Seetha took her position a few feet behind Jacq between the row of empty tables, keeping one hand upon the smooth pommel of her curved sword, which hung by her hip.

Her companion, meanwhile, traced her fingers along the upper lines of her scanty loincloth before giving them a supple tug over the smooth, voluptuous surfaces of her thick hips. Step one into working her hidden charm was done. Step two was walking with long, tantalizing strides to make her presence known at the bar, though given how tall she was, well-toned in her frame, and how her leopard-patterned garments did little to conceal how curvaceously ample she was in every agreeable part of her womanly form, she was being too supernumerary.
Which only an uncultured fool would say.
It didn’t take long for the two men in leather armor to notice the woman who radiated like a wild fire on the plains. Not far off at table eight, a party’s fearless leader was regaling at how she slew that fiery lindwyrm of the Volcanic Highlands for its diamonds, but her partner’s male gaze was pulled away by an even rarer prize. He didn’t turn around fast enough, and with a shrill cry of “you spineless pervert!” she threw the first punch. Like dominos, they knocked into a few patrons at table seven, and an inn brawl erupted on a short fuse. Though not as rowdy and violent as tavern brawls, inn brawls were by no means tamed or provincial offshoots of their urbanized cousins, for blood had been known to be spilt enough times to repaint the white-washed walls red.

Nevertheless, they were usually contained enough to not disrupt the other patrons minding their own businesses. Some of the more sardonic types rather enjoyed the change of scenery, and would rather watch the bloody spectacle rather than break it up, much to the innkeeper’s displeasure.
Jacq stood next to the first brigand on his left, called for the barkeep, and pretended to take no notice of her surroundings. Already, the first man couldn’t take his eyes off of her backside. Already, he was fervent to ply his trade; the kind that would make a priestess swoon, his father proud, and his mother role in her grave. Typical of his lot, he gave his chum a subtle nudge and a wink, and in response the second man shook his head eagerly, egging him on with a leery look of anticipation on his sweaty face.
“What can I get for ya, dearie?” said the barkeeper’s wife to Jacq. She was tending bar tonight with firm yet ambidextrous hands for a dwarf. “A little underdressed, ain’t ya?” she cocked an eye.
The Rüzgârian smiled politely enough. “I’m from Rüzgâr,” she said brazenly, “so what would be your usual poison for my kind?”
There was a dash of disconcertion on the she-dwarf’s face. Anticipating the cost to be the cause of her hesitation, Jacq flipped two silver florins on the wooden surface of the bar as a sign that she was good for it, never thoroughly crossing her mind that Rüzgârians were also a pariah among the Three Northern Isles. The she-dwarf simply shrugged her broad shoulders before she collected her pay, then knelt down, departed the cabinet doors, pulled out three peculiar bottles of spirits of questionable origins before her patron, and made a penitent sign of the Holy Mother before she began mixing the three contents together in a steel tankard.
The green colored bottle was poured first, up to one quarter; the one labeled: “Apple of Adder and Scream.” The translucent white-green syrup that was poured out, thick as cream, made the bottom of the tankard rattle with a serpent’s vicious velocity before it stilled.

Blue as a pool of tears, the second bottle called “Angostura’s Bitterness” was then added. A heavy white mist slowly rose over the lip before pouring over, like some witch’s brew in those embellished children’s stories. Yet, none of the foreboding signs or warning labels seemed to disturb the Rüzgârian one bit, but rather, she enthusiastically awaited to see the next effect of the last mix.
“Oy, got a name wild cherry?” drawled the first brigand with a crooked smile.
Jacq feigned indifference at first. “You could say ‘hello’, you know,” she scoffed. “I can speak common.”
The first brigand nodded. “Well, hello then, but ye are Rüzgârian by the by?”
“Why yes. Brilliantly perceptive of you,” Jacq chuckled softly, turning her head and locking her blue eyes with the first brigand’s dull ones. “So, was it my big sword? My bed hair? Reckless habits? Or was it the alluring glands that gave me away?”
His lips slowly curved into a wider, sickle-shaped grin. “Just like what I see is all,” he said, “and I see a whole lot of, uh, alluring glands beneath that cheek. Yeah, that’s about right.”
Not terrible as pick-up lines go, she thought, but I heard a dying cat utter better.
“So, what are ya gettin?” he asked.
The last ingredient filled the tankard to the brim: the red bottle of the sweet but deadly “Fire Drake” that made the surface bubble with the intensity of damned souls clawing, in vain, their way out of the sulfury pool. The final color, in the tankard, was as black as a dökkálfar’s butthole.
“I think that’s your answer,” Jacq smiled in a matter-of-fact way.
“Ya love tempting fate, don’t ye wild cherry?” The first brigand reacted to the volatile contents. “I loves it when a woman tosses the dice, but I reckon that you’re already spoken for.”

