Eternal
This may be the most “rebellious” idea you’ve had, but you can’t just sit here like a Felkan waiting to get attacked. You need the battle, you were born for it. Not to mention if you’re actively fighting someone it should keep your mind off of other things.
Now all you have to do is to convince Alison. True she is technically in charge of the battalion and you have always respected that, but if push came to shove you could easily pull rank on her and you’d rather not do such a thing.
Fortunately, it doesn’t come to that.
“It’s about time we took the fight to those mongrel dogs.” she says with a little enthusiasm, but then her cautious side comes out. “But this plan, is this approved by the Emperor?”
“No, but you don’t need to worry about that. I will take full responsibility if he gets angry about it. I’ll just say I took command of your battalion.”
“Hah, I always knew you were going to do that some day, anyway.”
“Sorry, but I can’t think of any other way.”
“Don’t apologize to me, I won’t have to face the Emperor’s wrath, well I hope I won’t at least.”
“Like I said, don’t worry about that. And don’t worry about me either. I don’t want to sound prideful, but I’m fairly confident the Emperor won’t even get too angry with me, especially since I intend on wiping out the immediate gnoll threat.”
“What happens if we get called to aid Roldan?”
“If it’s before we launch our major attack on gnoll lands then we’ll comply. If it’s during, well we’ll give what aid we can. The main thing is to get this finished as quickly as possible hence why I’m sending svelk scouts first to give us info on key locations of where to strike.”
“You think we can trust them to do their job properly?”
“Who knows, but they’re still getting paid well and this is a much easier assignment than where they previously were, so they will most likely do their jobs. Besides I’ll make sure to send some of our stealthier troops with them and make a point of how their safety is also a priority if they don’t want me to think that they’re up to some sort of treachery. They won’t like it, but who gives a shit, they’re svelk.”
Alison laughs at your comment and then says she’ll start getting her end of things prepared.
You tell the svelk leaders what you want done and how you want it done. You get no dissension or even any grumbles. They either realize you mean business or they’re all silently conspiring against you to strike at a later time. Probably both, but for right now its enough that they just obey your orders.
The next few weeks are semi-anxious ones while you’re still waiting for svelk intelligence reports. You really hope you can take down the gnoll horde or at least cripple it before anything on Felkan front pops up. You experience a few gnoll raids during this time, but they aren’t anything out of the ordinary. If the gnolls are on to any spying going on they haven’t changed their usual attacks.
Eventually the svelk bands start trickling back in and while most of the information is just standard intelligence that will come in useful during the main attack, one of the reports is more alarming.
“The gnolls have a large group of wyverns in that small mountain in the distance. From what I can tell they’ve been keeping them fed just enough that they’re still strong, but not enough that they’re fat and happy. They’re quite vicious. It’s a wonder the flying beasts don’t just eat the gnolls, but it would appear the mongrel dog men have a way with the creatures. Probably been training them since they hatched.” Eldolith remarks.
“How many wyverns exactly?” you ask.
“Not exactly sure, we couldn’t get that far into the caves without being detected since the place is extremely heavily guarded, but a good number of them. Enough to make things problematic if they attacked. I might hazard a guess that maybe they’ve been trying to lull you all into a false sense of complacency, but that almost seems a bit too cunning for gnolls. Still, its amazing what the…lesser born can accomplish when they aren’t taken seriously.” Eldolith says and gives you a look as if that comment was directed towards you specifically. Other svelk in the tent move a bit nervously since they know she’s possibly endangering them as well.
Why is she testing you like this?
Ignoring her comment you get back to the business at hand.
“Okay, well this changes things a bit, but we’ll make arrangements. Glad you all found this out. Your actions have helped the Empire immensely. I’ll make sure you all get a little extra gold for this service, dismissed.”
As everyone leaves your tent, Eldolith stays behind.
“Is their something else you needed captain?” you ask as you mentally prepare yourself.
“Funny I was going to ask the same of you. I thought that perhaps you’d like to discipline me for my earlier words.”
“That won’t be necessary in light of your latest report on the gnolls. I’m willing to let it pass.”
