"Alright, wizard, you got any bright fucking ideas?"

"I might, Vlis."

"You might. Can you hurry up with them before these bats devour us alive?"

Three people stood in a close triangle, practically pressed together, facing outwards. All three were nude. The tallest, the only man of the trio, seemed about thirty, though Vlis had no idea how to verify that when she was dealing with a reality-warping sorcerer. His shoulder-length thick blond hair was matted with sweat, but otherwise he seemed more or less unfazed by their predicament. The other woman stood just a hair shorter than Vlis, and had the wiry frame of an athlete, with copper hair cropped close to her head and bright blue eyes that watched the nearby circling horde of small black monsters carefully. Vlis, meanwhile, was the brawn to the other woman's speed, heavily muscled, and equally heavily scarred; her black locks bounced around her ears as her head twitched back and forth, waiting for one of the flying beasts to make a dive towards them.

Execution in the arena! the judge had declared, it had been hardly an hour ago.

"This is what passes for a D'Orsoneyl rescue?" the blue-eyed woman complained.

"I was wondering the same thing myself," Vlis said, her hands clenched in ready fists. "Could you at least conjure me an axe for when these bloodsuckers come at us?"

The wizard sighed. "No, I can't. I told you. There's a mage-watch on us. That's how things work in the arena. If I start casting a spell, they'll commit themselves to countering it. Right now they don't know what I can do, they think I'm just a deft hand with a sword, and I'd rather keep it that way until the right moment."

The first bat spiraled towards Vlis, and she ducked to the side. "These bastards are quick," she said, grabbing the bat's wing and tossing it off to the side. The small crowd watching from a safe distance moaned in disappointment.

"Yes, poisonous, too, I suspect," the wizard replied. "I need to find the mage-watch, it's our only chance to bring magic to the fight."

"Would they be a spellcaster too?" the intended rescuee asked. "I only heard of one around here in six months of work. There must be more though."

"Not necessarily. Do you know who they might be?"

The thief shook her head. "Not by name. Apparently she's young as me and—" Her voice cut out as she ducked down out of the way of another of the swarming beasts. She gasped as the bat's claw raked lightly across her shoulder. "Shit. Augh." She sat on the ground, covering the scrape with her hand. "Great, now they've got the smell of blood."

"Is that bad?" Vlis asked, leaning over the other woman protectively.

"I don't know. Probably. Can't be good, right?"

The sorcerer cleared his throat. "The spellcaster," he reminded her. The main body of the swarm was getting very close.

"Yes. A woman. Young, not yet two-dozen years, apparently has long, naturally blue hair."

"You got that and not her name?"

"We've been together a year and I don't know your name," Vlis said. "Not really."

"I told you my name."

"You're a liar and you keep changing it." She delivered a punch to a diving bat and shook off her hand before helping the other woman to her feet. "He told me his name is 'Amos.'"

"It will do for now." He was looking out over the crowd, not paying a lot of attention to the conversation.

"And I'm Vlis."

"Got that, yeah." The spy dusted herself off. "Elaria, not that it's going to matter when the bats get here." She followed Vlis' example and smashed a bat with her open hand, which deterred but didn't seem to hurt it. "Ugh, that scrape burns."

"They're likely poisonous," Amos reiterated. "Can't do anything about it until I stop that mage-watch. She's hiding in the crowd somewhere..."

"Blue hair!" Vlis pointed, and Amos vanished.

"Where did he go?" Elaria asked.

"Fuck if I know," Vlis responded, her axe cutting through a diving bat. "Maybe he's dealing with that witch he talked about."

Elaria drew two quick arrows and fired them off, each one felling another of the little monsters in the swarm. "How can we tell?"

"The bastard's a reality warper," Vlis explained. "Unless you notice something really weird happening, there's not much way to figure things out."

The spy took a sharp breath in and exhaled a blast of fire that roasted several of the bat-like beasts. Vlis stared. Elaria grinned. "Guess that mage-watch isn't doing her job."

"Why bother with the bow then?" Vlis' axe flew from her hands and into the swarm, dispersing it some.

"I can only do that so often, and anyway—" Elaria suddenly grabbed Vlis' arm and the two of them were suddenly in a different part of the arena, avoiding several of the diving monsters. "—I sometimes need to use other magics." Closer to the edge of the colosseum wall, they could hear some commotion in the crowd, but before they could investigate further, Elaria, still gripped to Vlis' arm, started to sink to the ground.

