Trouble With Horns N 20: Scorching Lips

20: Scorching Lips

They bound my hands and feet, and from what I could tell, they carried

into Tieille City through a side gate or sothing. I wasn’t sure, all I knew was that the sounds and slls of the city eventually enveloped

for a few minutes before they were muted by our passage into a building. I was placed down onto cold stone and left there, my captors ntioning sothing about a eting they had to rush off to.

I was left paralyzed and blindfolded on the floor, and my fear of the unknown and what they would do to

grew into a sort of anxious boredom. That was, until Millie ssaged .

Alchemilla: Tami!! ARE YOU OKAY? You didn’t respawn with ! Are you still alive? Did you make it away? What’s happening?

Using the ssaging system without hands was a nightmare. You had to think every letter individually to write. Lucky for , I had ti...

Tamipesagniyah: They captured . Are you okay? I’m so sorry!

Alchemilla: Oh yeah. The dream was really nice this ti.

Tamipesagniyah: The dream? What?

Alchemilla: You know, the death dream.

Tamipesagniyah: I don’t sorry…

Alchemilla: Wow you should have definitely been told about that. The death dream is this weird place you go to after you die and while you wait for your respawn tir. It’s designed by the Cora AI in charge of the ntal health and wellbeing of the players. Anyway, the dream helps you deal with the trauma and stuff. This is how Cora got through the ntal health restrictions on Full Imrsion gas while still being a kinda brutal world.

Tamipesagniyah: Oh… wow that’s really smart!

Alchemilla: Yeah. I’ve actually killed myself once or twice with poison just to hang out there. I got told off those tis by so middle aged lady NPC, but it was still nice. I like it when the NPC pretends to be a caring parent the most.

Tamipesagniyah: That’s kinda… hmm.

Alchemilla: Yeah! Oh wait, so what’s going on? Where are you?

Tamipesagniyah: I think I’m in Tieille? I’m not sure though. They put a bag over my head, but I could hear the city as we got closer.

Alchemilla: I'll co save you!

Tamipesagniyah: You're ages away Millie. Try investigating the Red Pins in the Port Town instead.

Alchemilla: o7 Yes ma'am!

Tamipesagniyah: You're a cute dork

Alchemilla: Nerd, I'm a nerd.

Tamipesagniyah: ok then... Good luck. I can hear them coming now, and I think my paralysis is wearing off. Later nerd!

Alchemilla: Good luck!!!

I closed the ssage screen and tried my best to pretend I still couldn't move under my own power. Feeling was coming back across most of my body now, and figured it was probably only a matter of ti before I was back to full functionality again. If only I wasn't tied up as well, I could fight them, either forcing them to kill

or forcing my way out.

The footsteps I'd heard during my conversation with Millie stopped at what I assud was the door to my cell or room, and I heard the jangling of keys as soone prepared to open the door. They slid the keys into the lock and turned, pushing the door open as they went. They didn’t speak, simply moving over and hoisting

up. One person on either side carried

under the shoulders while my legs trailed behind.

I was dragged through a corridor or two before they opened another door and dragged

inside. I was seated roughly on a wooden chair of so description, my hands still bound behind . My legs were carelessly untied and then retied to the chair I was sitting on. Finally, finally, my hood was taken off, and I could see where I was.

The room I was in was fairly boring, the walls were stone that had once had a layer of li applied to them, although it was shattered and flaking now. I was sitting on a rickety old wooden chair, while four beefy looking Red Pin guards stared

down from across the room. It was kinda awkward if I’m honest. I wasn’t the biggest gal after all, so having four of them felt like overkill.

We all stood or sat in that room for what felt like an hour or more, and I did my best to make witty small talk, although the grunts in front of

didn’t seem capable of more than, well… grunting. I didn’t mind, my sense of touch was almost fully back, and so was my ability to move. As ti wore on, they began to get restless, glancing between one another and the door.

To my incredible surprise, one of them spoke up, proving that they were intelligent enough for actual speech. “Isn’t the Magus supposed to be here by now?”

“Yeah. He’s late, what do you think is keeping him?” another grunt murmured.

While they worried about their boss not turning up on ti, I noticed sothing rather interesting. They’d bound

with rope. Normal rope. Flammable rope.

