The warmth of a light ale suffused Autumn’s chest as she sipped on a local duskbrew, filling her cheeks with a ruddy glow as she enjoyed a late lunch with Nethlia in the adventurers’ guildhall. The demoness had booked a private balcony for them on the second floor so that they could dine in peace above the general chaos and revelry below. Music and song filled the air with cheer as a bardic troupe played, drowning out the raucous melody of drunken and rowdy adventurers.
Today so far had been a strange day for Autumn. Waking up in the godforsaken early hours of the dawn had been a rude awakening to her adventuring life, not to mention the hellish training Nethlia had seen fit to subject her too soon thereafter before she’d even fully woken up. All her muscles still ached hours later, even the ones she didn’t know she had!
Meeting the rest of the women of the bordello afterwards had been fun, especially interacting with Floriris – the song-harpy, and listening to her twittering language, even if she’d spent the majority of the meal sitting beside the madam, weathering her intimidating presence.
A pit of apprehension soured her gut as she remembered that she was expected to sing tonight.
Thankfully, the madam had reassured her that tonight’s gathering would be small, just a handful of wealthier patrons, and had been planned for a while now. So it wasn’t like they were coming specifically to hear her sing. Still, Autumn worried that she’d embarrass herself, even with magic infusing her singing voice. Not only that, but she hadn’t fully settled on which songs to sing!
Plagued by anxiety, Autumn reached out and drank deeply of her ale.
As she drank, filling her gullet with liquid courage, the demoness across from her pushed a plate of lighter pork buns her way. “Too spicy,” she asked, amused and concerned in equal measure.
Autumn shook her head as she placed her half-drained mug back down. “No, they’re alright,” she said, snagging another to chew on. “Just nervous about tonight.”
“About your singing?” Autumn nodded at Nethlia’s question. “Don’t be,” the demoness said, offering her a reassuring smile. “I’ve heard you sing before, and you’ve got a great voice. They’ll be enchanted.”
“It’s not that. I’ve just never done anything like this before! I don’t even like to sing in the shower. What if I make a fool of myself?”
“What’s so bad about that? I make a fool of myself all the time!” Nethlia joked, coaxing a short smile from Autumn’s lips. Her chest felt warmer at her friend’s reassurance. Although, that could just be the ale.
Rolling her eyes, Autumn huffed. “I suppose you’re right. You do make a fool out of yourself often.” Her joke was met with a bark of laughter. After taking another sip of her courage, she sighed. “Sorry about being glum this morning. I know you wanted to show me around the city.”
“That’s alright,” the demoness said. “We can do that another day. Today’s your birthday, so we’ll do whatever you want to do. Uh, within reason, of course.” For some ineffable reason to Autumn, the demoness blushed and wouldn’t look her directly in the eyes for a moment.
Weird.
Autumn shook her head. Perhaps it was the bravery of liquor, but she felt the need to explain herself to Nethlia, who’d been nothing but attentive and supportive to her all morning. “This is kinda hard to say, but I’ve not really celebrated my birthday for a couple of years. Not since…not since my f-father passed away.” Already, she could feel tears glittering in the corners of her eyes and chest felt tight like someone had driven a knife into her heart. A large, calloused hand gripped hers comfortingly. Autumn swallowed tightly, gripping that hand back. “It was an illness…cancer. I don’t know what you call it here, but it’s nearly incurable back home. The last few years of his life was rough for my mother and I.”
Nethlia squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
And she was. Autumn could hear it in her voice. She wasn’t just saying the words perfunctory like many had before her, but was genuinely saddened to hear of her father’s passing, and how his death had struck Autumn’s heart with grief. “It was just the two of us for a while, but my mother died last year in an accident, so I wasn't exactly looking forward to celebrating my birthday this year without her. Sorry,” she sniffled, wiping her tears away on her sleeve.
“It’s okay. It’s good to cry,” Nethlia said, favoring her with a comforting, sad smile. “My parents are gone too, so I know what you’re going through. But know that you’re not alone. You have me and the bordello’s girls!”