“Oh? Well perhaps maybe I’d like my reward then for my work.” Eldolith remarks and then moves over to you which causes you to move back.
“What the hell do you think your doing?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not trying to kill you. I know I’d be no match for a great warrior like you. I just thought that maybe you’d like to take this opportunity to get to know me better. I see you still staring at me sometimes, probably wishing that you’d done what you wanted to do when we first met. Your hand clenched around my throat, your loins pulsating and wanting to violate me. Well here I am.”
At this point Eldolith takes your hand and wraps her lips around your index finger making “mmm” noises. While you can’t deny the desires, you also can’t help but find humor in this since you now know the clumsy intentions for certain.
You pull your finger out of her mouth and laugh.
“Why are you laughing?” Eldolith asks in annoyed tone.
“You! This! This is a joke. I had my doubts at first when the svelk all got transferred here, but now I know for certain. Mistress put you up specifically to this to fuck with me. Well it won’t work.”
“Are you sure? You seem pretty distracted.” Eldolith says attempting to be seductive again.
“Ha ha, I won’t deny your beauty and my own fucked up cravings, but sorry your techniques in mindfuckery are sorely lacking and I’ve had the master, or Mistress if you prefer. You’re not even worth me worrying about anymore now that I know your game, which is that you’re just a pawn in Mistress’ own twisted game, whatever that is.”
Your condescension and dismissal is bad enough, but what seems to set off Eldolith the most is…
“Stop calling my mother by that ridiculous name! I don’t know why she insists on adopting your lesser born titles and nicknames!”
“Mother?” you ask genuinely surprised.
“Yes, and I told her this was a stupid idea in the first place! She should be taking steps to return our people back to their rightful place, not playing mind games with some monkey grunt. Ugh! I can’t believe I sucked on your finger.”
“I’m sure it was everything you dreamed about. So you’re her daughter. I have to admit I thought there was a resemblance and it wasn’t just that haughty strut or those cold eyes that are so common to your race… wait so what is her real name?”
“Ask her yourself! I’m done here. From now on I’m just doing my duty as a merc until I’m transferred out of this human hellhole.” Eldolith shouts and storms off.
Well this little incident has been bizarre to say the least. Mistress basically sent her own daughter to have sex with you. You don’t pretend to understand the mind of the svelk, but what kind of fucked up family dynamic do they have and for what purpose? Is this some sort of ploy to keep you unfocused so you’ll make a critical mistake somewhere? Eldolith did mention about taking steps to return her people to their rightful place and how she’s obviously pissed that Mistress isn’t doing it.
Of course knowing Mistress, maybe messing with you is part of the greater plan? But how? In any case you can’t worry about it now since you do have to get back to accomplishing your immediate task. You meet back up with Alison to tell her of the new plan due to the wyverns.
“So, I saw your svelk girlfriend stomp out of your tent pretty mad. Trouble in paradise?” Alison asks.
“Hardly. Just more svelk bullshit. And she isn’t my girlfriend.”
“Hey, I said we weren’t betrothed to each other when we started our own little intimate encounters so you don’t need to hide anything. I hear enough things around the camp about you two.”
NOW it hits you.
“Oh shit, THAT’S what this is all about! I can’t believe it!” you start laughing again.
“What?” Alison asks.
“She’s jealous of you!”
“Eldolith?”
“No! Her mother, Mistress!”
“Mistress is Eldolith’s mother?
“Yeah, and she sent her daughter to have sex with me hoping it would fuck up OUR relationship!”
You tell Alison everything that happened between you and Eldolith, you even confess everything that happened the first time you met her which is probably why the rumors were going around about the two of you. Alison believes you since you’ve never been one to lie let alone to her.
“So wait… your former instructor is jealous of me so she sent her daughter to have sex with you?” Alison says.
“It’s the only explanation.”
“I dunno, I mean…wow…that seems pretty hard to believe.”
“Believe it. The svelk mind is capable of some truly twisted petty shit.”
“Well I can believe that, but I’m just having a hard time believing that a svelk female would be jealous of the appearance of…as they would say a monkey.”
