DM and the Dirty 20s Ch. 70.5

This is the second release, and finishes this small stretch of backlog releases for DM and the Dirty 20s. Cheers!

Chapter 70 (Continued)

Renee opened the heavy door of Hastor’s Tomb and slipped into the darkness beyond. Shadows were nothing for Renee to fear - unless they were living shadows hungry to steal her life force, in which case she had plenty to fear. Thankfully, that didn’t seem to be the case here. The lack of any light still made it difficult for her to see, however, and she quickly tried to cast a simple light spell but felt the magic dissipate into the darkness around her.

“Well, that’s kind of fucked up…” the sorceress muttered to herself. She generally let Olivia and Jade carry the more mundane equipment when it came to this sort of thing, so she couldn’t just pull a torch, flint and steel out of her pack.

Not being able to see a fucking thing wasn’t exactly going to work for looting an ancient tomb for all it was worth, so after letting out a frustrated huff, Renee turned to slip back out of the tomb and see if Olivia could chuck a torch the length of the room.

Except, when she turned around, she couldn’t see the door. In fact, she couldn’t even see her own hands in front of her face, and when she took the few steps back towards the door, and a few steps more than that, she didn’t touch a wall or the door at all. She didn’t run into anything.

“Great,” Renee said sourly. “Just great.”

Pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes, despite not being able to see anything, Renee took a beat to recentre herself and then cast a Detect Magic spell. For one brief moment, the effects of the spell fell over her blacked-out vision like a veil, and she was assaulted by a swirl of magical auras that were so overwhelmingly bright that she winced and tried to turn away, but the auras were all around her. The only reprieve came from the magic of her spell dissipating as quickly as it had taken effect, leaving her blinking against the sunspots blooming behind her eyelids.

There had been something, though. Amid the auras. A soft spot. A space that was less solid, magical essence.

Steeling herself, Renee strode blindly into the dark, imagining a tunnel ahead of her and choosing to believe that the fucking sphinx hadn’t duped her into stepping into some trap that was just an eternal void.

“Can’t believe I said I’d fuck that fuckin’ guy,” Renee muttered to herself.

Then, on her next step, her foot didn’t find the floor, and she began to tumble forward, and over, and she was falling.

In the dark.

“Shane, I get it, I can’t see,” Elyse snorted, rolling her eyes at me. She was sitting in her usual spot at the game table, and I was in mine, but we’d both angled ourselves more so that we were looking directly towards each other.

“Is it scary yet?” I chuckled.

“Considering we already know I live, I’m not scared,” she said, smirking at me.

She had a point.

Renee was falling, tumbling. When she reached out, there were no walls. There was no wind buffeting her from the sides, just the rush as she plummeted.

And then she stumbled, as if she hadn’t fallen at all and had instead caught the toe of her boot on flagstone, and she blinked and found herself standing in some sort of immense, ancient chamber. It was round, cut like the inside of half a sphere, the sandstone blocks perfectly smooth as they arced away over her head towards the central height. Five thin pillars around the central space held up the ceiling and were studded with a dozen flickering green torches, casting an eerie light across the chamber. The only other feature of the ominous space was a low, rectangular granite plinth, or maybe a table, right in the middle.

Renee paused, peering around in case she’d overlooked someone, or something, hiding in plain sight, and then tried her magic again, casting a Light spell.

It worked, the light flickering on the simple wand she pulled on her belt to fix it to, though its clean white light seemed frail compared to the flickering green of the torches.

She dismissed the spell and slipped the wand back into her belt pouch, took one more look around, and then started walking towards the middle of the chamber. As she approached, the green light felt like it moved with her, swirling in the air like dust or silt in water, and the closer she got, the more it seemed to swirl around, and then above the table. About fifteen feet from it, the green light took shapes, and at ten feet they solidified.

Three green, spectral men, sitting shoulder to shoulder, on the waist-high granite table. The one on the left was dressed in flowery clothing, like a young noble at court attempting to peacock around. The one in the middle wore a suit of fancy, but functional, armour and had a scimitar resting against his knees. The final man on the right wore simple, well-made clothing. Sturdy, but tailored. And he was missing his right hand at the wrist, his left leg just below the knee, and one of his eyes.