"Whoa!" Vlis shouted, falling to her knees to help keep Elaria from hurting herself as she dropped. "What's wrong?"

Elaria gasped. "I think... the exhaustion... the magic... and the poison..."

"Shit," Vlis cursed. She looked back at where they had been. The swarm was moving towards them quickly. "Sorcerer!" she shouted.

"Don't have to yell," Amos replied from right beside her. There were two legs and a familiar cock right in front of her, and beside that a nice, long white dress.

"I am Sulanya," a soft, almost-sleepy-sounding voice said. "Mage-watch of the arena."

"You mind-fucked her?" Vlis said, incredulous.

Amos crouched down. "Had to do something. She was very good at blocking my spells. And the guards and crowd were closing in."

"Yeah, well, there's other things closing in right now."

"I am Sulanya, mage-watch of the arena," the woman repeated in the same soft tone as before.

"What did you do to her?"

"Looped her mind in time. I had to hit her hard."

"You broke her?"

"She was a bit fragile."

"Bats!" Elaria shouted from her prone position. Shadows descended rapidly towards the four.

"I am Sulanya—"

"Shut up!" Vlis said, standing and clenching her fists.

As the first monsters were close enough to be heard screaming, suddenly everything shifted. A warm campfire roared in the dark night, where a moment ago it had been midday. Elaria lay on the ground, Vlis stood beside her, both of them still in the nude. Two clothed figures stood on the other side of the fire, Amos the sorcerer in his usual vibrant green-and-purple robes, and all in plain white was—

"—mage-watch of the arena."

Vlis stood up. "Fix them."

"Them?" the wizard replied, curious.

"Elaria, first, then your little toy there."

"Toy?" He sounded both amused and vaguely annoyed as he walked around the fire.

"I am Sulanya, mage-watch of the arena."

"Hm, I see what you mean." He crouched down beside the spy, who turned her head away from him to cough. Already the skin around her wound was red and inflamed. "I don't suppose either of you brought one of the creatures with you."

"Sure, I just stuffed one in my pockets," Vlis said dryly, which made Elaria giggle. "It was enough trouble trying to stay alive in there, I wasn't thinking about bringing home a pet." The warrior sat down and took a deep breath, trying to collect herself after a long hour. "Where are we, anyway? It was afternoon when we went in there."

"I had to pull us forward in time a bit. We're not far from the capitol, which puts us a long walk from Ethrophel and the palace."

"Three days to get out here, presumably that means three days back." Vlis sighed. "And I bet they're not going to just let us teleport.

"On the way in it would have alerted every magician in the country. Now that they're all on edge, they won't let us go. It's piss easy to block or bounce a teleport when you have even the faintest idea that someone's going to do it and either from or to where. That's why I had to go forward in time, more than space. And why I had to bring her with me. Gives us a fighting chance if we need it."

"I am Sulanya, mage-watch of the arena."

Vlis shifted her pose to sit, drawing her knees up to her chest. "So what's the next step?"

"We figure out what's wrong with Elaria here, then get her safely back to D'Orsoneyl."

"That's a goal, not a next step."

"So," Elaria said, her voice a bit faint, "How long have the two of you been fucking?"

Vlis choked on her reply as Amos laughed, rising to his feet. "What... what makes you think we are?" Vlis managed to stammer out.

Elaria giggled, which turned into a pained cough. "I'm a spy," she said when she'd caught her breath. "I know how to read people. And the two of you bicker like my parents. Plus, you don't seem to care that you're still naked and he's not, and he's been staring at your breasts instead of examining my injury."

"It's true," the sorcerer said without a hint of shame. "But there's not much that more examination can tell me. I'm not a healer, not really." He dusted off his hands. "And that's something you only know because you've been staring at me since we tried to grab you from your cell."

"Your warrior's a lucky girl. Most of the conjurers I meet don't have that build. Or that equipment."

"I am Sulanya, mage-watch of the arena."

Vlis hid her head, and her blush, behind her knees. "Can we do something about the mage-watch?" she muttered into her thigh.

"Ah yes, the other problem." Amos walked over to the third woman in the party. "We're going to have to take her with us."

Vlis looked up. "Why?"

"Well, first of all, she may well betray us, intentionally or not, if we let her go. And second, she failed in her duties."

"So?"

"Teracin has an interesting relationship with magic. They love spells, don't trust people that use them."

"Yeah, wonder why not," Vlis mumbled, and Elaria laughed.