“Don’t say that, you’re beautiful.” You say.
“Okay I know I’m not ugly, but beautiful is pushing it.”
“Not at all. You’re a soldier, a warrior of the Empire, a maiden of battle striking fear and terror into the hearts of our enemies. I’ve seen you slay many in battle with a skill that many could only hope to achieve. I’ve seen your sword and armor drenched in the blood of our enemies and the dirt of the battlefield. With each battle you win, with each enemy you kill you carry out the will of the Empire and the Emperor. Your cause is so pure and righteous… how could I not find that beautiful?
Alison smiles at your unique attempt at compliments.
“Well when you make it sound like that, how can I disagree?”
You and Alison spend some intimate time that night and in the next few days you begin your risky attack on gnoll territory. It goes well at first, and you aren’t suddenly taken by surprise when flocks of wyvern riders try to swoop in on the battlefield.
Some of the peasants from the Felkan towns that were occupied by the gnolls actually welcome you as saviors and immediately pledge themselves to the Empire, mostly because the Felkan Kingdom failed to defend them in the first place and that any ruler is better than the gnolls. This comes somewhat as an unexpected benefit to your decision.
After a month of slaughtering gnolls, two things major things happen, one of them good and one of them possibly bad.
The siege on Yaquan is finally successful. A few Eyes managed to infiltrate and bring the walls down from within and from there, Roldan’s army did the rest. While you’re pleased to hear about a victory for the Empire, you’ve also just received a message telling you to return to the capital immediately. It would appear that your proactive approach to the gnolls has finally caught the Emperor’s attention. You don’t know if he’ll be angry or pleased, or what.
The second part of this dilemma is that you are still trying to make that one big push to wipe out the majority of the gnoll forces. Alison naturally says that if you have to leave she can handle it without you and you have no doubt about that, but that’s not the issue. It’s more that you’d like to finish what you started and that if you are going to return to the Emperor to answer for your disobedience, you’d like to at least have a complete victory under your belt.
Surely when the Emperor sees that you’ve crushed another enemy in his name and even added more subjects and territory he couldn’t be too mad could he?
Now all you have to do is to convince Alison. True she is technically in charge of the battalion and you have always respected that, but if push came to shove you could easily pull rank on her and you’d rather not do such a thing.
Fortunately, it doesn’t come to that.
“It’s about time we took the fight to those mongrel dogs.” she says with a little enthusiasm, but then her cautious side comes out. “But this plan, is this approved by the Emperor?”
“No, but you don’t need to worry about that. I will take full responsibility if he gets angry about it. I’ll just say I took command of your battalion.”
“Hah, I always knew you were going to do that some day, anyway.”
“Sorry, but I can’t think of any other way.”
“Don’t apologize to me, I won’t have to face the Emperor’s wrath, well I hope I won’t at least.”
“Like I said, don’t worry about that. And don’t worry about me either. I don’t want to sound prideful, but I’m fairly confident the Emperor won’t even get too angry with me, especially since I intend on wiping out the immediate gnoll threat.”
“What happens if we get called to aid Roldan?”
“If it’s before we launch our major attack on gnoll lands then we’ll comply. If it’s during, well we’ll give what aid we can. The main thing is to get this finished as quickly as possible hence why I’m sending svelk scouts first to give us info on key locations of where to strike.”
“You think we can trust them to do their job properly?”
“Who knows, but they’re still getting paid well and this is a much easier assignment than where they previously were, so they will most likely do their jobs. Besides I’ll make sure to send some of our stealthier troops with them and make a point of how their safety is also a priority if they don’t want me to think that they’re up to some sort of treachery. They won’t like it, but who gives a shit, they’re svelk.”
Alison laughs at your comment and then says she’ll start getting her end of things prepared.
You tell the svelk leaders what you want done and how you want it done. You get no dissension or even any grumbles. They either realize you mean business or they’re all silently conspiring against you to strike at a later time. Probably both, but for right now its enough that they just obey your orders.