Autumn hiccuped. “Thanks,” she said after regaining her nerve. “That…that means a lot. Thank you.”
“No problem!” Nethlia grinned wider. “How about I fetch us some more ales to cheer up? They’ve got a decent selection down at the bar, and we can try a few to see what you like!”
Before Autumn could say otherwise, the demoness shouldered her way out of their private, curtained balcony and headed downstairs to the bar. Watching on in amusement over the railing, Autumn couldn’t help but huff out a laugh as her giant-of-a-friend bullied her way to the front of the thronging, thirsty pack of adventurers to load her arms up with a plethora of varying drinks.
Thankfully, by the time she returned, slamming the armload of foaming pints down on the tabletop, Autumn had composed herself, clearing her eyes of sadness. She looked on in curiosity as Nethlia arranged the cups before them.
“Now, this one is called Lion’s Red,” Nethlia said, pushing a mug of rosy ale before Autumn. “It’s got a bit more of a kick to it than Duskbeer. Oh, and this one is Elvish Draught…”
The excited roar of a wild crowd of adventurers pierced through the buzz permeating Autumn’s mind as she watched a pair of fighters duke it out within the training hall of one of the guildhall’s many facilities. Around her, bets quickly changed hands. She herself ignored the semi-familiar faces trading coins, steadying herself instead against Nethlia’s hot bulk as the room spun. The demoness helped steady her in turn with an arm around her shoulders and a firm hand on her hip.
Autumn hadn’t had all that much to drink, barely sipping each of the drinks that’d been placed before her, measuring their tastes against her meager experience of alcoholic imbibing. Still, even those short sips had been enough to get her lightly buzzed.
Naturally, Nethlia had polished off the rest without a lick of intoxication souring her features.
Cheers and groans went up as a fighter went down. Guild staff quickly separated the hot-bloodied pair, dragging them away to cool-off while gold changed hands.
Another pair of fighters entered the arena, sizing each other up.
Nethlia held onto Autumn as the crowd jostled for better views. She was steady like a rock in a turbulent shore, keeping her from being swept away. Leaning down, she whisper-shouted in Autumn’s ear. “What do you think?” she asked, nodding to the impromptu arena. Her hot breath tickled the witch’s reddening lobe. “Want to have a go?”
Autumn gave her taller friend a lost, incredulous look. However, just as she was about to shout back a denial, a deep, masculine voice boomed over her words from behind the pair. “We don’t need no filthy humans stinking up the place! Get lost!”
Spinning around frightened, she saw the massive minotaur from yesterday, looming now over her with an expression of distaste stretched across his bovine features as he leered down at her. “Clear off, herdless! Your kind ain’t welcome here!”
“The fuck you say?!” Nethlia bellowed back, getting right into the minotaur’s face she put herself protectively in front of Autumn. Every inch of her war-grooved features were cast in fury and etched with promised violence, like a goddess of war unveiled.
“You heard what I said, shorthorn,” the minotaur snorted in the demoness’ face, squaring up to her. Around the pair, a circle of silence had formed. “Take your pet and get out!”
A hush fell over the crowd.
All eyes were on them, and not all were friendly.
You could cut the tension with a knife. Frowning guild workers were already making their way over to the pair who looked ready to kill one another, looking between the two massive fighters with distress and apprehension as they muscled their way through the crowd. Even the two bloodied fighters in the ring had paused.
Autumn swallowed heavily as she stood shielded by her demonic friend’s back. The sudden spike of adrenaline had wiped the alcoholic drowsiness from her system, leaving her feeling as if she’d drunk an entire can of energy drink in a single gulp. Her fingers traced the end of her wand hidden in her sleeve as her dark eyes darted.
Reaching out, she tugged on Nethlia’s cloak. “Let’s just go,” she said to her lowly. “It’s not worth it.”
However, the demoness, caught in her stoked rage, couldn’t let it go. Like a dog with a bone, she growled, her bright, golden eyes never leaving the arrogant bull’s eyes. “Not until he apologises for what he said, and what he called you!” Her voice boiled like a lake of roiling blood.
The minotaur snorted, blasting the pair with hot, sour air. “Never.”
