Author's note:
All chapters thus far have been commissioned works. If you want to commission a chapter or story of your own, see my profile for details or PM me with further questions. Don't hesitate; by the beginning of 2025, my rates will have jumped significantly.
Anyway, let us rejoin Leina and Rowin...
Leina's boots crunched through blackened leaves and dead wood as she hurried towards the sounds of battle. What began as what she'd expected of an Elven forest had quickly decayed into a blackened marsh, with leafless trees and rotting logs covered in smelly moss.
No, not a marsh, she realized. It's a swamp.
Memories from the previous day surfaced, of Leina's time under the thrall of the undead Princess Menace. A darker power had fueled Menace's sorcery, one that had wrapped its claws around Leina's brain and seized her very thoughts. The power had gone, but the being who'd commanded it had a name, one that echoed in Leina's mind more than it ever had as a child.
The Swamp Witch…
Leina's run slowed, and not because of the softer, wetter ground. Her last three encounters with the Swamp Witch's power had left her barely standing. First Melona, the Protean Assassin, had cornered Leina on the road and nearly killed her before Risty came to her aid. Next, Melona had hunted Leina down for calling her what she rightfully was: a monster. Leina had only defeated her thanks to quick thinking and her mother's magical armor, sealing Melona's acidic breast milk until it backed up and literally exploded from Melona's body. Then, Menace had abducted her and turned her into a mindless thrall to her whim, before Rowin had snapped her out of it.
Now, there was whatever lay ahead. She looked back and saw Rowin trailing a dozen strides behind her, doubled over with his hands on his knees. His blonde hair spilled over his eyes as he looked up at Leina.
"Just go!" he called, before coughing harshly. "I'll catch up!"
Leina steeled herself and ran on, hoping to ally with whomever was giving the Swamp Witch's minion a fight. Otherwise, Leina would need rescuing yet again.
Her armored boots were sinking toe-deep into mossy earth by the time she saw the fight. She passed through the same kind of half-sphere that had enveloped her when she'd fought Claudette.
So, this is a Queen's Blade battle.
The combatants were on the ground, or at least one of them was. That one looked like a young girl, no older than 15 or so, her arms and legs bulky with bright orange armguards and greaves. She batted at her opponent with a long wooden staff, weighted on both ends, her long brown twintails swaying around her shoulders. Her torso was unprotected, with only crisscrossed strips of white cloth covering her breasts. She jumped back, her orange skirt kicking up-
Leina blanched. She's not wearing underwear!
So, it wasn't just Echidna. By her pointy ears, the young girl was an elf, and it seemed that elves believed in feeling the wind.
Her opponent, the ungrounded one, flew forward and slashed at the girl with an enormous war scythe. Her red hair was also done up in twintails, bridged by a white lace headpiece that completed the maid outfit she wore. The flying girl had it all: the white apron, the thigh-high stockings, the heeled black shoes, all of it complimented by either black or white lace. She was the spitting image of an evil maid.
The maid caught the elf girl's staff with the crook of her scythe and hooked it aside. With unnatural speed, she flipped the blade around and faced its edge at the elf's exposed midriff. A hooting mesh of pink fur sprung in and wrapped itself around the elf, somehow blunting the scythe. That wasn't enough to blunt the force, though, as the elf was flung to slam into a tree.
"Thanks, Ruu…" the elf grunted. The pink fur, it turned out, was a monkey, who scampered onto the elf's shoulder.
"I'm soooo luckyyy!" the angel above shouted. "I'm, like, luckier than lucky! I've been down here on the surface for two whole days and haven't come across a single Queen's Blade match! Until now! Everything's going my way! I'm so much better at this that the Head Angel will put me in charge of all Queen's Blade matches for sure!"
To Leina's surprise, it wasn't Laila who was officiating, but a different angel. This one, like Laila, had uneven wings, but her off-wing was a shrunken version of her full, feathered white wing. She had light blue hair and wore all white: a camisole, a skirt, and a mismatched pair of gloves, one elegantly long, the other short. She also wore smooth metal greaves that came up to mid-thigh.