The next few weeks are semi-anxious ones while you’re still waiting for svelk intelligence reports. You really hope you can take down the gnoll horde or at least cripple it before anything on Felkan front pops up. You experience a few gnoll raids during this time, but they aren’t anything out of the ordinary. If the gnolls are on to any spying going on they haven’t changed their usual attacks.
Eventually the svelk bands start trickling back in and while most of the information is just standard intelligence that will come in useful during the main attack, one of the reports is more alarming.
“The gnolls have a large group of wyverns in that small mountain in the distance. From what I can tell they’ve been keeping them fed just enough that they’re still strong, but not enough that they’re fat and happy. They’re quite vicious. It’s a wonder the flying beasts don’t just eat the gnolls, but it would appear the mongrel dog men have a way with the creatures. Probably been training them since they hatched.” Eldolith remarks.
“How many wyverns exactly?” you ask.
“Not exactly sure, we couldn’t get that far into the caves without being detected since the place is extremely heavily guarded, but a good number of them. Enough to make things problematic if they attacked. I might hazard a guess that maybe they’ve been trying to lull you all into a false sense of complacency, but that almost seems a bit too cunning for gnolls. Still, its amazing what the…lesser born can accomplish when they aren’t taken seriously.” Eldolith says and gives you a look as if that comment was directed towards you specifically. Other svelk in the tent move a bit nervously since they know she’s possibly endangering them as well.
Why is she testing you like this?
Ignoring her comment you get back to the business at hand.
“Okay, well this changes things a bit, but we’ll make arrangements. Glad you all found this out. Your actions have helped the Empire immensely. I’ll make sure you all get a little extra gold for this service, dismissed.”
As everyone leaves your tent, Eldolith stays behind.
“Is their something else you needed captain?” you ask as you mentally prepare yourself.
“Funny I was going to ask the same of you. I thought that perhaps you’d like to discipline me for my earlier words.”
“That won’t be necessary in light of your latest report on the gnolls. I’m willing to let it pass.”
“Oh? Well perhaps maybe I’d like my reward then for my work.” Eldolith remarks and then moves over to you which causes you to move back.
“What the hell do you think your doing?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not trying to kill you. I know I’d be no match for a great warrior like you. I just thought that maybe you’d like to take this opportunity to get to know me better. I see you still staring at me sometimes, probably wishing that you’d done what you wanted to do when we first met. Your hand clenched around my throat, your loins pulsating and wanting to violate me. Well here I am.”
At this point Eldolith takes your hand and wraps her lips around your index finger making “mmm” noises. While you can’t deny the desires, you also can’t help but find humor in this since you now know the clumsy intentions for certain.
You pull your finger out of her mouth and laugh.
“Why are you laughing?” Eldolith asks in annoyed tone.
“You! This! This is a joke. I had my doubts at first when the svelk all got transferred here, but now I know for certain. Mistress put you up specifically to this to fuck with me. Well it won’t work.”
“Are you sure? You seem pretty distracted.” Eldolith says attempting to be seductive again.
“Ha ha, I won’t deny your beauty and my own fucked up cravings, but sorry your techniques in mindfuckery are sorely lacking and I’ve had the master, or Mistress if you prefer. You’re not even worth me worrying about anymore now that I know your game, which is that you’re just a pawn in Mistress’ own twisted game, whatever that is.”
Your condescension and dismissal is bad enough, but what seems to set off Eldolith the most is…
“Stop calling my mother by that ridiculous name! I don’t know why she insists on adopting your lesser born titles and nicknames!”
“Mother?” you ask genuinely surprised.
“Yes, and I told her this was a stupid idea in the first place! She should be taking steps to return our people back to their rightful place, not playing mind games with some monkey grunt. Ugh! I can’t believe I sucked on your finger.”
“I’m sure it was everything you dreamed about. So you’re her daughter. I have to admit I thought there was a resemblance and it wasn’t just that haughty strut or those cold eyes that are so common to your race… wait so what is her real name?”
“Ask her yourself! I’m done here. From now on I’m just doing my duty as a merc until I’m transferred out of this human hellhole.” Eldolith shouts and storms off.
