of perversions, sent a shiver down his spine. He didn’t know if it was a good one or not.

“Anyway. Magic. How do you cast yours?” Zairissa asked.

“Like a sorcerer.”

“Be specific, please?” she asked, pinching the bridge of her nose. “There’s all kinds of sorcerers out there. Wild magic sorcerers, blood magic sorcerers, elemental sorcerers: it really depends on which one you actually are.”

“…I…I don’t know,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his head. “Mother and father just called me a sorcerer, and we left it at that.”

“Well, that’s going to make things more interesting. Okay, how [i]do[/i] you cast your spells, then?”

“Well…”

It was the first time that he’d had to actually think about it. All his spells had just come to him in the past; a wish, a whim, and it was done. Of course, some of the others required more effort, but that was just a little bit more thinking, a little more wishing for it, and it just…happened. But how?

“I guess…I just look at reality and want it to be different.”

“…What does that even mean?” Zairissa asked, sitting up a bit straighter. “Explain that. Explain that right now.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I won’t know unless you explain it to me.”

“I’m trying.”

“Try harder.”

“Ugh…”

She was such a pain, but she was right. Veros took a deep breath and tried again.

“Just…give me a second. Let me sort this out.”

Putting aside the sheer annoyance of trying to explain something like this to a tiefling that shouldn’t have had power over him in the first place, Veros forced himself to break down the unconscious process of his magic. He looked down at his hands. He flexed his fingers, imagining the wish that usually started the magic in the first place. Glancing around for something easy, he picked up a leaf and held it in hand.

[i]What now?[/i]

Well, a weaker spell that he could use, probably. Something tiny, something that barely mattered in the grand scheme of things. Something small that was easier to follow.

[i]Light. Glow. Light. Yes. Light.[/i]

It was logical thinking, but that didn’t get the magic going. No, the magic followed the wish, and the wish was to show someone what he could do. He clenched his finger a bit tighter on the leaf and thought about light –

And the wish.

And the power.

It flowed, and he felt it this time. It was not heat, nor tingling, nor some electric shock as he had heard some describe their power traveling through them. For him…

For him, it was more like a soft touch, a finger’s brush, a lover’s lips against his body. It traveled through the inside of his limb, of course, and that meant that it felt vaguely disturbing to think of it that way, but it still felt more like that than anything else.

Veros forced himself to stare at the leaf and feel the changes that happened. The sensation ran down his arm, but where did it start? The heart? Yes, yes, the heart, right there in his chest, not down in the gut or anything like that. He wondered if it was running a bit faster as he drew on the magic –

No, focus.

He stared at the leaf as it started glowing, and noticed something beyond the usual. The leaf didn’t stay the same. Oh, it glowed, and it was shimmering bright, obviously, but there was something else, something a little more peculiar. As he stared at it, he saw that something had changed inside of the leaf. It no longer had the same sort of structure that it used to, and the little green lines had been replaced with light, with the flow of the same magic that he had forced into it.

Veros slowly put the leaf down, shaking his head.

“Well?” Zairissa asked.

“I…I never paid that much attention before.”

“Well, it’s a good time to start, heh.” She leaned forward. “So? How do you cast?”

“From the heart.”

“Well, that’s something. Clears out Wild Magic, at least. That’s always more from the surface, or the gut. Next?”

“It felt…sensual.”

“Okay, that’s another shift. Not warlock-based, then. Or succubus-based; that’d be far more pleasurable.”

“There’s stuff that’s more pleasurable than that?”

“Oh, yeah. Lots. But you don’t have any demons in the family tree?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Poor you. But keep going.”

“…” He looked down at the leaf again, then passed it to her. “I think I changed it instead of just casting a spell on it.”

“That’s what magic [i]is.[/i]”

“Not like this.”

Gesturing with the leaf, he pushed her to take it. The tiefling finally did, her tail twitching irritably behind her. Yet, as she looked at the glowing bit of plant, she cocked her head to the side, then narrowed her eyes. Veros didn’t say a word; the magic was going to validate him.

Eventually, she nodded and set it to the side.

“Alright. So, there’s definitely something different there. Something very unfocused, something very…heh. Hmm. Hmmm. The Guildmistress definitely handed me something different with you. You’re going to be a challenge…”

“Isn’t that a bad thing?”

“Oh, there’s a huge difference between a challenge and being challenging, and I was sure that you were going to be the second one. But this…oh, this is going to be fun.”

“Okay, so…you think that you can teach me how to use magic ‘properly,’ then?”

Despite himself, he felt energized, interested in what the tiefling had to say. Now that he knew what his magic was doing, he understood why he’d never gone for more. It just…happened, after all. Why would he ever want to do more than that? But now that he knew how it happened – or at least, realized that it was doing something so different as this – he wanted to know how to control it.

Focus it.

Refine it.

[i]Use[/i] it.

And the tiefling seemed almost as interested and eager as he was. Zairissa leaned forward, a glint in her eye as she nodded at him. He grinned.