Other than the missing eye, they all bore the same face of a man in his middle years, handsome with a bit of scruff on his cheeks and chin, his eyes slightly sunken from exhaustion. And all three were frowning just slightly, like they were disapproving of what they saw as they looked at her.

“Do I recognise it?” Elyse asked. “I’m guessing this is supposed to be Hastor.”

“You haven’t seen any paintings of him that would let you recognise him, but you can still roll a Perception check.”

Elyse rolled. “Um. Seventeen. That’s pretty good?”

“Good enough that while you don’t recognise him, you can see a family resemblance between this face and Lady Eileen,” I said.

Renee hesitated for just a moment as she met the gazes of the three men, then shook her head and approached right up to comfortable speaking distance. “Hastor,” she said, nodding to the one that seemed to be the oldest representation of the man. “Steel Prince,” she then nodded to the middle-aged warrior. And then she smirked a little as she looked at the youngest one. “Shit-head who has no idea what fate had coming for him.”

“What, pray tell, pitiful soul of the living, do you think you are doing, stepping into my tomb?” asked all three of the men at once, each of them sneering just slightly and arching their right eyebrow questioningly.

Elyse paused a moment before replying, and I let her think. The difference between regular group roleplaying and a duet game where there was only one player, there wasn’t anyone else to bounce ideas off of or to come up with a variety of ideas. Considering we were trying to have what was basically a shared delusion of a fantasy world, giving the solo player a chance to consider what they wanted to say in the middle of a conversation was fair.

“OK, um, I don’t know if what I want to do would blow up this whole thing, or break the rules or something,” she eventually said, lips twisted up in a frustrated pout as she looked up from her character sheet to me.

“Well, what rule do you think you’re breaking?” I asked.

“I don’t know if- I have a suspicion about these guys, but I don’t know if Renee would have the same suspicion,” she explained. “So is that meta-playing, or whatever Tori calls it?”

“Meta-knowledge,” I nodded. “I guess it depends - did you go reading a bunch of the monster bestiaries and you think you know something that Renee wouldn’t?”

“No,” she shook her head.

“Do you think I’m referencing some piece of media, and you get the reference, but Renee obviously doesn’t know it?”

“I don’t think so?” she hedged.

“If it’s not based on those two kinds of things, and you just have a feeling, it’s totally fair for Renee to have the same thought as you,” I assured her.

Elyse nodded, chewing on her lip for a second as she looked down at her character sheet again, rolling her d20 in one hand.

Renee cocked her head, narrowing her eyes at the three ghosts as they looked at her with their mirrored expressions. Then she sighed and shook her head, smirking a little. “You aren’t Hastor,” she scoffed, a little dismissive and a little playful. “You’re just wearing his face. Who are you? Are you Obstinance?”

I blinked, my eyebrows shooting up, a little shocked by that.

Elyse raised an eyebrow at me.

I shuffled a couple of papers behind my DM screen and found a blank one, folding it in half and then lifting it up so she could see before ripping it in half, symbolically letting her know she’d just figured out and skipped a big chunk of the puzzle and avoided whatever difficulties would have come with them. My actual notes were mixed in with a bunch of other stuff I still needed, but she didn’t need to know that. “What gave it away?” I asked as she broke into a grin. “Actually, hold on, don’t answer me.”

The ghosts all glared in alarm at Renee for a moment, and then the middle one’s shoulders drooped as he sighed and shook his head, the other two mirroring him on either side a fraction of a second later. Then they swirled again, breaking into that green light and becoming a torrent that eventually compressed into a new form. This one looked an awful lot like a Dwarven man lounging on the table with his thickly muscled arms braced behind him and his big, hairy feet hanging off the edge and kicking idly. All he was wearing was a long loincloth and a thick coating of wispy black body hair, his belly bulging with a strange mixture of beer gut and muscles. His beard was short and unreasonably manicured into symmetrical patterns on his cheeks, the moustache oiled and waxed into curled points, and the chin a tight little point.

“I am not my Lord Obstinance,” the dwarven man said, his bushy eyebrows shifting and doing almost as much talking as his words. “But it was a good guess. How could you tell?”

“A friend mentioned that Hastor called Obstinance the ‘One-Faced God,’” Renee said. “Which stood out to me, since most of the time people say Gods have ‘many faces’ for one reason or another.”