"So if you're a magician, and you fail at your intended work, the assumption is that you failed it deliberately, which means..." Amos drew a finger across his throat. "She'll be in the same place we were a few moments ago. With another mage-watch keeping her from using her magic to get away, or some other similar method of suppression."

Elaria worked her way to a sitting position. "The fact that she's a cute little thing probably never crossed your mind."

Amos didn't reply, turning to the short blue-haired woman and asking, "What do you think?"

"I am Sulanya, mage-watch of the arena."

"That's what I figured. Vlis, can you come here?"

The warrior got to her feet. "What is it?"

"Sulanya, mage-watch of the arena here, might be a little upset at the turn of events. I can contain her magic, but she might try to do something bodily."

"She's two thirds your height and build like a twig."

"And you're going to restrain her."

Vlis nodded. "I am." The wizard's ability to compel his lover's thoughts and actions was near unparalleled, and with those six words he silenced all her objections, or even any thought of them.

"I am Sulanya, mage-watch of the arena."

The sorcerer almost tenderly ran his fingertips down the woman's cheek, and almost immediately the blank expression cleared to be replaced by disgust and anger. "Wizard," Sulanya hissed, and before she could do anything, Vlis had wrapped the small mage in a bear hug. "Who are you?" she growled.

Amos cleared his throat. "She is Vlis. And you have no cause to fight. You have failed as a mage-watch and you are doomed if you remain in Teracin."

Her stance softened and she sighed. "You can let me go, Vlis. Yes, the wizard is right." She took a deep breath. "He could conjure weapons for you, and even robes for himself, but you are naked?"

"Conjure weapons?" Vlis asked curiously.

"She's not the only naked one," Elaria said, standing unsteadily. "The fire takes the edge off the night, at least."

Sulanya's eyes narrowed. "Ah, you, the condemned spy."

Elaria stretched. "Guilty. And that's not just an expression, I really did what I was accused of." She moved slowly around the fire on uncertain feet. "What do you know about the bats in the arena? I was scratched and now I feel like shit."

"I don't particularly feel like helping a traitor."

"I have some bad news for you, beautiful." Elaria leaned on the wizard's shoulder. "You're a traitor now."

Sulanya sighed heavily. "Fuck, I suppose I am."

"And," Vlis added, "our job is to get Elaria back to D'Orsoneyl safely, so if she dies, we don't have a lot of reason to help you instead of just save our own skins."

Amos nodded. "We are still very near to Tislyn, if we were to tie you up here, the authorities would find you in no time."

The hair on the back of Vlis' neck stood up. She recognized the feeling of magic in the air, though which of her three companions was doing something and what they were doing was a little beyond her.

"I could also point out how incredibly grateful I would be to, um, still be alive, after all this," Elaria was saying. "I see where your eyes are, Sulanya."

The captive flushed. "You are... Your magic is..."

"Seductive, isn't it?"

"Yes."

Three heads turned, and Vlis realized that she was the one to have spoken.

"Vlis," Amos began, "you never mentioned..."

"You never asked," she replied.

He smiled. "True."

"You seem not to be immune either, wizard," the spy continued. "Or are you aware of where your hand has gone?"

The sorcerer squeezed the spy's ass. "Oh, I'm well aware."

"He's probably just taking the opportunity," Vlis said with a bit of bite.

Elaria chuckled, then coughed. "Still, I can see that all three of you are very motivated to see me home safely. And you can all understand how I am so good at getting information."

Sulanya took a sharp breath. "While the wizard binds my magic I cannot stop you."

"But would you want to?"

"It is your spell that tells me I do not."

Amos reached up and tangled his fingers in Elaria's hair, leaning to whisper something in her ear, which gave Vlis a chance to slip her hand into Sulanya's, causing the blue-haired sorceress to turn. She matched the shocked look on the mage-watch's face with a finger to her own lips for silence. Then she saw the confusion in Sulanya's bright green eyes, and her breath caught. The magic in the air was potent, and perhaps so was something else.

"So what does a Teracinite sorceress do in this situation?" Vlis asked, more shyly than she'd intended.

"This situation?" Sulanya breathed. "You mean, trapped in a spell of attraction with a beautiful D'Orsoneylian warrior?"