Nethlia looked ready to hit him when a suave voice broke into the stalemate from the side. “Ladies! Ladies!” a familiar, flirty piratess called out as she slid between the pair. She was surprisingly elfin and svelte for a demoness, and looked rather comical sandwiched between the two giants. Yet nobody laughed as a mithril cutlass glinted on her hip. “If you’re going to fight, do it in the arena. That way the rest of us can bet on it!”
A murmur of agreement rolled through the crowd.
The minotaur snorted. “Fine by me, but once I win, they can get out.”
“And when I win,” Nethlia growled, “and after you're done picking your teeth up from the ground, you can apologise to my friend and get the hells out of my face.”
“Fantastic!” the piratess cheered. Faster than the eye could blink, she slapped both the minotaur and Nethlia on their asses, startling them into moving towards the center of the room where the crowd parted for them. “Don’t worry about your girl,” she said to Nethlia, moving closer to Autumn with a wink. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”
Nethlia didn’t look all that mollified by the piratess’ words nor her wink. However, she had more pressing issues to deal with currently. After handing off her fur cloak to Autumn, she moved towards the center of the room and stopped across from the minotaur, settling into a low grappler’s stance. The minotaur simply shifted his weight forward, clearly looking to literally bull-rush the demoness once the match started. Arrogance radiated off him like a heatwave.
More bets were swiftly exchanged around and throughout the crowd of excited adventurers with far more furor than in the previous fights. It wasn’t clear to Autumn who the favorite was.
A guild staff member stepped between the fighters to address them and the crowd. “This fight is between Nethlia, the Omenhammer and Mordred of Clan Valienthoof! As according to guild charters, this fight will be conducted with dignity and honor from both participants, understood?” He got grunts and nods from the pair in reply. “Also, who can and can’t enter the hall is up to the guildmaster to decide!” He added, glowering at the minotaur.
Mordred Valienthoof ignored him.
“Are both combatants ready?” the staff member asked, stepping back out of the arena.
Muscles tightened and tensed. Eyes narrowed. In their chests, both of the fighters’ hearts thundered as their lungs heaved, ready for explosive violence. Under the arcane light of the hall, both sets of wicked horns gleamed with sharp intent.
“Then fight!”
In a near instant, the minotaur, Mordred, charged across the short distance between himself and Nethlia, rumbling the training hall with his weightsome, hooved footfalls as he bellowed out a war cry. Autumn’s heart leapt into her throat at the sound. Thankfully, the demoness was ready for him. Nethlia lashed out as he drew near, catching his charge with her bare hands before pivoting in an attempt to bear the bull to the ground. But while she was successful at diverting his charge, she wasn’t able to throw his overwhelming weight.
Mordred tore himself free of her hands with a bellow and struck Nethlia across the jaw with a devastating punch that rocked her head back, almost ending the fight in a single blow. However, his victory was short-lived. The demoness let out a roar of her own, equaling his, and bloodied his snout with a hammer fist that struck like a meteorite.
Blood splattered across the floor to the cheers of the crowd.
Staggering apart from the brief exchange, Nethlia’s face flashed with fury as she licked the blood from her lips, spitting a glob of bloody spit off to the side. Across from her, Mordred no longer looked as arrogant as before, instead the anger of humiliation danced across his eyes as his nostrils flared.
Autumn clutched her hands tightly as the pair reengaged. This fight was like nothing she’d seen before. Not even the violence of the Feywild or the grim night of the Redcaps compared to the clash of titans before her. The sound of their blows cracking against one another was a tune of savagery, echoing the gleeful shouts of the adventurers watching on.
Boom! Crash! Smash! The blows thundered across flesh and skull!
Crunch! A headbutt rocked the bull back!
Crack! A tooth was spat!
Punch and thump! The minotaur struck back! His blows were boulders! His stomps earthquakes! Steel for bones! Iron for flesh! Every one of his thunderous strikes rocked the demoness’ body back, threatening to fold her as her bones creaked around a bovine fist. Blood splattered across the ground more and more, yet neither backed down.