“That fucking sphinx,” the dwarf sighed, shaking his head, then shrugged and grimaced in a friendly, if curmudgeonly, way. “Don’t tell him you picked up on that, he’ll totally get a boner over it.”

“That doesn’t sound like my problem,” Renee smirked.

“Too true,” the dwarf chuckled. “So, same question then, you smart little thing. What do you want with Hastor’s tomb?”

Renee paused a moment, considering her answer carefully. She might not have been speaking to Obstinance, but this was at least one of his servants. She wasn’t big on The Gods in general, and maybe Olivia would have been better suited to his whole thing, but Renee was the one who was there, and she’d have to do this her way.

“Before speaking to the Sphinx, I would have told you all about the heroics my friends and I need to do, and the people we’re helping,” the sorceress said. “But, knowing who you serve, I don’t think you would particularly care about that. So I’ll be blunt - I’m here for whatever is left because I’ve earned it. We pacified the ancient ghosts in their burial mound, we answered all the riddles and puzzles, and I crossed the chamber without pissing off the Sphinx. Unless you have some extra test I need to do, I’d say I’ve got a right to whatever Hastor took with him when he died and fully expected someone to come looking for it.”

The dwarf nodded, pursing his lips and raising one bushy eyebrow appraisingly as he looked Renee up and down for a long moment. Then he broke into a grin and sat up, clapping his big hands together. “Great!” he said happily. “That’s just what I wanted to hear.” He hopped down from the table and moved to one end. “Come on, help me open this sucker up, and you can claim Hastor’s Gift.”

“Just like that?” Renee asked, slightly confused at the turn of events.

“For sure, just like that,” the dwarf said, gesturing to the other end of the slab. “Come on, I can’t open it myself. I hope you’ve got at least a little leverage in those skinny arms.”

“OK, hold on,” Renee said, going towards the other end of the table - which might or might not have been Hastor’s actual sarcophagus. “Aren’t you here to guard his stuff, or his body, or something?”

“I mean, technically, sure,” the dwarf said. “But you beat the ghosts, and the puzzles, and the Sphinx. You earned it, you said it yourself. You get to claim His Gift.”

“Wait, what do you mean by His Gift?” she asked, saying it the same way he had. “Are we talking about the same thing, here?”

“Look, lady, do you want a bunch of magic gifts or not?” he asked, gesturing in exasperation.

“You’re dodging the question,” Renee pointed out. “Whose Gift?”

The dwarf’s expression turned sour. “You already know,” he said.

“Fuck,” Renee cursed, leaning away from the table. “You’re not talking about Hastor’s stuff, you’re talking about Obstinance’s Gift. What did- ‘The Attention of the Gods’? That’s what the Sphinx called it.”

“No shit,” the dwarf grunted. “You’ll get some good stuff, too. Cross my heart. But you are walking away with Obstinance’s Gift, no ifs, ands or buts about it.”

“And if I don’t want it?” the sorceress asked coldly, looking around the circular chamber.

“Do you see any doors down here?” the Dwarf chuckled. “Look, he wants you to have it, and we’re talking about Obstinance here. That’s not gonna change now, so you might as well just take it. Hastor did, and look what it got him!”

“Dead?”

“OK, he was still mortal,” the Dwarf shrugged.

“Didn’t he lose a hand, a foot and an eye after getting ‘the attention of the Gods’?”

“That… was a series of unfortunate events that Hastor brought on himself,” the Dwarf grunted. “And the Gift doesn’t make you unkillable or unmaimable, that’s against The Rules.”

Renee sighed. “What rules?”

He shrugged. “I can’t tell you that. And not in an ‘I’m being a dick’ way, I mean I’m bound by supernal law not to tell any mortals The Rules. Hell, I can’t actually use the real term for The Rules, just a generic moniker."

“What the fuck?” Renee muttered, rubbing a hand over her face.

“Let’s just get this sucker open, you claim the Gift and all the stuff, and you can get on out of here,” the Dwarf said. “It’s kind of a no-options scenario here, and you’re getting what you wanted.”

“But you- or Obstinance- want it too much,” the sorceress grunted. “Which is suspicious.”

The Dwarf just shrugged.