"That's the situation I was thinking of, yes." Somehow, her free hand was tangling itself in that long hair, reflecting a vibrant blue in the firelight. It had to be a mark of sorcery, or an absolutely incredible dye job. "How, ah, powerful is this spell of attraction? I don't always know how to gauge these things, even traveling with a wizard."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure it's... irresistible." The hand holding Vlis' squeezed tight. "I could fight it..."

"Not if it's irresistible."

"Irresistible doesn't mean you can't fight, only that you can't win."

Vlis stepped closer, toe-to-toe with the much shorter woman. "I sometimes like a fight I can't win."

Sulanya looked up from Vlis' chest to her eyes again. "I think fighting with you would be a great honour."

The warrior was forced to chuckle. "I've got more than a head of height on you and a stiff breeze would carry you away. It'd hardly be a f—"

Vlis' words were cut off as the sorceress' grip on her hand became less a squeeze and more a crush, and the woman exerted a twisting force on Vlis' arm and spun her on her heels. She could feel her own hand pressed into her back between her shoulder blades. "I think I'm more a fight than you think I am," Sulanya said snarkily, and Vlis could feel the whispers of the other woman's gown brushing against her bottom, and then the sensation of the other woman's arm pinning her own to her side—and the other woman's hand grasping her left breast.

"The sort of fight I'm all in for," Vlis said, trying vainly to wrest her arm from Sulanya's grip.

A well-placed yet careful blow to the back of Vlis' knees brought them down to the soft earth, while she was kept upright by the arm hold. The shock caused her to gasp and try to dive forward, but Sulanya's grip was absolute.

"Just because I'm small doesn't mean I don't know how to take what I want."

"Just because I'm big doesn't mean I don't want you taking it."

"Good, because the energy I'm not wasting fighting the spell is energy I can use subduing you."

"Quit talking and get to it, then!"

Sulanya spoke a word in some strange, magical language, and the physical hold she had on Vlis was redoubled by a cold, metallic feeling around her midsection, as if a thick band of iron had just slammed into place around her, binding her right arm behind her back and her left to her side. She looked down, but there was nothing there, nothing physical, anyway. With a grace one might expect of a dancer, Sulanya whirled her way in front of the warrior, tilted Vlis' chin up, forcing her to look her captor in the eye, and grinned viciously. "Enjoying yourself?"

Vlis pulled at the magical bonds, more powerful than the woman's grip by an order of magnitude, and very honestly admitted, "Yes."

When Sulanya raised a hand, Vlis didn't move, didn't even flinch. The smaller women struck a blow across Vlis' face, not terribly hard, but enough to sting. Vlis turned a bit with the blow, and let out a soft moan of pleasure. Sulanya's hand made a return as swift as had traveled initially and struck the opposite cheek with nearly the same strength.

"More," Vlis gasped, breathing hard.

Sulanya unbelted her dress, causing it to lose its shape at her hips. She doubled the belt over to form a leather strap, then held out her hand, her open palm to the sky. The strap came down in the palm of her hand with an audible crack.

Vlis yelped in surprise. She felt that blow as if it had landed right on her ass. She took a hissing breath, felt her face warm both from the slaps and with the flush of arousal, gritted her teeth, and once again spoke that fatal word: "More."

The wizardess delivered three more blows in quick succession across her hand that transferred to Vlis' backside, each one prompting a squeal of delight. The warrior closed her eyes after the third, enjoying the warm erotic haze of the pain, and only opened them when Sulanya gently ran a hand through her hair. The belt was gone, the dress was gone, Sulanya's naked form was on full display, and while Elaria had the advantage of athletic appeal, Sulanya's healthy curves and ample bosom were a powerful combination.

And Sulanya was there, while Elaria, and Amos for that matter, were not.

She took a firm grasp of Vlis' hair and stepped closer, forcing the warrior's face between her breasts. Vlis inhaled the scent of the sorceress, the human, earthy note of her sweat, and something sweeter, floral; the women of Teracin had a fashion of wearing light perfumes to cover the scent of life, and on a social level Vlis had found it exhausting and at times overwhelming, in this very intimate moment it was deeply enchanting.

The fact that Vlis was, at that moment, deeply enchanted may have contributed to that feeling.