“Then let’s start.”

“Okay. Put the monocle on.”

“What – but –”

“Just for a second. I need to give you a demonstration. And if I can find that damn mirror, we can see how you look to yourself.”

It was a fair enough idea. A little embarrassing, considering what he’d seen last time, but the chance to see himself was too much to pass up. And if he happened to see something…sensual…with Zairissa again…

Well, it was only going to be for a second. After that, he could take the monocle off, and he could forget about whatever fantasies were buzzing about in her head.

He rooted the monocle out of his pocket and set it on one eye. He turned his attention to the tiefling, saw the flash of her magic just under her skin – gold and crimson, a deep fire streaked with the shimmers of a greater power – but there was something more. It was like a flash just over her shoulder, and he turned out of curiosity toward it.

It was gone a second later. No, not gone, but muted, almost like he was staring at it through a layer of obfuscation.

“What is it?” Zairissa asked, her voice low.

“Something’s out there,” he whispered.

And that something was moving. Not much, but enough for him to see it, just barely, through the trees. Unlike Zairissa’s power and aura, the other was completely crimson, dark and devilish, and the longer he looked, the more that he could feel the waves of something else coming off it. It wasn’t necessarily stronger than the tiefling at his side, but it was powerful enough for him to sense it and know that it came from the darker parts of the universe.

“Is it one of them?” his companion whispered.

He nodded.

“Get behind me.”

Veros was happy enough to follow [i]that[/i] command. As soon as he was behind the tiefling, the aura moved again. It shifted from tree to tree, and as it moved, he tracked it, following it with his gaze. Zairissa would look at him, see where he looked, and follow via his sight.

But the more he stared…

The half-elf bit off a grunt as he ‘saw’ the imp. Smaller than him, somewhere between four and a half and five feet tall, winged, lithe and slender with absurd hips and a large posterior. There was no tail there, just deep red skin, scarred with battle and shining with sweat. He saw –

[i]Mortal weaklings pulled between my mighty cheeks, showing how they are less than even the smallest of imps. Worshiping my ass, worshiping my hole, begging to be worthy of my pussy and never quite managing it. Little whores as they suck my ass, taking in my scent, becoming more and more mine.[/i]

Veros’s cheeks burned as he realized he was seeing her fantasies just as much as he had seen Zairissa’s, and his cock throbbed in his pants as he kept tracking. She was getting closer, and closer –

Then she was out from around the trees, a curved, cursed dagger in hand as she lunged for the wards. Before he could do anything, Zairissa threw one arm out, and a dozen new daggers formed between the trees, a dazzling cloud of dancing blades that nearly sliced the imp to bits before she could get close.

As he huffed and puffed, the tiefling wordlessly nudged the monocle off his face. He slumped to his knees as she stepped forward, putting one hand on her hips. Veros groaned as his mentor talked to the imp.

“I see that you’re looking to kill tonight,” Zairissa said.

“Heh, not kill. Just take a little bit of blood, a little tribute so we could all have a little fun tonight.”

“And what would you want with mortal blood?”

“Mmmm, you know how it is. Getting out of the under-planes takes a little sacrifice. And my friends are all so eager when they come up.”

[i]Friends. Sacrifices. Calling more imps. Summoner.[/i]

That explained a lot, at least to him. They were dealing with logistics, then. And either the imp was that bad at cutting people down for the blood they needed to get their friends out for an extended period of time…or they were not taking too much in hopes of staying out of sight of the gods for as long as possible.

As he gathered himself, trying to wash the worst of the fantasies lingering in his brain away, the imp fluttered back from the daggers. Zairissa still stood between him and her, but now, he could see the imp properly.

She was…lush, somehow, while still being almost too skinny for words. Her face was bony, stretched around her skull, and the same could be said for her shoulders and arms. She was too skinny, too skinny by half, save for the plumpness that seemed almost magnetically attracted to her hips and waist. Then she went to skinny again, bony as could be all the way down to her toes. She laughed, her fangs showing past taut lips as she tossed her head back.

“Come come, let me have a few drops of blood. You’ll barely feel it. And I bet you have some healing junk in those packs. Just a little bit of blood, and I’ll even share some of my friends with you.”

“You have no right to be coming into the forest for a vacation.”

“Orgy, hon, orgy.”

“Regardless. That’s not part of the deal.”

“Oh, and since when do we have to keep to deals?”

“Since I have to prove I’m not a threat day in and day out,” Zairissa said. “Some of us actually have a good life up her without all the blood trades.”

“Oh, you have [i]all[/i] the luck. Born up here without any of the hard work getting here in the first place. All your mommy or daddy had to do was fuck a mortal, and you get to stay here for the rest of your life, sacrifice free,” the imp said, rolling her eyes. “Not like you understand how that works.”

“We’re getting off the subject. Are you going to actually stop, or am I going to have to make you stop?”

“Try. Just because I’m an imp doesn’t mean I can’t handle you.”