“What makes you say that?” Jacq raised an eyebrow.

“‘Cause the tastiest cherries always get picked when I ain’t around; well, I guess that’s just my beastly luck.”
“Oh,” Jacq cooed like a dove. “Does that mean that if I was free, you’ll breed with me?”
That made him nearly drop his mug. He then looked at her in awkward disbelief, blowing a big “oof” between his pursed lips as he shook his head. “Ye don’t exactly mince words, do ye wild cherry?”
“I don’t really play the blushing elf mage on her first descent into the forbidden dungeon very well,” she said as her strong yet tantalizing fingers skipped along his leather hand, up to his arm, and stopped at his shoulder. He allowed it. “Much to my last man’s dissatisfaction.”
“Ya saying this ain’t yer first descent then?”
“I’m way past the hard-to-get-part is what I’m saying.”
“So ya like it rather forward, then?”
“I just want something hard to sink my teeth into tonight.” She added coyly: “But yes, I am a free woman tonight… unless this cherry is too wild for you, little boy?”
If eyes could smile, then the first brigand’s gaze was a crescent leer of a licentious appetite. “Hmmm, well, then it is true what they say about Rüzgârians: fewer with words, faster to bed. You’d beat a bard in a leg race.”
“I can do you one better if you’d like,” Jacq smiled with a foxy bite upon her lower lip.
“You wanna slip your sword into my sheath?”
That quickly got the first brigand’s eager brow rising.

“Wanna plop that bunny into my hole?”
Seetha was close enough to hear that one; so close that she rolled her eyes into her head.

“Wanna split my circle with that arrow?”
The second brigand was salivating like a beast as he overheard.

“Wanna light my pit with that torch?”

“Wanna fill my depths with your raging sea?”

“Wanna hook your lance betwixt my ring?”

“Or, how about fill my Iram with your pillar?”
“Yea, yea,” the first brigand purred, “I wanna do all of that to ya… and more.”

Without warning, the fingers of his right hand snaked along her thighs and wrapped themselves tightly around her tall waist and puller her towards him. Jacq’s heart raced wildly at this sudden invasion. Then, as if by some insidious instinct, his other hand found its way to the rise of her curvaceous buttocks, possessing it with a firm grip that left no room for escape. With a swift volumetric smack, he clasped a fistful of one of her plump cheeks, squeezing it as if it were the soft rump of a lusty mare. “Ahh!” she gasped at his abrupt action. Her eyes widened, yet there was no hint of wrath in them, but bewilderment. The brief mark of his handprint, white and hot against her skin, served as his brand from his touch.

At his crass touch where the softest surfaces of paradise had been invaded, her system was suddenly intoxicated by a thousand spirits of lust. Her belly churned with butterflies, her heart raced on dragonfly wings as though fleeing from the hungry nighthawk. Her ears and cheeks grew hot to the touch; flaming red like the dwarf’s hearths and blazing furnaces of Loc Kardine. He faint eyes fluttered as a trembling sigh attempted to escape from betwixt pursed lips. The pale skin of her chest, from her neckline down to the boundaries of her nurturing breasts, flushed with a splash of red like the blood on her sword after every battle. But tonight, she was not the fighter. She was the lover. The Rüzgârian woman shuddered like a damsel.

Hailing from a great kingdom of monster devourers and hundred-slayers, Jacq knew that she had to uphold some reputation as intimidating and indomitable, yet it was always the bold ones who left her face flushed. How she loved that feeling, the feeling of sweet intoxication. It made her feel like the elf mage all over again, and if that feeling was a serpent’s venom, she would adorn herself with bite marks upon every last inch of her fleshy form simply to feel that thirsty rush. It was the small pleasures in life, in the pursuit of greater ones, that makes the wearying mortal concede to live another day in a weary world.
Before she teetered and fell off her feet, Jacq’s sweating palms suddenly grabbed the noxious concoction, shoved the tankard against her mouth, and threw back her head before she lost volition. This took the first brigand by surprise, then came the sound of the loud gulp that immensely impressed him and loosened the shock on her nerves. She sharply exhaled as she brought the empty tankard down on the bar with a loud thud. A moment passed.