With little else to do, the warrior began kissing there, finding the young woman's soft skin very alluring. She continued her helpless, passionate adoration, progressing to faster, more forceful kisses, and even to little bites and nibbles, before Sulanya pulled her head back and attacked Vlis' mouth directly with her own, fiercely meeting her with a force that bent the stronger warrior back, her body held up somewhat by the magical bonds about her midsection. Sulanya stepped back and lifted Vlis by the hair, pulling her up straight and then forcing her to struggle to her feet. In one motion, the sorceress dispelled the binding, put her hands on Vlis' shoulders, and shoved her back with an unnatural force, falling on top of her and planting herself face-to-face with the prone warrior, her hands on either side of Vlis' head and her knees squeezing Vlis' ribs. Sulanya delivered two quick, open-handed, disorienting blows to Vlis' face before sliding back and straddling Vlis' thighs.

Sulanya pressed down.

Vlis felt something between her legs, a magical force, pushing into her, and moaned with pleasure.

Sulanya's hands rested on Vlis' tight stomach and she began thrusting like a male lover might. It wasn't the same as a cock, it was more a generalized sensation of pressure, but it moved with Sulanya, sliding in and out of Vlis' soaked slit.

"Do, mmm," the warrior gasped, "do they teach... all you Ter... Ter... mmm all you wizards... sexy magic?"

Sulanya moaned with pleasure herself, and Vlis looked up at her. She seemed to be enjoying the action as much as Vlis was. "W-w-eee pretty m-much t-teach ourselves."

"Are there—gods—are there just... books of sexy spells?"

"Y-yes, ssss, some, b-but mostly... e-experiment... word of m-mouth..."

Vlis was about to say something, but Sulanya's hands flattened on her abdomen and produced a intense tingling, a feeling like lightning rippling through her body, which conspired with the magical fucking she was receiving to banish anything like words from her mind. There was nothing left but sensation, the cold earth beneath her, the warm body above, the magical force fucking both her and Sulanya, the painful/ticklish/exciting energy pulsing through her with a predictable regularity that didn't quite align with the sorceress' thrusting. It was all Vlis could do to hold on to any sense of herself, to keep her awareness enough to feel at all, let alone assess each effect to itself.

Somehow, from some deep well of need, Vlis managed to grab the source of that enervating lightning, Sulanya's hands, and pull them up from her abdomen to her breasts. The resulting shift in the source of shock was enough to drive Vlis over the edge of the precipice and into explosive orgasm. She gripped hard to the wrists she held and thrust herself up against Sulanya's pussy, feeling the transfer of that pleasurable energy back towards the woman fucking her. The sorceress came almost immediately, tossing her head back with abandon and howling to the sky before collapsing down on top of the stronger women, the magical sensations fading as she did so. Vlis wrapped her arms around Sulanya protectively as the two of them rode out the last shivers and shudders of their climax, the sorceress' head tucked lightly under the warrior's chin as Vlis' hands combed through that long, blue hair.

They lay there for a few moments in the light of the fire. The haze of the magic and the sex started to clear, and as Vlis slowly pet her new lover, she reflected on the magic and the moment and the strangeness of it all.

"Mmm, are your rescues always like this?" Sulanya asked, nuzzling into Vlis' powerful chest.

"Well, no," Vlis admitted. "Usually they're... well, alright, usually they're not rescues. I mean we've done a couple, but we do the sorts of odd jobs for the crown of D'Orsoneyl that help convince the armies on her borders to stay back. We don't generally engage in assassination—though I guess we could, but we're not thieves or spies. This was an extraction job, by special re—" Vlis gasped and paused. "—quest... hm..."

Sulanya lifted her head and looked towards Vlis' face. "What is it?"

"Well, I'm just wondering why Elaria would weave a seduction spell on you." The warrior let her hand rest on Sulanya's ass. "You're already pretty motivated to let us take you away from here."

"I am, yes." Sulanya pressed her backside lightly into Vlis' hand.

"So why try to enchant you?"

"Maybe she wasn't? Is that what you're thinking? A spell like that doesn't really have focus so much as it just blooms over an area. Do you think she was trying to enchant you? Or—"

"Or."

"Amos."

"Fucking Amos."

"But why?"

"No idea. Maybe she'll tell us if I start hacking bits of her off."

"Well, okay, we can think back a little." Sulanya shifted to lie on her back next to Vlis. "Who gave you the job?"

Vlis shrugged. "Amos handles that."

"Alright... so why were you—"

"I promise you, I know next to nothing about the work. The wizard deals with it, and I serve the wizard and my kingdom. In that order. He points me at things he wants hewn and I hew, and I presume the king tells him what things the king wants him to tell me to hew." Vlis sat up. "Three days ago or so, or however long it's been, we started on the road, and he told me as we walked. Rescue mission to retrieve a spy who had been caught and was going to be executed."

