Eshanai was insatiable, she could not seem to get enough of me, but soon enough I was out of stamina. We collapsed on the bed panting and snuggled up to each other. This had been my first time having sex, and I had finished pretty quickly the first time. I used my hands and mouth on her at that point, and she seemed to enjoy that though judging by her moans which got me ready for a second round. We continued with more rounds until I couldn’t keep it up anymore. Eshanai seemed a bit disappointed at this, and I chuckled at her pouting expression.

I was unsure how this had started, not that I was complaining, the sex had been great, but I had become a bit carried away. I had released inside of her a lot I hadn’t exactly been keeping count. I wasn’t sure what would happen if she became pregnant, would she lay eggs like a snake or would it work like a normal human? Would we have to get married? The spirit story would be impossible to keep up, and I would have to come up with another story. I looked over at Eshanai laying beside me with her head on my chest, she seemed content and not very worried. She had seemed confused at first, it was as if she had never seen a penis before. That couldn’t be the case though maybe she just hadn’t seen one out in the open before. That seemed unlikely as well, she was so unconcerned about people seeing her naked. Eshanai seemed incredibly comfortable with her nude body. She had not blushed a single time that I could remember, she must have seen other people of her race naked wherever she came from.

She seemed so incredibly inviting and accepting of my stutter, it was very endearing, plus she was incredibly beautiful too. How could I not make a move on her when she was sitting naked in my lap. Once it was clear what I was doing she had turned things around on me, at first I had thought she was angry with me. I had panicked at first, thinking she intended to squeeze the life out of me, but she only held me tightly, and as I stopped struggling she kissed me hungrily. It was not what I had expected of a first kiss. Her forked tongue tickled my mouth. I was a bit worried about her fangs, but as I pushed my tongue into her mouth, I found no trace of them. I think she just wanted to establish dominance or something because when she was sure, I couldn’t overpower her she loosened her grip and let me have more control.

Other women I had met were friendly enough when I first met them, but sometimes when they found out that I had a stutter, they would look at me as if I had lied to them. I don’t know what they expected, but I was a mage, and those were rare. I would like to think that I am somewhat handsome, but my condition was somehow often a dealbreaker. The fact that I often spoke in short bursts made me seem less intelligent than I was. If I somehow managed to get a date, they would often turn out awkward, with conversations petering out quickly. The worst ones were when they only acted politely and would later spread nasty rumors about me behind my back. So I had eventually given up on women, dedicating myself entirely to my magic studies.

Eshanai was different though, she looked at me as if I mattered. It wasn’t a big thing, but my stutter seemed to always get in the way of my social life. Eshanai had seemed to get around that somehow the fantastic sex had helped I supposed. She also seemed a bit naive, maybe that’s not the right word, but everything about this city seemed to amaze her. Hopefully, she wasn’t just using me for my knowledge, and the fact that I was a mage. She might have some goals of her own, but I would give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she was a good person. We could help each other achieve our personal goals, I owed her that much after getting her into this situation. I could at least help her learn the language, which I had an idea about, but it required some components and ingredients. Money was also a problem, and I had to use my current budget to buy equipment for eshanai to give us a better chance of survival and the judge his better show.

I got out of bed to complaining sounds from Eshanai, as much as I would have liked to go another round with her I don’t think I could muster the energy right now, too much of anything wasn’t good. We could really use another bath, but we had already wasted enough daylight as it was. I threw on a shirt and some trousers before I roused Eshanai from her blissful nap. She smiled at me and got out of bed in all her naked glory and as unashamed as ever. I realized I was staring and shook my head to get myself back on track. I gave her my old shirt to wear, and she got covered up quickly enough. Her private parts were peaking out from the bottom of the shirt I realized so I got a sheet from the bed and tied it around her waist as a sort of skirt. She seemed to like the new garment and was spinning around on the spot to make the skirt billow out to the sides.

She looked at me and suddenly hugged me to her body after my surprise left I hugged her back. “Thanks,” she said, and I held her at arm's length so I could look at her in astonishment. She grinned mischievously at me before she kissed me on the forehead and darted away from me.