Renee eyed him up and down again, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “You’re not just a dwarf, right?” she eventually asked. “Like, you’re some sort of magical servant of Obstinance, if you're just hanging around down here without any food or water, not losing your mind.”

“I think dwarves would take issue with being called just dwarves,” he answered. “But no, I’m not. I’m a —” Whatever he said, it was in a language that Elyse didn’t understand. In fact, it didn’t even sound like a language or words. At her questioning look, he grimaced slightly. “You mortals like to call us ‘angels,” he clarified. “And I’ve been called a ‘messenger angel’ more than once, but I take offence at that.”

“Fuck me, OK,” Renee grunted, pinching the bridge of her nose for a moment before starting to grin slyly. She dropped her hand from her face, stood up straight with nice posture, and then sauntered around the table toward the Dwarf-Angel. “So, do angels fuck?” she asked.

“Do angels- What?” he asked in surprise. “Of course we do. How else do you think we get more angels? What are you- Oh.”

“Is that against The Rules?” Renee smirked, coming to a stop in front of the Dwarf-Angel and then silently undoing the belt that kept her dark robe closed.

“Nope,” the Dwarf-Angel grunted, his eyes travelling up and down Renee’s lean form as she let the robe fall from her shoulders and slither to the floor, revealing her nudity to him. He licked his lips like a hungry man staring down a burger on a grill, but managed to tear his eyes from his hips and tits to look up and meet her gaze. “I’ll, ah, give you what you want, but only if you swear you’re claiming His Gift.”

“I’ll swear that, if you answer one question for me truthfully, the way I intend it, when we’re done,” the sorceress countered. “And you want this as much as I do.”

“As long as it isn’t against The Rules,” he grunted.

“Agreed,” Renee said, offering her his hand to shake.

- - - - -

“Oh, fuck yes,” Elyse moaned, writhing her hips as she stirred my cock deep inside of her. “God, Dwarf cock is good.”

“Technically, I’m not a dwarf,” I reminded her, using the deep baritone voice I’d given the Angel NPC.

“Shut up,” Elyse said, dropping back into Renee’s faux-French accent as she leaned back down from sitting tall, kissing me firmly as she started bouncing her hips up and down, riding my stiff cock and moaning into my lips.

I grunted and wrapped one arm around her back fully, then carefully rolled us over so I was on top of her and started thrusting into her hard enough that the sturdy table leaves actually shuddered a little underneath us.

Fucking on the table wasn’t an unheard of thing in The Game, particularly once I’d bought the extra-solid dining room table for the game space. A woman being bent over it, or sitting on the edge, was pretty common.

Both partners being up in the middle of the table was a lot more rare, and one little part of my mind was worried about us rolling too far in one direction and spilling to the floor. There probably wouldn’t be any broken bones, but it would still hurt, and I didn’t bounce like I would have back in my early twenties.

“Oh, fuck,” Elyse panted. “Fuck, Shane. Fuck. That’s good. Oh my God, you fucking Angel. Do your fucking worst, the last guy I fucked who wasn’t an angry ghost was a werewolf. I can take whatever you can dish out.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked, managing to keep most of the growl out of my voice so I didn’t accidentally slip towards the Houndsfang voice and maintain my role as the Dwarf-Angel. “Are you some sort of ‘fuck anyone but your own kind’ slut? Did this little mortal cunt start dripping the second you saw me?”

Elyse grunted hard, shuddering through a small, precursor orgasm as her eyes went extra wide. Then she sucked in a breath quickly and grunted against, clawing at my back with both hands. “Shane, I’m fucking dripping wet as soon as I start driving over her,” she panted. “I get wet just thinking about the game, or you.”

“Naughty girl,” I growled, dropping my voice as well and burying my lips into the crook of her neck, suckling softly. I didn’t want to leave a hickey. I ramped up my thrusting into a fever pitch, hitting my top gear.

Elyse mumbled something under her breath.

I lifted myself from her neck, kissing her panting lips lightly and using one hand to brush her hair from her face. “What was that, baby?” I asked her, a bit of that growl in my voice from the sheer effort I was putting into pounding her.

My little blonde lover blushed hard and shook her head, not wanting to repeat whatever naughty thought she’d had. Instead of answering, she grabbed my face with both hands and kissed me again before pulling back with a gasp. “Fill up your whore’s little cunt,” she begged me. “God, creampie me, Shane. I wanna feel it so bad.”