"Pretty lucky for you to get caught and sent to the arena together, then."

"Yes. Yes, very, very lucky." Vlis stood up and paced towards the fire. "Lucky."

"Do you normally say everything twice?"

"What?"

"You just... never mind." Sulanya rolled onto her front and propped her head up on her hands, looking entirely too cute. "How long have you two been doing this work?"

Vlis paused, thinking. "At least a year? I spend a lot of my days in weird time loops and under complete mind control, it's hard to keep track sometimes."

"Oh, so you must be the D'Orsoneyl champions we've been hearing rumours about. Why are you in weird time loops and under mind control?"

Even in the dim firelight, Vlis flushed visibly. "I enjoy it."

"Ah."

"And so does the sorcerer."

"Amos."

"Not his name."

"What do you mean?"

"He keeps changing his name. And he keeps erasing the old names from my memory. He lets me remember that he's done that, but he doesn't let me remember the old ones."

Sulanya giggled. "You ever wonder if maybe he's only making you think he's changing his name? Just leaving these memories of changed na—"

"Stop that. First of all, I'm trying to think, so lying there confusing me doesn't help. Secondly, I'm trying to think, so lying there making me horny doesn't help, either."

"Wow, you really enjoy mind control."

"Yes, but there's a puzzle right here we need to solve, and my being a puppet doesn't help."

Sulanya rolled over and got to her feet. "Lots of things don't help."

Vlis sighed. "It's true. What I need right now is something that will help."

"Maybe that's me."

"Hm? Why would you help?"

"Amos was right, I've failed in my duties. I'll be brought in and sent to the arena myself. I don't have a lot of reason not to help you, since Elaria probably doesn't care about what happens to me, and you two might be able to offer me a safe place to go after all this is done with. Plus..." Sulanya put a hand to her face. "There's the fact that we did just fuck, you like the sort of things I do—I hope!" Vlis nodded in reply. "—and I might be just a touch smitten."

Vlis shook her head. "I do not need two wizards smitten with me," she breathed. Aloud, she continued, "That makes a good deal of sense, what sort of help can you offer?"

"What sort of help do you need?"

"Well..." Vlis looked around. "The first and most important thing is probably tracking down Elaria and the wizard."

Sulanya nodded. "Any particular reason?"

"Elaria is the mission, and while I could probably find my way home without the wizard, this country kind of wants me dead, and I don't really feel like hacking my way through the Teracin military and potentially causing a major diplomatic issue for D'Orsoneyl." Vlis chuckled. "Not that I really could, without a good wizard behind me. Or an axe, for that matter."

"Tajrilm of Nur once said that a good wizard is worth the price of a whole army, both on and off the battlefield."

Vlis frowned. "I never liked Nur. I always preferred Nyra d'Iyyambi, or Théleüs Pirtà Veràvyn"

Sulanya stared. "I... didn't expect someone looking like you to have read Veràvyn, I have to admit. Or to be able to get your hands on d'Iyyambi. Did you find them in Amos' library?"

"Someone looking like me?" Vlis was amused. "You don't expect an axe-wielding adventurer covered in scars to study military history, politics, and philosophy?"

"Uh, well, frankly, um... No. I don't expect that. This sort of discussion is usually more for academic types, or the idle rich, or—"

"Wizards."

"Exactly." The mage-watch shrugged. "Sorry, it's stereotyping, and I'm supposed to be above that, but I've met very few, well, pretty much no warrior-adventurers who have the inclination to study Nur or d'Iyyambi."

"I also speak four languages fluently, I can ride a horse, play shandliss and croquet, I know my figures and am able to multiply any two numbers under a hundred together in my head."

"Four-score and fourteen lots of three dozen and one."

"Three thousands, four hundreds, three score, and one-and-one-half dozen," Vlis replied after a moment's pause. "Just because I don't like using my mind doesn't mean it doesn't work."

Sulanya frowned. "I wouldn't know if you're right or not—"

"I am."

"—but I think I understand. You came to adventuring as a passion project, then? The younger child of a rich family, needing to make your way in the world when it became clear that you wouldn't be able to inherit?"

"Something like that," Vlis—Princess Velissara di D'Orsoneyl, elder child of King Trofestor and Queen Misraeda, standing aside in succession in favour of her younger sister—agreed. "I am an educated woman, circumstance drove me to pick up an axe and try to dismember a certain wizard that I now travel with. And that's far too long a story for me to retell this night."