Pride was on the line.
A roar! Nethlia yelled as she dodged a meteoric fist, sliding under an overextended arm to hammer a series of devastating blows into the minotaur abdomen, aiming for his kidneys. He roared back in pain and fury, seeking to crack open the demoness’ skull with a ruinous elbow, but she wasn’t there when he dropped it.
It was a real David and Goliath story. You know, if David had been a slightly smaller giant, and armed with thick fists and fury rather than a sling.
As she was watching on with her heart in her hands, the piratess sidled up to Autumn’s side. “So, what’s ya name, cutie? Mine’s Liddie.” Autumn startled at the sudden introduction. Tearing her eyes briefly from the ongoing fight, she glanced at the demoness beside her, who’d introduced herself with roguish aplomb.
Standing roughly at just under six-foot, maybe five-ten, the piratess was long-limbed, slender, and shorter than most other demonkind Autumn had met thus far, although she was still taller than Autumn by a good three-or-so inches. Her cherry-red skin was wrapped up in a loose top, tight pants, and cuffed leather boots all underneath a long naval coat. A pair of impish horns peeked out of her messy curls above a pair of sunset-orange eyes.
“Lidde Eastoft, at your service,” the aforementioned Liddie said genteely with a roguish grin. “Perhaps a beautiful maiden like yourself has heard of me or my dashing exploits?”
Autumn blinked, puzzled. “Oh, um, no, sorry. I haven’t heard of you.”
“Truely? Alas, has my piratical name fallen so far from grace that you haven’t heard of me? Do humans no longer dread my name, or loathe to sail the Kraken Straits in fear they might spy my sails on the horizon? Granted, my ship has rested on the brine’s seafloor for a while now, but still!”
“Uh, sorry?”
Thankfully, before Autumn was forced to answer any prying questions about her ill-knowledge of the apparently, self-professed famous pirate beside her, the crowd roared loudly, drawing their attention. Her eyes snapped back to the fight just in time to witness a bloodied and bruised Nethlia backhand the minotaur across his snout, sending him reeling. Before he could recover, the demoness got him in a headlock and looked to be about to end the fight. However, recovered quickly and threw her off.
Seeing the fight not going as some of them would have liked, the crowd began jostling to shout encouragement to the struggling minotaur. Autumn was nearly knocked off her unsteady feet by the pushing until the piratess caught her by the elbow to steady her, glaring at the crowd to back up.
Miraculously, they did, giving the pair space.
“Steady on there, beautiful! We wouldn’t want you to get squished while your lover is defending your honor!” Liddie chuckled as she righted Autumn. Although the touch was innocent, the demoness’ fingers did linger a moment longer than necessary in the crook of her elbow. Or maybe it was just her imagination?
Heat bloomed up Autumn’s neck as she blushed brightly. “She’s not my lover!” she hastily clarified. “I don’t- I’m not- My name is Autumn, not beautiful or whatever!”
“My apologies! Autumn, it is!” the piratess beamed, doffing a non-existent cap flamboyantly. Straightening up, she gave the human girl a once over before turning to do the same to the demoness fighting. “So what you’re saying is that she’s available? And that you are too?”
“No!” Autumn blushed brightly as the piratess raised an amused eyebrow at her outburst. “Uh, I mean, I’m not interested, and Nethlia probably isn’t either. But, like, you’d have to ask her or something,” she said, slowly trailing off into a mortified mumbling.
Liddie chuckled. “Maybe I will ask her! I wouldn’t mind her bending me over, if you know what I mean!” she winked, nudging a bright red Autumn. “You either, if you swing that way. Maybe both of you at the same time, if you’re up for it?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows.
The roar of the crowd mirrored the roaring fuzz of Autumn’s short-circuiting brain.
What was up with today?! First she was insulted and threatened, then Nethlia got into a fight over her, and now she was being propositioned by an admittedly rather cute piratess?! And to a threesome, no less! Was there something on her face that attracted strangeness to herself like moths divebombing a bugzapper?
“No thank you?” was all she managed to conjure up after her gay brain kicked itself back into a reasonable order.
