Jace and Verna stepped out of the inn together, in the false dawn, only to come to a dead stop. The street was filled with silent soldiers, lining the street from one end to the other. Each soldier wearing black and silver, something that looked like an official uniform for this city. There was a flag Jace could make out with a silver tower and gold crown against a black field, dangling limply.

The soldiers seemed about as surprised as Jace was to see them this early. Obviously they had arrived recently and weren’t ready to act against whomever they were here for. Verna didn’t even react. She simply ignored the soldiers like they were ants. Jace knew they must look like quite a pair, he was a 6’ tall man in a land where the tallest human he had yet seen was perhaps 5’6”. His black shirt was well made, and his grey cloak looked like a beggars. His black pants and boot were also well made. Of course he was standing with the aid of crutches. His long brown hair was tied back in a pony tail, dangling far down his back, his skin was sun darkened while his beard had grown a bit unkempt in the past month on the ocean. In short he looked like a giant sea hobo, or at least he thought he did. 

Meanwhile Verna was a pale skinned beauty, with scarlet red with orange highlights hair that looked like living fire, framing a beautiful face with full red lips and and thin cheeks, high eyes and well-proportioned nose, her figure was impossible to miss despite the non-revealing crimson scaled armor, she was a full breasted and hipped woman who would have easily found lucrative work on Earth as a swimsuit model. Her cat like yellow eyes positively glowed in the low light clearly announcing to even the most dimwitted she was kindred. And if the eyes didn’t do it, her height which placed her just a few inches short of Jace made her stand out even more then Jace. 

The way she stood next to him illuminated by the open door into the brothel/inn with her hand on his back made them look a couple to the men surrounding them. 

Jace looked up the street then down it. And cleared his throat. “Excuse me gentlemen, I’m not the nimblest person, mind if you make a hole for me? Better still it would be great if you could point me in the direction of someone I could rent or buy a carriage from?”

The soldiers just stood their silently. 

Jace glanced at Verna, and said in draconic; “You don’t suppose they’re here for us do you?”

She simply replied in the common human speech in a loud enough voice that half the street could have heard her, “Trash like this? Unlikely. Not unless they don’t know who we are. No one would send a bunch of human soldiers after a kindred. Not unless they wanted to preside over a lot of funerals.”

Jace sighed. He wasn’t sure what to call her attitude this morning. Happy? Ecstatic? He didn’t expect her to be in such a positive mood after they fought over those slave girls last night. He might have underestimated the effect his words had on her.

That was an interesting argument. And insightful as well. He had started off by objecting to using a slave on principle, of course he didn’t say what that principle was, so Verna countered with…

“What, so those girls will be ‘free’ of their slavery if you don’t stick a dick in them? If you don’t stick your dick in them someone else will. Who knows how mean he might be too. You make no sense. You are fine with sex for pleasure, but you will not take pleasure you paid for?”

 He actually hesitated for a long moment after Verna said that. But what he couldn’t get out of his mind was that same dead look on the face of the girls he saw on every other slave. So despite his dick urging him to surrender to her alarmingly sound argument, he replied, “I won’t take someone into my bed who doesn’t actually want to be there. As far as I can tell, that type of consent can’t be given by a slave or prostitute. So they aren’t entering my bed.”

Verna wouldn’t take that argument, and poked at the obvious hole in it. “I don’t understand that argument, what about Sam?”

Verna never called Sa’manatha ‘Sam’, she knew what she was doing when she used that name with Jace. He felt the low blow. He was absolutely enraged and almost said a few vulgar things he didn’t really mean, until he took a few calming breaths. She was watching his face the whole time, and Jace thought she actually looked apologetic for saying that. 

“You weren’t there Verna. You weren’t in that hole they summoned me to. You don’t know how that started. Don’t assume…” He paused unable to speak a long moment. 

Verna really looked apologetic now, and walked over and knelt down and rested her head on his knee. And said “I’m sorry I did not mean to imply…”

He rested a hand on her head and then spoke slowly. “Let’s not argue about this. You wanted to do this for me. Can you explain why? In what way are you giving me a gift?”

“Us”

“Us? As in you wish to lay with a woman as well?” He couldn’t keep the incredulity from his tone. She had a sex drive to challenge the imagination and stamina of a healthy teenager. The idea he wasn’t enough to keep her satisfied felt like a blow to his ego.

She looked at him with a frown, “Well it seems like you do not understand, attractive women can be alluring to me as well, however I am not sated by women. No this was for you and me, but in different ways. Strong men should have many women. It is the way of the world. And what woman would not want to watch as her strong man plant his seed and makes another woman his? The idea alone makes me shiver in anticipation.” Her voice was low and seductive. 

Her explanation was both violent and erotic, he actually grew hard just listening to this alluring woman describe something so bestial. His mind was stuck on both the image of the scene and disbelief that he found it exciting as well. 

He stopped on that thought and another thought lashed him. ‘When this idiot kindred is talking crazy and I start to think she’s making sense, then I’ve clearly gone nuts.’