"Maybe after we've found the others?"

"That would be the ideal. How can we find them? Both of them are able to teleport, so they could be pretty well anywhere."

Sulanya shook her head. "Teleporting around isn't quite that simple, and I think that your wizard is probably smart enough not to attract that much attention. Unless he's trying to be a distraction."

"That would be like him. Off fucking the rescue target to keep me safe." Vlis wasn't sure whether she was speaking in genuine admiration, sarcasm, or frustration. "All I want to do is find them, and figure out what the fuck is going on, and who exactly I have to hack to pieces to make it stop."

"Do you think that you might have been sent to a trap?"

Vlis scratched her neck. "It's definitely possible. We were caught almost as soon as we tried to retrieve Elaria, and sent to the arena immediately after that. And we have been making a lot of noise recently, could be that someone in Teracin wants us gone before we cause too much trouble. The plan's pretty simple, too; maybe the spy's been turned, or maybe they just dangled her as bait, either way you can get rid of a spy if we don't show up, and if we do you can get rid of us."

"Or turn you."

"Or... say, with a seduction spell?"

Sulanya nodded. "What a major blow it would be for Teracin to lay claim to the two adventurers making such a nuisance of themselves."

"That's... all just speculation, right?" Vlis asked, a bit nervously. "If she's turned the wizard, we're both in big trouble."

"Then it would be best to find the two of them as quickly as we might."

"Best, for sure. Are you able to magic up some sort of thing to find the two of them?"

The sorceress shrugged in a way that gave Vlis absolutely no confidence in her answer. "I can always try. My training is in stopping magic, though, not tracing it."

Vlis threw her hands in the air. "My training is in slicing magic-users to pieces, it's even less useful in this situation. Especially since I don't have an—oh!" A blue, glowing, spectral, axe-shaped force appeared in her hand. "Uh. Thank you." She gave it a few experimental swings, tested its heft. It felt as good as a real weapon.

"My pleasure," Sulanya replied, eyeing the naked warrior as she went through some drills. "Watching you helps me think."

"About what?" Vlis laughed.

"I don't like to just think about one thing at a time. Here." A spark flew from the fire and hovered in front of Vlis' eyes. "Concentrate on your wizard. Think about him, what he might be doing, how... well, you know all the details, I think."

"What do you... oh." Vlis flushed. "Yes, I think I can." She let the axe fall to her side, held loosely in her right hand.

"Just look into the spark and think about—"

"Fucking?"

"Um. Yes. Please."

Vlis imagined Amos' hands, his lips, his arms, his grasp... The spark seemed to grow the more she imagined the wizard, and it started to dance in the air as she envisioned his rough hold on her breasts. The first envisioned spank caused Vlis to jump a bit; she hadn't been expecting to feel it so physically. The spark seemed to jump to follow suit, and then to start to dance in front of Vlis' eyes, now closer and now further away, in a fascinating spin, holding Vlis' gaze as she continued to picture the wizard's body and what it could do with hers. When the fantasy moved on to the fucking, Vlis felt the pulse of his motions inside her, and she couldn't help but... walk. The spark flew forward, and in slow, careful, moaning motion she followed, barely aware of Sulanya walking a pace or two behind her.

The flicker of fire moved faster, pulling Vlis on through the haze of sex and memory and imagination, aroused and feeling ecstasy building rapidly. There was only one way to get that release, she knew (because Sulanya was saying it to her, the mage-watch's voice whispering in her ear even though she was several feet behind), and that was to find Amos, to find her wizard. But the flame would lead her there unerringly, so long as she kept the fantasy going. And the fantasy felt far too good to stop.

She could feel her own wetness on her thighs as Vlis made her way through the brush, ignoring scrapes from branches and thorns. A noise, a familiar voice, a familiar grunting and moaning and panting, could be heard not too far away, and Vlis honed in on it like a bloodhound. The firelight danced ahead of her but went largely unnoticed. A small clearing ahead held Elaria and Amos, visible in the bright moonlight, the spy on her knees before the wizard, his hands tangled in her hair. His robe was gone again, and she had his cock in her mouth.

"Vlis!" Amos called, seeing her emerge from the trees. "I was. Mm. Wondering when... ah... you would g-get here."