I grunted, decided we had all night, and let go of my stranglehold on my orgasm as I crushed my cock as deep into her as I could get and unleashed the first blast of cum. Her chin dropped wide open, and her eyes went wide again as she let out a keening whine, hugging me down to her tightly as she started to come right along with me.

- - - - -

“That… was pretty good,” Renee murmured, lying next to the Dwarf-Angel on top of the table. They were both naked, sweaty and starting to feel a little sticky, but the blonde sorceress continued to fondle his cock with one hand as they mutually stared up at the domed, sandstone ceiling high overhead.

“I’d say that was better than pretty good, mortal,” the Dwarf-Angel growled.

“The werewolf was better,” Renee smirked.

The Dwarf-Angel scoffed, then looked over and saw the little grin on her face and grunted. Then he sat up, swung his leg over her so he was straddling his chest, and tapped his big, half-hard cock against her lips. “Suck it, mortal,” he ordered. “I was holding back. This time, don’t be surprised if I break you.”

Renee leaned her head up just a little, sucking on the crown of his cock firmly, her eyes flashing in a tired, hungry acceptance of his challenge.

- - - - -

Neither of us particularly cared that the sheer physics of our position didn’t make sense of the scene. The Dwarf-Angel’s stature wouldn’t have technically allowed him to fuck her from behind while she was bent over the back of the couch, particularly not with his feet planted firmly on the ground and also reaching forward, one hand firmly bundling Elyse’s hair in my fist and yanking her head back towards me with each savage thrust, my other hand fishooking two fingers into the side of her mouth.

She was panting and moaning through her open mouth each time I punched my cock into her, and her legs were shaking from the simmering, straining hold she had, resisting her orgasm.

I’d told her to hold it until I gave her permission, and she was managing it. Barely.

Elyse exhaled heavily as I pulled my cock out of her completely, releasing her hair and her mouth at the same time, and sank low over the back of the couch as her body relaxed from the strain she’d been under. This, of course, meant her pretty little ass was high in the air, already pink from the spanking I’d given her earlier and the pounding it had gotten from hip pelvis, and I took full advantage of her position as I brought both my hands down in a hard double spank that clapped against her firm cheeks.

“Ungh,” Elyse grunted, her thighs and ass clenching from the strike, and then she moaned a long whimper.

“Come here,” I grunted, picking her up bodily and flipping her over so her ass was balanced on top of the couch, and pulling her up so she was sitting up high and resting her forearms on my shoulders. She was grinning like a drunk, her expression tired but thrilled. The small amount of makeup she’d been wearing when she initially came over was gone from the sweat and tears, just a light raccooning around her eyes.

I positioned my cock back at the entrance of her bright, vibrant pink, used pussy and slid in about halfway.

“Unh,” she grunted.

I pulled all the way out and then thrust in again, deeper. All the way.

“Unh,” she moaned.

I lightly slapped her face, little more than a tap, and she blinked in surprise and then looked at me in shocked hunger. I gave her another one, and her mouth opened wider in surprise.

“OhfuckdaddycanIpleasecome?” she blurted out, stumbling over her words.

I pulled her to me, kissing her hard, my tongue dominating hers as I began driving my cock into her hard enough that the couch was bouncing on the hardwood floor. She started to whine into the kiss, a long keening note that started to rise in pitch as her cunt clenched and her whole body flexed, trying to hold on.

Ending the kiss, I hugged her to me, one hand sliding up her sweat-slick back and wrapping my fingers into her hair again, yanking it back as I kissed her throat.

“Come right now,” I ordered her.

“FFFUuuuwwaaaaaa-” Elyse roared, her fingernails digging into my back as she exploded, a wash of her slick girlcum leaking out of her as she relaxed her control and careened into her climax like she’d been the front of a rollercoaster hanging over the edge of its steepest drop. “Thaaaaankyooouuu,” she moaned, sobbing from the effort of her orgasm as her entire body throbbed with what she was feeling. I’d stopped thrusting, buried deep in her, but used my hips to stir my cock inside her, grinding around in her.

She was mostly finished coming, her eyes blinking dreamily, when I could hold it any longer. I’d already come inside my little blonde coed slut, though, and I knew Elyse would revel in something nasty, so I pulled my achingly hard cock out of her and, using my hand in her hair and another on her hip to guide her, I ordered, “Knees.”