She also wore out her welcome, as her self-praising and grating voice quickly reminded Leina of too many self-absorbed aristocrats that her father had introduced her to.
The elf turned and fled through the forest, and the demon maid lazily pursued. Leina did the same, if for no other reason than to measure the caliber of fighter that Risty expected her to compare to.
When the black marsh had become lush green again, she saw the monkey spring from the undergrowth into the demon maid's face. She swatted it aside with her scythe, only for the elf girl to drop from above and double-stomp her back. The maid skidded through moss and dirt, her clothes torn and sullied.
"You can pull off some interesting maneuvers in the forest," the maid said, her clothes knitting themselves back together. Even the dirt stains disappeared off of her face. "It won't be enough to save you, or your delicious-looking essence."
What is she? Leina wondered warily.
The elf attacked, but the maid flew aside. A quartet of miserable-looking ghosts materialized behind the maid and flew to encircle the elf. She batted at them with her staff to no avail: the maid was upon her. An overhead slash caused the elf to stumble back and fall on her butt. Those same spirits coiled around her like snakes and dragged her towards the maid. They were now face-to-face.
"That's it," the maid whispered. "Despair is the best sauce there is. Fill up your heart with fear and anguish as I suck out your essence."
"I feel… So weak…" The elf murmured. A spectral white light flowed from her mouth and into the maid's, before the maid closed the gap and kissed her. The elf struggled, but she could barely kick her legs in the air as the maid moaned and ran her hands over the elf's body.
That maid is a monster! Leina drew her sword. She was still weary from yesterday, but she couldn't sit by and do nothing! She had terrible flashbacks to the fight pit, where Echidna had kissed her to deliver the snake venom antidote. The feeling of helplessness, from both the venom and Echidna's superior form, was one she could see in the elf's features now.
She was one step into her charge when a coughing fit called her attention. She'd forgotten!
"Rowin!"
Ten paces behind her, the blonde minstrel was bracing against a tree, his hacking breath visible despite the warm climate. To Leina's horror, it wasn't steam he was exhaling, for steam didn't settle into a cloud as it spread from someone's mouth.
"Hey, who are you two?" The angel asked. She pointed a finger at them. "You better not interfere with my match or you'll answer to the great archangel Nanael!"
Rowin looked like he was about to say something back, but then he doubled over and nearly collapsed, wheezing for breath.
The maid noticed them now, too. Her eyes shot wide when she saw the coughing man, and she dropped the elf.
"You…"
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"I performed the spell correctly and her will was nowhere near strong enough to resist it!" Menace said through the projection, her lecherous servants Sekmeti and Setra standing/floating behind her amidst an underground pile of rubble and sand. "It must have been that man! He's the one who broke the enslavement!"
Within the blood springs at the heart of the Swamp, Airi saw Melona's memories cast upon the water: a man in a white longcoat, a pack slung around his back with an instrument poking from the top, a sword strapped to each hip. Blonde hair, slender build, angular jaw, the golden glint of armor covering his chest, contrasted by the blue lining of his coat.
"Looks fun," Melona said, her rabbit-ear-hands leaving her nipples as she rubbed them together with glee. "I can wait to see the look on Leina's face when I twist his head off."
Airi wasn't one for boasting, though. Her only thought upon seeing this dangerous man was…
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"Die."
Airi zoomed at Rowin fast enough to leave a dirt-wake along the ground. He let his pack slip off his arms as he tipped sideways. She swung at his ribs, only for Rowin to half-draw his sword and let his whole body absorb the force. He was still leaning, so Airi was momentarily pulled off-balance. Rowin drew his other sword and Airi flew back to dodge his attack.
"Lesser spirits!" she called, and they came once again. The spirits surrounded Rowin and he collapsed to his knees, but Airi was forced to turn and meet the staff of Nowa with her scythe's shaft.
"Hey, don't get distracted!" the angel barked. "If he gets involved the match will be invalidated!"