Without hesitation, ignoring the activity that was happening right in front of her, Vlis walked the few steps across the clearing and kissed the wizard full on the mouth, an act that required that she hold him up with her free arm. She could feel him tensing, and knew that he was pouring his seed into the mouth of the spy on her knees. Vlis held Amos until he was finished, at which point he sighed and disentangled himself from Elaria, allowing the warrior to hold his weight.

"Feel better, wizard?" Vlis snapped sarcastically, trying to cover her own heavy breathing.

"Much. I could only hold her and her magic off for so long." There was a dreamy half-smile on Amos' face. "Her seduction is quite powerful."

"We noticed." Sulanya stood at the edge of the clearing, tense. "What now?"

"Now," Elaria said from the ground, looking up at Amos with wide eyes, "you do as we discussed, wizard."

"I can't." The wizard didn't sound particularly upset about this development.

"What? Why?"

"The mage-watch is blocking my magic."

Sulanya merely grinned but didn't respond.

Vlis, meanwhile, took the opportunity to raise her magic-created axe. "You're in a rather inconvenient spot for a fight. Your neck is very exposed."

"Fuck!" Elaria cursed, making a move away. Vlis shoved Amos aside, causing him to tumble a bit limply to the ground, and swung her heavy magic-created weapon. With her being a off-balance and a little tired, the blade of the axe swung awkwardly, and the flat of it came down hard on the spy's head. Elaria's motion to escape continued until she landed on the ground.

From there, she did not move.

"Shit, did I kill her?" Vlis asked. "I was hoping we could get some information."

Sulanya shook her head. "I can sense her breathing."

"You can sense breathing?"

"If you don't mind," Amos said from the ground, "I would appreciate you blocking her magic, instead of mine. I don't particularly care for these divided loyalties."

Nothing changed as far as Vlis could see, but suddenly Amos was on his feet and in his purple-and-green robe, and Elaria was tied tight to a tree, eyes unfocused.

Sulanya went to the spy's side. "I'm not a trained healer, but I think she'll be alright, with care."

"Then we had best be off, so that care might reach her without running into us," Amos replied.

"Answers?" Vlis asked.

"I think I got enough of them before she went to her knees, Vlis. Part of the spell, to gain trust by being truthful."

"You were really under her spell, weren't you?"

He nodded. "I had faith that you would solve the problem. She had indeed turned traitor, staged her own arrest, in exchange for power and wealth."

"Double-traitor, then," Sulanya said. "Twice-traitor, thrice-cursed."

"Indeed. She had offered the Teracinite crown... well, us. To turn us. To bring D'Orsoneyl's mysterious adventurers to heel, and either neutralize or realign us."

"That's... that's it?" Vlis asked, suspicious. "Just to take care of us?"

Amos nodded again. "Think about it. If her plan fails from the outset, Teracin is rid of a spy. If it gets no further than the arena, Teracin is rid of a spy and of us. But if we escape—"

"Then they are out a mage-watch," Sulanya growled. "I am a dead woman, it seems."

"I don't think that needs to be. We came to rescue a traitor, and indeed we shall." The wizard put his hand on the Teracinite's shoulder. "And we arrived here with little trouble, I don't anticipate much in leaving, especially with a local guide and another spellcaster helping out."

"Then as you say, we ought to be moving." Sulanya closed her eyes. "My family's winter estate is near, and should be mostly unoccupied. The few servants who stay there year-round should be simple enough to deceive."

"That sounds like a good place to start. Which direction is it?"

And before Sulanya could answer, Vlis' awareness blurred. The moonlit forest was replaced by a stone room lit dimly by candles. Her spine was straight, her limbs were tired, she was covered in scratches, she knelt on a soft, warm rug. Familiar iron manacles bound her wrists behind her back. In front of her was a single large bed, on the edge of which sat Amos and Sulanya, both nude, kissing passionately. Sulanya's hand was slowly stroking Amos' stiff cock.

"Mm, our warrior seems to have awakened," Sulanya said.

"What should we do with her?" Amos asked.

"After she led us through the woods so well? I think she deserves some recompense."

Vlis attempted to plead her case, only to find that she was unable to use her voice.

Amos turned, pointing his hard member directly at her. "What would you like, Vlis? Ask for anything at all."

The warrior worked her mouth, but no sound came out.

Sulanya smirked. "Oh? You'd like to sit there helplessly and watch as I fuck your wizard, before the two of us take control of your mind and body and make you do whatever we like?"

"That sounds like a fantastic plan," Amos said, once more wrapping Sulanya in his arms.

Vlis could neither give words to her frustration—or her approval.