FREE USE in a Fantasy World

Maya slipped down the corridor with growing reluctance, following the stench.

A dozen times now she’d had to dodge around goblin guards as they swarmed down the passage in search of her.

Half a dozen times she’d not been able to, and in her wake left crumpled forms in the dark. Her daggers had tasted blood often under the earth, but that was nothing to good Argonnia steel! Best in the East and West.

Ugh. Even in her head she couldn’t be rid of that damn slogan.

Maya didn’t hate being a corporate stooge, her heroics used to advertise wares, her reputation sold for gold.

There were worse jobs for a catgirl. Walk down any red light district and you’d see what else might have awaited her. Beastgirls were in high demand among the brothel owners.

Still, times like this, she wondered if it wouldn’t have been easier...

The smell was getting stronger. The same one she’d smelled in Hog’s Cross. The reek of pigs. Not exactly the cleanest animal. Her nose wrinkled at the stench, but she pushed on.

Why the hell did the goblins bring the pigs so deep into the earth? What were they doing with them? And just what had been that thing in the tunnel? And why was the passage she was moving down now made of ancient, worked stone?

She hadn’t dared a light for some time now, but when she ran her hand along the stone passage, she felt designs engraved in the walls. Old designs. Designs she was maybe lucky she couldn’t see.

A light gleamed ahead, and Maya slowed her steps, creeping now.

The tunnel opened up not far, a ruined doorway and wall looking freshly excavated, and a pair of goblin guards stood at attention, or what passed for it with goblins. Maya weighed her blades with care, considering. No sneaking past.

Oh well.

She tossed her blades, caught them by the hilts, and threw both. The hum of the daggers made the goblins straighten, and when the two blades thudded into their chests, they toppled.

Maya slipped up the passage, pulling her knives from the two new corpses, not bothering to clean them. She had a feeling they’d shed more blood yet...

The elf crept up to the tunnel mouth and peered through. It took her a moment to understand what she was seeing.

A huge room opened up before her. The ceiling stretched high, meeting in an arching dome.

Ancient stone effigies of horrific faces leered like giants from the walls, and in whose fanged, mouths fires burned and crackled with ill green flames.

Cracks spiderwebbed around the stonework, attesting their age and whatever disaster had dragged them below the earth, but it was the middle of the room that drew Maya’s attention.

A massive pen had been built into the side, its crude construction attesting to what passed for goblin carpentry, and in it squealed and grunted pigs.

Dozens, if not hundreds of hogs snorting, stomping, and generally doing what pigs do, none of which was particularly appealing.

There was also a man there, watching it.

That surprised Maya. Dressed in a loose robe, his hair a dishevelled mess and spectacles askew, he was considering the pigs with care.

"Mmmm, that one," he said.

"Right," two goblins, the only goblins in the room, Maya noticed, said.

They ducked into the fence and grabbed one of the pigs, dragging it out with some effort.

The pig squealed, kicking and throwing itself from side to side, nearly bowling over the two goblins as they struggled to drag it into the middle of the room.

There the ancient designs seemed to meet, rising into an altar with rather too much fresh blood on it for Maya’s liking.

"Secure it properly," the disheveled said human as he watched goblins tie the pig down to the altar as it kicked and made a terrible racket.

The human picked up a silver dagger and lazily played with it, hanging it between his fingers and swinging it back and forth like a pendulum as he waited for the goblins to finish.

Once they were done, he waved them aside with annoyance.

A fresh burst of squealing came from the pig as it looked up at the man with animal fear. The poor beast understood nothing but its spread-eagled discomfort. Its stubby legs not meant to be tied and pulled in different directions.

The human rolled his neck like a cat burglar about to begin a climb into a top floor apartment.

He extended his hands, splayed his fingers, and began to chant in a voice much deeper than before.

Maya felt the atmosphere change into the room. Grow colder and more charged with ethereal power. Her hairs stood on end and her muscles twitched involuntarily.