The mortals all winced internally. Nanael sounded like a yapping dog.
Airi called two of her spirits away from Rowin and set them upon Nowa. Then the other two surrounded the other girl, the one who'd beaten Melona and escaped Menace. With the interlopers secured, Airi turned back to Rowin. She was met with a web of steel as he flourished and flashed his swords before him. It might've been intimidating, if his face wasn't so sickly and Airi wasn't a wraith.
She thrust her scythe into the web and tangled up their blades. Then she kept going and caught Rowin in the chest with the blunt edge of her scythe. Rowin stumbled back, hacking up a lung in a cloud of dust. His blades licked out, striking left, right, up, mid, clanging off of Airi's scythe. She used her reach to her advantage, keeping out of range while she fended off his increasingly sluggish and sloppy sword strikes. She flew up and around him, forcing Rowin to turn and weaken his footing. She smashed her scythe into his block and knocked him to the ground.
He still had enough to crisscross-block Airi's next slash. She simply pulled the blades down and shoved her face close to his.
"I wonder what you'll taste like," Airi murmured hungrily.
She opened mouth. His spiritual essence flowed forth, its color a sickly pale green instead of the pure white Nowa's had been. Rowin's eyelids fluttered and his body started to go slack.
Airi paused in her partaking. "Hmm… I taste despair, but also defiance… Oh. You're dying already, aren't you?"
She pushed him onto his back and drove her scythe into the ground. Its haft crossed his chest, pinning his arms in place.
"Not dead yet," he croaked weakly, though he could barely move his legs, let alone escape.
"No," Airi agreed, drawing close again, "not yet."
She opened her mouth again. More essence flowed, and this time she kissed him. He was even more delicious than the elf. Even with his life force peppered with dust and decay, it was like a chaotic marching band of flavors, one after the other, none of them making any sense but each one a new surprise, and a powerful one at that.
She had to have more. Her tongue was eager to taste that transition from defiance to anguish, so much that she thrust it inside his mouth. This human was unlike any she'd tasted. Was he even human at all? She kissed him harder, moaning with pleasure as she felt him grow weaker. She was eager to taste the power that had the Swamp Witch wary.
His eyes closed. Whatever disease he was wracked with had apparently taken too much from him. No matter; all the better for Airi's mistress. Soon, Rowin would be-
"NO!"
The angel's shout was the only warning Airi had. She flew off of Rowin and ripped her scythe from the earth just as the blonde woman, 'Leina' her name was, brought her sword down. To Airi's disappointment, she turned it aside at the last second and merely smacked Rowin with the flat. The blow blew a cloud of dust from his mouth. His breathing was wheezing gasps by now.
Airi looked on, unimpressed. "You're the one who beat Melona?"
"So what if I did?" Leina said, spreading her legs and standing over Rowin.
"You're as much an animal as the elf," Airi said. "Your spirit is bold and restless, yet your mind is refined and focused." She blushed a little, more spirits flying from her body. "I can't wait to taste you."
XXXXXXXXXXXX
"Leina?"
Laila spied her recent acquaintance in the orb that Nanael's broadcast was shown in. If Leina was involved in that fight, and Nowa was the keeper of the Elven Forest, then-
"That's where he is!" Laila exclaimed. She turned around mid-flight, her metal wing clanging against her normal one, and sped back the way she came. She'd been off to officiate Nyx, a promising new contender, but that could wait. There'd be many more duels; there was only one Rowin.
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From inside the bathhouse, through the open window billowing with steam, Tomoe and Shizuka couldn't believe who they saw in the floating orb in the sky.
"For someone who's not trying to win it, Leina sure gets into a lot of Queen's Blade fights," Shizuka remarked.
"I fear her noncommitment may be the end of her," Tomoe said, worried. "Leina is well-intentioned, but her resolve is weak without a cause."
Unbeknownst to them, there was another Queen's Blade contender nearby, relaxing with a stiff drink and watching the very same orb from her rented room.