Elyse went, looking at me dreamily, a gigantic, sloppy grin on her lips as she expected me to thrust my cock into her mouth.

But I kept guiding her, lowering further, down to the spattered puddle of her juices on the hardwood.

“Lick up your mess, Elyse,” I told her.

“Uuuuuunnnggg,” she moaned, her eyes dilating as she processed that filthy order and immediately stuck out her tongue and broadly slurped at the puddle.

“Fuck,” I groaned, kneeling over her as she continued to slurp away, stroking my cock hard and fast.

She looked up at me from the corner of her wide eyes, not stopping what she was doing, and pressed her cheek into the puddle.

I came, raining my hot cum down onto her face, the floor. Her neck. Her hair. I marked her like I was claiming her, and she moaned like an absolute whore as she felt every hot, slick rope and drop hit her skin.

“Good girl,” I panted once I was done, light-headed and trying to catch my breath. “Good girl, Elyse.”

“Hmmhmmhmm,” she hummed, still slurping up our now combined juices from the floor, laughing drunkenly through her open mouth.

- - - - -

“OK,” Renee said, lying on the table again. Still naked, but she’d used magic to clean both herself and the Dwarf-Angel up. “You beat the werewolf.”

“Damn fucking straight,” the Dwarf-Angel muttered obstinately.

“I get my question now?”

He grunted. Just because they were cleaned up didn’t mean they weren’t tired.

“Why does Obstinance want me to get the Gift?” Renee asked. “I mostly just out-thought a bunch of puzzles with my friends. And out-fucked some ghosts. And you. I’m not some big warrior like Hastor was.”

“I think I outfucked you,” the Dwarf-Angel argued.

“Whatever,” Renee murmured, running her fingers through his short beard and then giving it a tug. “Answer me.”

“My Lord Obstinance wanted Hastor,” the Dwarf-Angel sighed. “All the Gods are currently seeking mortal champions, but My Lord… is set in his ways.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Renee snorted.

“It’s his nature,” the messenger shrugged. “He wanted Hastor, but Hastor is obviously dead and can’t do much championing. The Order of Enigma deemed you his successor, and if Obstinance can’t have exactly what he wants, he’ll only stand for the next closest thing.”

“And that’s me, because I walked across a room,” Renee said.

“Sure,” the Dwarf-Angel shrugged.

“And the Gods are all recruiting champions right now?” she asked. “Is that normal?”

“... No,” he said quietly. “But don’t ask me why.”

“The Rules?”

He shook his head. “No one knows but them.”

“Awkward,” Renee murmured, then a little softer. “Ominous.”

“Mmm,” the Dwarf-Angel agreed.

They were silent for a long moment.

“Wait, he only decided while I was walking through the Sphinx chamber?” Renee asked. “So you haven’t been just waiting down here since Hastor died?”

“What?” the Dwarf-Angel asked. “No, of course not. I’m not crazy like some fucking Sphinx.”

“So you weren’t hard up for sex.”

“Not at all, I’ve got a wife back home.”

“And she’s not going to have a problem with you fucking a mortal?”

He shrugged. “What happens on other planes, stays on other planes.”

Renee snorted, then sat up. “Alright. How do I get these ‘gifts’?”

- - - - -

Hastor was not, in fact, directly under the table that Renee had just been thoroughly fucked on. Once she and the Dwarf-Angel (mostly him) moved the top off of the solid plinth, it revealed a hole heading straight downwards. He’d given her an expectant look, and she’d sighed, rolled her eyes, then swung her legs over the edge and hopped in.

Again, falling in nothingness. The light from the chamber she had left disappeared quickly, and she had no sense of walls on either side of her. No echo if she shouted or screamed. No hint as to when it might-

She stumbled again and found herself in a dimly lit room, her shadow cast from a wedge of light directed from behind her. Renee turned and realised she was looking out through the doorway into Hastor’s tomb - a doorway that wasn’t leading into a dark void at all, but into this small space just wide enough to hold the simple wooden sarcophagus set on a stone plinth.

Whatever she had just experienced, it hadn’t been here.