Magic gathered around the blade of the dagger. A vortex of power visible as swirling ribbons of violet and bruised green. The pig panicked.

The sorcerer swung the dagger over the beast, moving it to the eight points of an octagram. At each, he pricked the beast, the slight bubble of blood glowing. The animal shook and convulsed and the magic seemed to pour into its body like venom.

Warmth returned to the room and the charged atmosphere was gone. The sorcerer lowered his arms with disinterest and gestured again to the goblins, who hurried forward and began to untie the pig.

The beast began to kick, but not as he had before. Maya gasped as she watched the creature change, even as the ropes were undone.

She could see the face grow wider. The arms stretching. The trotters becoming fat, nubby fingers. The pig’s snout frothed and it gurgled and squealed softly, beginning to stir.

"Ugh. I hate this part," the sorcerer sighed. "Come on. Come on. Get the lead out. Or I’ll get the whip out."

"Yes, boss," the goblins said, carrying the twitching pig with them out of the room.

The sorcerer sighed and tossed the bloody dagger into a basin of water.

He straightened his spectacles, though they couldn’t really be straightened because one of the arms was bent.

He slumped onto a stool, leaning back, an arm across his brow in maudlin exhaustion.

Oblivious to Maya. Never seeing her as she crept up behind him. Picked the dagger up out of the water. Didn’t even notice as her hand reached around his shoulder, finally coming aware of her as she moved the silver blade to his throat.

"Wha?"

"Not a move," hissed Maya, her lips very close to his ear. "Give me your name first."

"Rigar," he said, tilting his head just enough to get a look at her. He brightened visibly. "Oooooh, a catgirl. Me-ow."

"Stop talking," Maya growled. "Unless I ask a question, don’t speak. I don’t like your voice. I don’t like you or any of this. Sorcerers make me feel... stabby."

"Mmm," Rigar said. "As you command."

"Good," Maya said, already disturbed. She grabbed his hands and twisted them behind his back, binding his wrists together with a length of leather cord that she threaded between his fingers.

Rigar groaned as she viciously cinched the cord tight in a sorcerer’s knot. Meant to keep him from doing magic. She smiled at her handiwork as he tried in vain to tighten his fingers into a fist.

Maya shoved Rigar down to his knees beside his stool. He groaned, almost flopping forward onto his face, but she caught him by the collar and hauled him back up as she walked around to his front.

She held him by his shaggy hair, her tail switching from side to side as she looked at the unimpressively skinny and pallid sorcerer.

"I’ll never talk," he said, a hint of a smile playing at his lips.

"Really?" Maya twitched her ears and tail. "Oh, the things I could do to you, Rigar. But I’m pressed for time. So answer me quickly or the pain begins. What are you doing here?"

"What kind of pain?" he asked, eyes shining. "The brutal kind? The quick kind? Oooh, or the sensitive grmph!"

Maya removed the toe of her boot from his stomach. "That kind," she growled.

"Ohhhh baby..." Rigar groaned, doubled over, his pants tenting notably.

Maya wrinkled her nose in disgust and gave him a shake. "Talk! What’s going on here."

Rigar straightened a little, his cheeks strangely flushed. "Mmm. Rituals," he said. "Transmuting pigs into warriors."

"For the goblins?"

"Mmmm," he moaned, his smile was almost mocking as he lolled his head. "No, not them."

"Who then?"

"Oh dear, I appear to be uncooperative," Rigar cooed. "The mistress would be so cross if I revealed aaaaanything."

"So it’s pain you want?" Maya said, showing him her claws fingertips.

"Oh, no, please," Rigar panted. "Not thaaaaat."

She raked her claws down the front of his robe, slicking through the fabric and exposing his sunken, almost emaciated chest.

Pale and covered in strange tattoos and unpleasant scars. She slashed again, ripping the robe down to his waist.

His cock was similarly marked with tattoos. Untrimmed. It was bigger than she expected for a skinny sorcerer. Then again, he was also absolutely rock hard.

Great. Just her luck. Fucking sorcerers. Perverts, all of them.

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