"That's not too far from here," Echidna said, stroking her snake as he slithered along the window frame. She pouted. "But that nasty master is there. Those two aren't that cute, are they, Kenton?"
The snake glided up her arm and flicked his tongue against her cheek.
"Hmph, well what do you know?" she asked indignantly. She raised her mug to the broadcast. "For now, I'll just drink to your health. You're my favorite humans, after all."
She watched as Leina slashed at the spirits that surrounded her, the spirits dissipating like mist. Airi dove to attack and, for the first time in years, Echidna was genuinely surprised. Leina gave a barbaric yawp and smacked Airi's scythe so hard that it whirled through the air and clunked into a tree. The broadcast ended with Leina's sword tip to Airi's throat.
Leina, it seemed, was dangerous after all. Echidna had her all wrong from their previous meetings.
Echidna closed the window, left Kenton on the bedside table, and started to take off her clothes. She just had to indulge. She'd resisted long enough after getting a whiff of Rowin's killer edge; now Leina had, just for a moment, gotten that same look in her eye. Rowin had been right on the gold: Echidna had a taste for danger, be it jobs, pets, or conquests.
Naked save for her stockings, the wild elf flopped back on the bed and went wild on her hard nipples and soaked nethers. After this, she promised herself she'd get back to her professionalism.
She bit her lip and hissed in ecstasy as images of Rowin and Leina flashed past her mind's eye...
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"Doh, you just had to go and ruin the match!"
Leina ignored the upstart angel. "Leave this place or you'll never see another."
Airi glared at Leina past her sword. Her eyes flicked to her nearby scythe. If Leina wasn't warned by that, she caught the sound of metal coming free of a tree trunk. She raised her buckler and jumped aside; it was a bluff. The scythe had fallen to the ground and Airi was quick to retrieve it.
"I didn't think I'd need this so soon," Airi muttered.
"I warned you!" Leina shouted, charging the wraith.
Airi swung her scythe and cast a black cloud across the woods, rotting them into marshland. She flew high in the air, away from Leina, and looked around.
"There!"
Nowa had recovered in time to see the devastation of the forest, and the three feline shapes emerging from the black morass. Their wide mouths snarled as flesh and guts reknit themselves around old bones.
"No…" Nowa looked ready to weep at the sight of the defiled coyotes.
The coyotes offered no such sympathy. They leapt at Nowa while a fourth corpse, this of a large wolf, attacked Leina. Leina kept herself between the wolf and Rowin's barely-breathing form, but its sheer mass and unfeeling flesh as it clamped its jaws around her sword was more than a handful. Nowa fared little better, the undead coyotes nipped at her heels, trying to bring her down.
Airi was spoiled for choice, but decided on her mission. She swooped down, her scythe raised, ready to bury its blade into Rowin's chest. She failed to notice Rowin's fingers making a stroking motion next to his leg, or his lips moving.
Foompf!
"What?!"
One moment, Airi had been on the cusp of victory. The next, a great big bushy beard had not only sprouted from Rowin's clean-shaven face, but its bristles had blunted her scythe's attack. Not to mention, Rowin wasn't a redhead.
Airi pulled up for another try, but she heard movement in the tree above. Another staff, this one tipped with pointed metal, thrust down at her. It caught her dress as she whirled aside, tearing it open. Airi floated back as unlike before, her dress didn't repair itself. In fact, it disappeared off her body, leaving only her white triangle bra and lace panties to go with her black stockings.
"This isn't over!" she declared as her body became translucent. "My mistress will not be stalled forever!"
She disappeared along with her weapon. The corpses accosting Leina and Nowa were quickly dispatched by crushing blows to their heads, leaving nothing but bone fragments as the bodies rotted back into skeletons.
Leina and Nowa regarded Rowin as he passed out on the forest floor. The blonde elf who'd helped them shook the bone dust from her staff and regarded Nowa.
"Captain!" Nowa exclaimed.
"You almost got yourself killed," the captain said sternly. "You had the advantage of the terrain and barely made use of it. You scored a 35."