Muttering in frustration, Renee checked herself over. Nothing seemed different. Her robes were in place, and the small amount of equipment she usually carried was still on her person. She had both tits, both nipples, and no strange marks on her as far as she could tell.

“Fucking. Gods,” she scoffed, shaking her head.

The sorceress went to the coffin and ran a hand across the foot of it, then decided it might be pertinent to check for any last-minute surprises, so she cast Detect Magic again. That seemed to be a good idea, because there were multiple auras held within the coffin, but also one in the room with her. Following it to the source, she found a dull rainbow bag, stitched to look like it had a smiling face made out of the top fold of the mouth. It was bulky but very light, and when she opened it and stuck her hand in there didn’t seem to be anything inside, but she was also able to go all the way into her shoulder without touching the bottom.

That would be useful.

Slinging the bag over her shoulder, Renee turned her attention back to the coffin. None of the auras seemed particularly dangerous, so she grunted softly and tried lifting the lid. It needed a good tug, but wasn’t nailed down, and even her skinny arms were able to haul the lid to the side so she could let it fall to the floor with a loud clatter.

“I guess you must be Hastor,” Renee murmured, looking down at a dried-out, almost mummified corpse. It didn’t smell, thankfully, but it was definitely gross-looking and dessicated. It also happened to be wearing a brilliant set of yellow and silver armour, and other items were in the coffin with it. Renee cautiously reached in to remove the first item.

The gasp of air made her jump back, pulling her hand away just in time as Hastor’s corpse sat upright, his withered lungs rattling in his ribcage as he sucked in air and his spinal column ground against itself as he turned to glare at Renee.

Hastor spoke, his loose jaw working, and the sounds that came out of him were words that his lipless skull should not have been able to form, let alone the full sentences of gibberish that Renee couldn’t understand.

“I don’t speak whatever that is,” she growled at the Zombie Hastor in frustration. He didn’t seem to understand her back, but he did start to get agitated, babbly faster. More aggressively.

And then sand started to pour out of his empty eye sockets, down through his open chest cavity, and piled in the interior of the coffin.

“Fuck. This,” Renee said. And she did the first thing that came to mind, the same thing that Hastor had done, and that had inspired her to walk across the chamber under the gaze of the Sphinx in the first place. She reached out, deciding that if he was holding on to some ancient magic that was causing this, the best thing she could do was grab it and wrench it free.

As soon as her fingers brushed Hastor’s cold, undead remains, Renee gasped as the worst headache she had ever felt suddenly pierced through her skull. It poured into her, through her. She felt it down to the bones in her toes, and it only grew, making her skull feel like it was overflowing, stretching, threatening to burst…

Renee gasped, blinking her eyes open. She’d blacked out. Gulping and gasping for more air, she stood up from where she’d collapsed on the floor of the tomb.

Hastor, or what had remained of him, was gone. His armour and the other strange items that had been buried with him were still there. And, where he’d been sitting, was a scattering of bright white sand.

“Alright,” Renee said, shaking her head and taking the pack back off and opening it, starting to unceremoniously loot the coffin of all its potential valuables. “Let’s get the fuck out of this fucking tomb.”

- - - - -

Elyse sighed happily in my arms, snuggling back a little bit more against my chest. It had been one hell of a fun night, even after we’d finished her solo session. We’d made dinner together, and I’d taught her the recipe for my famous Cookie Bars recipe for dessert before enjoying a plate full of the warm, yummy treats out in the hot tub for a soak and a makeout session. Then we’d come back inside, after some teasing outside about taste in music, and we’d picked songs for each other to listen to. We ended up dancing, and as the old saying goes - dancing leads to kissing, and kissing leads to sex.

It might have been one of the best dates I’d ever been on, and it hadn’t even been a date.

And that, most of all, was confusing for me. Because it wasn’t a date. I was twenty years Elyse’s senior, her and the girls were my players, and I knew I was feeling fairly equally about all of them, and this summer fun was supposed to be… fun. A game.

It was definitely playful and fun, but this part didn’t feel like a game.

Not falling asleep with this gorgeous little oddball naked in my arms. Not thinking about how Tori had already mentioned wanting to do something similar. And how Rhia would almost definitely look for the same.

Sleep was my escape from those concerns, though it might have been the coward's way out. I didn’t quite mind after the exhausting evening I’d had.