“Hey boys,” I chirped happily, idly relishing the sound of my teasing feminine voice. “You haven’t spent much ti around my type of Darkling have you?”

“Nah, why would we associate with filth like you?” one of them growled.

“Well, I was just thinking that you’ve kinda fucked up,” I grinned, my eyes twinkling with the promise of violence.

“How?” one of them asked, drawing his shortsword.

All at once, I set my hands and feet on fire, the hottest fire I could possibly manage, draining a ton of Mana in the process. I wanted those ropes to be nothing but ash in seconds… and oh how it worked. I rose from the blackened and charred chair, my hands and feet now just quietly afla and laughed.

“My subrace of Darkling is immune to fire, and you tied

down with flammable shit,” I said, raising my flaming fists to show them, allowing the last remnants of their rope to fall to the ground.

I knew I should have probably conserved more of my stamina, who knew how much fighting I’d need to do to get out of here, but I wanted to hit sothing really really hard right about then. I charged my speed boost, draining almost half my bar for a single activation, and aid myself at the guy who was just a little bit slow drawing his sword. Millie could do a at carpet, sure… but I could do blood mist.

I launched, my fist prid for an explosive impact, and as soon as I launched, it was over. I had just punched a dude clean in half, the force of the blow staggering both

and the poor guy’s friends. I didn’t quite get the mist I’d wanted, but there were pieces of the guy on pretty much every surface but .

Hurray for the shaped charge that was my fist! Actually, there was so blood on my feet. Mostly from the blood pooling on the ground. The way it was squelching between my toes was less than appealing. They were nice toes though. Cute! Maybe I should paint my nails that colour when I was out of the pod.

Alright, bad Tami, let’s not go full Millie here, stop glorying in the awful destruction you’d just caused and kill the rest of them. Without so much theatre this ti? ...No, definitely theatre, I was a gymnast after all. Competitive gymnastics was all about the flourish!

Before the rest of them could get their poor traumatised brains into gear, I reached down and drew the sword the guy had been trying to get out of its scabbard, and casually flicked it at the next guy. He was unfortunately fast enough to clumsily block it, but I didn’t mind. The main objective had been to distract just long enough for a paralyzing kick to reach his knee.

Once the knee was paralyzed, it was fairly easy to pivot sideways, causing him to move too, trying to keep

in front of him. With his knee paralyzed, he tripped and fell rather than moving as he’d expected, and my heel was there to crush his nuts, to send the sword skittering out of his hand as he reflexively let go, and then his windpipe. Two down, two to go. Maybe they’d been right to post that many guards after all?

The third guy had been moving while I was killing his friend, making a brutal chop towards , his sword on a collision course with my hip. It was kind of a large target, so I didn’t bla him. I was just barely able to twist myself out of the path of his blade, in no small part thanks to the flexibility of my wonderfully feminine body. I’d missed this so much during that week out of the pod. I hoped my shaping included the flexibility… pleeaase?

The next blow ca not from the third guy, but from the fourth guy, who was stabbing right into the path I was taking to dodge the last blow. Crap! In the split second of thinking ti I had before I was skewered through the stomach, I rembered my montum transfer abilities. Wow, why hadn’t I thought of this application before?

I grasped all the montum that was currently carrying

towards his blade with my mind, and I pointed it backwards. All of a sudden, I was falling backwards into a cartwheel rather than being stabbed, coming to a stop a few ters away from them. Phew! That was close! Enough with the cocky act Tami, we’re getting rid of that thing after all. Damn, it was tis like these that I really wished I had any sort or ranged capabilities— Waaaiit… there was a chair next to .

“Oi dickheads,” I said, picking the chair up. “Catch!”

I threw the chair, then darted forward, following it into the fray with a low sweeping kick that took the legs out from one of my guards. The chair hit the second dude in the chest, sending him staggering backwards with a cry of surprise.

Catching the chair before it could hit the cold stone of the floor, I then swung it viciously at the upright guy’s face, then turned and beat his prone friend with the poor abused piece of furniture in a similar manner, breaking his nose and sending blood everywhere.

The upright guy had blocked my strike at his face with a raised forearm, and in frustrated response, I charged a speed boost and ramd the legs of the piece of furniture into his chest, impaling him in the process. More grossness, I really needed to find a way to fight people without sending blood everywhere. Things were getting a bit too visceral for this innocent little city girl.