He pulled himself out of the twisted fantasy she was weaving and spoke slowly, he had to be clear and firm with this woman or else something tragic might result. He was only half horrified by what he said to compromise with her. “Only if they’re willing. Not paid. Not a slave. I will accept women I find interesting who you bring to me, if they’re WILLING. No slaves. No prostitutes. No FORCE. They must want it. Understand?” A small part of him, the part of him that still remembered life on Earth was absolutely horrified by those words.

The delight on Verna’s face however said it all. The crazy woman wanted him to fuck other women while she watched, or even ‘helped’. What’s worse is he found himself getting hard just thinking about it. He had no right to call her crazy. 

He left it to Verna to chase the girls away when they came back with dinner. A dinner blessedly free of meat. She was even wilder than usual in the bed. Of course that might have been just because they had the room to really get carried away. There wasn’t a lot of room on the boat to get too crazy.

He pulled himself out of the memory and examined the soldiers who still had not moved. “Can someone at least tell us who you’re here for so we can stand clear when the moment comes?”

“You, we’re here for you.” A cocky voice echoed in the street. He was a lordling of some sort, clean, only slightly less sickly looking then the rest of the humans in the streets.

“Jace, I am a simple traveler. Might I know who it is who is looking for me?” Jace could feel Verna growing impatient, and decided not to let her speak this time. 

“I am an Emissary of Elis, I am here to apprehend the criminal Jace and execute him in the name of the Sun God.” The smug tones from the sickly young man echo’ed on the street. 

Jace frowned and quickly cast a scrying spell to detect the presence of the closest grand wizard. Of course the answer was obvious, no one in the city was a grand wizard, though he did pause on sensing something, then chosen to ignore it for now. So he looked at the young man with a bit of disbelief on his face. “You and what army? Seriously? This is what you bring to capture me?” He sighed and looked at Verna, knowing what would happen if he unleashed her. The blood would run in rivers. Of course at this moment he didn’t think that necessarily was a bad thing.

“Tell me emissary of Elis, what are my crimes against the so called sun god?” Jace decided to see how long he could draw out a conversation. He had precious little knowledge of Elis, even an incidental conversation with an “Emissary” might shed some light on this villainous creature. At the same time, he was quietly carving several magic circles up and down the street, using air to make circles was a skill he had grown frighteningly proficient at, as well as a teleportation circle under his and Verna’s feet. 

“Elis has charge you with Blasphemy. Heresy. And finally the murder of one of his emissaries.”

Jace smiled pleasantly. “Really now, that seems like I got up to a lot. Did Elis tell you I was a magician too?”

“A channeler.”

“I see. Well that is a shame. Elis is correct. I am a channeler. Very well. So here is where you command these soldiers to capture me alive? What about her?” He jerked his thumb toward Verna. Verna looked bored and more than a little bit amused at his proclamation to be ‘merely’ a channeler.

“We’ll take your woman as a slave of course.”

“Seriously?” Jace started to laugh. “Seriously? How unpracticed are you at villainy? That is the best threat you have? Here. Let me show you how a threat is done right. Let me show you how a true villian does it.” Jace theatrically snapped his fingers. And every soldier on the street exploded in a shower of gore which painted the street dark red. Not a drop of blood touched Jace’s clothing, or Verna’s. He turned his green eyes toward the once cocky young man, who was standing there stupefied.

“Where is your god now?” Jace couldn’t help but mock the terrified man. He had no intention to be merciful. Casting a spell, he captured the ‘emissary’ with ease. A small weave of fire burnt the robe off the man leaving him nude. Then he started to cast a vicious spell he thought up in his darker fantasies during the first days of their flight from the island, when he was wishing he could have made everyone suffer as Sam had, and not given them all quick deaths.

He completed the spell and the skin was stripped off the man, cleanly, leaving just his face still attached. The screams woke up the street, soon the block. A large crowd watched as the Emissary of Elis screamed his life away. Jace raised the man up high and pinned him to the wall of one of the buildings. And neatly hung the signs of this young man’s identity on him. Then he channeled some of the young man’s blood to form words which he placed in midair rotating like a sign. 

The words read, “Two emissaries of the so called God Elis (also known as the Scourge of Althos and the lord of Piss and Shit) dead. -Courtesy of the Channeler Jace, a Free Human.” Jace let the crowd look at him then he channeled a little power into the teleportation array and instantly moved back to the dock district with Verna.

Verna was silent the whole time, and then said in a tone which made him glance at her curiously, “That is the right way to deal with your foes.”

 He was actually troubled a bit by how little his actions just now bothered him. But he knew Verna wouldn’t understand that. “What do you say about us staying in town for a bit? I suddenly have a great deal of interest in this place.”

“Why is this? Do you wish to become the lord of this sty?”

“If it will help me, sure. But I’m far more interested in that resonance. Did you feel it? Of course you did. You scry a lot. Where you going to let me leave without looking into that?”

“I thought it would be a lesson for you that I could taunt you with for hundreds of miles.” Her tone was playful.

He eyed her curiously, then deciding it wasn’t worth making a point over, he ignored her strange behavior. He decided to ignore the fact that the decisive slaughter of those soldiers turned her on.