Well this little incident has been bizarre to say the least. Mistress basically sent her own daughter to have sex with you. You don’t pretend to understand the mind of the svelk, but what kind of fucked up family dynamic do they have and for what purpose? Is this some sort of ploy to keep you unfocused so you’ll make a critical mistake somewhere? Eldolith did mention about taking steps to return her people to their rightful place and how she’s obviously pissed that Mistress isn’t doing it.
Of course knowing Mistress, maybe messing with you is part of the greater plan? But how? In any case you can’t worry about it now since you do have to get back to accomplishing your immediate task. You meet back up with Alison to tell her of the new plan due to the wyverns.
“So, I saw your svelk girlfriend stomp out of your tent pretty mad. Trouble in paradise?” Alison asks.
“Hardly. Just more svelk bullshit. And she isn’t my girlfriend.”
“Hey, I said we weren’t betrothed to each other when we started our own little intimate encounters so you don’t need to hide anything. I hear enough things around the camp about you two.”
NOW it hits you.
“Oh shit, THAT’S what this is all about! I can’t believe it!” you start laughing again.
“What?” Alison asks.
“She’s jealous of you!”
“Eldolith?”
“No! Her mother, Mistress!”
“Mistress is Eldolith’s mother?
“Yeah, and she sent her daughter to have sex with me hoping it would fuck up OUR relationship!”
You tell Alison everything that happened between you and Eldolith, you even confess everything that happened the first time you met her which is probably why the rumors were going around about the two of you. Alison believes you since you’ve never been one to lie let alone to her.
“So wait… your former instructor is jealous of me so she sent her daughter to have sex with you?” Alison says.
“It’s the only explanation.”
“I dunno, I mean…wow…that seems pretty hard to believe.”
“Believe it. The svelk mind is capable of some truly twisted petty shit.”
“Well I can believe that, but I’m just having a hard time believing that a svelk female would be jealous of the appearance of…as they would say a monkey.”
“Don’t say that, you’re beautiful.” You say.
“Okay I know I’m not ugly, but beautiful is pushing it.”
“Not at all. You’re a soldier, a warrior of the Empire, a maiden of battle striking fear and terror into the hearts of our enemies. I’ve seen you slay many in battle with a skill that many could only hope to achieve. I’ve seen your sword and armor drenched in the blood of our enemies and the dirt of the battlefield. With each battle you win, with each enemy you kill you carry out the will of the Empire and the Emperor. Your cause is so pure and righteous… how could I not find that beautiful?
Alison smiles at your unique attempt at compliments.
“Well when you make it sound like that, how can I disagree?”
You and Alison spend some intimate time that night and in the next few days you begin your risky attack on gnoll territory. It goes well at first, and you aren’t suddenly taken by surprise when flocks of wyvern riders try to swoop in on the battlefield.
Some of the peasants from the Felkan towns that were occupied by the gnolls actually welcome you as saviors and immediately pledge themselves to the Empire, mostly because the Felkan Kingdom failed to defend them in the first place and that any ruler is better than the gnolls. This comes somewhat as an unexpected benefit to your decision.
After a month of slaughtering gnolls, two things major things happen, one of them good and one of them possibly bad.
The siege on Yaquan is finally successful. A few Eyes managed to infiltrate and bring the walls down from within and from there, Roldan’s army did the rest. While you’re pleased to hear about a victory for the Empire, you’ve also just received a message telling you to return to the capital immediately. It would appear that your proactive approach to the gnolls has finally caught the Emperor’s attention. You don’t know if he’ll be angry or pleased, or what.
The second part of this dilemma is that you are still trying to make that one big push to wipe out the majority of the gnoll forces. Alison naturally says that if you have to leave she can handle it without you and you have no doubt about that, but that’s not the issue. It’s more that you’d like to finish what you started and that if you are going to return to the Emperor to answer for your disobedience, you’d like to at least have a complete victory under your belt.
Surely when the Emperor sees that you’ve crushed another enemy in his name and even added more subjects and territory he couldn’t be too mad could he?