Nowa hung her head. "Yes, Captain."
The elf turned to Leina. "And you allowed humans into our forest. For that, you scored a 0."
Nowa groaned sadly.
"This isn't the time for nitpicking!" Leina said, dropping to her knees near Rowin. "Please, there's something wrong with my friend! He's barely breathing!"
The captain stared at Leina, her face betraying nothing. "You assisted Nowa and risked your life for your own. For that, I will make an exception. Bring your friend along."
"Thank you!" Leina said, before heaving Rowin onto her shoulders like she'd seen serfs do with hay bales. "He has a pack. It should be-"
"Is this it?" Nowa asked, the pack hanging off her staff by the shoulder loops.
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"This is quite serious," the silver-haired elf healer said, his fingers weaving invisible patterns in the air. A draft entered the small hut. "Human, open his mouth."
Leina felt a bit strange touching Rowin's face while he was unconscious, but did as she was asked. The healer gestured above Rowin's mouth like an orchestra conductor. Air flowed in, and Rowin began hacking and coughing, his body thrashing violently.
"Hold him down!" the healer ordered. Nowa grabbed his arm. Leina climbed onto the straw bed and sat on his other arm. The captain, Alleyne, watched from the side without comment.
"What's wrong with him?" Nowa asked.
"This is no simple disease, but a curse," said the healer. "His body's turning to dust, and the dust is gathering in his lungs."
Indeed, clouds of the stuff were forced from Rowin's lungs, before another gesture from the healer saw a stream of it exit Rowin's mouth and whiz out the hut's entrance.
"You were right to bring him to me." The healer murmured something else and placed his hands on Rowin's chest. The violent thrashing ceased as the last of the dust was forced from his lungs, and his sickly features got a little of their color back. "I've restored his vitality, but unless the curse is lifted, he'll continue to rot."
"You can't do it yourself?" Leina asked.
"That magic is beyond any elf," Alleyne stated. "It's an ancient scourge the Amarans used on our warrior ancestors, one of many human abominations that forced us to seclude ourselves in the forest. The most our healers could do was treat our warriors and let them die in battle."
The healer stood up straight and brushed the lung-dust off his clothes. "I've done what I will. I suggest you move quickly and soon. The rot's progress is unpredictable. It could take anywhere from two days or two weeks to progress to its previous stage."
Leina bowed respectfully. "I thank you for your help."
All that was left now was to wait for Rowin to awaken. After a minute of awkward silence…
"You're competing in the Queen's Blade, Leina?" Nowa asked.
"Not seriously," Leina said. "My sister challenged me to a duel and it was taken as a Queen's Blade challenge. My only goal right now is to find a friend and give her this."
She showed Nowa the "lucky" double-faced coin of Risty's. "Honestly, if men could rule the continent…" She looked down at Rowin and patted his chest. "He'd have a better chance than me."
"Oh?" Alleyne said, scrutinizing the unconscious human. "He's a warrior, too?"
"A strong one, Captain!" Nowa said. "Airi took one look at him and forgot all about me! Even so close to death, Airi saw him as the biggest threat."
Alleyne cocked her head, now inspecting Rowin more closely.
Leina sighed. "I was pretty outmatched when he sparred with me. I think that's why he fought that huge, undead Amaran by himself."
"Was it a warrior wrapped in bandages? A mummy?" Alleyne asked, and received a nod. She could scarcely believe it. Could be he strong enough to…?
Author's thanks:
As today's Thanksgiving 2024, I'm thankful to the handful of you who're currently reading this strange little crossover between a CRPG adapted from DnD 3.5e and a softcore porno anime adapted from a series of combat books.
I am also thankful to the wonderful patron of my arts, who continues to provide me with the right amount of commission cash to keep this tale going.
But, I am especially thankful to everyone who leaves comments/reviews about this story. You don't need to, nothing would be lost on your part if you didn't, but you do anyway.
Y'all are kewl; let no one else tell you otherwise.