The piratess shrugged. “Your loss. Now, it looks like your friend is about to win, but she might need you to calm her down. Berserkers,” she sighed.
Blinking, Autumn looked over to the fight to see an astounding, frightening sight. Nethlia had managed to strike a calamitous blow across the minotaur’s temple that’d stunned him, sending him crashing down weakly to his knees, and she was now proceeding to beat the ever-loving-shit out of his face. She held onto one of his long horns with one hand while her other rained down thunderous blow after thunderous blow against his cracking skull.
The mood of the room was going from “this is a great fight” to “oh, shit! She’s going to kill him” and fast.
“Nethlia!” Autumn cried out loudly. “Stop!”
The demoness halted. Her bloodied fist trembled in the air like a guillotine blade. Golden eyes filled with rage alighted upon the minotaur beneath her. While not yet fallen, he’d clearly had enough – she’d beaten the arrogance out of him.
“We have a winner!” cried the guild official. “Nethlia, the Omenhammer!”
The crowd roared.
Nethlia let go of the minotaur’s horn as she fought to rein in the almost irrepressible conflagration that was her anger, letting him stagger woozily to his hooves to stalk off the labyrinthine loser. And when the fury finally faded, pain took its place. She let out a wince, staggering slightly to the side, almost falling, only to find her balance caught by a witch’s smaller frame.
Mostly.
A gasp escaped Autumn as Nethlia leaned on her. It felt like she was trying to support a mountain on her lonesome. “Help!” she called out. Thankfully for her spine, a few of the burlier adventurers nearby helped her drag the thrashed demoness out of the training hall and to a table in the main hall. A raw steak was procured for them from the kitchens to press against Nethlia’s swelling face while Autumn draped the demoness’ cloak back across her broad shoulders.
Liddie, the piratess, cheerfully lingered at a nearby table with her boots up, ogling Nethlia as she tossed a pouch filled with her winnings up and down.
Autumn did her best to ignore her.
“Wait,” Nethlia slurred around her busted lip and the raw meat. “He didn’t apologise,” she said, making to stand and right the slight to her honor.
“Fuck him!”
The demoness started at Autumn’s outburst, forgetting to stand and slumping back down into her chair, which complained loudly at the abuse. Autumn too was shocked slightly at her own outburst. She blushed, but didn’t take back her words. “Fuck him,” she said in a lower volume. “Fuck him, and fuck his fucking discrimination!”
“You tell ‘em, sister!” Liddie cheered.
Nethlia looked at her in muddled confusion before turning back to Autumn as the witch continued. “I don’t care about him, or them,” she said, gesturing to the rest of the guildhall. “What I care about is you getting hurt for something as stupid as my honor, or whatever. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice –
really, really
nice, in fact – but don’t do that shit ever again! I can look after my own honor just fine!”
Browbeaten, the demoness nodded, wincing as the action pulled at her war-wounds. “Sorry,” she said as she adjusted the steak against her face to soothe the ache. Autumn honestly didn’t know if it was helping. “I just saw how everyone was looking at you all day, and I just let it get to me, I guess. Sorry for ruining your birthday.”
Autumn sighed. “You didn’t ruin my birthday, idiot. Now, let’s get you home. You can explain to the madam why your face looks like tenderised beef.”
“...can I just find another minotaur to fight?”
Rolling her eyes, Autumn worked to support a wobbly Nethlia to her feet and out of the guildhall as best she could. She thanked the amused Liddie for her help as they left, ignoring the libidinous comments she made, and the startling direct offer of a more intimate meeting between just the three of them as a birthday gift, having overheard Nethlia’s words.
Speechless and blushing, Autumn just shook her head as they retreated.
A few minutes after they left the guildhall, as they were making their way down the street towards the bordello, Nethlia blinked and turned to look back at the Guild of Adventurers hall with no small amount of confusion coloring her bruised and swollen face. “Wait, was that Liddie Eastoft? And why did she invite us to a threesome?”
“...I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Do you think she’ll sign my Adventurer’s Gambit card?”
“I don’t even know what that is.”