Bad Things

"That's the last of it."

Iskra sighed, mostly to herself, as she laid the last of her valued worldly possessions at the ground in the vast labyrinth that might have been considered a building in a past life. Now it was upheld mostly by assorted junk. Mud and straw patched the holes in the structure to keep insects and the cold out, and with the seeming hundreds of little electric rats scurrying about, their bodies kept the ambient temperature rather warm. In a surprising feat of engineering, they had dug a well into the floor that apparently drew from the same aquifer as the creek outside, but its positioning in the ground prevented it from compromising the insulation much. The creatures went to the well in a steady stream, mostly drinking, sometimes dipping food items into it, as though to wash it after the manner of raccoons.

But the area she'd settled in was far from the well in the large building and mostly exempt from the busy state of the other places inside. The thunder rodents didn't like wide, open spaces as far as she could tell, and since this room was the largest space in the cavernous expanse, she had enough privacy after she hung up a few scraps. She'd have to hunt some larger creatures later. Pelts made good privacy curtains and beds.

For now, the important thing was figuring out what human men liked. She was going to be running a brothel after all. It'd help to have some intimate knowledge of the topic.

So without another word, she set off into the woods.

It wasn't long until she came up on a villager. It was a male, and thus in her target demographic. She amiably walked up to him with a smile and a wave. "Hey, I'm a harlot. How much are you going to give me?"

The villager, a farmer out in the field, wiped off the sweat of his brow and gave the demon a confused look. "What? I'm not interested."

Iskra sighed and rubbed her temples. This was going to be harder than she thought. "Look, just... come with me." She grabbed the man by the wrist. He was far from anything that could be remotely construed as help, and he was weak as most humans are. In no time, she'd thrown him down on the bed.

"What are you doing?" He yelped, clearly not aroused by the situation in the slightest. "I just married a wife who is dear to my heart!"

The demon's brow furrowed. "...what?"

The farmer's breathing slowed a bit from the panicked rate it'd been going at earlier. "I am loyal to my wife! To sleep with another woman... to defile our wedding bed is unthinkable! What kind of--"

"...so I shouldn't be a woman?" This threw the farmer to new depths of frustration until the demon quickly shifted himself into his long-haired male form. "Is this better?"

A moment of silence passed. "What?! No! I am a man! I don't sleep with m-- Wait, What are you!? HELP! Witch! Someone!"

Apparently the transformation hadn't helped much. The man made for the window and cried out at the top of his lungs. The demon only wanted to figure out how this job was supposed to work. He didn't want every human for miles coming with fire and pitchforks. With a patient gait common to all predators approaching a wounded prey, he walked over to the other man and gently took him by the neck before slamming him back down on the bed. "Sssssh..." The farmer's voice was muffled by the demon's other hand as the words of a dark incantation filled the room. Before their very eyes, the rough farmer's features began to soften. His hair became fuller and his eyes gentler. His hips rounder and his bosom fuller. His muted cries became higher in pitch, and eventually softer. In short, he became a woman in every aspect but his soul and his mind. "Just lie here. I'll do the rest."

[ EXP: 748 ]
Roll: 3 (for June 8th)

The next day, Iskra sat on a mossed-over chair with her legs propped up, a cold, blue eye looking over the results of her last conquest: an old, inedible scrap of leather; a pumpkin; a rope; and a shiny stone. With a sigh, she pulled the leather from its spot on the table and shoved it into her mouth, chewing and gnawing on it like so much gum before she swallowed. Three items. Three pieces of junk. Honestly, she might be working until Paike's return if she couldn't get more profitable items than the ones she was looking at now.

One of the thunderrats scrambled beneath her privacy curtain against her immediate wishes, but it apparently carried an important message.

"Goddess! There's a human poking around outside! Help us!"

She wrinkled her nose, her mood soured by her lack of food. If she jumped on the little thing, that'd be one less person to maintain the vast building, however, so she tolerated the intrusion with civility. "You can't take care of one person?"

It shook its head and its floppy ears followed the motion clumsily. "Lion-O is sick and he's the one who usually speaks to them."

With a sigh and a grunt, the demon left her uncomfortable spot and went to the cavernous entrance of the half-exhumed building.

A surprise greeted her, and her eyes widened. "Hey, it's you." The broad-shouldered farmer looked around nervously, as though he feared someone might be following him. The hyena demon continued. "What are you doing here?"

"Umm... well..." he mumbled, his cheeks and eyes showing embarrassment until he found his nerve. "I know yesterday was a little crazy but... I wanted to know what else you can do."

So more business. Iskra grinned toothily. "Really, now. You're going to have to pay me a bit more than you did last time. It was pretty hard work, you know. It's not every day that a demon deigns to fulfill the wants of some random human."

The farmer's face reddened, though he showed no signs of anger. More like disbelief in himself and what he was about to ask. "You can have anything of my harvest or home."

That seemed satisfactory. No doubt the man had a few goats she might be able to use. "Okay, I'm listening."

He shuffled his feet. "Well, I've always had this... thing I've dreamed of with me and my wife..."

[ EXP: 461 ]

Iskra collapsed on the harsh stone floor of her home, tired from the previous night's events. No doubt the preceding events gave her an odd sort of education. Frankly, she hadn't known exactly how exotic the humanoids could get with their desires. She'd been raised in a relatively simple environment. Females only did such things with males and in only one position. The farmer wanted to try being with his wife in a less... intimidating form, apparently. So what was supposed to be a fairly sane and natural thing between a man and his wife had, due to her intervention, become a relatively odd event between a woman who was actually a man and his wife with her initially on the sidelines. Her customer couldn't be satisfied with the "witch" sitting off on the sidelines, calmly watching and waiting for her payment. He insisted she get involved, and she obliged as a man, which threw the entire thing into confusion as far as she was concerned because he was handling two women at once.

Strangely enough, it wasn't unpleasant, and though she was spiritual, she decided that since it felt good it couldn't possibly be bad. Paike made no pleasures that were not good.

And the farmer couple were exceptionally well off. They awarded her ten whole goats: a gift that she accepted with hunger and gratitude. The kind wife of the pair even went so far as to prepare her a delicious stew made of one of the younger goats and some fruit... a pumpkin she called it. The demon couldn't recall a finer meal. They were young and childless, and she wondered how hard it would be to set herself two descendents on her way to one-hundred and sixty-four with them. The image of them submissively kneeling beneath her, sharing her nethermost portions like a single, unusually large piece of pasta between their mouths made her feel powerful in a strange way, and the thought of making them bear her children only reinforced that feeling of authority and strength. It gave her motivation to not simply kill them and take everything they had, at any rate.

Thinking on these things, Iskra had fallen off into sleep rather quickly, but she was awoken once again by one of the thunder clan members. Another morning, another human it seemed. This one she had never seen before. He was tall and pale, but his hair curled up like wisps of wiry smoke. The demon tilted her head to the side before listening to his spill. Apparently he'd heard from his best friend that there was a witch in the western forests with amazing powers.

"That may be so," she grumbled matter-of-factly. "However, this witch doesn't work for free. What is your desire and what are you possessions?"

[ EXP: 536 || +1 TEXP (5th post) ]