Veros groaned, shaking his head as he reached for the monocle one more time. Something wasn’t quite right here. There wasn’t the same sort of hate that he had felt from captive imps before. Something –

[i]We’re missing something. Missing something…big…[/i]

And he wasn’t ready for a fight. The air was charged with something potent, something bigger than an imp should be. Maybe Zairissa could handle her, but he would be a liability here. He didn’t have the skills, the spells, or the weapons to take on someone like this. But there had to be something, something he was missing.

Finally, he managed to pull the monocle to his eye again. Looking past the dagger swarm, he stared at the imp once more, and –

“She’s not evil,” he managed to gasp out.

“…What?” Zairissa said.

“She’s not evil. Not…not like the other imps are,” he said, pulling the monocle back off his eye before it could get worse. “She doesn’t want to…to kill. She’s not good, but she’s not…evil.”

“Could have told you that, dick,” the imp said.

“Shut up,” Zairissa said, pointing a finger at the imp before turning back to him. “Fair enough that she’s not evil, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s not supposed to be here.”

“By treaty…by treaty, neither are we, unless there’s a threat. And she’s…she’s not really a threat. No offense.”

“None taken, asshole.”

“Do you have a name?” Veros asked.

“Kunra. What is it to you?”

“Well…when you’re trying to make a deal with someone, typically you want a name to put on a contract.”

“Contract?” Zairissa blinked. “The hell are you talking about?”

“Look. I might not know how to fight, and I clearly don’t know anything about magic compared to you, but I know when someone [i]wants[/i] something. The whole thing about being a…being a…”

The collar. The fucking collar. He gripped the edge of it for a moment, grunting under his breath before letting it go.

“I learned from the Tynns that, as long as somebody wants something you have, there’s the chance of making a deal with them. And Kunra here…seems to want something we have.”

“Got that right, bastard.”

“Veros.”

“Huh?”

“I have a name, too. So…you want blood? We want something in return.”

“…I can give you sex?”

“Let’s talk about the other things you might have to offer –”

“Excuse me.”

Zairissa grabbed him by the scruff of the neck before he could get another word out. Kunra chuckled as the tiefling dragged him further from the cloud of daggers, and Veros could barely get air down his throat as he was pulled along. The impromptu removal from the conversation was punctuated by being thrown against a tree, and the tiefling leaned in, her lips inches from his ear.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Keeping us from fighting,” he muttered.

“I can handle this if you’re too scared.”

“I’m terrified. [i]Completely[/i] terrified. But…”

Veros shook his head.

“Look. The way I see it, that imp’s not evil. She’s…something, but she’s not evil. And the Guild doesn’t want to make a big explosion in the middle of the forest, and this fight’s going to be big, from that aura she’s putting off. The druids don’t want a big fuss, she doesn’t want more than a little bit of blood, and we want to make sure that this gets handled with as little fuss as possible. Why not make a deal?”

“…Since when do you make sense?” she asked.

“When I’m not being completely humiliated and have a second to think, I actually make a lot of sense.”

“Or when you stop thinking with your pride.”

“Yes, well, a lot of us could learn to stop doing that,” he muttered, shaking his head.

“Or earn the right to have the pride in the first place.”

“…Regardless,” Veros muttered, looking over her shoulder again. “Either we’re going to have to fight, or you’re going to have to let me try and make a deal now. We can’t just back off from it and just…pretend nothing happened.”

Zairissa looked over her shoulder, as well. Kunra was still floating there, watching them casually from behind the wall of spinning daggers. Surprisingly, there was no malice in the stare, nor any of the psychotic grin that she’d sported earlier. She looked curious, even a little bit disappointed at the interruption, but that was all.

Certainly, she didn’t look like image of a hellish imp that they had been sent to fight.

Eventually, the tiefling let him go, shaking her head all the while. She adjusted her armor and stepped to the side, gesturing back to their ‘guest.’

“Okay, go ahead and try. But if anything goes wrong, I’m not bothered with letting her get a nick in for your stupidity.”

“It’s only stupid if it doesn’t work.”

“No, it’s stupid regardless; it’s [i]lucky[/i] if it works.”

He wasn’t sure if he agreed, but at the very least, it was a foot in the door. He might not know how to fight, or to cast spells as well as he thought, or even how to hold his own among others that were more powerful than him. But he did know how to cut deals, and he knew how logistics worked, and there was little more than interplanar shifting than logistics. He walked over to the wall of daggers and put his hand on his hips.

“So, we were about to see what [i]you[/i] could offer. Let’s talk about all the things that imps could bring to the Guild…”

[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: Veros enters the forest with Zairissa, and they have a little talk about magic before something else comes up, and we get to see Veros be a little more competent than he has been in the Guild so far.

Tags: No Sex, Teasing, Illusion of Sex, M/F, Ass Worship, Imp, Tiefling, D&D, Half-Elf, Imagination, Spells, Corruption, Series,