“You’re welcome,” I said as I shrugged my shoulders. I was pretty sure Eshanai hadn’t learned that from me, she must have heard it when we moved through the streets or maybe in the inn somewhere. We got out of our room, and down the stairs, the lady behind the counter gave us a strange look as we moved past her. She didn’t look angry or annoyed, just surprised, then as if she noticed my attention her annoyance returned. I wasn’t sure how thick the walls were in this inn, but we had been pretty loud, so she had most likely heard us going at it upstairs. Luckily it was approaching noon right now, so not many people were around. She kept staring at us so I decided that we could eat breakfast at some other place.

Lubus and I were sitting outside eating at a place which only purpose seemed to be to provide delicious food. Their only compensation appeared to be those litter glittering round things that Lubus had given the people working here. Everyone in this village seemed to do a lot of strange things to get those round coins from other people. They must be special somehow. You couldn’t eat them so they must hold some other value. Either way, this stew in front of me was delicious, and I practically inhaled it. We left the establishment after Lubus had eaten her fill, she took longer to finish on account on mostly having watched me devour my meal.

As we moved through the stone streets, I reflected again on how different all these people we passed were. Especially the little ones, then I saw an absolutely tiny person being coddled in a woman's lap. I was absolutely astonished, how could such a creature survive without help? Would it stay like that forever? We had no little people back on the island, the home cave would only spawn big Naga. ‘How are these people spawned?’ I thought, they must have really offended their home cave if it decided to spawn such small and useless people. There were certainly a lot of them, so maybe their cave spawned some small ones to give the other creatures on the mainland a better chance of surviving.

We moved away from the lady, and I got other things to look at, like the posters all over town with a Naga and a mainlander fighting side by side. Was that supposed to be Lubus and me? I had no way of asking Lubus about it, but judging by the next building we entered I thought it was likely. The walls were filled with weapons, most of them I had never seen before, but all of them looked amazing. I rushed over to the first thing I recognized, startling the person behind the counter in the prosses. It was a spear with a sturdy looking wooden handle, and one of those shiny and hard tips at the end. I got it down from the shelf and tested it out a bit, glancing over to where Lubus was talking to the woman in the house I saw they were talking animatedly. The lady was doing most of the talking, Lubus was mostly nodding and smiling. The lady seemed excited though, so that was good. I want back to practicing with the spear and lost myself in the feeling of the weapon for a while.

I was broken out of my trance by a tap on my shoulder, it startled me slightly, and the spear clattered to the ground. I turned around to find Lubus holding a square shield made of a similar material as the end of the spear. Lubus was struggling to hold it up to me, so I took it from her hands and strapped it to my forearm. It was a bit heavy, but I could handle it with little effort. I picked up the spear again and got into the standard warrior's stance with the shield raised in front of me and the spear to the side in my right hand so I could jab an enemy in front and protect myself with the shield at the same time.

We left the shop after Lubus paid for the items, the shop owner shook Lubu's hand vigorously and seemed to be actually thanking Lubus or something, these mainlanders could be so weird. As we moved to another shop clanging sounds could be heard as we approached. It turned out to be a shirtless woman who kept hammering a glowing weapon against some sort of dark stone, sparks flying everywhere. It was probably similar to the material used for all those weapons. It seemed to have many different uses. Lubus walked up to her, and she stopped her work to listen to her. They went into the shop so I was left outside in the little workshop to wonder what the woman had been doing before we arrived. Was this how they created their weapons? With heat and abuse? Where did they get the material and what was it? I had a hard time believing that all this hammering could make something like my new spear.

My musings were interrupted by Lubus and the hammer lady returning. They were carrying more of that shiny material in their hands. Lubus walked up to me, and together we put a longsleeved shirt over my head made by countless little chainlinks of the hard shiny stuff. The sleeves went all the way down to my wrists, turns out I was right, and you could make armor from this strange material. Next, the two women brought over two plates of the material and fastened it around my upper body. My arms and head stuck out of holes in the armor, but otherwise, my upper body was completely covered. A sort of skirt of plates was attached to the bottom of the armor to hang all around me over the sheet I was using to cover myself. It would remain to be seen if I could actually fight in this.