The guy on the ground staggered to his feet, trying to wipe the blood from his broken nose out from where it had pooled in his eyes. He didn’t get ti. A quick, hard jab to his temple and he was dead.

I stood there, panting amongst the carnage and tried to hold my stomach together. There wasn’t a whole lot in it, but it really wanted to vomit whatever was in there out onto the blood covered stone floor. Fighting and killing NPCs that looked like humans, even if I knew they were just code, was definitely making

feel queasy. I needed to get the blood off myself at least, try and feel a bit more human again.

Grabbing a reasonably clean coat off the last guy to die, I wiped myself off as best I could. There was blood covering a huge portion of the room, and although I had avoided the initial explosion of the stuff, I had gotten it everywhere in the fight afterwards.

Using a combination of my fla and the coat, I got myself sowhat clean, feeling myself calm down in the process. I hadn’t realised just how anxious and scared I was about being captured until I felt so of the stress ease. I always hated it when a character in a book or movie was captured too, sotis feeling so terrible about it that I had to skip the whole sequence. There was sothing about that loss of autonomy that made

shiver.

Sure, I was technically being held hostage right now in my pod, but it was different when you were being carted around like a carcass and stared down by four huge scary n.

It was about this ti that I realised that I’d been hearing the sounds of fighting coming from outside the room for a while now. The commotion had gotten closer during my own scuffle with my guards, and now there was a lull as soone stomped down the hallway outside. They reached the door to the room I was currently in and stopped.

I tensed, ready for another fight. Who was this now? Was it the boss guy?

When the door opened, a vision of fire and fury stepped through, her sword raised high and ready to strike. Just like that first ti I’d seen her, I was hit by just how damn beautiful she was. Her hair was fully afla, scorching the ceiling with its brilliance, and her eyes were white-orange coals with a black center that pierced everything they set their gaze on. I felt my heart do little backflips, and maybe a cartwheel or two as I realised who she was.

“Rora!” I squealed, making an excited noise that was so wholly at odds with the carnage I had just committed.

I jumped at her, throwing my arms around her shoulders and cuddling in tight. I didn’t care where we were or what was going to happen next, I’d missed this woman so fucking much.

“H-hey,” she stamred, clearly taken aback by my excitent. “Careful of the sword!”

I couldn’t help myself, I pulled back a little, but only to plant a short kiss on her piping hot lips. They were as soft as I rembered from the tis I’d gotten to kiss her, and I realised that damn… I was in deep here.

“I am so, so, so happy to see you,” I panted, sohow having run out of breath during the hug.

“Um,

too,” she smiled, looking to the side in embarrassnt. “I did kinda slaughter like twenty people to get into this building to find you.”

“That is so hot,” I laughed happily.

“Yup, I’m on fire,” she stated in a failing deadpan, the corners of her lips turning up again.

Laughing, my cheeks hurting with the force of my smile, I couldn’t help but protest her pun, “Laaa!”

“Fuck, I missed that goofy grin of yours,” she sighed, nudging my nose lightly with her own.

“You missed ?” I asked, feeling a flutter in my chest.

She’d missed ? I’d hoped of course… but we’d never really ntioned the growing feelings between us before we logged out last ti.

“Yeah… I an... You’re really fun… and stuff,” she said, her cheeks turning pink with a wholly different kind of heat. Then she noticed the room. "Wow… did you do this?"

"Um, yeah… I got carried away, and now there's bits of person on the ceiling and it's kinda starting to sll," I grimaced, moving my face back to her neck to take in her scent, rather than that of the room.

“Right, let’s get out of here,” she said, pulling back and taking a peek out of the room.

I missed the heat of her body almost imdiately, and had to fight an almost dizzying desire to rush over and pull her back into another hug. Wow, my emotions were all over the place right now. Co on, pull it together Tami, we can figure out your emotions and feelings later.

I shook myself and nodded, “Okay, but I’m running low on stamina. I did sothing dumb and used up half my stamina in one blow.”

“You have an attack that uses that much stamina?” Rora asked incredulously, turning back to stare at .

“Uh, yeah. The big powerful punch one, I can charge it up to do more damage but use more stamina,” I said, hoping what I’d done wasn’t stupid and I wasn’t making a fool of myself.

“Wow…” she murmured, her breathing hitching with excitent. “I should make one like that too… Hold on.”