The blush receded and nothing else happened. Her constitution had been, apparently, unscathed. “Phew, well that was personal,” she coyly scoffed at his face.
Before they could lock lips, there came a sharp grunt from behind the bar: “Hey you two! Take it somewhere else!” It was the barkeep’s wife again, her gray beard flustered like a bush in a tempest.
“Why don’t ya shut it? Ya flagged old man!” The irritated brigand reached for his sword, but Jacq stopped him in time by wrapping her arm around his waist and pulling him away as gently as she could.
“I think it’s getting too crowded here,” she said quickly, “so, um, how about some breathing room by that empty table over there, away from the Trininite Chantry?” His temper cooled at the sound of her passing joke, albeit just a little.
“Ye gotta wonder what’s gotten their goat sometimes, the old people,” he sneered. “They oughta just die and get out of the way.” Jacq reached over and grabbed the second brigand, yanking him up by his tunic. Both men were like dogs she lead on a leash now, and with a playful shove she pushed the first man onto the empty chair, pressing her hands gently against his chest while she pushed her rear up against his eager chum behind her. This time, she looked away from the first man’s face to see if Seetha was ready; it was all she could do to keep herself from sinking her fist into his face for threatening a defenseless civilian. Fortunately, her heaping bosoms were clouding his peripheral vision, and whether he knew it or not, his chum was already indulging himself by rubbing his leathered hands all over her upper thighs.
“Ye got a place we can do this proper?” asked the first brigand.
“What’s wrong with doing it here?” Jacq leered with a wink.
“Hehe, I do like yer fervor, love. But I just like me some privacy as much as the next, uh, provincial rube, you understand?”
“Well, you just wait one second, love,” her rolling tongue playfully imitated his thick, Angevin accent, “I just wanna get you and your big friend here in the proper mood.” The noise of the inn masked the jangling of the buckle on the satchel as Seetha tickled it with the winding tip of her blade, and because her slim, rectangular figure allowed her to hide behind the second brigand’s lethargic form, she was safely out of the first brigand’s sight. Momentarily.
Years of practice with her mentor’s kirpan, from near infancy to her coming-of-age, had sharpened her skills with the sticky blade trick until she could unfasten almost anything she preyed upon: a clasp on a purse, a hook on a necklace, or a buckle on a belt. Any rogue with fingers like serpent tails and a toothpick could pilfer a coin purse, but it was the painful moments of getting caught, and disciplined with the rod, that excruciatingly honed her tricks into a deadly fine point.
Like a puppet master, Seetha maneuvered the steel fingertip to gently lift up the prong, tugged the leather strap out of the frame, and let gravity do the rest as it slipped out from the metal loop and hung like a noose. All of the second brigand’s senses were nullified to the point that he didn’t even feel the Sword Dancer’s hand slip into the satchel with a serpentine motion. Once she had the key to their intended destination, she stepped into Jacq’s view from the side and passed her a breezy wink as the signal.
“Friend of yers?” The first brigand asked.
Jacq snapped her attention back to him. “What?” she asked, half-surprised.
“That Isyrian tart passing by,” he said, salivating. “Got room for me big friend? Hehe.”
He broke the last straw. His last sight was the Rüzgârian’s wicked smile and the blue fire in her eyes, before her supple fingers on his chest curled into the iron head of a battering ram. An ounce of her barbaric fury flowed through every vein in her arm; an ounce was all she needed before reeling it back and releasing the ram: BAM!!!
Without a word, the first brigand’s head was knocked back and stars began to dance in his reveries. She then backhanded the second man with her elbow. He too was seeing stars before he buckled. Quickly stepping to one side, she let the first man’s “chum” fall to his knee, planting his face firmly in-between the first man’s open legs. She looked up and saw that a few eyes caught the whole commotion, completely oblivious to all context.
“Uh, don’t try the light brew, folks,” Jacq laughed lightly. “Or the green fairy. Never know when you’ll, um, get that urge to put your mouth where it don’t belong.” She caught up with Seetha who was stifling a laugh into her hands. That gave the Rüzgârian a much needed feeling of elation. Ever since they had left the continent, she couldn’t get more than a smirk or disapproving eye-roll out of her. The silver lining out of this misadventure, so far, was that at least she made her smile again.
But now, with their hands holstered upon their swords, they made their way to their next destination, come what may of any hidden perils and pitfalls. As they remembered: door on the left behind the bar, one level down, and the one guard standing at the door. Jacq then nudged Seetha to the side before they went down there, because of an uncommon spout of initiation she had on the spot. She had come up with a plan…