I watched her sift through nus that were invisible to

for a mont, then decided to swap places with her so we still had soone keeping an eye out. In a few monts, she was done, a delighted grin on her face.

“Oh geez, I really can’t wait to use this. Let’s find so people to fight,” she said excitedly.

“Yeah!” I grinned back, then stepped wholly out of the room. “Which way?”

“Right. That’s the way I ca in, so we should expect their reinforcents to be coming in from that direction too,” she told , stepping past to lead the way, handing

a stamina potion in the process.

I took it gratefully and downed it, feeling my stamina begin to replenish itself with a sigh. She was too good to .

Going back across Rora’s path of destruction, I couldn’t help feeling a lightness in my chest as I realised that she had been coming in here... for . How did she know I was here though?

“Rora, how did you know I was in here?” I asked.

“I was following a low ranking noble who seems to be at the heart of all this, and he t up with a creepy dude wearing a lot of stealth armour and a red pin. He ntioned that he’d captured a rare species of darkling, one with wings. I knew it must be you, because you’re literally the only one of your kind I’ve seen so far… I couldn’t let you just sit here,” she said, smiling but unable to make eye contact.

She was acting really bashful since we’d t up again just now, it was cute, but I was suddenly worried that sothing was different between us now.

“Thanks,” I said sincerely. I wouldn’t have made it all the way out of this place, that was for sure. I’d used up almost everything killing just the fools guarding

directly.

“No problem… I really wanted… well yeah,” she said, looking embarrassed again, then turned her eyes up as we heard sounds coming from ahead. “Ti to fight!”

The first guy to co around the corner at the end of the cramped corridor we were heading down didn’t even get to live long enough to regret his actions. Rora teleported forward, her sword firing a blast of fire to aid a strike that took his head clean off and cauterising the wound in one blow.

I was monts behind her, slipping past her so close that my boobs brushed along her arm. I grabbed the next guy, throwing him into Rora’s path, where she wrapped him in flaming vines that filled the space with the sll of burning flesh.

I didn’t realise it, but the third guy in line had been about to skewer

with his sword, but she was there to save . She pulled

close, her front feeling warm and soft against my back as she blocked several blows while she held

to her chest. When I saw an opening, my foot flashed up, crashing into the valuables between his legs with the boom of an explosive discharge.

Feeling inappropriately flirty given the situation, I leaned my head back onto her shoulder and kissed the curve of her jaw in the sa mont that my foot flashed forward again, kicking the unfortunate guy into his friends.

“Tami!” she breathed in surprise. “You’re going to get us killed if you distract

like that.”

“Mmmm but it feels good?” I chuckled low.

With a laugh, she pushed

away from her and said, “Kill now, kiss later you little shit.”

“Yes mistress,” I winked, performing a spinning kick to drive my heel into a Red Pin’s head. The top one, not the bottom one. I’d already destroyed that one.

We fought our way down the hallway, working together in the tight quarters to kill our way out of this place. I made sure to take every single opportunity I could find to flirt, touch or tease Rora, and I was having to fight a wave of giggles at her increasingly flustered reactions. This was so fun.

When we were out of enemies in this particular corridor, I was about to move onwards when I found myself pinned to the wall by the taller girl, her fingers working their way into my hair and her lips warm and urgent on mine. She kissed

hard and raw, obviously no longer content to wait until we’d escaped. I chuckled into the kiss and lapped teasingly at her lower lip with my tongue, then bit down gently, loving how soft and hot her lips were. They would have quite literally burned a normal human.

When she released , we were both panting, her eyes pinning

to the wall with the intensity of her desire, and

leaning drunkenly against the wall with a huge, satisfied grin on my face.

“You are such a fucking tease,” she growled, her eyes raking up and down my body, almost leaving scorch marks in their wake.

I couldn’t find any words at that particular mont, but I didn’t need to. I grinned cheekily at her and nodded down the next hallway like I was propositioning her to co back to my place for a “cup of coffee”.

“Right, let’s get out of here,” she nodded, visibly trying to reel herself back in. This whole feminine charm thing was really fucking fun. I needed to tease her more as we made our escape.

Her hand found mine as she stepped past, and she all but dragged

down the hallway. We had a lot of people to kill before we were safe and free, but I was oh so looking forward to it now.